By David Magallanes / Guest contributor
Prejudice has not been a major problem in my life — at least as far as I know. I’ve brushed against it throughout my lifetime, as we all have in one form or another, whether because of our color, religion, politics, or orientation of one kind or another. I’d like to say that I’ve never experienced malicious prejudice, but then I’d have to check the tint of my rose-colored glasses.
Actually, my first awareness of prejudice came from my parents’ stories about their experiences, as well as those of their parents — my “abuelos.” All four of my grandparents had arrived in the U.S. (legally) at about the same time with little preparation, due to the frightening and hurried circumstances of their departure from Mexico. They spoke no English and relied heavily on their children to translate, once those children had enough education to do so. One of my grandmothers was always “shadowed” closely by department store staff when she went shopping in those establishments because they seemed to assume that she was going to steal something. All of my grandparents were devout Catholics. One of my grandfathers was actually ousted from a “white” Catholic church in Los Angeles and told to go to the “Mexican church” further down the street.
Then it was my parents’ turn. When they were growing up, Mexicans were still a relatively new phenomenon in parts of Los Angeles (which is really hard to imagine now), and they were often treated as if they were “colored” — just as the blacks were being treated in other parts of the country at the time. When my father returned from invading Normandy, France, and fighting the Nazis in Germany and Belgium during World War II, he tried buying a home with my mother in Whittier, to the east of Los Angeles. He was told that there were “no more homes for sale” in this white enclave, when in fact other (white) returning soldiers were still buying. My uncle was given the same line. It’s ironic that Whittier now is probably more Mexican than Mexico City. Both my dad and my uncle finally settled in Lynwood, where they were “accepted,” and were amongst the first “Mexicans” to live there. Now — you guessed it — that’s about all there is in Lynwood!
Another uncle had told me about seeing restaurants in Texas where neither dogs nor Mexicans were allowed. He said he wasn’t about to go in. I was starting to become aware that we could be as American as apple pie and baseball, but as long as we looked “Mexican,” there was always the potential for unnecessary and hurtful problems.
My siblings are relatively fair-skinned (and two of them are even blue-eyed, as was one of our grandmothers), but even they didn’t escape the scourge of prejudice. One of my sisters, who is blondish and blue-eyed, was humiliated in front of her fifth-grade class by the Irish monsignor, who admonished her not to eat too many tortillas.
And then it was my turn. My first encounter with raw prejudice was when I was a teenager playing football in a park with my cousins, who are descendants of the same four grandparents that I had (long story). Several “surfer-types” approached and started snarling and calling us — who had been born in the U.S. just as surely as they had — “wetbacks.” I remember being taken aback. After all, what had we done to them? I subsequently learned, of course, that one doesn’t have to do anything to attract prejudicial attacks. I wasn’t about to retaliate and call them whatever the derogatory term for surfers was in that era — mainly because there were many more of them than there were of us!
The next experience that comes to mind was actually quite interesting. I have no proof, of course, that there was any prejudice involved, but it’s entirely possible, and besides, this makes a good story and has a somewhat happy ending.
I was married to a woman who was from a family that looked more obviously “Mexican” (in the Anglo mind, at least) than my family, which has a few healthy liters of European Spanish blood, as well as that from native Mexican sources, coursing through our bodies. On a whim, we decided to look for an apartment in the posh hillside of Ventura, overlooking the ocean. We called to inquire, and the elderly (white) landlords met with us in their home. They talked politely enough with me and my wife, but informed us that no apartments were available. That rang familiar as my family’s stories surfaced in my mind. As I prepared to wrap up the visit, I then told them that I was looking for a place where I could hang my family’s paintings. “Paintings?” They both seemed intrigued. They asked about my art. They seemed to listen carefully as I spoke. I proceeded to tell them about my grandfather’s and my mother’s art; how my grandfather had a career as an artist in Mexico but was forced to flee with his family; that my mother had learned to paint by watching her father. They were fascinated.
Suddenly, the gentleman turned to his wife and said, “Martha, I think we do have one apartment available, don’t we?”
She responded, “Why yes, Harry, I believe we do!” They then told us what the monthly rent would be.
I was slightly stunned. “I’m so sorry, we can’t afford that.”
Then they dropped the price a bit, and I told them that it was still a bit steep for us.
The day after, the husband called us to offer us yet a lower rent. He really wanted us to rent from them! Unfortunately, it was still out of our range. We settled in a more “humble” part of Oxnard, but we weren’t stressing about making ends meet at the end of every month.
Now let’s fast-forward a few decades. One sunny summer afternoon I was at a little park by a harbor with my own children and some of their Mexican-blood cousins. One of the children had to use a restroom, and the only one available was inside the yacht club there. With my parents’ stories forever engraved in my mind, I’m now ashamed to say that I found myself apprehensive over how we were going to be treated, as if we had stepped into a “whites-only” bastion, and that we were “intruding” where we were not going to be welcomed. My usual sense of self-confidence had disappeared out over the ocean somewhere.
I’m equally embarrassed to say that I was “surprised” when a white woman approached me and my child, and kindly asked what she could do for us. When I told her, she smiled and asked us to please use the restroom.
Why was I so surprised? Had I absorbed the pain and humiliation that my parents and grandparents had experienced at the hands of prejudiced individuals? Had I been unconsciously cringing when I sensed —illogically — that I was “not where I was supposed to be”?
Because of my immediate ancestors’ experiences with prejudice, I find myself particularly sensitive to the plight of new arrivals to this country. I don’t obsess about their “legality” or “illegality,” and I try to make their life a little bit easier, even if that consists of simply giving them directions, helping to translate, or showing them how to address an envelope and place a stamp on it correctly when they ask me about these things in the post office. Just looking at me, they seem to know that I’m from here.
In these immigrants, I see my grandparents: mystified, perplexed and downright scared. Helping them is my way of paying back those nameless people — probably all dead now — who must have helped my grandparents along the way.
— David Magallanes is the creator of his own enterprise, Real World Projects, a business primarily dedicated to building distribution outlets for highly reputable products that offer a healthier life and a more vibrant lifestyle. An emerging branch of Real World Projects is Edifiquemos, a Spanish language enterprise dedicated to teaching the Spanish-speaking how to create a profitable international (U.S./Mexico) enterprise with low investment and high earning potential. David may be available for speaking opportunities. To contact him and for more information, you are invited to visit and explore his web sites at www.realworldprojects.info and at www.edifiquemos.com