How Can Professors Deal With Anti-Mexican Students?


“Should Mexicans Care About Michael Brown and Ferguson?” from Voice Media Group on Vimeo.

DEAR MEXICAN: I teach writing at a local community college. My students are writing their final essays on local problems. I have one student who has decided to write about illegal immigration (specifically Mexican). We were discussing, as a class, each student's project, and this student made a comment that I wish I had reacted to differently. He said that he encounters a number of Mexicans who can't speak English fluently, and since speaking English must make it easier to gain legal citizenship/entry, he assumes that all (or most) of the Spanish-speaking Mexicans must be illegals. My response was to skip over the racism and move on to another student. What should I have said to help make this student aware of his racist assumptions?

Troubled Teacher

DEAR GABACHA: Grow some ovaries, mujer! It's your job as a profe to call out your students on their reliance on Wikipedia, on their horrendous grammar and especially on any racist assumptions they may have. Of course, you also want to be constructive, so this is what you should do: Call out the student on his or her assumptions in front of the class, saying that while it's okay to have opinions (seriously, Aztlanista professors, don't excoriate conservative students just because they're conservative. Conservatives are people, too), it's not okay to make blind assumptions—that's not the scholastic way. I'd have him explicitly state why he thinks any Spanish-dominant Mexican is a mojado and ask for proof in the form of stats and him procuring someone to justify his argument. Then I'd ask him to explain why foreign languages have been a part of the United States since its founding, as well as why immigrant enclaves never fully disappear. Make it a teachable moment—that is your job, after all. And if he still persists in his racism, call him a pinche pendejo baboso on Facebook so all your fellow profes can laugh—it is a teachable moment, after all.

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DEAR MEXICAN: I came here as a mocoso from Michoacán. As a child in the motherland, I was raised to believe in Los Reyes Magos. When I came to the U.S., I started to hear about a fat man in a red suit called Santa Claus. Why do you think many Mexicans here forget about the Three Wise Men and adapt to Satan's Claws?

Navidad en el Barrio

DEAR CHRISTMAS IN THE BARRIO: It's not just Los Reyes Magos Mexicans forget about. Other Christmas traditions that historically didn't make it with the Chevy crossing la frontera include real posadas (instead of doing nine days of re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for lodging and going from house to house, many Mexicans up here celebrate one day); Misa de Gallo (Midnight Mass on Christmas); a nacimiento (Nativity scene) that takes up the entire living room; the Dec. 28 celebration of Los Santos Inocentes, which commemorates all the kiddies King Herod had killed; and your aforementioned Reyes Magos feast day, which gabachos call Epiphany. But that's not surprising: Actual Mexican culture in the U.S. is always watered down because of assimilation, a tale as old as the myth of Quetzalcoatl. That said, the Reconquista has brought up many Mexican celebrations in the past generation, such as Día de los Muertos, Día de los Niños and the baking of rosca de reyes (our version of the King Cake served during Mardi Gras) during Christmas. Gabachos, save this column so when your half-Mexican grandkids read this 40 years from now, you'll have proof that Mexicans once actually did gabacho things.

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