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As many other community leaders, I was temporarily stunned and yet very curious at the new stereotypes being created for La Raza as I read the incendiary article that appeared in the Denver Post on August 29th entitled, “Forest Service lights flap with “tortilla” alert. I wonder what new caricatures are going to be fashioned and how they will be branded once the media and comic strips hit the marketplace. Let me take a stab at it in an attempt to transform a tragedy into a parody.
Instead of snorting tequila; Mexicanos are now tecate guzzlers; although forest rangers could not find lemon cascaras and granules of salt among the debris. La Raza will continue to take siestas, but in the woods. Our status as campesinos will not change; but farm workers will be growing a new kind of weed, no longer in our unkempt front yards, but in forests. They will no longer light candles at Sunday masses, but rather torch up pipes full of marijuana, until they experience visions about our new oppressors. Chicano and Mexicano tunes have been replaced with Spanish music; our main dietary food continues to be tortillas but instead of spreading butter on them, we will spread scrumptious spam. Gang membership has now been shifted to drug cartels. Our community wrappers are now characterized as coming from tortilla packages tossed on lonely mountain paths; not from the community’s spoken word artists. Don’t forget to include chile picoso in our new quesadillas. Wow, is someone in a jam!
Be careful though, federal scouts are still on the look out for 1949 Chevys, low riders and broken down carruchas, with hot tags and people wearing rags. Cowboy fiddlers are going to have a field day as they create a pervasive racist mantra whose melodies will spread like wildfires.
I attended the meeting organized by Chicana/o community leaders last week regarding the incident in the Forest Department. Rick Cables, Gil Quintana and other Regional Forest Administrators graciously accepted an invitation to dialogue. I was expecting at least one of them to be wearing a Smokey the Bear hat, with a felicitous smile ready to intercede with La Raza as a remedy to a social malady that never seems to fade away. It is called racism and no matter how it is framed, its odious stench irks our collective social consciousness. Instead, the federal administration sent over interlocutors, petty foggers, ready to quibble and rationalize comments about the aforementioned issued, euphemistically referred to now as racial profiling. The Feds were on an expedition to stop the spreading of an emotional fire as infuriated leaders’ hurled equally inflamed commentary at our guests. The steam was let out of the valve; but the fire is still burning.
It appears that our public servants made a presentation to forest employees geared towards providing public safety instructions for campers. It seems that Mexicanas/os have changed from being peones on haciendas to pot growers on marijuana plantations springing up in the forests. Let me add that tecate cans were no where to be found in the pictures of the rubbish that was a grotesque characterization of any group. What came to mind was that, “here are those dirty Mexicans at it again.” I guess there are stereotypes that will never disappear.
What perturbed me the most were comments made about the “raids” in the forests in search of “a magnitude of illegal marijuana cultivation activities that are occurring.” When asked about whether forest civil servants collaborate with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, I received cold negation, supreme denial. A request for policies governing this part of forest operations was made. There was admission that sometimes the marijuana growing scoundrels are turned over to immigration officials. Racial profiling must enter the formula as apparent pot growers and drug smugglers are apprehended and often deported.
Towards the tail end of the meeting, the heat subsided as rationality also interceded. Tomas Ogas, Executive Director of LARASA suggested that forest service personnel engage in cultural sensitivity training in order to have unfortunate mishaps from becoming catastrophes. An apology in English and Spanish is in order to La Raza whose numbers are growing exponentially, whose buying power supports this economy and whose labor during this economic recession is direly needed. A commitment was made by the forest rangers to engage in a strategic development process to avoid any future incidents.
The Feds came with a sincere mea culpa and offered the cup of reconciliation. We accepted and retreated. Don’t let the fire burn out.
The struggle continues.
Dr. Ramón Del Castillo is an Independent Journalist.
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