Otra razon para mantener nuestra cultura aqui en los Estados Unidos, en todos sus formas-- nuestras costumbres, comidas, fiestas, la idioma español, la fe, nuestro foco sobre la familia, todo.

Just like you so perceptively point out amigo, the American culture here (as it's idiotically equated to the "Anglo" culture) is corrosive to the very well-being of the Latinos in this country and for other people of color. Or for anyone, for that matter.

It cracks me up that the Anglo stupidity-spouting militias like the Minutemen always bicker about us not assimilating to their effete, broken culture-- when it's losers like them who embody it. When this "culture" that the Anglos like to spout as being so superior, is responsible for going in and killing millions of Iraqis, brutalizing people of color in the USA for centuries, winding up fat and lazy and on their asses on dope all the time-- hey, I'm happy to steer clear of it.

Again, too many gringos confuse "assimilation" with "stupidly buying into Anglo culture" when, especially in our ethnic homelands and in most of Florida, we are the founders of the cities, and it is our culture to which they must be assimilating. I ran into that a couple times in Arizona, usually some half-drunken (or sober but stupid) Anglo knucklehead who got all crybaby whenever me and my homies talked en español, took our families to picnics or were just workin' under the hood on our drives.

My response was always, "Look, gringo idiot, if you are in Arizona you are in the region of *our* homeland which you forcibly seized in the bloody Mexican War, which means that we don't assimilate to your imperialism-- you are the ones who need to assimilate better. Aprenda español, learn Spanish and come to appreciate our history, our celebrations, our basic rights and ownership here, our way of doing things, and we will welcome you and learn from you. But never, ever dictate to us."

This narco-addiction we slip into is yet another reason to avoid what the Anglos call "culture." It's more like their own little imperialistic, confused fantasyland, which we should have no shame in shunning.

Y de todos modos, otra sugerencia útil--

As a practical matter in helping us to avoid the trap of this malaise-- er, uh, "culture" that the Anglos like to trumpet-- one of our best tools is home-schooling, something that we Latinos, especially, should be taking more advantage of.

Home-schooling is popular in much of the United States, and it's well-suited to the Latino population in particular. We can teach a broader and more equitable version of history and literature to our children, rather than the Anglo-centered bull they try to indoctrinate our kids with in the public schools. We can conduct a substantial fraction of our instruction in Spanish medium and ensure that our kids have a professional and high-level grasp of español in both writing and speaking, not just colloquial conversation, very useful for jobs as well as heritage. We can ensure our kids actually get an education in things like math and science rather than the junk and disruption they're fed in US public schools-- the Mexican public schools actually have very high-quality math and science textbooks which we can use. We can protect our kids from the crime and drug use common in US schools.

We can also provide education to kids of the hard-working people that the Anglo imperialists deem to be "illegals," away from all the strictures of the public schools, and where we can look after each other.

Home-schooling is valuable anywhere in the USA, but especially in places like Arizona and Texas (and even parts of California) where the Minutemen, afraid of our numbers and our growing power, try to indoctrinate our kids to hate our heritage and to hate their very own identity. But home-schooling is also gaining popularity in the SE and Midwest, and it's something that we especially should take advantage of.

Podemos tomar el futuro de nuestra gente en las manos, y decidir y controlar la educacion en calidad de nuestros niños, es la mejor manera asegurar nuestro poder y herencia aqui en nuestras tierras natales!

The double-immersion schools (using Spanish as one of the main media of instruction) are also useful and should be lobbied for.

Si exigimos que abren mas de este tipo de escuela, tenemos un otro recurso para los niños.

It's just that there's a massive shortage of available double-immersion schools to get our kids enrolled in (here's a partial collection of them in e.g. Arizona and other states-- http://tinyurl.com/yvk96y ).

Home-schooling gives us another option, and puts the power of molding our children's minds en nuestras manos, rather than leaving their education to the indoctrinators who still run many schools and teach our children to hate who we are.

El Gato, home schooling is something anyone in the US should be pursuing whenever possible. The standard forms of schooling are principally indoctrination concepts after one gets past the basic reading and mathematics.
I do not understand why we cannot have an alternate educational system that is computer learning based {programs like this do exist} for those parents unable to keep up with the large amount of work that home schooling takes.

el gato & rc:

I'm probably about to step in some serious poo, here, but...:

I think "home schooling" is a great idea, but in conjunction with, not in place of other schooling. I agree, totally, that we should all know the truth of our histories, not just that which is taught by the ruling class. I also know just how effective small, vocal, highly focused groups can be (to my country's detriment).

