FIRST PERSON-My mother's eldest sister was a tall, slim, beautiful woman, with impeccable manners and a lilting laugh. She had black hair that reflected bluish hints in the sunlight, and pale skin that contrasted strongly with it. With her penchant for bright colors and pretty jewelry, I always felt my aunt and I had a lot in common; we both liked shopping, eating, and having a good time, gravitating to posh, feminine things, not a tomboyish bone in either of our bodies. I imagined my aunt could easily have been a star on a telenovela.
Other times I pictured her as a high-powered exec, preferably working for an important NGO or non-profit; someone making decisions that would help people and improve our world, but who would do so while dressed to the nines and looking fabulous. (You can't look fabulous and help people? Why not?)
I also pictured her this way because my aunt had a distinct accent. She pronounced all of her Ts even better than most British people, and the fact that she had lived much, though not all, of her early life in Mexico made itself felt in her English. Many of her Ss and Zs sounded exactly alike, and she clearly had translated certain phrases literally, in ways that stuck. (If she asked me to turn on a light, for instance, she would say, "Mari, put the lights," having figured out in her youth a way to turn "ponerse la luz" into English, and never having let go of it.) I loved my aunt's accent: it seemed very much of a piece with her general elegance.
In reality, my aunt never acted in telenovelas or made life-altering decisions for Unicef or Doctors Without Borders. She worked as a secretary for decades; then, when our lexicon changed, she worked as an "administrative assistant," and did the same things she'd always done before. I don't think she ever made much money; her elegance was very much budgeted.
She helped make order out of the paperwork of organizations; she sat at the front desk of offices and was their public face; and of course, she answered the phone. So lots of other people got to hear her wonderful voice. But apparently not everyone was like me and thought it was so wonderful, and more than a few times, the person on the other end of the line would tell my aunt to go back where she came from.
"I'd love to!" my aunt would invariably sneer. My aunt could do a haughty sneer like nobody's business. "I'm from Chicago, and it's a lot better than this place!" At this point the caller would usually hang up. But she would come home infuriated, aflame, indignant at having had to deal with gente mal educada who used her accent as an opportunity for a cheap shot.
Her beautiful accent. Now I tell myself, only an asshole would not have seen the beauty in her voice. An unmitigated, pinche racist.
(FYI: My aunt never would have said pinche. Mal educado was her favorite insult, and if you know the class implications of that phrase, you'll understand its bite.)
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My aunt was not the only member of my family to hear this snarling retort from someone who wasn't getting what she wanted. "Go back where you came from!" "Go back to Mexico!" Everyone in my family has heard that, and over the last weeks and months, every Latino in both North and South America has heard it come hurtling, a poisoned javelin, out of our political discourse.
"Go back to Univision" is just a particularly specific form of it. "Rapists and murderers." "Somebody's doing the raping!" "No more anchor babies!" "We're gonna build a wall!" "We'll make the illegals build the wall!" "Repeal the 14th Amendment!" There is no beauty in these voices. Whatever leads us to our next president, I fear there will be nothing inspirational, sublime, or hopeful about it. The hateful hounds are already loose, and they are very, very loud.
Regardless of whether we call ourselves Latino or Hispanic, Mexican, Cuban, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Chilean, Ecuadoran, Bolivian, Boricua; Angeleno or Tejano; Latinx or Latin, these hounds are coming after all of us. Do you really think that the career thugs who attacked a homeless man in Boston last week -- urinating on him and beating him, saying "Trump was right, illegals gotta go" -- actually asked to see the man's documents first? You imagine having the "right" papers will save you from this kind of bigotry? Do you think the people yelling "white power!" at Trump rallies actually care where I or my aunt, my friends, neighbors, co-workers and their parents were born? Whether it be Northern California or Baja California, I doubt very much that it makes any difference.
And we must not forget that these exultations of white supremacy are unfolding, unchecked, a mere two months after an avowed white supremacist slaughtered nine black people in their own church. He prayed with them, and then he killed them. Do you really believe that kind of hatred will pause to make distinctions among us, legal or illegal, alien or native, legitimate or illegitimate? If you think so, my friend, I must tell you: you are a fool. No one is "legitimate" in the face of hate.
So to hell with legitimacy! Imagine this being said in my aunt's accent: I am an anchor baby. I am anchored here in the strongest ways possible, through my ancestors' lives and the love with which they kindled me. I am anchored through my Indian ancestors, whose lives here defy the markings of time; by my African ancestors, who paid for their passage with their freedom and their very selves; and by my Spanish ancestors, whose tones resonate in my voice, echoes over centuries. They all anchor me. I cannot be moved. More so: I will not be moved.
(María Carla Sánchez is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where she teaches U.S. literature. She is currently a fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University, where she is working on a comparative study of U.S. and Mexican discourses surrounding slavery. She blogs at Huffington Post where this column was first posted.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 70
Pub: Aug 28, 2015
