USLT201 Midterm Essay

Dear Senator Obama/McCain:

My name is Julian Aldana, and I am a resident of Washington, DC. I am writing to you as a concerned citizen and Mexican-American, who is disappointed by your lack of focus on the largest minority group in the United States – Latinos. According to some estimates, by the year 2020, “Hispanics/Latinos will number fifty-two million, representing 24 percent of the U.S. population (del Pinal and Singer 1997). By 2050, Hispanic/Latino Americans could total ninety-seven million” (Arreola, 22).

Despite recent concerns that our numbers are becoming too great, we have been underestimated for a long time, partly because many assumed that we did not care about politics, and/or were illegible to vote. I feel as though that stigma still exists today, and I cannot help but feel insulted, being that Latino populations have existed within the modern-day boundaries of the country since the 16th century. As a third-generation American on one side, my mother taught me the great privilege and responsibility of voting, and despite my grandmother’s ability to walk sometimes, she makes it her duty to get up on election day and get to the polls. My father, having been born in Mexico City, has no voting rights in this country, but still went out to Las Vegas, Nevada and volunteered for you, senator Obama, campaigning to Spanish-speaking residents.

The fact of the matter is that we are here, and not only are our numbers growing, but we are becoming better educated, more involved, and we are making use of the laws that protect and serve us. In the past, our rights were abused, beginning with the betrayal of “The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,” which gave us rights to the lands that many early Mexican-Americans had already settled. “The property rights … guaranteed in … the treaty … were not all they seemed. In. U.S. courts, the property rights of former Mexican citizens in California, New Mexico, and Texas proved to be fragile. Within a generation the Mexican-Americans became a disenfranchised, poverty-stricken minority” (Castillo). Despite many attempts by the government of the United States to get the early Mexican-Americans out, they stayed, and although they suffered greatly, it only serves as a homage to their resilience and courage as a people.

It was not long before Cubans and Puerto Ricans came into the mix, either. The government’s eagerness to acquire new land and new expand the great American empire outward only brought more Latino people inward, what with Puerto Ricans being granted American citizenship with the Jones Act of 1917. Poverty and war in other Central and South American countries brought even more Latino people here, especially in the later part of the twentieth century, thus creating a myriad rainbow of people, some as fair as Irish pixies, others as dark as the goddess Kali. This diversity has created a great rift between Latino people, most of whom share not much more than a language, a religion, and sometimes, not even that.

The terminology used to address us sometimes is a bit offensive because we are rolled together as though we are the same. I am one of those who reject “Hispanic” on the basis that it was invented in the 1970s by the Census Bureau, “which obliterates our indigenous and African heritage, and recognizes only the European, the colonizer” (Martinez 2). There are also various indigenous groups who do not consider themselves “mestizos,” or of mixed blood, and to complicate the issue even further, Brazilians were colonized by the Portuguese, not the Spanish. Others do not consider “Latino” that much better, although I am not afraid to embrace it a little more than the former. I am Latin American of origin, not only because of my family’s roots in Mexico, but because I was born in California, which was once Mexico and still, to this day, is very Mexican.

I felt compelled to write you because of all of this – because we have been largely ignored, maltreated, incorrectly named, yet are quickly becoming the demographic that you and your political descendants will have to win over. And the issues we’re concerned with are not new ones.

I feel as though terrorism is being used as a vessel to promote racism and fear, not only of our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters overseas but of ethnic minorities who run, jump and swim the Rio Grande to get (better) jobs. I want every American to feel safe, but I also don’t want my father nor myself to be pulled over in Maryland or Virginia because of how we look. I feel that a wall is the wrong answer, and I beg you (and your fellow congressmen) to remember what happened in Berlin when the city was split into two. I want us to embrace language and culture, and not institute an official language because we’re afraid we might loose the one of our American forefathers.

Should you be elected the next president of the United States, I hope that you will make it your duty to protect the people from unjust laws and legislation that is sure to come your way. Latino issues should not only be on the table, but a priority. You should have a plan for the immigrants who are living here illegally, and how we can reward the productive ones with a path to citizenship. You should not only make good on your promises to make education a priority, but also make sure that it is harder to take money away from the public school system. And as Latinos continue to have the lowest health care coverage in the United States, we hope that you will find a way to make health care a priority in your administration.

And lastly, but most of all, we are all Americans, and we are all in it together, and all it will take to realize this is to look at personal history, Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, whites, and all the people in between – we are all immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and we all love this country.

Sincerely, Julian Aldana