Rudy Acuna - Colorism

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What Has Changed Since West Side Story?

Rudy Acuña

Colorism is going to be the biggest hurdle that Hollywood and educators have in dealing with the difference between Latino groups. They are conditioned by being driven by profit and an obsession to be right. In the Heights represents the latest blowups. It takes place in the New York borough of Manhattan, a community that is overwhelmingly Dominican. In the play and the movie, the leads went to lighter-skinned Latinos/os. It is a difficult problem – it is always difficult to argue with sincere people. After watching Marlene Dietrich, in “Touch of Evil” I asked Orson Welles why Dietrich and Carlton Heston, the answer was simple, the banks. Life is one of making choices and a lot depends on our individual personalities and ambitions.  When making a movie like making political choices there is an element of self-interest and are often based on acceptance. In our lives, color is very important, and it is difficult to break with that norm. In the case of even geniuses like Orson Welles, making the wrong choice can often mean the end of a lifelong project.

If you look at it objectively, skin pigmentation is superficial. It is skin deep. For instance, my daughter and I turn red when sunburned, while my wife turns golden brown. It is not hard to understand, color is a protection from the rays of the sun that has been used to control people. One of the problems is that people don't read assuming they know how to change stereotypes. One of the good things is that unlike when West Side Story the people can stop production. We are not all Latinos and the truth matters

Interethnic and racial relations are sensitive. I have been around 89 years and can honestly say there are few experts in this field. It takes study and involvement. At CSUN aside from one or two people, most have never put an ethnic studies curriculum together. At CSUN presently only Jorge Garcia has ever worked at putting a program together.  Like they say the devil is in the details. However, today institutions that had nothing to do with getting the ethnic requirement passed (it was the community groups such as A.R.E., planned, strategized, and pushed. The universities that did nothing to bring it about are planning to privatize them.

Bringing communities together is the hard part. Yesterday I had sushi. When I first patronized Shogun, I was told by Japanese friends that it was not really authentic Japanese, it was Korean-owned. You get the same thing when you go to a Mexican Restaurant, Salvadorans run it. The reality is that for small proprietors to make it they must expand their client base. Meanwhile, while people argue about authenticity, the frozen food people are moving it making pupusas and enchiladas. For my taste, the only food that cannot be duplicated is enchiladas en mole. I remember that some of my students almost went into shock when they read Jeffrey Pilcher's Que Viva los Tamales and learned that the Spanish nuns invented mole. Bring up food may seem trivial, but food preparation is one of our most convivial tools.

 
We can understand this type of game playing in the food industry, what is difficult for me to understand is this same type of attempt to privatize required courses in higher education. Presently administrators wanting to take advantage of the new ethnic studies requirement before graduation are advocating an ethnic studies major. I am sorry but I can see nothing of value coming out of this greed. Ethnic studies are important, they are content fields. The truth be told, agitated by our old friend Provost Stella and her pendejo Assistant Provost Matthew Cahn, they are planning to encroach on the Chicana/o Studies curriculum. The motive is not that they love Mexicans and want to integrate them, it is pure and simple greed. It is very simple: Mexicans are the largest of the Latina/o groups. Because of history and the proximity of their populations to the United States, there has been continuous northward movement.

In the state universities enrollment matters and since 1974 when white enrollment came to a standstill.  A lot of the university has changed but racist attitudes persist and, in the sciences, and mathematics many believe that money going to ethnic departments and support classes belong to them. (I will be posting articles on Impaction and the de facto segregation of students of color).  Taking its cue from above, CAS figured that if they are allowed to crossover they can steal courses on Mexico and Mexicans in this country from Chicana/o Studies.  courses and at the same they can avoid structural changes that would improve their departments. For example. when Central American Studies was set up I estimated that within 10 years it would have 10-12 lines. Instead, CAS has been manipulated by the administration and encouraged to violate CHS governance. In some 10years it has only grown by one position/

When I learned that CAS changed its name from CAS to CA and Transnational Studies, I asked Jorge where in the hell is the leadership in CHS? Can you imagine the reaction if we named CHS, Chicana/o Studies, and Mathematics? This is ridiculous. I remembered reviewing a book called "Hollywood on North Main.” In the 1920s Hollywood had a booming Latin American Division that flourished during the silent movie era. When the talkies came, they continued making English and Spanish language movies. During the day they would shoot the English language version and at night when the American actors would go home the Spanish-speaking actors would shoot the same script in Spanish. However, it did not occur to the makers that the audiences would detect the different accents. The audiences would often jeer when a Mexican vaquero would speak with a lisp. Can you imagine the reaction of students to professors claiming to be experts on Mexico and not being able to distinguish between a norteño and a chilango. Or for that matter migas from chilaquiles.

One of these days someone is going to ask people for their vitae. Governance and qualifications are set in place for everyone’s protection, they prevent the administration from encroaching on the rights of the disciplines and directing hostile takeovers such as in the case of Stella dropping two white moment professors on Black Studies. We all have a duty to make this work. But remember you cannot have ethnic studies without Black Studies and Black Studies will not be whole again without committed student leadership. Students owe us nothing, we owe them everything.

Estoy loco pero no soy pendejo

Rudy Acuña

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