The story behind Against Mexico/This column was distributed by Scripps Howard News Service through the Hispanic Link News Service.
We made the drive north to San Antonio in the spring, a caravan carrying a class of fourth graders from small town South Texas. It was the 1980s and the nuns had excused us from wearing our plaid navy blue uniforms. I was a gangly thing in my Lee jeans, ill-fitting blouse and sneakers, all freckles and excitement. The adults ushered us into the Alamo where I learned that a band of freedom fighters had rebelled against the ruthless Mexican dictator Santa Anna in the fight for liberty and freedom. Those boys fought them Mexicans to give us the freedom we have today, I was told, naturally the story was tattooed onto my mind because on that day I learned that we, who called ourselves ‘Mexicans,’ were descended from the ‘bad guys.’ In Texas anyone with a Spanish surname is a ‘Mexican’ and whites are labeled ‘Anglos.” In my mind the fight for freedom, for America, was inherently tied to ‘fightin’ them Mexicans’.
Over Easter weekend last year, unusually heavy rains had blessed much of Texas with a carpet of wildflowers in reds, lavenders and tiny delicate crowns of blue. The reenacted mass execution of Texian rebels by Mexican ‘soldados’ at Goliad –at a site of the ‘Texas Revolution–’ had just wrapped up. A little boy, Boe, sighed and said Mexicans had killed his ancestors during the 1836 battle. “The Texians were the good guys and the Mexicans were the bad guys,” he said. His friend, Jarah Benavides, shyly smiled and said: “Because we’re Mexicans they look at us like we’re the bad guys.” I slipped off and slammed the door to my pick-up truck with tears streaking down my face. Thirty years go by and little girls still grow up believing they are the ‘bad guys.’ Three decades of ‘progress’ and some die because of that belief.
The year before Shawna Forde and two accomplices burst into the home of nine-year-old Brisenia Flores. Flores’ father was shot and killed. Forde, a member of the Minutemen had set out to rob homes to fund a border vigilante group. She was convicted in the shooting deaths earlier this year. According to Brisenia’s mother, the shooter turned to Brisenia who begged, “please don’t shoot me.” Brisenia was shot in the face at point blank range.
Lost in the circular arguments about ‘border security’ and ‘what part of ‘illegal don’t you understand’ is the payoff for these self-appointed heroes. Fighting Mexicans is part of our national history, and a national myth that created our image of heroes. Fighting Mexicans is at work when political candidates with precious few original ideas propose ‘sending troops to the border’ to resolve the complex tragedy unfolding there. Fighting Mexicans is a wide thread embedded within our national fabric that allows some to write off hate as a natural byproduct of a frustrated society. Fighting Mexicans is the mythical and historical context that explains why killers/attackers are at times supported as ‘heroes.’ “Very typically these men see themselves a valiantly defending their community,” Jack Levin, an expert on hate crimes, told me. “They believe they are carrying out the unspoken wishes of the community.”
With the invaluable support of Latino Public Broadcasting, I returned to the reenacted ‘battle sites’ to explore the murky intersection of myth and history. Our myths simplify the complexities that riddle Texas history and the stories we tell ourselves about who can claim the mantle of ‘American.’ Through the thoughtful reflections of the men who recreate those historic battles, as actors—white and Latino—we discover the enduring power of myth in creating the image we have of ourselves and of the other, scars carried by grown men for decades.
From them came “Against Mexico-the making of heroes and enemies” a short documentary on PBS, where you will not find bad guys or good guys, but an homage to the history of my home state, a story, I hope, helps to salve the wounds from the myths that define and confine us. Against Mexico honors the little girl I once was, the little girl surrounded by wildflowers that spring day, and the one that begged for her life before she died.
