Hi. I'm Mr. Mexican-American. You may not have ever heard my story, so here it is.
Growing up I believed that I had no history in my own land. All the heroes in the artists' drawings on the teachers' bulletin boards were either brightly dressed colonists fighting off the British while waving the stars and stripes, Texas revolutionaries wearing raccoon hats, Greek gods, pilgrims or, if I was lucky enough, a portrait of Fredrick Douglass.
I never saw an artist's rendition of anything that looked like my father or my mother, let alone like me. Despite this attempt by the school system to indoctrinate me with ignorance, I know now that I do have a history in this land.
What I did not learn in school, I found out in the books of Mexican-American scholars and writers, all of whom conveyed the amazing notion that my existence in this country went beyond elementary school Cinco de Mayo celebrations and tacos.
Mexican-Americans, I found out, were formidable agents in the creation of the American West - my home.
Blood the same color as mine was shed, discrimination was experienced and backs were broken, all in the name of progress and hope. And after I and my sisters built everything, we gave them Spanish names.
Had I not investigated these stories myself, I might have never known them. I mention all this because I am so absent from your history text books and your pop culture that many are totally unaware of this year, marking the 150th anniversary of a document that granted me so-called citizenship: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
It was back in 1848 that I, despite living here years before Senator Phil Gramm's slave-owner ancestors set foot, was granted permission to stay under U.S. rule.
Because my old country had lost a war with my new, I became the conquered party. I was promised, under this document, that my land titles would be honored and protected, that I would be granted full citizen rights as others and that I would be able to pursue all the things everyone else could.
Overnight, this Mexican-Indian became a Mexican-American. But that document lied. Instead, squatters took my land, and the government did nothing. I was discriminated against and was prevented from voting. All my friends and family members were either hunted down by the likes of the Texas Rangers or shipped back to Mexico during immigration raids - even though they were born here.
My Old World went crumbing down in a matter of a
few decades even though I was a so-called American now. Thank you, America. I am not bitter nor do I want repayments.
Those that caused the violence and shed the tears are all gone now. I am just a footprint of their existence that will not disappear anytime soon. But, unlike others, there are no parades marking my American birthday.
There will be no major speeches about how proud I am to be an American. There will be no resolutions passed declaring that all stolen lands be returned. No, nothing of the sort.
All that will happen will be that I will come to terms with that fact that I'm a Third World child who has always lived in the so-called First.
I will use this 150th year anniversary, not to organize a parade, but to let everyone else know that I am still here. I cannot and will not be kept out of your history books, my history books.
This history must be told, and I will be one voice that will dedicate my life to telling it.
Margins, move out of my way, I'm headed toward to center. Because in the southwestern United States, the center is where I have always been. I was there 400 years ago. I was there 150 years ago.
And with or without any celebration of this stinking lie of a treaty, I shall be there tomorrow.
Russell Contreras
Graduate student in history