Richard Rodriguez started off the discussion today at Cato Unbound on “Mexicans And America” . Here is a teaser of what he wrote:
Since America will not honor the poverty of the Mexican worker in theological terms, we should at least be clear that the Mexican is such a good worker because of the strength of the Mexican family. Mexicans work for each other; that is their reason for working.
On the other hand, I have heard Mexican astonishment at the kindness of strangers in America. The stranger gave me some money. The stranger gave me a ride in his truck. The stranger gave me some water. Whereas in Mexico, all such generosity takes place within the family, in America the generosity among strangers is often easier and more common than among relatives, and this amazes the Mexican.
America is a country where children are raised to leave home, and each generation is expected to seek its own way. The great pronoun of the United States is the Protestant pronoun—the “I”. America teaches its children independence and the bravery of the solitary path. The burden of life in America is loneliness. Not coincidentally, Mexican women, illegally in the United States, have been hired into the cold heart of America to sit with the young and the old.
The children of Mexican migrant workers, who are two or even three generations into this country, are faced with competing pronouns, and struggle to reconcile them. On the one hand, the Mexican American is expected to live within a family whose emotional architecture draws the child away from the window. On the other hand, America presents the child with an open door. As long as you understand this grammatical dilemma for the child struggling between the “we” and the “I”, any statistic you want—on Mexican American gangs, early marriage rates, suicide attempts, black-brown tensions, high school drop out rates, military heroism—becomes coherent.
The full article can be found here.
This artical makes alot of sense, I live in texas in a city where the mexican population is very high, and I too have noticed the difference in the family structure, I once worked in a nursing home it had around 100 rooms mostly white and black residents out of the 90 or so residents only 2 hispanics, one was a 70 year old latina that never had any children the other had a large family and there was someone visiting her everyday be it sons daughters grand children etc etc…… and the latter was only there for 6 months her son came and got her as soon as the extra room he built on his house was finished. In my middle class black family that is unheard of, for the most part we will park our old people in a home soon as they can nolonger care for themselves.
Or I remember an exgirlfriend from highschool who had 4 brothers her brothers could not stand me {did want their sister dating a miate) but I was in a teen club and got into a fight with 4 redneck kids and her brothers were there and jumped in(drug them out side and beat the crap out of them) They did not help me because they liked me, they jumped in because their mother liked me and I was their sisters novio, again the family thing.
One day as we were reading Julius Caeser in English class (ca. 1990), our concentration was disrupted by the heavy bass boom of a lowrider rolling down the adjacent boulevard. A classmate’s voice then cut through the silence saying, “Hey, Nonyo, your mom’s here!” Everyone laughed. That same day at lunch, another classmate asked me if my mom’s Mexican Pizzas were of as good a quality as those available at Taco Bell. Everyone was laughing too hard to hear me say that yes, indeed, they were.
I guess this was the view through that marvelous open door America presents to us as children of immigrants.
I became a one man gang.
Great read. Thanks.
I am really sick of the Mexicans complaining about how bad they are treated in America. If its so bad here go back to Mexico. Even your own Country, your own government treats its own people worse than the American people. So quit your whining, your here, suck it up , get an education, stop making excuses and get over yourselves and move on.
From my point of view, your families brought you here, you raise families of criminals all victimized by America! GO BACK TO MEXICO! MAKE YOUR COUNTRY GREAT! OTHERWISE SHUT UP!