The Atrocious Lingering of History

The atrocities of the past have a way of lingering. For those who have experienced oppression and persecution, the pain never goes away. That historical pain is often passed down to their descendants. Take for example the Zoot Suit (US Navy) Riots in the 1940s. My grand parents often talked about how they were treated like trash in California because they dared to dress differently and speak differently. In general, they dared to be different. For that, they were singled out as un-American. The Zoot-Suiters were stereotyped and vilified in the media. My grandparents recall being refused service in many stores and restaurants. In one instance, they were both beaten by the police and called dirty wetbacks. As I write this, I feel moved by my family’s history. I feel some of their pain. I feel anger.

I think people don’t always realize how powerful these stories are. Some view such narratives of the oppressed as “dwelling” on the past. But they aren’t dwelling. They are engaging. For me, they provided a way out of my own chaos. I grew up an angry kid. I was surrounded by drugs and gangs. I moved around a lot so I lived both in the barrio as well is in the burbs. In the barrio, I was angry because I saw things that no kid should see (e.g. my uncle beating my grandmother so he could take her purse to get money to buy crack; a best friend murdered, his head blown off at close range). In the burbs I was angry because Latinos were viewed as gardeners or servants of rich white people. I remember kids laughing at hardworking Mexicanos who were picking strawberries in the fields of Orange County. In an argument, they would call you a strawberry picker to provoke a fight. For some Chicanos, myself included, the anger was coupled with shame and a secret desire to distance ourselves from those Mexicans. These feelings proved too strong for me to handle. I went down a path that would have led me to jail or the grave. But I did finally find my way.

As I began to mature, the stories of the elders in my family began to make sense: my grandmother’s experience with de facto segregation in Roswell, New Mexico prior to moving to California; my Grandmother’s cousin’s (Nancy Lopez) struggle to become a pro-golfer despite racism; the struggle of my grandparents and my uncles and aunts to find a voice in the 1940s through the emerging Pachuco (Zoot Suit) culture; my family’s trials and tribulations as conquered peoples in the Southwest after “our land was stolen.” All these struggles had one lesson in common: be yourself no matter who doesn’t like it and no matter who tries to keep you down. This realization gave me the strength to choose a new path. As destiny would have it, I crossed paths with other people who had reflected strongly on the atrocities of the past and the anger they had in their own lives (Cesar Chavez, Ernesto Vigil, Carlos Montes, Rudy Acuna, Pat Marin, and many others). The atrocities of the past do cause pain in the present. But it is important to learn from them. Acknowledging them is a first step in the healing process for descendants of conquered peoples–we, the cockroach people.

For all these reasons, I was truly proud of our President yesterday. To acknowledge and engage the history of the Muslim world was not merely an act of diplomacy. He understood that the wounds in the Middle East run deep. He understood that rebirth is only possible through reflection. He reminded everyone of the good and the bad. He reminded us of the evils perpetrated by the US against Muslim countries. He reminded us of the horrors of the Holocaust and the ridiculousness of its denial. He also reminded us of the ridiculousness of fighting violence with violence through suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims have more in common than we realize. It’s true that our painful history is what has kept us apart. But learning from each other’s painful history is also what will ultimately bring us together.

Is Torture the New Black?

Every time some new document is released about the Bush administration’s War on Human Rights, I can’t help thinking that what has been released is not nearly as bad as whatever was deemed not releasable.  President Obama has received a lot of criticism for disclosing torture memos.  But for those of us Chicagoans who are familiar with Barack’s style (i.e. he is not crazy), we know that he probably provided the documents that were just bad enough to get the public to pursue the issue  (perhaps forcing the administration to turn over the truly horrible stuff).

Several politicians, including Senator Arlen Specter (R), have said that there is no need to shine light on the Bush years.  After all, he said, “This is not Latin America.”  He said this unqualified remark in response to Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D) suggestion that some sort of truth commission be established to get the information that everyone knows has been hidden from them.  Perhaps we are not as bad as some of the governments in Latin America, but I can’t say that definitively without more information (though a February article in the Christian Science Monitor did point out some similarities).   

I guess “truth commission” does sound a little formal.  For some it may invoke visions of Nuremberg.  But truth commissions are not like that at all.  They are often used in countries where dictators have  gotten away with their crimes.  Commissions like the ones set up in Argentina and in Central America in the 1980s are bodies that investigate, report upon, and acknowledge the truth about past abuses.  It is much more a tool for reconciliation than it is a tool for lex talionis (an “eye for an eye”).  People who have lost loved ones to government oppression or who have themselves been tortured, raped, or abused in some other way get the precious gift of closure. 

In the last decade there has been growing support for the idea that not only do individuals have the right to closure, but also the idea that the public has a collective right to the truth.   What Specter and his ilk deny is that we Americans have a right to the truth at all.  For them the truth is whatever they say it is.  They are Orwellian pigs trying to convince us that their new commandments are just like the ones we had before, only improved. Thou shall not torture has become Thou shall not torture unless national security is at stake.  They act as if torture were the latest thing, implying that those of us who still support old-school principles like those found in the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are stuck wearing last season’s fashion.  For them, torture is the new black.

Picture from BoRev.net

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Gun Control

A good friend of mine wrote an article recently for the Southern Poverty Law Center about the resurgence of the Far-Right movement and the tendency for some of its leaders to defraud their own followers.  I was not all too shocked by the shenanigans involved:  1) Crazy dominant personality gets group to speak out against the government’s encroachments on their liberty. 2) Crazy guy then encourages crazy followers to get fully armed.  Crazy guy and followers do crazy militant things like taking over a bank and strip mall by force. 3) Crazy guy also defrauds his own flock 4) Crazy guy and followers get either killed by snipers or arrested.

What shocked me was that the perpetrators had names like Angel Cruz and Cirino Gonzales.  I contacted my friend to verify that that there hadn’t been a misprint–were these armed militia nutjobs really Latinos?  Yes, he said, though their identities were more tied to the militia-type groups than to any Latino cause.  

Then, today’s Sun-Times posted an article online about sky-rocketing gun sales since the Obama election. The guy in this picture is Mark Cruz, a gun dealer in Waukegan, IL (of all places).  I wonder if he went into business after the city implemented a series of anti-immigrant policies (which incidently led to so much backlash that la gente organized and kicked out the Mayor)?

So there goes my stereotype of right-wing militia crazies as being poor white people or Nazi-wannabes.  Gosh, I hate enlightenment.

Photograph by Tom Cruze for the Sun-Times