Moishe Lippooz Last week, I met a Brazilian lady who'd been in the US less than four years. Her English was excellent. She said the first thing she did - which she started even before she immigrated (legally) was to learn English. Very difficult, she said, but she figured she had to have it to get a decent job. She also said that she thought "Latino" and "Hispanic" meant, in America, Mexicans; this is an opinion shared by my neighbors who are from Guatemala. They, also, speak excellent English. Not for freeloading wetbacks it ain't. Deborah Mexican biogtry and racism: Blacks in Mexico remain "overlooked" --------------------------- A controversy about an old stereotype has some activists upset, but others say there are more urgent issues --------------------------- By Hugh Dellios Chicago Tribune News Service Ever Ride in City Traffic 1463NYC XYZ Most of the questions you ask don't have specific answers, because 'bents are not a single functional clbutt of cycle, just a general description of the seating layout. What... CUAJINICUILAPA, Mexico -- No one ever put Melquiades Dominguez's face on a postage stamp. Nor Juan Angel Serrano. Nor any other of the descendants of black slaves who live along Mexico's Costa Chica. Nor did Mexico's blacks have much say when the federal government ignited a racially loaded scandal last month by issuing stamps of a popular 1950s-era cartoon character that the Bush White House and Jesse Jackson declared an insulting stereotype. The reappearance of Mimin Pinguin, a caricature of a naive black boy with exaggerated lips, set off a tense exchange of criticisms between U.S. and Mexican leaders, just weeks after President Vicente Fox angered civil rights activists by saying that Mexicans in the United States were doing jobs that "not even blacks want to do." The reaction was pbuttionate but mixed on the steamy Pacific coast, where much of Mexico's black population works the land and tries to preserve African Mexican customs. Some felt insulted. Others thought the scandal was an unfortunate distraction from their far more serious challenge of overcoming poverty and a lack of recognition. No official recognition Although Memin may be Mexico's most famous black face, the country's real blacks are nearly invisible to the wider population. Discrimination confronts them, they say, when police or airport officials insist they must be Cuban or Puerto Rican, question their credentials and make them sing the national anthem to prove their citizenship. Or when their children open a history textbook and find barely three paragraphs about there once being black slaves in Mexico. "They just don't see us," said Serrano, 41, a Costa Chica cattle farmer who heads Black Mexico, a group trying to raise the black community's profile. "People ask us where we're from. They say we can't be from Mexico." In a country proud of its mixed heritage and where the government for years officially denied the existence of discrimination, Mexico's blacks are not recognized as a separate ethnic group. They have no specific government programs addressing their needs; the country's many indigenous groups do. Federal officials estimate that there could be 500,000 black Mexicans, concentrated in Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz states. Community activists say that number is much too low, that many Mexicans have some African roots and that even some 20th century independence leaders were part black. "Their invisibility is practically total," said Jose Luis Gutierrez, adjunct director general of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination. "And their situation is more serious than the indigenous communities. They are the poorest of the poor." Seeking buttistance The Black Mexico organization has reached out to black groups outside the country and appealed for economic aid for small villages along the coast. "We don't even recognize ourselves, and that's where the problem begins," Serrano said. "I'm convinced that when we all know where we come from, when we are not ashamed of our color, we will all be better off." Others express concerns about the political motives of "black gringos" and other outside activists who have offered to help. They want Mexico's blacks to develop their own idenbreasty, one that recognizes and values their mixed heritage. "They come in and say, 'Brother, we're going to rescue you,'" said Eduardo Anorve, 43, an activist and community chronicler. "They have their vision. We have our own." Mexican officials rejected the protests about the stamps as foolish. They said the cartoon character stood for friendship and goodwill. The complaints, they said, reflected a misunderstanding of Mexican culture. NYPD Builds Its Own 'MatrixBEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 NYTr NYPD Builds Its Own 'Matrix' Noo Yawk has spent some dough on doing a Matrix... Because of the controversy, Mexican post offices were swamped with people trying to buy the stamps, issued as part of a series. Recently, a publisher reissued the Memin comic strip. In Costa Chica, some blacks who had not seen the cartoon until the controversy were taken aback. The Black Mexico group wrote a scathing letter to Fox, saying the stamp "rewards, celebrates, typifies and makes official the distorted, mocking, stereotypical and limited vision of the lack community." Others, such as Anorve, the chronicler, dismissed the controversy as trivial. But he said he hoped that it would help shine a spotlight on the dire needs of his people. "We have 7,000 problems more important than these stamps," he said. - The Sunday Oregonian, July 17, 2005, p A6
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