Zeke writes: If Americans are part Indian (Native American) , they should be called Meztizos? I think not, so don’t label Mexicans as Meztizos. They are Mexicans, not a sub-group. Is that too complicated?
Also, don’t equate Chicanos or Mexican Americans with lowriders. That’s like equating Italians to the Mafia or white people, their culture, to motorcycle gangs.
Thanks, and I do enjoy your postings — at least you are honest!
Zeke is apparently a cultural liberal. Sigh.
Mexicans are in fact mestizos. Only 12% of Mexicans are White. In fact, the government presents a notion of mestizaje as the mystical essence of the Mexican people. Mexicans are overwhelmingly mestizos. In fact, in Mexico, you are White if you are 75-85%+ White. They say this because even Mexican Whites typically have some Indian in them. And Mexican Indians are often not pure Indian. Many have some White in them.
Mexicans as a mestizo people is simply fact.
I am not even aware that lowrider culture exists anymore. But the people who identified as Chicanos in the 1970’s – their culture was typically lowrider or barrio culture. If you went to East LA in the 1970’s, you would see barrio culture and lowrider culture everywhere you looked. Gang culture was not too much in essence yet, but East LA Chicanos were not a very assimilated bunch and most of us, including my assimilated Chicano friends, absolutely hated them and wanted nothing to do with them.
At the time, the Chicanos who did not identify as such (in fact, they hated the word) generally were quite assimilated and did not act much different from ordinary 1970’s White Californians. They had nothing to do with anything that could be called Chicano culture. They were part of what could easily called White culture or Ordinary American Culture. These people were outside of Chicano culture.
Right now, Chicano culture is barrio culture. It is also gang culture. Big time. If you go to East LA, gangs are everywhere. East LA is the largest self-identified Chicano neighborhood in LA. it is the essence of Chicano-hood.
Low-rider culture in the 1970’s was really not that bad. They were not even very violent in my opinion. The lowriders at my school caused zero problems. Chicano culture and barrio culture has turned catastrophically worse since the 1970’s.
Once again, the Chicanos who do not identify as such are often seriously assimilated to White Culture or Ordinary White Culture. They are outside of Chicano Culture, barrio culture, and gang culture. A lot of times you never even know they are Mexican-Americans until you make some dumb remark and they get idiotically pissed. Like I tell people I live in [name of city] Mexico, since this part of California is for all intents and purposes a somewhat upgraded version of Mexico.
A lot of assimilated Mexican-Americans, typically 3rd generation, get mad when I say that. But they won’t live in my city! They refuse to live here, and they live with White people instead! They are hypocrites. If Mexican-Americans are so great, why do so many assimilated Mexican-Americans refuse to live in their cities? When Mexican-Americans get some money, the first thing many of them do is leave that Mexican-American city as fast as they can. They head right to the nearest White town. In California, even Mexicans don’t want to live with Mexicans!
Why do they do this? Reason: Mexican-Americans are not that great as a group, and when a city or town in California goes from White to Mexican, trust me, it’s always a downgrade. Not a real serious downgrade, but it’s a downgrade nonetheless. It is nothing at all like the catastrophic downgrade that typically occurs when a city goes from White to Black, but you can sense the decline. You feel it in your bones.
Really there are two Chicano cultures in California.
It is true that there are people, often 2nd or 3rd Generation, who identify with Mexican-American Culture, and the culture they live is not crap. It’s a decent enough culture, and you could call it a Chicano culture. Thing is it is just not for me.
They are wildly anti-intellectual, often frighteningly ignorant, and typically what I would call “not real smart.” They’re not stupid by any means, and they have whatever pragmatic intelligence it takes to succeed in Modern America. But they are not book-smart. They almost never read a book. If you show them a book, they examine it as if they were looking at some strange curio from a museum. In Mexico, your typical mestizo has never read a book in his life. They bring this anti-book culture with them to the US.
Also they have very traditional sex roles. The men have to be extremely masculine and the women only like very masculine men. I do not do well with Mexican-American or Mexican women. They probably think I’m gay. And some of the men say that I act gay. White people almost never say that anymore. They set the bar a lot higher for heterosexual male masculinity than California middle-class Whites do nowadays.
I would say that there are many positive aspects to this culture. It’s what I would call decent enough. But it’s just not for me. I have never felt at home there.