I don’t mean to single out Mexican-Americans, but they’re so quick with the bons mots, it’s hard to resist. Here we go…
Armando Navarro, Prof. Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside at Latino Summit Response to Prop 187, UC Riverside, 1/1995
"These are the critical years for us as a Latino community…And that transformation is called ‘the browning of America’. Latinos are now becoming the majority. Because I know that time and history is on the side of the Chicano/Latino community…We’re in a state of war… They know the demographics. They know that history and time is on our side. As one community, as one people, as one nation within a nation as the community that we are, the Chicano/Latino community of this nation. "
Art Torres, former CA state senator, currently Chair of California Democrat Party at UC Riverside 1/1995
“Que viva la causa! …power is not given to you – you have to take it. Remember: [Proposition] 187 is the last gasp of white America in California. Understand that. And people say to me on the Senate floor when I was in the Senate, ‘Why do you fight so hard for affirmative action programs?’ And I tell my white colleagues, ‘because you’re going to need them.’”
Jose Angel Gutierrez, Prof. Univ. Texas at Arlington, founder La Raza Unida Party at UC Riverside 1/1995
“We are the future of America. Unlike any prior generation, we now have the critical mass. We’re going to Latinize this country.”
“We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”
“Our devil has pale skin and blue eyes…” "To the gringos in the audience, I have one final message to convey, ‘Up yours, baby. You’ve had it, from now on.’ "
“We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population… I love it. They are shitting in their pants with fear. I love it…”
Mario Obledo, founding member/former national director of Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), former CA Secretary Health/Welfare on Tom Leykis radio talk show
“We’re going to take over all the political institutions in California. In five years the Hispanics are going to be the majority population of this state.” Caller: “You also made the statement that California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave - did you say that?” Obledo: “I did. They ought to go back to Europe.”
CCIR question to Obledo: “Jose Angel Gutierrez said, ‘We have an aging white America, they are dying, I love it.’ How would you translate that statement?” Obledo: “He’s a good friend of mine. A very smart person.”
Richard Alatorre, former Los Angeles City Councilman at Latino Summit conference in Los Angeles opposing CA Prop. 209 ending affirmative action in 9/1996
“Because our numbers are growing, they’re afraid about this great mass of minorities that now live in our community. They’re afraid that we’re going to take over the governmental institutions and other institutions. They are right, we will take them over…”
Joe Baca, former CA Assemblymember, currently member of Congress at Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 UC Riverside 1/1995 and Southwest Voter Registration Project annual conference in Los Angeles, 6/1996
"We need more Latinos out there…when we look out at the audience and we see, you know, la familia, La Raza (the family, our race), you know, it’s a great feeling, isn’t it a good feeling?
Vicky Castro, former member of Los Angeles Board of Education at Southwest Voter Registration Project Conference, 6/1996
“Que viva la raza, que viva la raza (long live our race)!”
Augustin Cebada, Information Minister of Brown Berets, militant para-military soldiers of Aztlan shouting at U.S. citizens at an Independence Day rally in Los Angeles, 7/4/96
“Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets, we’re here today to show L.A., show the minority people here, the Anglo-Saxons, that we are here, the majority, we’re here to stay. We do the work in this city, we take care of the spoiled brat children, we clean their offices, we pick the food, we do the manufacturing in the factories of L.A., we are the majority here and we are not going to be pushed around. We’re here in Westwood, this is the fourth time we’ve been here in the last two months, to show white Anglo-Saxon Protestant L.A., the few of you who remain, that we are the majority, and we claim this land as ours, it’s always been ours, and we’re still here, and none of the talk about deporting. If anyone’s going to be deported it’s going to be you! Go back to Simi Valley, you skunks! Go back to Woodland Hills! Go back to Boston! Go back to the Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You’re old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you, leave like beaten rats. You old white people, it is your duty to die. Even their own ethicists say that they should die, that they have a duty to die. They’re taking up too much space, too much air. We are the majority in L.A. There’s over seven million Mexicans in L.A. County alone. We are the majority. And you’re going to see every day more and more of it, as we manifest as our young people grow up, graduate from high school, go on to college and start taking over this society. The vast majority of our people are under the age of 15 years old. Right now we’re already controlling those elections, whether it’s by violence or nonviolence. Through love of having children we’re going to take over.”
Fabian Nunez, formerly Alliance for Immigrant Rights, political liaison for L.A. School District, currently Speaker of the CA Assembly at Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 at UC Riverside, 1/1995
"So you can be as revolutionary as you want, you can be Chicano nationalist, you can be Mexican-American, you can be Hispanic, you can believe in the concept of Aztlan…
MEChA (student wing of the Aztlan movement) - motto: “For the race, everything, outside the race, nothing.” - Chants at national conference, Cal State Univ., Northridge, 6/1996
“Viva la raza (long live our race)”
Are these the ravings of a few crackpots, or do they represent the real thinking of the Mexican-American elite? I’d like to think the former, but there are an awful lot of big names there - professors, state legislators, school board members. Could white politicians get away with this sort of thing? How does this compare with racist rhetoric used against immigration? What if Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “Long live our race” in that Austrian growl of his? Would they even bother with a recall or would they just send him back to Hollywood?