The Americas are filled with immigrants and their descendants--from the Arctic Circle to the souhern tip of Patagonia, as well as Hawaii, the Phillipines and other island nations. The Spaniards, English, French, Portugese, Dutch and U.S. Americans in their turns attempted to subjugate or exterminate native peoples, wherever they found them in the Americas. Catholicism and various other christian sects sent missionaries who were often closely followed, if not accompanied by,' military troops, land speculators and settlers who would assume ownership of "unoccupied lands" once they had been "cleansed".

I'm not a scholar but it appears to me, from my limited reading, that the Spaniards intermarried with the indigenous peoples to a much higher degree than did their northern european counterparts (who did plenty of inter marriage within their own, pale, culture). By virtue of that intermarriage there is, I think a much lower proclivity for racism (although I know it does exist) in Latin American countries. Not so, here in the USofA. I really wish we could just all be some shade of tan. Absent my wish being granted, I would hope that those of us who know the truth about racism, speak it, endlessly--especially to the dicks who don't want to listen. And, yes, teach your children spanish or some native american tongue, but teach them to use english as well as us white devils.

Education, true education, is a tool, not a weapon. It has no sharp edge, it has no bullet. It does not wound or take life.

I'm through rambling.

Scott!

I never had him as a prof, but I got my B.A., half of which is in Sociology, at that school. He had a great reputation. Good to see he's doing something important with his time.

And, uh, am I the only person who thinks his results are common sense?

[I'm sorry, I don't understand Spanish, so forgive me if my comment is repetitive.]

Hola democommie,

Entiendo lo que esta diciendo aqui, y estoy de acuerdo con mucho.

I mean, I do agree that home-schooled kids should be getting taught a wide range of subjects and be thoroughly educated-- in fact, that's my main point for home-schooling. The public schools throughout the USA but esp. in the SW-- the English-only public schools at least (the double-immersion Spanish-English joint medium schools are better)-- are horrendously awful at teaching about anything, from the basics of math and reading, to language (and I mean *any* language, Spanish, English, German whatever), let alone science and things like history and literature. Plus there are all the safety issues these days at US schools, and a level of drug-peddling that's worse than Skid Row on a weekend. And last but not least, un monton de informes really is demonstrating that the Type II Diabetes that's ruining the health of Latino kids, has a lot to do with the terrible dietary habits they pick up at school.

Honestly, I think that's the *main* reason to home-school, the kids get a better education, in a safer environment, with a better diet and yet they still get to have controlled (but healthier) peer interactions. The USA public schools are a fiasco by any measure, and since Anglos absolutely hate paying any taxes that might, golly gee, go to help a Latino or Black kid, they're even less willing than before to contribute anything worthwhile to the good of the local school systems. They've all moving their kids in rich private schools in their enclaves anyhow, leaving us with the dregs in the public schools. They've become neglected, crime-ridden, filthy no-go zones by intentional neglect, Anglos would hate to see those brown kids actually be learning anything. So if we want our kids to learn something, home-schooling is the best way to do it.

As for the subjects, US textbooks *still* openly go propaganda on the Mexican War. Even Ulysses Grant the USA general, recognized it was a war of aggression and yet the US textbooks try to paint the Mexican War like Manifest Destiny was ordained by the Anglos' religion itself, right and just against those pesky, lowly brown people in Mexico who didn't deserve their own land they'd been on for centuries. I'm not sayin' we should propagandize on our side either, I'm just sayin' teach the war like it was-- and the truth is, the Anglos fought that war so they could extend slavery westward out to the Pacific Ocean. For all its corruption and other flaws, the Mexican government at the time had an eye toward human rights and banned slavery in Mexico. That's what the Anglos in Texas, Arizona and California couldn't take, so they invaded Mexico to seize the territory and its resources primarily to enhance the hand of slavery. Nothing slanted about it, it's merely the truth, and US history classes don't even talk about that in the public schools.

As for the language as a medium of instruction (as opposed to a language class, e.g. teaching German to a kid using English or Spanish as a medium), basically referring here to the clauses in the treaties and legal precedents coming after the Mexican War, which demand that in the Southwest that was annexed in the Mexican War, as well as Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico for related reasons, Spanish is equal to English for all public purposes-- including for education. By extension this was also applied to other parts of the country, but particularly in what we might call the "homeland regions." And by "español" in the treaties we're not referring to the high-falutin' speech of the King of Spain, rather it's the language thru Latin America that evolved over many centuries as a hybrid of traditional Spanish and the indigenous cadences and rhythms of our communities. In which our emotional and collective experiences as a common Latino community have gained voice.

