By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZThe Paz Files
HARLINGEN, Texas - The dramatic news videos streaming across the country from Oakland, California and Atlanta tell a new story in the Occupy Wall Street movement, namely: This is not only about fighting the nation's bad politics and its unbridled corporate greed.
No, much more is at play at these demonstrations.
Local elected officials are fighting back by dispatching their law enforcement in full-force battle regalia, arming them with high-tech weaponry, helicopters and enough tear gas to re-create that first moment of the universe's Big Bang. Welcome to the U.S. version of the Arab Spring. Citizens are angry and they are insisting on occupying public spaces in most of the country's larger cities. They have come to protest and they have said they're not going anywhere.
In watching the television news reports, I was captured with how young the protesters seem to be and how aggressive the local police departments have responded. There was a time when we thought the police were outgunned by the fancier, deadlier weapons used by today's wildly-creative criminals. But not anymore; this whole-hog assault of the Occupy Oakland camp was nothing less than a military assault. Helicopters?
Yes, these are tense times across the land. But demonstrations against this and that always have been part & parcel of this thing we call citizenship. You know, the "right" to assemble?
In Atlanta, cradle of Martin Luther King's fabled Civil Rights fight, the Black mayor ordered city police to force protesters off public property, a downtown park. Arrests followed, and those came when the citizens refused to disperse. Disperse? Until the cops arrived, it was a noisy gathering, but it also was non-violent. Why the exaggerated show of force? Shocking.
The other thing that grabs me about all of these occupations is that I've yet to see one Mexican in the video-taped fray. Latino. Hispanic. Cholo. Mexican-American. Mamon. Whatever. They're not in the mix. They're not joining the fight against that which keeps them down and struggling. Pathetic. You'd think they would be at the forefront of one of these things, there damning all that oppresses them and at the ready, to spring into quick action, to engage a failed authority.
Where are the Mexicans?
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11 comments:
They are at the Bingo Halls, or at the cantina or at the taquerias. That's where they are.
They are busy working for the "Man", look they have to eat and feed their 9 kids, put oil in a car that leaks it at the walmart parking lot. Besides, what do Tx-Mex know about the stock market, now ask them about la Movida bar, and the subject changes completely.
Exellent article. Interesting but right on. Thankz
We're all getting ready for Christmas, man. No time for protesting around here. sorry.
Most Hispanics are at work or in school. This isn’t our fight. Yes, there are entitlement Hispanics that draw every type of public assistance they can lay their hands on, but most are out working and earning a living..
Look at those gathered in the parks and plazas in this protest. Most of them are either white drop-outs and runaways or pampered young whites that have never had to work a day in their lives. Growing up, their wealthy families have handed them, cars, credit/debit cards, clothing, education, vacations, video games, computers and all the little luxuries that make life worth living.
Now real life faces them and they are afraid. They have graduated from colleges and universities with liberal arts degrees and can not find jobs to support their cushy life stiles. Sure there are jobs, but they want jobs that start out 85K, a company car, four weeks paid vacation, fully funded health and dental care, fat retirement plans and bonuses twice a year. Working at a mall, being a firefighter or police officer, or, heaven forbid, doing a little manual labor just won’t do.
Meanwhile, Hispanic kids are out finding jobs to buy school clothes, earn money for a car and gas, helping to support their families, putting away a little for college. Nope, no trips to Europe or the caribe for them. The best vacations they get are following the crops through Arkansas, Ohio and Michigan, or off to help out family on the ranchito south of Camargo.
Leave the spoiled white kids to beat their drums, drink their Starbucks and cry about how unfair life has become. Screw them! I have to go to work, so does my wife and my oldest two kids. We work and we are proud, we’re not rich but we know what it is to be grown up and responsible for ourselves.
Most Hispanics are at work or in school. This isn’t our fight. Yes, there are entitlement Hispanics that draw every type of public assistance they can lay their hands on, but most are out working and earning a living..
Look at those gathered in the parks and plazas in this protest. Most of them are either white drop-outs and runaways or pampered young whites that have never had to work a day in their lives. Growing up, their wealthy families have handed them, cars, credit/debit cards, clothing, education, vacations, video games, computers and all the little luxuries that make life worth living.
Now real life faces them and they are afraid. They have graduated from colleges and universities with liberal arts degrees and can not find jobs to support their cushy life stiles. Sure there are jobs, but they want jobs that start out 85K, a company car, four weeks paid vacation, fully funded health and dental care, fat retirement plans and bonuses twice a year. Working at a mall, being a firefighter or police officer, or, heaven forbid, doing a little manual labor just won’t do.
Meanwhile, Hispanic kids are out finding jobs to buy school clothes, earn money for a car and gas, helping to support their families, putting away a little for college. Nope, no trips to Europe or the caribe for them. The best vacations they get are following the crops through Arkansas, Ohio and Michigan, or off to help out family on the ranchito south of Camargo.
Leave the spoiled white kids to beat their drums, drink their Starbucks and cry about how unfair life has become. Screw them! I have to go to work, so does my wife and my oldest two kids. We work and we are proud, we’re not rich but we know what it is to be grown up and responsible for ourselves.
Mr. Orosco:...Your points are part of the national conversation. Without a doubt. But, as with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Hispanics are not in this fight, yet they, too, gained ground in American society because of the Hell Blacks went through to gain those rights. Here, again, is an opportunity to help the struggling Middle and lower class Americans. You wish to let all others wage the fight that may aid you in some way, shape or form in the future? Methinks not. This fight is every American's fight. And, yes, again it is the disheveled young waging it. Did Hispanics have a fight against the Vietnamese? They went and they are still telling us about their nightmares. You can refuge yourself at your job and in your classrooms all you want. But, Hermenegildo, it IS your fight, too. In America, rights go to all Americans, whether they pay the price for freedom or not. It'll be waged, with you or without you, of course. You decide how much you wish to think about it - some or not at all. I find your words completely hollow, their strength indicating a total lack of knowledge of what we call civic duty and the responsibility to make every voice be heard - in good times and especially in bad ones. Arriving at a job without being beaten or a day in the classroom without fear of anything is peculiarly American. But, you must know that someone fought for all that, fought vigorously... - Editor
Agree with Orosco, he is so right. Hispanics fight in real wars, the issue at hand applies to mostly rich spoiled brats.
Brownsville high school football is laughable. Huge waste of taxpayer money so that a lot of kids with no ability tackle each other silly. I agree with the sidebar guy.
Most Hispanics I know will never get into the sort of stuff these Occupy people are looking for. Maybe it's the diet. Who knows? But you'd have a hard time getting any to stage a Occupy Brownsvile, for example. Just saying.
I wonder if Jerry McHale ever dawned a pair of shoulder pads and ran wind sprinks for 30 minutes. Most of the characters that criticize Valley Players, never played or know what is like to mix it up in 90 degree weather. Untill you guys walk in my shoes, shut the hell up, you all don't know what you are talking about. McHale is no more than a loud mouth, who dreams brownsville is New Orleans. A pipe dream, if you ask me.
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