I dry off too. Try being pale and pasty like me and then read the line in Malcom X's biography "Didja' ever smell one of them wet?" (paraphrasing I'm sure, my memory is not that exact after 40 years)

jaja! oh shux, that malcolm.

little different for me, I was told three words from my dad, that people should never speak to me ,the morning before I went school in the 1st grade. One of them is the title of this post. And I guess I had radical parents for the time because on "pioneer days" presentation my mom sent me to school with a Mexican flag too explain to the class there were Mexicanos in California before there were pioneers crossing the west.

When mi novio is getting dressed after his shower, I sometimes take the towel and help him dry off his back. I always feel a little strange saying, "¡Estás mojado todavía!" and I always hope he knows it's not in any way a jab at his having swam the río bravo to get here. But it's one of those words, I think, like "queer," that seems to have been claimed and legitimized by the group it once was meant to demean. I've heard him and his friends use it in conversation, but I use "indocumentados" for the same purpose, since "mojado" is not my word to use. Still, there's a big difference between saying it in Spanish - "mojado" - and in English - "wetback." The English word, perhaps just by being in that language, still carries an ugly connotation.

a4L, i love your radical parents. and yeah, different. i was pretty ignorant, growing up, of much of any cultura related to being xicano. i grew up all over the US, but much in the north east for a chunk of years. and if you ever read some of the older entries in here that deal with my family, it would make more sense. thanks for sharing your story. great stuff.

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janna, MUCH better of course en español. even the sound of the words is so ugly in english. but english is like that. lots of tacks and smacks and hard parts and ugly corners. i've written about it here..to me, the very sound of Spanish is beautiful. oh, i know the background, conquistador's tongue, etc, but really, the sound of it is so melodious to my ear. mo-ha-tho....it feels a bit like an astaire twist in a suede suit, and "wetback" more like a fish flopping hard on dry concrete. plus...i can't really separate the hate from that word. its vile.

oh and thanks for dropping the river reference. i know we know where the word comes from, but maybe i should have said.

one of my favorite songs is Dolly Parton's coat of many colors when she says
"That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be"

insults either have some truth in which you can use to become a stronger, better person, or they are just full of ignoarance and not true. Obviously wetback is the second. "No I didn't swim on a river to get here, but if any of my ancestors did I'm sure they had more courage than you've ever had and workerd harder than you ever will, I'm proud of them however they got here..." or "yeah I'm poor - but what did you ever do to earn any of the money you have...you're money makes you better than me because?..." It's all just dumb. Learning to deal with the dumb is something that Mexicans right now may have to deal with more often than others, but it's something eventually everyone has to learn how to handle.

malicia, this is so true, and great wisdom for those of us who are full grown. but a philosophy of "you are only as poor as you choose to be" is hard for children to enact. especially those being programmed by older, wiser people (supposedly wiser), and who have no dolly parton to see them through. but i do appreciate the meat of your mensaje, and am in full agreement nowadays. also in addition to knowing we are strong and able to feel good about ourselves, we can help those around us by putting different messages out there. its a big culture with a lot of messaging that is harmful for young kids who are not as able as you and me to shunt off insults.

Learning to deal with the dumb is something that Mexicans right now may have to deal with more often than others, but it's something eventually everyone has to learn how to handle.

yes, tho this wasn't "right now." now, i'm okay. this post refers, really, to a time years ago. about 24 or 25 years, i'm thinking. (amazingly enough i was 14 a long time ago it seems!)

learning to deal with the Hate is something all Mexican@s and blacks and Asians and women and gays and transpeeples, etc, have had to do for a long time in the USA. dealing with "dumb" is easy.

This post keeps coming back around in my head and making me so sad and pissed off. Somehow, these physical details of the daily things we internalize - even if only as memory of something we once did to defend ourselves against hate - carry so much symbolic power. It's all there, you know?

Heartbreak and a huge burden of stupid put on the wrong backs and generation upon generation of racist evil all expressed in a gesture worrying about hair product and shower leftovers.

Thanks for writing it down, Nezua.

Crazy beautiful photo of younger-Nez, too. 93? Sigh. We're getting old. But finer than ever, year by year. : )

thank you, my friend. yes...its the little details that really spell out the inner world that lives, even when not seen by anyone else, or spoken about by us. it helps when friends "get it" tho.

and yeah....getting older! agh. i try to deny it, run, exercise...but it hardly matters. its all very temporary, eh? the Counting Crows line always slayed me for various reasons...

we only stay in orbit/for a moment of time

took your advice read your several of your post about mi familia...excellent

Maybe Mexicans use a lot of hair gel or something(it was the '80's and in my minds eye were jheri-curls)and so they call us wetbacks!

Laughs!HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!(Sorry, if by some chance you did not mean it this way?)

I wanted to say I was laughing more to say this is a shame more so than mockery! The things some of us do to defy stereotype or conform to what is normally deamed pretty I did silly things too. Although I had dark skin and short, curly hair,when I was young, I use to put towels on my head to pretend like I had long blond hair-although doing this kept my hair from growing! I was five and six at the time so I did not know anybetter!

no, it is funny! although it shows well too, how little i knew about my own people and the general political discussions regarding so much at the time.

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and thank you a4L. sorry i missed your comment first time around.