Political Report # 1353 Mexico's Color Line and the Cultural Imperialism of Light-Skin Preference

by Roberto Rodriguez, Truthout

The color of the people of Mexico is one of the things that had a most profound effect on my psyche when I first visited the place of my birth in 1976 at the age of 22. The people came in all colors, though primarily different shades of red-brown, owing to the nation's Indigenous roots. Having grown up in a white-dominant society, it was an affirmation of my own brown skin color, in sharp contrast with the artificial color of official Mexico. I was used to seeing government bureaucrats and those that graced the nation's television screens with light skin, bleached blond hair and artificial blue or green eyes. The truth is, more than 40 years later, the nation's color line has seemingly not changed much at all. When I first noticed this preference for light skin in Mexico, it was present at every turn and every corner. It wasn't just a case of difference, but also disdain. Apparently, all things that were light were "good" and all things dark were "bad." This was especially true of television. White or light skin was preferred for virtually every role, except the ones for the subservient, demeaning and outlaw roles. This was most pronounced in advertising. Virtually all commercials used the same obscenely blond baby or the same blond couple to sell or promote anything and everything. This had a shocking effect on me as I had been part of the Chicano movement and had just graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles. The movement was political, fighting for our human rights, but it was also an explosive time of cultural pride; it is what birthed the slogans: "Brown Power," "Brown is Beautiful" and "Brown Pride." No longer would we accept subservience, nor would we ever again be ashamed of our color or our Indigenous roots. I thought the Mexican reality would have been opposite of the United States'. Bewildered, when I inquired, even the Mexican revolutionaries explained that racism was a US problem: a product of its history, not Mexico's. Rather, Mexico was afflicted with a deep-seated classism, not racism, they said.

Political Report # 1271 The Spanish Inquisition Lives On in Arizona's Ban on Mexican American Studies

By Roberto Rodriguez, Truthout

I have always viewed Arizona's effort to eradicate Mexican American Studies (MAS) as something akin to an unholy Inquisition. For some, that will sound hyperbolic; not for me. US district Judge Wallace Tashima is expected to make a decision soon on whether the 2010 Arizona House Bill 2281 legislation, which bans Arizona public schools from offering ethnic studies classes, was passed with the intention of discriminating against Tucson's Mexican American students. The measure prohibited public schools from offering classes that allegedly "promote the overthrow of the United States Government," "promote resentment towards a race or class of people," "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group," or "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." In practice, HB 2281 was used in 2012 to dismantle Tucson's Mexican-American Studies program, which was created in the 1990s to highlight Mexican American/Indigenous literature and history. In dismantling the program, Arizona banned more than 80 books from use in public school classrooms, including titles such as Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire, Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado and 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, by Elizabeth Martinez. (Two of my books were banned the year before.)

Abstract, Luis Valdez, Free Speech, and El Teatro in the Calendar Round: An Interview with Carlos Muñoz

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Luis Valdez, Free Speech, and El Teatro in the Calendar Round: An Interview with Carlos Muñoz
by Angela Marino    

[The scholar/activist Carlos Muñoz Jr. was a founding editor of Latin American Perspectives. In the political science department at Cal State Los Angeles he was a student of Donald Bray, a fellow founding editor. When he was arrested in 1968 for his leadership in the walkouts of Los Angeles high school students, his lecture notes from Bray’s classes were confiscated. He went on to receive a Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate University and became a leader in the field of ethnic studies, first as the founding chair of the first Chicana/Chicano studies department in the United States at Cal State Los Angeles and then, after teaching comparative culture at the University of California at Irvine, as a member of the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he became chair of the Chicano studies program in the Ethnic Studies Department. His book Youth, Identity, and Power: The Chicano Movement (1989) won the Gustavo Myers Book Award for “outstanding scholarship in the study of human rights in the United States.” He has been the recipient of many awards for his scholarship and activism, including in 2008 being honored as among “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” Recently retired after 44 years in education, he is currently working on several books, including Decolonizing America: The Struggle for a Multiracial Democracy and the autobiography Victory Is in the Struggle.]

Political Report # 1201 "Obama Built the Structures for Trump": A Terrifying Legacy of Mass Deportation

Jose Juan Moreno sits in the room at the University Church on Chicago's Southside where he has sought sanctuary from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since April. (Photo: Hoda Katebi) By Alex Shams, Truthout

For the last six months, Jose Juan Moreno has been confined to a small room above the University Church on Chicago's South Side. Safe inside, he cannot venture more than 50 steps from the corner where he sleeps. If he goes beyond that, US authorities have promised to deport him from the country. Although he has lived 17 years in Chicago -- the only home any of his five American-born children have ever known -- Moreno originally crossed the border from Mexico without papers. Under US law, that means he is subject to arrest and deportation at any time, a status he shares with 11 million people in the United States considered "undocumented." Earlier this year, Moreno received a deportation order from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the authority that carries out the raids and arrests that represent the strong arm of national immigration policy. He was told to leave by April 15, otherwise he'd be deported. In response, Moreno did the only thing he could think of -- he sought sanctuary in the church, praying that even if the authorities would not respect his family or his long years of work in the US, at least they might respect the sanctity of a holy place. So far, they have. But for how much longer is anybody's guess.