BRAVO ROAD with DON FELÍPE 12.08.13 “AMERICAN BY MANIFEST DESTINY”
Posted in Blogs,Bravo Road with Don FelípeDecember 8, 2013No comments
AMERICANS BY MANIFEST DESTINY AND FIAT, NOT IMMIGRATION.
The old saw in American mythology is that we’re all immigrants, Not true! Not true by any stretch of the imagination. In particular, Native Americans are not immigrants—they are First Nation Americans, here before the arrival of the Europeans to the Americas. These First Nation Americans include all the indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of Europeans to the American continent.
In origin, Mexicans of the conquest generation per the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) were not immigrants. They became Americans by fiat opting to stay with their homeland albeit now part of the United States per the
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) ratified by Mexico and the United States. How many Mexicans chose to stay with the dismembered territory of the Mexican Cession is hard to say. Some estimates like Carey McWilliams’ in North From Mexico put that figure at 75,000, rejected by Mexican American historians today who think the figure was more likely closer to 3 million.
Puerto Ricans are not immigrants. They became Americans by conquest as a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898, though legally they became Americans by the Jones Shafroth Act of 1917 signed by Woodrow Wilson. Moreover, in 1904 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans could not be barred from traveling to the U.S. mainland without travel documents. Of 
the 8 1/2 million Puerto Ricans some 4.5 million live in the continental U.S. and are referred to as Newyoricans, though the Puerto Rican diaspora in the continental U.S. is extensive.
Overlooked until Filipino independence in 1948, Filipinos were American citizens from 1898 until July 4, 1948, when president Truman signed the declaration of Filipino independence. Despite the fact that Spain in the Philippines was of longer duration than Spain in Mexico, Filipinos are not considered as American Hispanics, though they should be. In the 48 years of the Filipino presence in the American hegemony, as a territory then as a commonwealth (like Puerto Rico), Filipinos were considered as American citizens and not as immigrants. Technically, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II was an attack on American soil. During those 48 years of the Philippines as an American territory many Filipinos migrated to the continental United States as American citizens, not as immigrants.
As an American possession, American citizenship was conferred on Panamanians residing in the Panama Canal Zone with recognition and travel rights as American citizens. For purposes of law, all territory under the control of the federal government is considered part of the “United States.” There are a number of territories that fall under the constitutional purview of the United States, including The Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Marianna Islands. None of those populations are considered immigrants to the United States.
All in all, African Americans are not immigrants, having been brought first to the English colonies of North America and then to the United States as slaves from Africa by English settlers and slave traders. Unlike other non-immigrant groups in the United States, African Americans are more varied in origin. Though the same could be said of American Hispanics as a general group, significant clusters of Hispanics from specific Latin American nations abound in the United States, none of them larger than 1 percent of the total Hispanic population with the exception of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans.
The original Hawaiians were not immigrants though they were a motley aggregation of Pacific people. On Jul 7, 1898, President McKinley signed the INK , Newlands Resolution which annexed Hawaii to become the Territory of Hawaii. On 22 February 1900 the Hawaiian Organic Act established a territorial government with Sanford Dole, the former President of the Republic of Hawaii, appointed governor by President McKinley. The territorial legislature convened for the first time on 20 February 1901. Like Puerto Rico, Hawaii became a territory of the United States becoming a state on March 18, 1959.
There are other Americans whose ancestors were, strictly speaking, not immigrants to the United States, Americans whose
forbearers were granted asylum for a number of reasons by the United States. Since 1959, for example, large numbers of Cubans were granted political asylum in the United States from Cuban communism. Many Lao Hmong war refugees resettled in the U.S. following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975. Beginning in December of that year, the first Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S., mainly from refugee camps in Thailand and granted asylum under the Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. There are thousands of individuals—perhaps hundreds of thousands—who have been granted asylum in the United States who are not immigrants to the United States.
It may seem like a piddling argument, but the assertion that the United States is a nation of immigrants is not correct. That the United States is “a nation of nations” is more verifiable. The American people are a people from everywhere on the globe, giving credence to the song “We are the World.” Almost everywhere in the United States, we see the clustering of people from different parts of the world. That clustering is what gives American culture “sabor’—as we say in Spanish.
Nothing in this text is meant to diminish or negate the immigrant character of the United States, a character that has, indeed, burnished the image of the nation with a luster of innovation and challenge. The stamp of those great waves of German, Irish, Slav, Italian, Asian immigrants, and others to the United States is everywhere evident in the country in customs and traditions, in architecture and cuisine, in music and literature, in countless ingrained ways that go almost unnoticed.
When asked “who we are?” we don’t say “American” to each other. We say “I’m German, I’m French, I’m Irish, I’m Italian, I’m Chicano, I’m Brazilian, and so on. When explaining that I’m Mexican I emphasize that I’m mexican with a lower case “m” and American with a capital “A.” I was born in the United States. I served in the Marines during World War II in the American, Pacific, and China theaters of operation.
