Mexican Americans

The recording studio at radio station Power 106 filled up in a hurry. Half a dozen Chicano rap artists, all from Oxnard, had descended on the Burbank-based hip-hop station to take their turn behind the microphone for a new program spotlighting their brand of barrio music. The hosts, a pair of former Oxnard deejays named Khool-Aid and Johnny Cuervo, called it "an 805 invasion."

The news that Mexican immigration to the United States has come to a virtual halt has me thinking about all the ways that will change things. It will affect politics, culture, labor and the nation's racial climate. And it will also change how we see each other and ourselves as Americans and as Californians, me included. I'm one of those mythical native Californians you might have read about. I was born near the corner of Sunset and Vermont in Hollywood. My father was born in L.A. and baptized, as was I, at La Placita Church downtown.

The news that Mexican immigration to the United States has come to a virtual halt has me thinking about all the ways that will change things. It will affect politics, culture, labor and the nation's racial climate. And it will also change how we see each other and ourselves as Americans and as Californians, me included. I'm one of those mythical native Californians you might have read about. I was born near the corner of Sunset and Vermont in Hollywood. My father was born in L.A. and baptized, as was I, at La Placita Church downtown.

STOCKTON -- In the center of a starkly lighted wrestling ring, RJ Brewer glared at the overwhelmingly Latino crowd and spread the flag of Arizona across his back. Buff, mean, white and glistening with baby oil, he snatched the microphone from the referee. "I come from the greatest city in the United States: Phoenix, Arizona!" the wrestler yelled in English. "Phoenix is the only city with a woman in power with the guts to get into the president's face and address the real problem in this country!"

Is there one Mexico or two? That's what Mexican writer and television host Sergio Sarmiento asked me and two other Mexican American writers Tuesday on his weekly show. It's a fundamental question that is actually about Mexicanness: How Mexican are Mexican Americans? Are Mexicans and Mexican Americans siblings? Distant cousins? Strangers? It's a question befitting the historically awkward relationship between Mexico and the U.S, with its long history of conflict and cooperation, affection and distrust.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, U.S. policymakers looked for new ways to understand America's place in the new world. What would be the primary focus of U.S. foreign policy? Who would be our greatest threats? Some academics, among them Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, feared that the absence of an "undesirable other" would weaken our national identity.

For once, the camera is on comedian Paul Rodriguez and he's not trying to be funny. He's just talking. He's doing a sit-down interview for a television documentary on Mexican Americans. So he gets off the stand-up shtick, turns down the show-biz volume and reveals a real person beneath the comic mask. He even lets himself shed a tear. Just one.

Re "Mexican, American as a Single Identity," by Leticia Quezada, Commentary, Dec. 16: Leticia Quezada's column on the benefits of dual citizenship for Americans of Mexican origin treats citizenship as a game rather than a commitment. They leave Mexico for the United States because they find here a society that treats them better and offers economic opportunities, health care, education and public services they could not find in their own country. And now they want dual citizenship so they can choose what they want in both countries?

I am sympathetic to Patrick Osio's idea that the priorities of Mexican immigrants and their children often differ (Commentary, May 3). Yet, as a Mexican American, I know that questions of identity, culture and loyalty are not settled simply. Mexican Americans may spend summers in small villages with their Mexican grandparents, and return in the fall to American history courses at their universities. They feel at home in both places. I believe that they must have a right to both identities, to both languages, to both nations.

Re "Addition to the Melting Pot Requires a New Recipe Book," Commentary, April 2: Jorge Castaneda writes that "Mexicans ... have a major challenge," and that is to regard "our compatriots in the U.S. as part of a Mexican nation in the cultural and ethnic sense." How about this for a major challenge: Stop having babies that you can't feed and have no jobs for! America is not the dumping ground for the Third World. Mike Burns Bakersfield When Mexico has reversed its immigration to the U.S., as Ireland has reversed its immigration, then a comparison between Irish and Mexican immigration will be valid.

