”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” -Matthew 7:3 One thing my mental health background helps me to understand is that we are all individually, familially, and communally needing to repair, refine and maintain a dignified lifestyle. Nuevomexicanos have plenty of repair to continue with while paradoxically needing grace from the punishment inflicted by the intruding realms. This typically means a growing Anglo presence. The idea of Anglo itself is a complicated concept. Much of which propagates a mythology of race reinforcing a European farce that motivates people to segregate, compare, and weigh. The aspiration for some type of purity that allows some people to situate themselves with power might always have a place in humanity. I haven’t reached a point in my life where my profits are more important than the communal wellness. This is idealistic. The term I like to use to describe this orientation is communal, because conservative culture has ruined any ability to use socialist neutrally. To be a better person I feel I need to look critically at me, my family, and my belonging systems often.
The current injustices towards Mexican heritage by conservative organizations, is the speck I am wanting to remove from a brother’s eye. The American conservative want to dismantle several systems that I find vital to my culture, prosperity, and understanding of liberty. Ethnic studies and affirmative action are among these. The basis for their position against these are complicatedly sensible from a theoretical position. For example, it isn’t helpful to use race as a distinguisher and equally it isn’t clear how racist discrimination and bigotry are rare enough to trust a merit based value system.The part I have concerns about are the lack of barriers around prejudice and corruption. If we don’t acknowledge these factors and scan for them we are propagating the imperial tactics that divided the melanin rich peoples from positions of power and safety from exploitation. The large grey area here is having a mature normal criteria for identifying toxic traits like prejudice, oppression, bigotry, cheating, corruption, lies, and deception. We want to legislate like we are not bigoted. We want to civil empowerment like we are fair. We want to regulate like we aren’t corrupt. We want liberty like we aren’t greedy. This dissonance is rolling around in my head. What is far more clear are ways in which I resort to these corrupt modalities. I feel I try to keep my grey areas small and steer clear of convenience. One that I have recently gained clarity on is a belonging system. I have championed for years being New Mexican, and I have not processed thoroughly the positions of privilege that my heritages have leveraged.
The prompt for these ideas stem from not being able to reconcile how family members could align themselves with a person like Trump. I have been holding this dissonance emotionally and contemplatively. Abortion laws seem to be the de facto reason, but beyond that there are still some concerning indicators that point to other potentially menacing symbols. The labels New Mexican’s choose hint at a lingering infection of the mind; we still carry the germs of racism. When we subtilely choose a label that favors a Spanish purity, we unconsciously align ourselves with the legacy of whiteness as power. So before I can ask the Federalist or Confederate American to remove the speck from their eye, I feel a need to give attention to the plank in mine. This is the Chicano way of holding the both/and. The art of the mestizo, we know how to hold the liminal tension found in competing truths. Or better the convenience of situating ourselves between the myths and lies.
Research around this topic explores the significance of a Euro purity, whiteness, and political power as key factors in the use of labels that Mexican descendants choose. Discourse on this topic presents how the identity politics has been materializing for over a century. New Mexico’s transitional periods from a Spanish colony to a Mexican province, and then into the eventual US take over have highlighted the leveraging of an allegorical Spanish purity. This theme shows an alignment with a racially safer European identity. John Nieto-Phillips writes about the beginnings of a caste struggle for Nuevomexicanos/as as their power was depleted under United States (US) rule (2004). Nieto-Phillips writes about the origins for Nuevomexicanos/as demand to show Spanish purity as an effort to establish a standing in the American social and civic platforms (16). As Nuevomexicanos/as leave the colonial period of dominance, Martha Menchaca details how land loss becomes a key motivation for the early identity struggle of Nuevomexicanos (246). The theme of social relevance grows during this period.
A trend begins for Nuevomexicanos indicating a grasping at European identity to plead for equality with the Anglo American (Nieto-Phillips 16). The generations that experienced a Mexican nation, around a quarter century, experience a widening wealth gap (Menchaca 271). Research helps to describe the early events that created New Mexico’s divide between the have and have nots and perspective on not embracing a Mexican label. Where Menchaca and Nieto-Phillips shape an understanding of civil conditions, there is a menacing topic of lynching of Mexican people that research has not been widely written about. The civil systems that Menchaca has written about skirts a more violent ethnic prejudice, white supremacy, and a “tantamount to state-sanctioned terrorism” that existed (Carrigan et al. 416). The power dynamics for the Nuevomexicano reverse going into US rule, and the embryo that will be a Chicanx identity forms in the womb of the region we now know as the borderlands. And here comes the “Hispanic” identity. Laura Gómez explores the origins of the term “Hispanic,” forming a confluence that begins to link the allegory of purity, caste-izing, land loss, and terrorism with an incentive to be more tolerated (52). Gómez reveals how the Hispanicization is the sanitization of a more radical form of label like Chicano (45). A throughline is observable in this tiring and bleak attempt at colonial purity and evolution to a modern submissive quality still needing to show belonging. Along with belonging there is some desperation for success or slanted form of prosperity.
This research reveals a persistent need for control, authority, and influence through the epochs. These traits have tumbled around with paradoxical traits like harmony, dignity, and collaboration. There are Nuevomexicanos/as gravitating towards a Hispanic label and their association to the label Chicanx is not clear; it is still tumbling. Both carry responsibility to self-govern their potential to diminish the dignity of the people who use them. More importantly, each has potential for pursuing ethnic advocacy. In the underlying history these labels still have a responsibility to help repair atrocities inflicted and endured. Gómez posits that these newer labels are “infused with political meaning,” despite not being clear in what the meaning is (55). What is clear is that there are paradoxical, maybe a less romantic term might be competing, regardless, there is a splitting that is leading to an ongoing split around becoming more agreeable to Anglo systems. The tug of war between a Hispanic elite, more conservative and in alignment with power and a Chicanismo that wants a more communal modality to chip away at the deviance of misused power, might be exactly what the colonial machine intended. It is not clear how to approach the lynching of Mexican descendants. I have resolved that the cultural identity tumbling is not slowing down soon. The impacts of Hispanicization on the Nuevomexicano through a frustrated lens looks like the choking to death of a querencia. It is confusing because it could also be the opposite from a more hopeful lens. Neither label has obvious footings in these two perceptions. The newer label of “Hispanic” complicates the comradery that might be needed and raises more questions. Is solidarity between these two labels essential to the health of the people that use them? I would say to Hispanics:
“Feel free to identify as white while responsibly resisting the urge to turn it into any form of supremacy”
Work Cited
Carrigan, William D., and Clive Webb. “The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928.” Journal of Social History, vol. 37, no. 2, 2003, pp. 411–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3790404. Accessed 26 June 2025.
Gómez, Laura E. “The Birth of the ‘Hispanic’ Generation: Attitudes of Mexican-American Political Elites toward the Hispanic Label.” Latin American Perspectives, vol. 19, no. 4, 1992, pp. 45–58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2633844. Accessed 10 July 2025.
Menchaca, Martha. Recovering History, Constructing Race : The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans, University of Texas Press, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unm/detail.action?docID=3443170.
Nieto-Phillips, John M. The Language of Blood : The Making of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s-1930s / John M. Nieto-Phillips. University of New Mexico Press, 2004.
EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=5665a9f5-2deb-377b-b84d-78ecac91c9d8
