We had a general mandatory meeting at the Dinuba public library with all the city employees to discuss the city’s yearly new policies, goals and accomplishments conducted by the community’s top leadership personnel. Usually toward the end of the meeting, each department head took turns at the podium to make specific announcements. “I’m happy to inform everyone that we have nominated Cruz Balderas as Police Officer Of 1992.” I was caught completely by surprise especially after spending a rough rookie season, where I was placed on extended probation. Everybody from the other departments gave me a courtesy applause, but as I returned to my seat I overheard some of the White patrol Officers making stereotyped remarks like “Como!”...Que!...Como!” who I had previously depended on to watch my back while working the streets, but after that fiasco....I wasn’t quite sure anymore. It was bad enough that I had broken a few barriers as the most fluent Spanish speaking cop on the force, which was kind of ironic because I was always considered by my folks to be mas pocho que la chigada! True fact, I was actually recruited by one of the Police patrol Sergeants, the late Bobby Hall, when I was still employed with the Tulare County Sheriff’s department as a jail deputy where I also fell prey to some racial prejudice, for instance, when someone violated my privacy and invaded my employee mailbox and drew a line across “Latino Association”on my member application and wrote the words “wetback,” but instead of becoming offended, I just took it as a fluke and shrugged it off as a cruel “white” joke.
It wasn’t until my rookie year with Dinuba PD that I realized it was the 1960’s all over again...with the on-going fist to cuffs confrontations in the booking room against the Spanish-speaking inmates due to the effortless mis-communication gap between the white cops and the Mexican detainees because the officer felt that he was resisting when the inmate refused to put on a pair of shoes that didn’t even belong to him! Then there was the issue of holding all the Police calls from the Spanish- speaking citizens until I logged on, which not only doubled my workload, but I also responded to a very upset and irritated city resident. Similar incidents also happened with several disgruntled employees from the other city departments without the city giving any optional consideration toward bilingual payI So I bitched and moaned about the overload and city hall finally decided to...now get this...give Spanish lessons to these non-Spanish speaking officers and I was automatically volunteered as one of their part-time tutors.
Needless to say, the project went South quick-like, in fact, there was one incident where I was handing out study guides to these unlikely students and they strongly demonstrated their lack of motivation by throwing the study guides down toward my feet! Oh, I returned the favor alright by not responding to their calls whenever they needed a Spanish-translator, but all of sudden, I found myself attending a mandated English class at a local adult-school because I had made a single spelling error on one of my Police reports due to this barrio kid not having the Police jargon quite pat down just yet, and I also had to report to the Fire Department before my shift began to have my blood pressure check or else I couldn’t go to work that day...I mean..com’on it was 1991 for Christ’s sake! Thank God for Pete Benavides and the MAPA organization parading the streets of our beloved city against racial discrimination because the PD’s attitude quickly changed from the “Como...Que” philosophy to “Hey Cruzer...whats up Bro?” and the city administrators finally agreed to a 3% bilingual pay incentive toward our monthly salary, but at the same time the rebellious non-Spanish speaking officers miraculously recovered and started to speak “El Espanol muy good!”...hmmm...what money can do to you...go figure! There were other minor mishaps that I had to hurdled, but eventually everything worked out for me.
Chicano derived from a recent term utilized by the Mexican descendants as a reflection of their unique culture, but are born in Mexico though the term “Chicano” was first mentioned in the 1930’s in California when the poor Mexican immigrants were imported to the U.S to provide cheap labor where one of the despondent workers was a native “Nahuatl” tribe from the state of Morelos, Mexico, who described himself as a Mexicano, but because of his heavy dialect, he pronounced the word “Meshicanos”, which later became of a insulting nature because he was actually ridiculed for speaking in his own native tongue. Several years later, the term “Chicano” was appropriated by the Mexican-American activists, who took part in the 1960’s Brown Power movement in the U.S Southwest and is now use nationally widespread.
