Are you a victim of racial profiling? Were you called a slur or told to go back to your country? Does the sight of a 60-year-old hunchback white woman send tremors through your body? Perhaps you were pulled over for going 1 ½ miles over the speed limit while you had your beautiful mocha colored arm dangling out of the window due to your inability to afford a car with air conditioning? Or the most heinous of all - you went and tried to slide into the dms of that one crush you have only for them to see your selfies and then have them reply with “Sorry I don’t date Mexicans.” If any of these things apply to you then you might find some kind of comfort in reading this personal essay! And if none of these sound familiar, then you have the great fortune of not being born brown and in that case congratulations! You are still more than welcome to read this to learn about the vast injustices that brown people go through and can regurgitate this info with all your friends in hopes of sounding cool and in the times! And if after reading just the introduction gets you heated and forming an angry email directed towards me about how wrong I am, then this probably isn’t the best thing for you to read and I wish you the best in your future Facebook arguments.
Now for those of you who are unaware, back in 1993 all the way to 2016, Arizona had what may very well considered as the most infamous racist official. I’m talking about the infamous sheriff Joe Arpaio. As a resident of Arizona, I remember seeing him on the news just about every night talking about a wide variety of things happening in the Maricopa county. Scrolling past the bottom of every local news station was some statement Arpaio talked about in his latest conference regarding immigration. This man was on TV so much that he said in an interview, “’You know what I average on TV a month? Here, local?’ Sheriff Arpaio said defiantly, punching his desk for emphasis. ‘Two hundred appearances.’” Can you imagine being on television that much? How much work that is to set up a press conference nearly everyday on top of working some self-proclaimed 14 hours a day? This man was so determined to get Hispanics out the country and build his ego that he did this shit for near 10 years after he started the immigration sweeps in 2005. Now I could very well go on and on about this man and his idiocy, but I just wanted to establish some background before entrenching you into the heat of this essay. That’s right, Its all about me baby.
During this time when Arpaio was sheriff, I was scared for my dad. He was someone who was in this country but didn’t have citizenship until the year 2012. He worked in construction and made his way from a simple job up to his now great position of superintendent. Out in the heat every morning from 4 am until 3 pm. The first thing I saw every day when I got home from school was my dad sleeping in his busted recliner and the TV on blast in front of him. Nothing could wake him besides changing the channel he was “watching” or the smell of my mom’s cooking. Now most kids’ nightmares would be climbing that tree that has seen many falling faces or getting caught bullying their siblings, but mine was not seeing my dad in his chair when I came home. Not seeing his wrinkled boots laying at the side of the recliner and smelling his disgusting feet perched up on the coffee table he made. Not hearing 24-inch CRT TV throughout the house and calls of substitutes from soccer players. I feared my dad not coming home. That one of the raids was going to happen at the work site and they would get my dad. A fear shared by other students in the English speech classes I was taking in 4th grade.
During this peak of hunting season for Mexicans, my dad rarely stepped out with my family and I. His thick accent and grasp of simple English phrases were things he was quite embarrassed by. Once when he went with my family and I out to a restaurant, he asked me to order for him since he had troubles pronouncing the menu item and didn’t want to make a fool of himself by trying. I ordered for him his surf and turf and heard the table behind me whisper, “Shut up you beaners,” when he thanked me. I had no idea what it meant at the time, and was confused as to what the word meant. I looked around to see if anyone else had heard this and wondered why someone was so angry towards beans. My parents both seemed uncomfortable but stared at each other and asked if my siblings and I were excited to eat. That word has stuck itself in my mind since then. My dad later told me that he made the right decision in staying put and ignoring the comment that he also heard. He did something that rarely happens; he held his tongue and said nothing.
Kids at school called me “wetback” and “beaner” along with some other rather creative words that could found in the depths of urban dictionary. Things that don’t make any sense until the 12-year-old bully explained it in great detail. I went from confused to hurt after hearing the lengthy lecture from the makeshift student teacher. Kids are mean, and I’m sure you know that but something about kids calling other kids slurs and insults is insane, considering that they learn it from their parents most of the time. Not to say that this is suddenly turning into a paper about how to raise kids, because that’s not at all what you came to read. However, I am saying that this links up to the sudden hate for Mexicans that Joe Arpaio evoked in the hearts of every grandparent in a 200-mile radius. Seeing Arpaio on the news every night was like sounding a klaxon for the snow birds, one that let them realize they can live the glory days of pre-civil rights and once again can harass minorities with little consequence.