I’m not an immigrant. My mother’s family—the Gasca’s—are descendants of the 16 families from the Canary Islands of Spain as settlers of La Villita in 1731—the first settlement of San Antonio, Texas—who were not immigrants to the United States which did not become a nation until 1776, a few years after 1731. The Gasca’s became Americans by Manifest Destiny and fiat.
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Copyright 2013 by Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca.
To contact Dr. De Ortego: Philip.Ortego@wnmu.edu
IMMIGRATION
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Regarding inroads into Hollywood, there are signs of solid potential success for Latinos. Progressive, sensible change doesn’t come easily in ossified institutions, and the unions, production companies and studios of Hollywood are certainly no exception. It takes activism and constant pounding on doors (backed up by genuine artistic talent) to create ans seize opportunities for Latinos in Hollywood. It’s been a battle since the days of outrageous stereotypical portrayals of Latinos in the 1930s. Things are changing, however, glacially.
SPORTS
Luís Torres is the author of “Doña Julia’s Children: The Life and Legacy of Educational Reformer Vahac Mardirosian.” Available online at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com.
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Senator Frank Lautenberg was the last surviving veteran of WWII to serve in our United States Congress. I mention this not only to honor him and his service to our country, but to lament the passing of something even greater — a binding experience of American commonality; a common cause around which to rally. Our American hearth.
Then Senator Obama spoke of our ever increasing political hostilities in his book, The Audacity of Hope, and suggested that one reason for the lack of civility was that there are fewer reminders of our past common greatness; such as WWII. In the 1950s and 60s, nearly every person serving in Congress had served in WWII. This immediate memory of brothers in arms against a common enemy made it easier to see those on the other side of the aisle, not as mortal enemies, but only temporary ones. The debater on the floor was also a fellow veteran, an ally in defeating fascism and saving our Republic.
an American flag on the moon. Here again, we were united against a common enemy and beat the Soviets to the moon. We were Americans, and we were great!
While accommodating new voices and ideas requires adjustments, we have been electing a more diverse congress for decades now, so this alone cannot be a major culprit in creating the discord we have now. The last truly unifying event that we experienced together as a nation was 9/11. American flags were everywhere, people were treating one another with kindness and compassion, and we all felt the enormous pain of our great loss. It is unfortunate that this good feeling and sense of commonality was too short-lived due to the controversial manner in which we invaded Iraq. Before long, the compassion we shared with one another and that the world lavished upon us after the attack, had turned into 1960s-style protests against the war. Even natural disasters are now sources of controversy, it seems. Didn’t we all used to agree about disaster relief?
end of the world? Is it only in the face of terror that we can unite and call one another sister and brother? Do we need a new common enemy? If so, what or who? Our enemies are not as easily identifiable as they used to be. How do we get our American Mojo back?
This may sound like a lame suggestion, but how about rejoicing in our greatness, past and future? Do we need a greater reason to see one another as patriots than just having the honor of calling ourselves and one another American? I know that every American has their own idea of what patriotism is. Even though I often abhor the comments I hear, I am really happy that people care enough to want in on the discussion; the ongoing discussion of what it means to be American. It is sad to me that more people don’t participate in our great and ongoing American experiment.
Having retired from the practice of law, Irene Daniel is now focused on a second career as a writer and activist. She is a second-generation Mexican-American, native Arizonan who transplanted to Los Angeles to attend the UCLA School of Law, and now calls LA home. She lives in Eagle Rock with her husband Ken and her black lab Maggie.
Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, Ph.D. (English, University of New Mexico, ‘71) is
Dr. Rodolfo Francisco Acuña is a historian, educator and social activist. In 1969, he co-founded the Chicana/o Studies Department at San Fernando Valley State College (later called California State University at Northridge). This was arguably the first department of Chicana/o Studies in the nation. Dr. Acuña served as its first chair. Because of his pioneering role in developing Chicano Studies as a respected academic discipline he is often referred to as “the father of Chicano Studies. To contact Dr. Acuña: hchsc003@csun.edu
Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D. is author of The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories (2009, Outskirts Press), which has won four national awards. Her short stories, poems, essays, book reviews, and other non-fiction have been published in literary and academic journals, literature textbooks, anthologies, blogs, and regional media off and on since the 1970’s. Her first poetry chapbook, Breath & Bone (Finishing Line Press, 2011) was a semi-finalist in a national poetry chapbook competition. Dr. Reyna is an adjunct professor at California State University, Los Angeles. She is a regular contributor of book reviews for Latinopia.com. Her website is 
In 1967, at the height of the debate over the war against Vietnam, the renowned linguist and MIT Professor, Noam Chomsky, took the apologists for U.S. policy in Southeast Asia to task in an essay titled “The Responsibility of Intellectuals.” In his compelling essay Chomsky echoed and cited Dwight McDonald, a public intellectual of an earlier generation, who in 1944 published an equally powerful critique of U.S. policy in the Second World War, titled The Responsibility of Peoples: An Essay on War Guilt.