It’s been reported that our ancestors or Mexicanos traced back as far as 1200 BC to a ancient society known as the “Olmecs,” which runs farther then the breaking ground of Americas’ “Plymouth Rock” pilgrims of 1621. Chicanos was most likely developed here in the states, but no matter how you look at it our ultimate background comes from the antique country of Mexico where its tribal ancestors reach as far back as 23,000 years ago and led the pathway for the Mayans, the Teotihuacans, the Toltecs and the “Aztecs” or “Mexicas” (A indigenous people from the northern valley of Mexico since the 12th century, who at the time of the Spanish conquest led by Hernando Cortes in the early 16th century, were a small nomadic tribe that dominated Northern Mexico and lived on the margins of civilized Meso-America). They were all fearless warriors and skillful builders, who formed a highly specialized and stratified society carefully adjusted to the land and remained the most extensively documented of all civilization of the 16th century leaving invaluable records of all aspects of life linked to modern archaeological inquiries and studies of ethnologists, linguists and modern historians. Although the conquering Spanish armies were able to defeat the fierce Aztec warriors, the Spaniards avoided battling against the best of the Aztec warriors because most of them were succumbed to smallpox, which was brought by the Spanish army, because the Aztecs had no immune system to fight off the new disease and it killed millions.
Eventually, a protracted struggle resulted in the creation of the New Mexican empire led by a Catholic priest name Miguel Hidalgo Costillawho touched off the revolution against Spain and best remembered in Mexican history as the Father of Mexico’s Independence. He was later captured by the Spaniards and executed, but was succeeded by Father Jose Morelos, whose participating forces were able to defeat the intruding French forces fighting off the undefeated army of the Great Napoleon the 3rd, which also became the birth of Mexico’s Cinco De Mayo celebration. In 1821, the Treaty Of Cordoba was signed, which established Mexico’s Independence from Spain and in 1846 The Treaty Of Guadalupe was signed putting an end to the Mexican-American war where Mexico sold its Northern territory to the U.S for $15 million dollars and finally under the leaderships of Pancho Villa, Alvaro Obregon and Emiliano Zapata did the bloody Mexican Revolutionary war of 1910 place a end to the political system of the Spanish conquest and its large-landed estates.
After the Spanish invasion of the 1600’s, Mexico became part of the Spanish empire for the next three centuries until the early 1800’s where the Mexican people were generally divided by 4 groups, which was associated with purity of the Spanish bloodline starting with the first-class Spaniards, who were born in the country of Spain, the Creoles-who have a Spanish backgroundbut born in Mexico and the under-class Mestizos, who were of Spanish ancestry with traces of Mexican indian blood and eventually made into slaves and forced to labor in the mining caves.
The U.S based its dollar on the Mexican peso
IT's no wonder we are such a proud people! Look at our history background and do your own research and you will discover the remarkable authenticity behind our ancient tradition, which shows how our roots, in one form or another, have originated from the beloved country of Mexico may it come from a first or third generated bloodline and yet here we are currently getting Trump-line in a territory (California) that was once occupied by our great ancestors.
In 1941, the United States initiated the Braceros program, which is s Spanish term for manual laborer, and recruited workers from Mexico to work in the agricultural industry where they faced harsh working conditions in the orange fields, grape vineyards, tomatoes fields and the lists continues on, but along with the intensive heat from the blazing sun in the summer or the chilling gusting winds of the cold winter months, these hard-working desperadoes also faced every day discrimination by white employers, low wages, broken labor contracts, no transportation back to Mexico ``whenever they finished with the season and very poor living conditions when they were promised basic human rights, adequate shelter and good sanitation as part of the contract. This scenario seemed very disturbing to the high officials of Mexico especially since these Braceros were doing a invaluable service for the United States and the Americans would have nothing to do with working in the agriculture fields. My Father-in-Law, Benjamin Franco Corrales, was one of these daring men. A very modest man of a few words, who worked hard in the fields to support his family, and even though he rarely speaks of the mis-treatments he had faced as a Bracero, his weathered-aging face and calloused hands show evidence of the sub-standard living conditions he endured where he even had to pay 10% of his weekly paycheck, which was a mandatory deduction, to pay for his return trip to Mexico, which never happened. This program finally ended in 1964. Lawsuits in the 1990’s and 2000’s were initiated by the ex-Braceros to get their money back and they were only reimbursed approximately $3,500 a piece. A estimated $500 million dollars are still owed to the Braceros today as they continue to fight for their hard earned money that they had so sacrificed.
