Bridging the Troubled Waters of Prejudice

Mexico’s President-elect, Vicente Fox, gave an uplifting speech in Los Angeles last week that excited the region’s Mexican American leaders. It was an oratorical abrazo (embrace), expressing solidarity between Mexico and its immigrant offspring in the United States--delivered clearly in English, with a Spanish accent.

“Mine will be the first Mexican administration to sincerely honor the ties that bind people of Mexican descent to the United States,” Fox told tuxedoed attendees at the annual banquet of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The buzz started before the tall politician had even left the podium. But the enthusiastic reaction caught me by surprise. Why all the fuss over what could be considered pro forma diplomacy?

Later, I remembered my trip to Guanajuato, the state where Fox was governor before becoming the first opposition candidate elected president in more than 70 years. What happened to my son during that visit underscores the significance of the conciliatory words from Mexico’s chief executive.

Miguel was a small schoolboy at the time, an American kid visiting his father’s country of birth. Before I knew it, he had joined a group of local Mexican children playing ball in the central plaza of Guanajuato’s graceful state capital, a charming colonial city rich in history and tradition.

My son spoke the unsure, imperfect Spanish typical of Latinos raised in the United States. But he always made friends easily, so he just jumped in like one of the gang.

Soon, however, he came back to the bench where his mother and I were watching. Our boy looked dejected and hurt. “They called me ocho,” Miguel complained.

“What did they call you?”

“Ocho,” he insisted, repeating the Spanish word for eight. “They called me ocho.”

“Well,” I said jokingly, thinking it was some kind of local game, “you go back and call them siete.”

Then it hit me. The Mexicans weren’t insulting my son by the numbers. They had called him pocho, and he had misunderstood.

Pocho is derogatory slang for a Mexican who’s been Americanized. The term--which fittingly means faded or discolored--conveys contempt for people who left the national fold and can no longer be considered real Mexicans. Pochos speak and think and dress like Americans, foolishly shedding their identity for an acceptance they’re destined to be denied in American society. Pochos are neither fish nor fowl. They are rejects on both sides of the border, true citizens of neither.

My son didn’t understand the word, nor the complex web of prejudice behind it. But he felt the intended sting. With that one verbal bite, those boys had put my son on notice: “You’re not one of us.”

Fox came to Southern California last week to tear down that barrier and heal the hurt of separation. He deliberately redefined what it means to be a Mexican, clearly including the estimated 17 million people of Mexican ancestry living here.

His embracing message: You are part of the family and we need you.

Mexican Americans were often scorned back home as nouveau riche, with their new American cars and pretensions. Now comes Fox, the former Coca-Cola executive, to validate rather than revile their pursuit of the American Dream.

“You can best help Mexico by succeeding here in your adopted country,” he said. “The better that life is for you, the better it will be for us.”

Finally, the family is reconciled; Mexico’s once prodigal exiles find respect and acceptance on their own terms. As admirers mobbed Fox on his way out, MALDEF President Antonia Hernandez beamed: “It’s the end of the pocho era.”

Fox is not the first Mexican leader to make overtures to Mexican Americans. President Luis Echeverria encouraged cross-border exchanges during the 1970s, but attitudes don’t change by decree. Mexican hosts didn’t take kindly to critiques from outsiders speaking broken Spanish. Mexico’s fair-skinned elites chafed at dark-skinned Chicanos “pointing out their class divisions,” recalled UC Irvine Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez, who was among the exchange participants. “They’d say, ‘You don’t understand.’ They would take umbrage.”

More recently, Mexican public opinion has rallied behind immigrants perceived to be under attack in California and elsewhere. In their defense, Fox goes further than any of his predecessors, promising an office for emigrant affairs inside the Mexican White House. In his L.A. speech, he declared, “They are our brothers. They are our heroes, and we respect and love them.”

And even if they never go home, they’ll never be pochos again.

*

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com