After that stint on Comedy Central 's “The Daily Show,” the Tucson Unified school board is probably wishing it had hired a media consultant before trying to explain its position on the district's controversial Mexican American Studies program.  Normally, when people are featured on a television show, they call family and friends and let them know the time and channel. That might not be the case for board member Michael Hicks, who appeared in a segment about the ethnic studies controversy.  Hicks was interviewed by comedian Al Madrigal on the satirical news show Monday about his decision to oppose the school district's Mexican American Studies program, which was shuttered in January to keep the district from losing more than $14 million in state aid. The Tucson school board voted to end the program after Arizona's education chief had ruled the district in violation of a controversial state law banning classes designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

Reporting from San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico Oakland-bred Raka Rich brought the flow of California hip-hop, in Spanish. Puerto Rico's Davila 666 ignited a wild mosh-pit with its Latin-tinged punk. And all kinds of new Mexican acts — as varied as Juan Cirerol of Mexicali and cumbia-rockers Sonido San Francisco — showed that Mexico's independent music scene just might be at its most dynamic in years. Over 12 hours on Saturday, some 4,500 fans gathered to hear more than 50 international acts at a sonically diverse annual music festival called NRMAL.

They were bold enough to call it a revolution. Back in the 1970s, when Chicano art was synonymous with East Los Angeles, its storied murals and its art center, Self-Help Graphics, a group of Mexican American artists decided to break away. They headed north, seven miles, to start their own Chicano arts collective in Highland Park, an area that was still mostly white with little presence of Latino art. "Our mission was to transform Highland Park into a super-revolutionary Chicano town," said artist Richard Duardo.

A few days into 2012, ABC's cross-dressing disaster "Work It" managed to claim Worst Comedy of the Year, but surely CBS' "Rob," which debuts Thursday, comes in a close second. Created by comedian Rob Schneider and based, apparently and tragically, on his own life, "Rob" takes a classic "Bridget Loves Bernie" setup — Anglo man marries Mexican American woman after whirlwind romance and now must meet her family — and manages to make it weirdly offensive to just about everyone, especially comedy lovers.

On Wednesday, 28 seventh- and eighth-graders at Tucson's Mansfeld Middle School followed their familiar routine. They walked into Room 306, sat at their desks and greeted teacher Rene Martinez. But the class they'd known the day before had vanished. No longer can the students discuss Chicano perspectives on history. And no longer can Martinez teach Mexican American studies. After the Tucson Unified School District board voted late Tuesday to suspend the controversial classes to avoid losing more than $14 million in state aid, the students' world shifted.

The Tucson Unified School District voted late Tuesday to suspend its controversial Mexican American studies program rather than lose more than $14 million in funding after the state schools chief ruled the program violated the law. During a raucous session that included passionate public comments and accusations of cowardice, the board voted 4 to 1 to suspend the classes. If it had not, the district would have lost about $5 million in state funding in February, retroactive to last August, and $14.4 million over the fiscal year, according to the state Department of Education.

Were it not for Latinos, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, George W. Bush, would have no credible claim to being a "compassionate conservative." Were it not for his outreach efforts, nobody would be calling Latino voters the soccer moms of the 2000 campaign. In large part, Bush's reputation as an inclusive politician stems from his onetime success in garnering 40% of the Mexican American vote in his home state of Texas.

Tucson's Mexican American studies program remains in violation of state law, Arizona's public schools chief ruled Friday, ordering that millions in state funding be withheld from the school district until the program is dismantled or brought into compliance. John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, said the Tucson Unified School District program was in violation of a new state law prohibiting ethnic studies classes that are deemed to be divisive. Among other things, the law bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or which "promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

Tucson's Mexican American studies program violates state law, an Arizona administrative law judge ruled Tuesday, paving the way for the program's possible demise. Judge Lewis D. Kowal affirmed a prior decision by the state's schools chief that the Tucson Unified School District's program violates a new law prohibiting divisive ethnic-studies classes. John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, had deemed the program in violation in June. Among other things, the law bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people.