De Colores Means All of Us

De Colores Means All of Us – Parts 1 and 2
By Richard Castañeda

Elizabeth Martinez brings up many interesting points regarding the prejudice and injustice many immigrants face when they emigrate to the United States. What I most got out of the reading were all the accounts of the inhumanity by the border patrols agents against Mexican immigrants and civilian violence against immigrants.
It’s very alarming that in the University of Nevada in Las Vegas those two students set the Indian student on fire because they didn’t want any more foreign students on their campus. How desensitized to violence has this society become when random acts of incredible violence, such as murder, becomes a practical answer to the immigration problem?
Martinez’s research reaches in deep, past the race issue and into education. When she brought up the various examples of Mexican history being omitted from more than one textbook that is widely used in Californian schools, I began to think back to my education. Since this book was written around the time that I was still in elementary school, many of the examples actually coincide with my experiences there. I remember reading about The Alamo and how “courageous” my so-called ancestors were in that battle. I remember reading how we tried to “liberate” Mexico from their “failed” political system.
If anything, that actually struck the most to me. Its what came home the most. Unlike many other books that seek to explain social injustice, Martinez does not confine her research only to the plight of Mexicans and Chicanos, she is actually inclusive of other immigrants. The notion, especially in California, is that when one mentions the word, “immigrant,” assumption automatically leads the ignorant, or the not-so-well-informed, to associate that term only with Mexicans and other Latinos.
Martinez gave excellent examples of the violence Asians have experienced. One example stands out the most to me. The Chinese person who was murdered in Detroit by rival car manufacturing workers because they thought he was Japanese and the cause of their lower income. Its extremely hard for me to wrap my mind around the rationale used by those two ignorant workers that killed that innocent man. I believe that to truly understand the reasons behind people’s hatred, you must first understand their educational background. How does a flawed belief become such a mantra to these people? It begins at home and it gets reinforced in schools that employ flawed curriculums that don’t fully explore the truth in our country’s history.
There are countless reasons that may influence a person to react a certain way against another person. Ultimately, its what is taught to us that reinforces those beliefs. Whether this bigotry is taught in school or by parents, one thing remains certain: we need to do a better job of explaining history in a more truthful manner. This country, like many others, was founded in a very corrupt way. Martinez reinforces this sentiment by pointing out the flawed language used by publishers who distribute textbooks to our schools. By sugarcoating the past and not making the truth sting as much, what are we teaching our children? This country made many mistakes that it has yet to apologize for, and the more people don’t implore their government to fess up to their mistakes and to make things right, the more injustices, like the many examples mentioned throughout these 80 pages, will occur. History always repeats itself when we don’t learn it the first time around.