It's *that* mode of speech which got official recognition in the treaties after the Mexican War and the Texas/Florida Wars. It's just one of the many cultural binders that unite the Latino community, but it's an important one and if we cede ground here, then we cede ground on our culture elsewhere and we hand victory over to the Anglos on a silver platter, allowing them to divide us and even drag us away from our own heritage-- which is exactly what they want, to turn us into second-class Anglo-wannabes that they can push around and exploit.

That's why the Anglos try to foist English-only schools on us throughout the Southwest, since they figure this would break up our societal links and help to perpetuate Anglo imperialism in the conquered territories from the Mexican War. Same thing the British were trying to do in weakening the societal ties and identity of brown people in India. Yet by fundamental treaty law and the laws after the Mexican War, they don't have that right-- español y ingles son iguales.

That's all I'm sayin' here, for home-schoolers, enseña algunos clases en español, algunos en ingles, ensure that español is respected as one of the principal media of instruction, and introduce another language or two later when the opportunity arises. And mainly, just teach real subjects rather than the warmed-over mess in the US public schools. But break down this "English-only" monopoly the Anglos try to impose, cuz it's just another dagger aimed at the collective spirit of Chicano and Latino people. Besides again, by actual statutory law in addition to basic ethics, Spanish and English have equal status, while Latino culture in general-- las fiestas, comidas, todos lo que teniamos antes de la guerra estadounidense-- is equal to Anglo culture here. It's time we finally held the Anglos to those promises they made a long time ago, and which our ancestors shed their blood in determined guerrilla resistance to demand.

Jamas hemos cedido nuestra cultura y derechos sobre nuestras tierras natales. No es necesario "lanzar una lucha" contra los Anglos, solo es importante de reconocer nuestra historia aqui y exigen los derechos que desde mucho, de hecho desde la guerra estadounidense en 1846-48, se nos ha negado. Si nos respetamos con vigor, y especialmente mientras ganamos poder politico y la mayoria demografica en los estados de nuestros hogares, los Anglos tambien van a llegar a respetarnos.

Does this assimilation include, or have a hint of depression or unhappiness? What I mean is if someone is trying to assimilate and does not successfully do so (for whatever reason), and causes this person stress that leads to depression, would this cause them to substance abuse?

Assimilation by itself - either here in US or in Greenland, or wherever - should not cause or be the sole factor in substance abuse. People abuse substances because they are unhappy. So maybe, through assimilation or the stress of assimilation, because of racism, language barriers, job insecurity, snobby 'American' neighbors causes unhappiness, which leads to substance abuse. No?

Great stuff, El Gato. I meant to comment earlier. Estoy de acuerdo, there are many good reasons to take the control of a child's schooling into your own hands. You hit on many of them. Many that matter to me. Many that those in the mainstream just don't get. You are right, so important reconocer nuestra historia.

oh i'm sure there are many reasons why people use substances! it would be way too simplistic to boil it down to "unhappiness."

el gato:

Agreed, for the most part. I don't think all public schooling sucks. I do think that public schools in a number of states are being criminally neglected for the reasons you state. Don't even get me started on the "Ketchup is a vegetable" mindset of the USDA and their corporate partners like Mickey D's and KFC.

My honest opinion re: language, is this. Most of us anglos are either smug or clueless in the are of bi-lingual learning, commerce and socialization. I wish that I knew some people that spoke idiomatic, every day spanish and were willing to teach me (most of them are busily learning english), but I have a very hard time at the beginning of such things. In any event when Wal-mart discovers they are losing business to other vendors (if there are any left) because of their self-imposed language barriers (I'm not speaking of signage but, rather, genuine bi-linguality) things will change--quickly. Make sure your ninos and ninas are the ones who get those entry level jobs and change the world from the inside out.

Yeah, I know, I'm a goof--not a news flash!

I heard the term knuckle head from my neighbor. He is from WSC. I hate to say it but I think his wife and somtimes his son experience the knuckle shuffle? I live with it I bounce around jobs not knowing if my temper was the reason that I was let go or in a confrotation. I do not consider myself a self diserving knuckle head. I have had my share on confrontations nothing race orientated. If I am being neglected like many people and the growing # of senior citizen I mention that is not up to my taste or standards. The Knuckle shuffle is a modern day hanging. I have had a relative who was hung in the Los Angeles County Jail System during the time of the East LA roits. I do fill that the knuckle shuffle avoids confrotation and that is positive? Growing up in a abusive family I can carry myself very well for my height and weight. I hope that I never have to defend myself again. All the praise my niggas!