Racisim in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas

As the man spoke, it was clear to me that he was not joking. He wonders why there should be a hispanic engineering festival and why not a white festival, or a black festival. Yet I think he's just jealous of us now. He and his father were the ones on the other side of the table, twenty years ago. Those white people made my mother afraid to speak to me in Spanish, for fear of me sounding too Mexican. I know why she would have those fears. Yet time has come to us, we control the money here. We depend more on our friends in Mexico than our friends from up north. It's not bird watchers that drive the economic growth of the valley. The winter Texans cannot account for the type of economic growth we see now. Has this lead us to shun the white people? Is this why a University of Tx-PanAm professor was rumored to have tried to fire every professor in his department who wasn't bilingual?

Perhaps we seek to recollect our original culture. Is it possible? The Mexicans are envious of our position in the world. They want to live here where wages are high and crime is low, but invisible as well as clearly seen borders will not let them all pass. They have contempt for us here, because we have become Anglos. We sleep with the gringos. We speak their language. An ugly language. We have no shame and no true appreciation of our heritage. So they come to use us. They go to our university and we welcome them and all their money. They shop in our stores and we welcome them there too. With clenched teeth, but the words that slip through are sweet while we bite our tongues. Am I a racist?

Do I treat a white man differently than a Mexican? How can't I? They changed me, they turned me into the man I am today. It's their words that course through my blood and set it to burn. Their ideas are mine now. I have stolen them and I intend to use them. I am dangerous with their weapons. But unlike them I don't want to prove them to be lesser for my gain. I want to prove that we have always been equals. I want them to respect the sounds of my name. I want them to know that time has been lost, and that I will not be cowed into walking at their pace so that they can stay happily ahead of me on the path. I am walking straight into America and going farther than they have gone.