You might be thinking that underneath my cool and calm exterior, that I was crying upon hearing all this going on in the news. Tears streaming down my face at the mere sight of my racist sheriff on the TV inside my favorite Mexican food restaurant. Truth be told, I slightly was but I couldn’t let them (pasty teenagers and anyone with a Chevy Silverado) see me upset about it. It’s the same mindset that you should have with bullies, they eventually leave you alone once they see it doesn’t get to you. But its not the easiest thing when I had plenty of people target me with unrestrained prejudice. And this was only the start of the injustice my family and I faced.
For clarification, this is by no means a “woe is me, please pity me” kind of essay. In fact, I would call it my own backlash to all the rants going on in the depths of the “Yelp Mothers Against Integration” Facebook community group. However, I think it’s important to learn about these kinds of things in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m lecturing you. Nobody wants to be talked at and I’m assuming you have some kind of level of empathy to be able to understand this somewhat. I’m sure you have some kind of action you want to take right now, calling all your friends together to band against the evil racists plaguing my small town. Organizing with your many other white friends to try and make a change for the rest of us poor old Latinos. Trying to rack in your brain something that can compare to what I’ve gone through so you can try and relate to me. Anything so you can join in on the conversation and feel like you’re doing some kind of good in participation. But this is specific to what it was like for me as a Hispanic male in a red state with nasty rumors floating all around like some kind of bad high school movie where the main character can’t sit with the cool kids because their hair is curly instead of straight. This is about my experience and doesn’t lessen anything else going on in the world, but if you have some kind of comment thinking along the lines of,’ Well he should try to be more inclusive of other people,’ then you can also join the ranks of the Oakley glasses owners. Because if you want that kind of all-inclusive content then you’re better off searching elsewhere to get your savior complex boner.
I was not wanted anywhere and told to, “Fuck off wetback,” on more occasions than a normal teenager can take. Receiving stares when I was walking down the street and any time I was with my family shopping for back to school clothes. Like my father, I was embarrassed to go out; not for my lack of language speaking skills, but rather for my skin color.
I was once pulled over by police for reasons that didn’t make sense to me. Well to say once would be wrong, I was pulled over a total of 7 times for reasons I didn’t understand and that made no sense in the summer of 2015. The summer where Donald Trump painted Mexicans in a worse light than Joe Arpaio did. Talks of the wall were going around. Tensions were high and MAGA hats were aplenty. Fans of Sheriff Arpaio were certainly delighted to see someone similar on TV just as much as their beloved bigot. During this season of hate, I was pulled over. The first time for going over the speed limit by 1 ½ miles. 1 ½ miles. Have you ever been pulled over for going 1 ½ miles over the speed limit? The officer made me get out of my scorching hot jeep and into the laser beam that is Arizona summer sun. “Put you hands on the car please,” was commanded to me. I put my hands onto the car and promptly burned them. I took them off only to be shouted, “PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE CAR,” to which I took off my shirt and wrapped them around my hands before putting them on my 1995 black jeep Cherokee. I could still feel the heat pierce past the folds of my tank top and spread to my fingertips and palms. The officer kept me standing there for a total of 45 minutes in the heat. Him in his air-conditioned car and I sweating and living up the name of wetback. I’m sure he was triple checking to see if there was any kind of record I had. Something he could pin me with more than just a “speeding” ticket. He came back and gave me my ticket and told me to go back home.
I went home to tell my mom, and she comforted me and told me to take a shower and all that jazz as a good mother should. After the shower she told me something. She told me that just 2 weeks prior she had been pulled over for the same thing. Speeding by 2 miles she told me. How the officer made her wait for 40 plus minutes, but she could stay in her car. It further solidified my theory that they don’t want us here. You can go and ask any Latino the question “Have you ever been pulled over because of race?” and I assure you there’s an 80% chance they’ll say “yes” and a 75% chance they’ll tell you that it happened more than once. Are those numbers exact? Its hard to get the stats on it because it happens so frequently, and police can just state that it was for some other reason.
