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NYT: In New York, Mexicans Lag in Education by Kirk Semple
Please, if you have time read this article. Just as interesting, if not disappointing, are the comments that proceed the article. The comments that “Mexicans simply do not value education as much as some segments of our population” and the “that’s why they shouldn’t be here in the first place” rhetoric is enough to make any Mexican-American blood boil. Including mine.
Especially because readers are interpreting this to mean that every single Mexican is uneducated, doesn’t want to be educated, or can’t be educated. As Andy from Maryland so poignantly informs us, “Based on my experience of living in Mexico for 4 years, I concluded that Mexicans simply do not value education as much as some segments of our population. It’s simply not part of their ethos… Sorry.”
124 people agree with Andy. And counting.
Really? Because I could have sworn growing up my Mexican parents told me, “Edúcate para que no sufres como nosotros.” While I’m certainly not the rule or the exception to the rule, it’s because of my Mexican culture that I graduated valedictorian of my high school and attend one of the nation’s most competitive and elite institutions. And the five Columbia University, Mexican-American, first-generation college students I hung out with tonight? Yeah, they grew up hearing the same thing.
So no, it’s no surprise to me that Mexicans lag behind in education. Why? Because at this moment in history our biographies are being shaped by powerful social forces. Let me remind you of a few:
- More Latino children are living in poverty — 6.1 million in 2010 — than children of any other racial or ethnic group.
- Latino families accounted for the largest single decline in wealth of any ethnic and racial group in the country during the recession.
- The United States is bringing back slavery for Latinos.
- Children whose parents are undocumented or who lack legal status themselves face “uniformly negative” effects on their social development from early childhood until they become adults.
- More than 21 percent of school children are Latino while Latinos only compromise 7 percent of teachers. No other racial or ethnic minority group has such a wide disparity. Where are the role models?
- And EVEN when Latinos succeed in prestigious professions like law, they STILL face an astounding amount of racism and discrimination in their professions and in their communities.
How come none of this being realized by such “informed” commentators? This reality is not by accident. More than anything, this article is a powerful and heart-breaking reminder of the challenges and stereotypes that Mexicans in the United States still need to overcome.
Hasta la victoria. Todas las partes de nosotros valen.
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Gloria Anzaldúa poster, 2010. Art: Lex Non Scripta; words: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
for more info on her check out www.casanepantlera.com
(Source: afrodiaspores, via oyegitana)
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Dear San Antonio de Padua,
Can you please help me find a man who isn’t a pain in the nalgas. There aren’t any in Texas. I swear. Especially not in San Antonio.
… Can you send a man man. I mean someone who’s not ashamed to be seen cooking or cleaning or looking after himself. In other words, a man who acts like an adult. Not one who’s never lived alone, never bought his own underwear, never ironed his own shirts, never even heated his own tortillas. In other words, don’t send me someone like my brother who my mother ruined with too much chichi, or I’ll throw him back.
I’ll turn your statue upside down until you send him to me. I’ve put up with too much too long, and now I’m just too intelligent, too powerful, too beautiful, too sure of who I am finally to deserve anything less.
- “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” a short story in Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros
