I have a lump in my throat. This is my last column as a regular columnist for The Daily Cougar. After five years, I must step down in order to devote time needed to complete my thesis for my Masters.
If you were a regular reader of my column, my left-of-center ideological convictions would be easy to identify. Women should be free of sexism in the workforce; people of color still need the help of public policy to achieve equality in a white-supremacist society; transnational corporations are the neo-Nazis; the Republican Party sucks; immigration to all countries should be unrestricted; the Cuba embargo should be lifted and replaced on China; the media needs to hire more blacks and Latinos (hint, hint); a major redistribution of wealth must occur in this country; guns should be banned; free trade treaties should be abolished; bilingual education should be required in all public schools; campaign finance reform should be passed; gays should be allowed to marry; Puerto Rico should be independent; Mexico needs to give power to the Zapatistas; regulation in business needs to be re-instated; religious fundamentalism should be monitored carefully; so should right wing militias; so should police departments; union strikes should be respected; Israel needs to grant Palestinians a state; Ronald Reagan was a racist; and
free speech, around the world, should never be compromised.
No, I do not believe that all whites should be deported back to Europe, that we should kill the rich or that we should stop reading Shakespeare. Comments I have made like these were all satirical. They were meant to create a stir, encourage dialogue and above all, to make you and me think.
In this area I believe I was somewhat successful. I did receive a number of angry letters. I saved every one of them. Some called me a "reverse racist," a communist, the "devil's writer" and a gangster, to name a few. These letters were like fuel to me. I read them, reread them and showed them to my personal friends who often told me, "Damn, Russ, you fooled them again."
The ones that did disturb me were the ones from "my own people" that questioned my "Mexicanism" when I dared to voice an opinion unlike theirs. I received some e-mails from these critics calling me a sell-out and often overheard some pseudo-radical kids claiming that I was writing "for the Latino, and not the Chicano." These letters often caused me to re-evaluate and to reinvent myself - which was painful sometimes. But I would look at these critics and noticed that these same "anti-assimulationists" and more-radical-than-thou "activists" often wrote and said this about me while wearing name-brand clothes and blue contacts, living in their dwellings subsidized by their middle-class daddies and listening to (the irony here) alternative Spanish rock.
We were in this thing together, my friends.
If you know me, you will notice my own contradiction - which is something I will never apologize for. I am a staunch Pro Choicer, but I made the Sign of the Cross before I took the GRE. I criticize Frontier Fiesta every year based on what I believe is right and wrong, yet I went by every once in a while to see what was going on. I did not support Cruz Giovanni Garibay when he ran for SA president three years ago (who became the first elected Hispanic SA President), but I privately rooted for him when he became the leader of the Hispanic Student Association. I love my Latinos, but my Spanish sucks. I'm a proud Chicano, but I am by no means a nationalist. I like liberal norms but desire traditional love.
This is what I tried to leave UH as a columnist. It sometimes pissed off Carl Lewis or whatever-his-name-was-at-the-time UH president. But with all due respect, these were my thoughts on what I observed and the reflection of who I was. Hopefully, we, I the writer and you the reader, will meet again in another newspaper, magazine or (God willing) a book.
But for now, this is our last dance together. Gracias con mucho cario for the last five years of supporting this weekly. Please excuse me, but the world awaits me. Say a prayer. Close your eyes. Another beso. I'm out.
Russell Contreras, a graduate student in history, will be working on his thesis this summer in order to graduate this fall. He can be reached at Russnc @latino.com