JE #2

It hurt my heart a little when I sat in class and tried to remember the way in which the U.S/Mexican War was taught to me in middle school and high school. Through much thought, I began to remember the way in which my subconscious rooted for the victory of the United States at such a young age. I began to feel remorse for the young girl that sat in a chair with a white teacher explaining to a room full of 30 students how the United States had come out victorious against the Mexican soldiers and remember that I felt that was the best for “my country.” It made me angry how I could have soaked in so much ignorance and how so many students of color have to endure this through the mainstream education system. Reflecting back on my experience throughout grade school, it seems like my historical amnesia is at a 6. I wasn’t aware of what was really happening when I was soaking in all this biased knowledge. While reading De Leon’s book, They Called Them Greasers, I was frustrated as well at all of these ideologies that Anglo folks from the 20^th century had on Mexicans. I think of my education now and the privilege I have in being able to take these courses in an institution of higher learning and yearn for the survival of my nieces and nephews that will have to endure sitting in a classroom where their teachers will tell them lies about their ethnic background, where they will paint historical visions of Mexicans as savages and violent and where they will show American Soldiers as triumphant on attacks that they took no part in.

They Called Them Greasers had an underlying message of colonization as well as “Anglo Savior Syndrome.” From reading the first four chapters, it’s clearly shown that the White Texans were trying to save the state of Texas by colonizing the area with the white idea of what the state should be. An interesting part in the book that really made me think of colonization was the part in which De Leon wrote, “As Olmsted reported in his notes on Texas society of the 1850’s, Mexicans were regarded as “degenerate and degraded Spaniards” or, perhaps, “improved and Christianized Indians.”’ This quote made me quiver a little, it profiles ethnic identities based on a social caste system that is often determined by skin color and has the power to determine one’s socio-economic status as well as privilege. This just shows that the Texan’s view on Mexicans were much like the colonizers of the past, where they felt superior to the Spanish colonizer because of their ties to Europe through the narrative of speaking English rather than Spanish. Overall, this book just affirmed the believe that the border and Mexico and the U.S are ran based on a racially made up idea of superiority and inferiority and it served to diagnose me as a former and still somewhat presently historical amnesiac, one who is now choosing to remember before it is too late.