Where We At Today: 2016
The Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, Mexicanos have migrated into this country (that was once ours) once again and have settled in practically every state from the East coast to the West coast, the North end to the South end and everything in-between, but this time we are here to stay...baby! We definitely need to win federal political power as we slowly have at the state level, for example, Texas, New Mexico and parts of California. The White House just begun to accept our people in high powerful positions, but there is still a few vacant seats that need our racial support that would directly benefit us and the future of our children, but we need to group together as one and pick out the right candidate, who is fair, honest with good integrity, have the same beliefs and goals to represent us and lead our people in a forward motion to obtain the same political influence in this country as other majorities where our decisions to make the laws, statutes and propositions are heard and followed. We need to make our presence known at the House because as of yet we have only filled the following positions:
U.S President-None
Secretary Of Education-Lauro Cavazos,1998-1990
Vice President-None
Secretary Of State-None
Secretary Of Treasury-None
Secretary Of Defense-None
Secretary Of Homeland Security-None
Secretary Of Health And Human Services-None
Secretary Of Agriculture-None
Secretary Of Veterans Affairs-None
U.S Attorney General-Alberto Gonzalez (1st Latino)-2005-2007
Secretary Of Interior-Manual Lujan Jr, 1989-1993,
Ken Salazar, 2009-2013
Secretary Of Commerce-Carlos M. Gutierrez, 2005-2009
Secretary Of Labor-Hilda Solis, 2009-2013
Thomas Perez, current
Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development
Henry Cisneros, 1993-1997
Mel Martinez, 2001-2003
Julian Castro, current
Secretary Of Transportation-Federico Pena(1st Latino)-1993-1997
Secretary Of Energy-Fedrico Pena (same person)-1997-1998
As you can see it wasn’t until the early nineties when Latinos came into these top Cabinet positions totaling 5 seats with a Republican President and 8 positions with a Democratic President. Only 1 female Latino!
What Needs To Be Done:
We need to promote a concrete political influence of our elite heritage and recruit Hispanic candidate(s), who are fair, honest and aggressive with good integrity and strong intentions that will paint a consistent positive impact in the Mexican-American (Chicano) community nationwide inducing the racial ring of prejudice and stereotyping, which of course will never completely go away, but we need to tighten the lid so that its negative effect will not interfere with the opportunistic passage of Mexican-American professionalism, both politically and in the other realms of skilled-learned occupations (Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Judges..etc) that will help continue to curb this great nation of ours to the highest point and maintain its powerful economic dynasty not only to the benefit of our race and culture, but for the good and not-to-distant future of our Latino children. The meaning behind the word Raza not only includes the Chicanos or Mexican Americans of our nation, but also towards our original bloodline, the Mexicanos of our neighboring country of Mexico as well. Our Mexican Great Ancestors (Abuelitos) are our true fore-fathers not George Washington or Benjamin Franklin!
Together we can be United...and get Noticed! Together we can Build...only by taking Action! Together we can Succeed...and our Raza will always be Remembered...Forever! Buenas Salud Mis Hermanos!
Mexican battle against Napoleon’s French army “Battle Of Puebla 1862”
Mexicanos celebrate this event every Cinco De Mayo.
THE MEXICO FLAG
Green represents Hope and Victory
White represents Purity of Mexican Ideas
Red represents the Bloodshed for those who fought for Mexico’s Independence
