When did Mexican become a "dirty" word?

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

The local racists I know use much worse words than that for "Oriental" people.

Oh hell yes...I am sure they do here, too. Lord knows what the racist Asians say...I've heard it in English a few times, so I can guess!!!

But the kind of public stuff that gets put up says stuff like "Asians Out". I am sure the websites and internal literature and discussion is standard foul fare.

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@roger,

Dys got talking with my real estate lady, and she had (or maybe it was her husband) connections to early spanish jews, conversos, here in New Mexico. Dys will of course know more re what I'm talking about. If I remember correctly, the current folk consider themself quite strongly of spanish heritage - but... don't trust me, it was Dys that was involved in the conversations.

I guess I've been sheltered. I've only read of 'mexican' being some kind of pejorative in police procedurals. Glad I've been lucky in my own surroundings (aka, Los Angeles). I'm not saying that people don't use it as a negative in the Los Angeles area somewhere. (Seems more like Arizona to me.)

On 'latina' - dunno. I think friends (of mexican heritage) used that occasionally, but not memorably.
I guess I'll explain - my best friends for years back in L.A. (though I had a couple of other best friends, this was the core through the years group, commemorated as SAG for Smart Ass Group) - were 4-2 of mexican heritage, or sometimes 4-3. Not that we counted, but way back in the beginning, before I knew them all, they called themselves the Salts and the Peppers.
Yes, yes, I've heard of the old 'some of my best friends are' thing. Give me a break.

We used to go to Mexico together. I remember one, a spanish teacher, being called a 'pocha', which, if I remember, pissed her off.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

.......
Spanish used to be preferred, back when New Mexico was called New Spain. It distinguished between the earlier settlers and the later immigrants. For all I know, it may still be preferred in the San Luis Valley of Colorado and the villages of the Sangre de Cristo.

It's interesting that "Spanish" would be preferred to "Mexican" at the time of the Mexican cession - do you know if that was related to Southern states' opposition to "Manifest Destiny"? This is from a speech of Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina addressing Congress on January 4, 1848:

Quote:

[W]e have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! [..] I see that it has been urged ... that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a great mistake.

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I think the New Mexican Hispanic identity crisis is informed to a significant extent by the racism particular to the US. On the other hand, it is also informed by the artifact of the racist caste system employed by Spain when it first held the territory within which the US state of New Mexico is located. The whiter one's skin is the more "Spanish" one is and not “Mexican,” as Calhoun employed the word.

The pejoration of the word "Mexican" also plays a role in this identity crisis. Some New Mexicans whose cultural and ethnic background, for all practical purposes, can be referred to as "Mexican" refer to themselves as "Spanish" to disassociate themselves from, and or reject the negative association.

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@InfraBlue,

I suspect your first paragraph is more accurate than the second. I say 'suspect' because those parts of history regarding dates and places are less subject to romanticization and interpretation than the social parts.

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@roger,

What's the criteria for accuracy when the gist second paragraph is predicated on the qualifier "some"?

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@InfraBlue,

Quote:

The pejoration of the word "Mexican" also plays a role in this identity crisis. Some New Mexicans whose cultural and ethnic background, for all practical purposes, can be referred to as "Mexican" refer to themselves as "Spanish" to disassociate themselves from, and or reject the negative association.

If you're talking the time of Calhoun, I would say that there are always some who identify more strongly with the European conquerer. They are seen as the nobility, the higher class people.

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@JTT,

Oh certainly, but to be clear, Calhoun's was a more blanket racism. He rejected all Mexicans; he didn't distinguish between the conqueror and the conquered, or any admixture thereof. I'm saying that that attitude informs to a very large extent New Mexican Hispanic identity issues today.

In regard to the pejoration of the word "Mexican" and those people who could be described as "Mexican" (i.e. Mestizo ethnicity), but reject that association, their identity issues are informed more by the negative cultural connotations, rather than the racist ones.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

..... Calhoun's was a more blanket racism. He rejected all Mexicans; he didn't distinguish between the conqueror and the conquered, or any admixture thereof. ...

That wasn't the basis for Calhoun's racial opposition to annexation of all Mexico; the distinction between "Negroes, mestizos, Indians, etc" and "Castilians" was always carefully drawn. By Calhoun's count there were only a million Castilians (aka whites) in Mexico, 2 or 3 million mixed race, the rest being Indians. Southern states had additional reasons for their ambivalence at the time of the Mexican cession. For contemporaneous sources:
http://books.google.com/books?id=qPAxpi7wgtMC&q=calhoun#v=snippet&q=calhoun&f=false

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@InfraBlue,

Quote:

In regard to the pejoration of the word "Mexican" and those people who could be described as "Mexican" (i.e. Mestizo ethnicity), but reject that association, their identity issues are informed more by the negative cultural connotations, rather than the racist ones.

I agree.

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I only read a page of so, but it's because a "Mexican" is really likely from somewhere else. You have a better chance of being accurate to refer to someone you think to be a Mexican as a Hispanic. You may as well call all Mexican-looking people "Juan." Wink

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@Lash,

I have found that Jose works pretty well...

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@Rockhead,

As your gardener, I presume.

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@fbaezer,

he's very good with the horses as well, amigo...

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@Rockhead,

Don't you amigo me, pinche gringo!
Smile

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@fbaezer,

I work with a Mexican named Daniel. His son is named Allen.

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@edgarblythe,

I don't guess this.

So, I'm posting as a bump.

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Oh, you guys had me laughing! Rockhead, fbaezer and edgar...

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@Lash,

...also, isn't there some unhappiness about the people who existed in the area now called Mexico? I guess European Americans basically slapped a name on their land and on them? Is there a person from Mexico here who wouldn't mind speaking to this?

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@Lash,

On the contrary, México is a name of Mesoamerican origin.
The different Náhuatl peoples, who inhabited what is now the center of Mexico, called themselved Mexicas.
The word Mexico means in Náhuatl "place in the navel of the moon": Metztli (moon), xictli (navel) co (in). Others say it was meant to mean "city in the navel of the moon-lake" (since Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, was originally built in the middle of a lake).

1 Reply

When did Mexican become a "dirty" word?

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