The various Latino communities are at the center of this struggle over who belongs, and not simply because of our growing numbers but also because of the complexity of our biological, cultural, economic, political and social makeup. We do not fit the neatly into those racial or religious or relational categories that have historically facilitated exclusion. Notwithstanding our diverse national and cultural origins, we have been constructed as a homogeneous population. Despite our different histories we are characterized as recent arrivals and undocumented immigrants. In spite of evidence to the contrary we are imagined as monolingual in Spanish and resistant to learning English; incapable of and antagonistic to learning; unambitious and dependent on the public weal; debased and inclined to criminality.
This society has prided itself on being classless, has denied the centrality of privilege, has advanced a master narrative that individuals and not society create opportunity and that education and ambition trump advantage when it comes to socio-economic mobility. Yet even Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, who a decade ago declared us as intellectually deficient, is telling us these days that we are now a highly classist society. He calls it a cultural divide rather than a class divide, but Murray does not shrink away from the fact that the divide is the result of advantage, particularly educational advantage. Neither race nor ethnicity nor gender, Murray argues, but rather cultural values and the advantage those values provide drive the great societal divide, separate the 1% from the 99%, or the 53% from the 47%.
This protectionism is manifesting itself domestically in the criminalization of immigrants; in the incarceration of minority youth and young adults; in the disenfranchisement of citizens of color; in the denial of the protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution; in the privatization of opportunity; and in a hyper-nationalism marked by racial, religious and cultural resentment.
At the center of any discussion of the portents for our community are, of course, its demographics. We are a youthful and growing population and that has major implications for American society. Young people can do something that old people can’t: reproduce themselves. Our numbers will continue to grow even as “their” numbers will diminish and, as the majority population grows older it will more and more require our services and support.
Following World War II, post-secondary education contributed not only towards greater
In retrospect, my statement may have overreached. To be sure, there is considerable social integration occurring in the workforce, but it is principally at the lower levels of the economy. Most Latinos, however, work alongside other Latinos in low-income occupations. Few work with more than one peer in professional or in mid-level managerial environments. And Latinos remain one and onlys at the upper levels of the professional, managerial or director classes.
Meanwhile the two primary political parties of this nation are vying to determine which can alienate Latinos the most, whether by dismissing, marginalizing, de-enfranchising, criminalizing, incarcerating, or deporting members of our community. Republicans believe that the worthy among us share their values; Democrats believe they are the default mode for the rest of us. In both cases our presence in those parties is still 0more symbolic than substantive.
Unlike any other American population, we represent a significant threat to a hegemony that was initiated almost four hundred years ago on the eastern seaboard of this nation and that for the past two centuries has extended through the hemisphere. The question before us is what kind of society and nation we will have: theirs or ours; an exclusive one or an inclusive one; a society informed by justice and opportunity or one marked indelibly by privilege? The challenge before us is to offer a different vision from the reigning one and to realize that vision.
We have a profound claim on this nation, one that goes back to the pre-Columbian history of the Americas. Our ancestors—whether of African, Asian, European, or indigenous origin—occupied it, settled it, developed it, and enriched it. The consolidation of the nation was realized by a war against Mexico and its imperial reach by the war against Spain. Those wars incorporated us into the nation if not into its society. The 20th Century was marked by our fight against de jure exclusion from its institutions. At the beginning of the 21st Century, despite signal victories in that struggle, de facto exclusion continues and de jure exclusion looms once again.
Thus the importance of affirming our rights as members of this society, of assuring that its protections extend to us, of staking claim to its benefits, of marking our historical presence in the establishment of this nation and our centrality to its future; and of taking ownership of its institutions. It is our responsibility as the educated and the educators to do so on behalf of our entire community, but in particular for those who are most vulnerable to attack.
It is in our interests to advocate for and seek to revitalize the ideals of this society: liberty, justice, and freedom. Liberty, in the sense of opportunity for all. Justice, in the sense of equal protection under the law for all and not just for the few. Freedom, to which much lip service but little substance is given: freedom with respect to movement, to speech, to religious worship, to artistic and cultural expression; freedom of expression and of assembly; and freedom from want, from fear, from exclusion, from incarceration, and from deportation.
Addressing that challenge and meeting that objective are difficult undertakings, but is it not complexity that drives us as intellectuals? Is it not our métier as academics to seek out the complexities that inform apparently simple matters? Are we not scholars trained to address complexity? Is it not our intellectual purpose to seek out the answer, the solution, the key to complex problems? Is it not our charge when faced with complexity to break it down into its constituent parts and give it clarity?
Dr. Arturo Madrid is the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University and the recipient of the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities in 1996, awarded by the National Endowment of the Humanities. Prior to joining the faculty of Trinity University in 1993, Madrid served as the founding president of the Tomás Rivera Center, the nation’s first institute for policy studies on Latino issues, a position he held from 1984 to 1993. In addition to having held academic and administrative appointments at Dartmouth College, The University of California, San Diego, and the University of Minnesota, he has also served as Director of the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) as well as National Director of the Ford Foundation’s Graduate Fellowship Program for Mexican Americans, Native Americans and Puerto Ricans. He can be reached at 