My mom went on to tell me about the things she experienced, such as people making fun of her accent and thinking she was a cleaning lady. Asking her for her number so she can come and help them clean their house. My mom worked as a waitress and was the best damn waitress in that whole restaurant. Everyone loved her and so many people asked for her when they came to sit down and eat. She told me about the regulars she had and the going away party they held for her when she left. She still goes there occasionally, and the same manager asks if she wants to come back because she loves my mom. In that place she was queen, but outside of the workplace? She faced the same troubles as both me and my father did. That same racial bias and offensive words were spoken towards her. My parents don’t deserve that kind of hate.
And it doesn’t just end there. No there was the return to college after the election with Trump. Hordes of people talking online about how terrible he was, which I whole hardly agree with. But to top it off there were plenty of people looking for this a chance to score some big brownie points with the people of color. More specific the Latinos since that was the flavor of the year thanks to all the wall conversations happening. A prime time for someone with an aesthetic Tumblr account and plenty of white guilt to swoop in and start some serious conversations out of nowhere. A girl, whose name I can’t remember, directly confronted me and asked if I had time for some quick questions. Being a friendly person I stopped and sat down with her. And that’s when it started. She started asking me question that were very personal and when I refused to answer most of them she replied with, “Oh I’m so sorry. On behalf of white people everywhere, I want you to know we care about you and are going to do everything we can to protect you.” She treated me as if I was a puppy when saying that. I stared at her in astonishment to what was just said and how it was said. Was she expecting a thank you? A selfie to put online with the caption Just met the nicest white girl ever! Not all white people are bad! ? I just didn’t understand, and then she proceeded to ask for my phone number so she could ask me questions later if I have time. She really wanted to get a hang onto what I had to say and to absolve herself of any guilt her high school friends gave her flack for. Looking for some way to get back at her republican parents by showing how in tune she is with the Latino community perhaps? This kind of behavior has got to stop. I am not the way for you to feel good about yourself and make you feel like you’re doing some good in the world. A tool for you to make yourself look good in your social resume. The white saviors of the world need to understand that we are not lost causes or people who forever need help.
I don’t exactly have much to do about it, besides telling them off and risk getting into a fist fight where I’m sure I could beat their ass if provoked. But I just can’t do that, because the second I do then all those talks of Latinos being violent and animals are then justified in the minds of bigots everywhere. So, what do I do to retaliate? It’s very cliché but I prove them wrong while also validating their concerns at the same time. I want you to pause and really think about that for a bit. What could I possibly mean by that? Well it means that I go with the norm and what is expected of me. I go and work in construction, I cut trees and spend all day in the heat. I speak Spanish in public and wear the boots and hat when I go somewhere fancy. However, on the other side of the coin I do things outside the norm for me. I write and study English, I speak with a degree that makes the woman with frozen TV dinners in her shopping cart confused. I work as tenderly with my hands building model kits as well as I work with hammers and nail guns. I look just as good in a suit and tie as I can with my fake snake skin boots and tan hat for dancing. That dude with the ugly Oakley glasses, beer gut and thinning hair better watch out because I can write a bad Yelp review about his plumbing business just as well as any lady with a short in the back and long in the front haircut.
And for my final send off, I don’t mean any harsh words to you, unless you really are that kind of person in which case don’t talk to me, but I hope that you gain something from this. Maybe now you can go up to your brown friend and hug them saying “I get it,” before realizing that you just made them uncomfortable. Maybe you read this and yawn because you’ve heard it all before and don’t just want to hear another sob story and expected some crazy twist like me beating the shit out of someone. However you feel about this whole piece (I don’t think its wrong to call it an essay but it isn’t right either) I’d rather you hear it straight from the mouth of someone who lives this kind of life rather than someone with a white savior complex online who thinks they speak for everyone. From the mouths of my family and I.
Ulises Anaya is an English Major with a certificate in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University. He enjoys binge watching Hell's Kitchen and can be reached at: ulises25any@gmail.com
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