From: hchsc003 [mailto:hchsc...@csun.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2013 3:21 PM
Code: arizona
Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly
How do we change it?
By
Rodolfo F. Acuña
I approach the topic of culture with trepidation. Better minds than mine
have written about it; it is also a hot button issue in the Mexican American
community. As important as culture is, there is a huge misunderstanding of
role that culture plays, and some of us use culture as an excuse for our
excesses.
"I once got into hot water with culturists when I suggested that I would
trade bilingual education for a guarantee that all Latino students could
read and write at the 12th grade level."
In the early days of the Chicano Movement students would tell me that
marihuana was part of Chicano culture as if that made it acceptable. The
same reasoning was applied to other mind enhancing drugs no matter that
marihuana was not indigenous, its origins were in China and India, and later
transported to Europe by Arab merchants, after which it was brought to the
New World.
No matter that even the use of other psychoactive drugs were closely
controlled by the ancients. Intoxication was permitted only for the ancient,
people such as me. The distilling of alcoholic beverages was a European
thing, and there was a difference between pulque and mescal, for example.
My anthropologist friends tell me that man invented culture, but that
culture now controls man, which if so means that culture is not immutable;
we can change it. Indeed, just looking back on my life culture has changed
for the good, the bad and the ugly.
Cultural change is good when it has a purpose. When I was a child I
remember my mother, grandmother and aunts making tamales. They prepared the
masa dipping into a huge tin can full of pork lard. Today canola and/or corn
oil has been substituted for the lard even though connoisseurs tell me that
the tamales dont taste the same. My wife, however, is a health nut and
wont even use corn oil because of the potential for GMO contamination.
Culture, for me, is something that I enjoy, but believe that it is often
glorified. For example, we live in a modern society and education is
essential to the quality of our lives. I once got into hot water with
culturists when I suggested that I would trade bilingual education for a
guarantee that all Latino students could read and write at the 12th grade
level.
Of course the guarantee would have to include penalties such as those in
charge of education would be held accountable, and if they failed they would
have to make a public television apology and serve jail sentences. If they
didnt they would be like the Wall Street bankers and continue to profit
from their malfeasance.
This sounds idiotic, but imagine the changes that would be made. The
childs parents would have to have a good paying job and housing would have
to be improved. The culture of the community would have to change. It seems
more reasonable than teaching children to pass a test and still be left
behind.
Despite this I like my culture. When I was a child I liked how my parents
interacted with friends. I liked eating at a table that was full of people.
During the depression no one in our circle starved because there was always
a fresh pot of boiled beans and day old bread that could be dunked into the
broth.
I notice that as I got older even my taste in colors changed. As I got more
assimilated all the colors in my home had to be off-white. It was more
practical. Gone were the days when every house in the neighbor and every
room in the house was painted a difference color, the brighter the better.
Colors were a very important part of our culture. My mother, my sister and
cousins all wore bright dresses adorned with flowers. The only flower that
was not represented was the geraniums they were outside in Hills Brothers
coffee cans. We were environmentalists before the word became chic (Chic at
that time did not refer to a girl but to someone who was fashionable).
There were other things in the culture that when I look back at them were
not so equal. My male cousins would not be caught dead washing dishes. I was
saved because my mother was legally blind and so I did chores such as the
dishes and scrubbed the kitchen floor.
Also as I think back, the only ones that I ever saw drunk were males. A
good wedding was a failure if it did not have at least one good fight.
Boorish behavior was generally a male thing.
This was not so much because there were genetic differences between males
and females but because of the mores established by men. A woman that drank
was a puta (whore) but you were only a puto if you were homosexual which was
being like a woman. This is part of the ugly in all cultures.
Culture can and should change in these circumstances. Fewer people smoke
today, and we eat tamales with the masa made with canola oil.
But it is hard for some people to let go. After all being a Mexican is
ripping off a jalapeño and eating menudo, and some even carry it to the
extreme and say the menudo is not menudo unless it is full of red chile. I
was also saved from this, my maternal family is Sonoran, and we ate white
menudo.
Bad habits take a long time to die. I was watching a concert by the late
Jenni Rivera. I was surprised by that the audience -- mostly women, young
and old. They were doing something that I have always enjoyed watching
Mexican audiences do, they sang along, made gestures, and they actually knew
the words of the songs. Americans have to put the words on the screen.
However, what turned me off was that many had a glass of alcohol or a
bironga in their hands. It was not that women were doing it that turned me
off, but that drinking has become synonymous with Mexican culture. Mexican
songs have become like fraternity drink songs.
Does Volver Volver really sound better with a beer in your hand?
Shouldnt this habit go the way of larded tamales?
Songs do a lot to form culture. I love the song Hijo del Pueblo as sung by
Jorge Negrete, but do I have to act out the part of a macho and strut
around? I love boxing, loved to watch Enrique Bolaños, but did you ever see
what alcohol did to him and other boxers and their families?
We live in a highly urbanized country, and poor people are controlled by
various forms of addiction, i.e., the media, pop culture, alcohol and drugs.
These addictions are barriers to our changing the gun culture of American
society that wants to behave as if John Wayne was still calling the shots.
We live in a society that makes drastic cuts in education and services to
the poor while allowing corporate bandits accumulate almost 50 percent of
the nations wealth.
It is political to eat tamales without pork lard. The last time I looked at
studies lard contributes to obesity, clogs the arteries and in the year 2010
13.2 percent of Latinos were diagnosed with diabetes it was higher among
Mexican Americans.
Alcohol takes its toll. I had a close friend who died a couple of years
ago. I told him that I would never see him again. The last time I saw him
was after a rosary, we went out to eat, and he order an hochata and a beer.
I told him that he might as well put a gun to his head, and I would not bear
witness to his suicide, it would hurt me too much.
Alcohol has disrupted my family. Uncles and cousins have died as result of
alcohol. They neglected their children and their wives. Trade unions learned
early that management used alcohol to infiltrate them, take out their
leaders, and break their strikes.
But how do we change culture? In my lifetime I have gone from a pack a day
of cigarettes to none. From a fifth of Jim Beam to no alcohol, and cut down
drastically on animal products. In other words, I have become more
political. You dont change culture pointing fingers or bringing in experts
to bear witness. Change is brought about by choosing, and forcing people to
choose what they value most?
_____
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