Old 10-14-2009, 10:17 PM
ilbegone ilbegone is offline
Enlistee
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 316
Default
Rodriguez 5)
Quote:
Think of earlier immigrants to this country. Think of the Jewish immigrants or the Italian. Many came, carefully observing Old World distinctions and rivalries. German Jews distinguished themselves from Russian Jews. The Venetian was adamant about not being taken for a Neopolitan. But to America, what did such claims matter? All Italians pretty much looked and sounded the same. A Jew was a Jew. And now, America shrugs again. Palm trees or cactus, it's all the same. Hispanics are all the same.
I saw Cesar Chavez again, a year ago, at a black – tie benefit in a hotel in San Jose. The organizers of the event ushered him into the crowded ballroom under a canopy of hush and tenderness and parked him at the center table, where he sat blinking. How fragile the great can seem. How much more substantial we of the ballroom seemed, the Mexican-American haute bourgeoisie, as we stood to pay our homage – orange women in fur coats, affirmative-action officers from cigarette companies, film makers, investment bankers, fat cats and stuffed shirts and bleeding hearts – stood applauding our little saint. Cesar Chavez reminded us that night of who our grandparents used to be.
Then Mexican waiters served champagne
Success is a terrible dilemma for Mexican Americans, like being denied some soul – sustaining sacrament. Without the myth of victimization – who are we? We are no longer Mexican, we are professional Mexicans. We hire Mexicans. After so many years thinking ourselves exempt from some common myth of America, we might as well be Italians.
|