Mexican Quotes - page 9
We all know the extent of the hypocrisy which surrounds the War on Drugs; that it is, at essence, a Class War, or, if you will, a Race War, which criminalizes the undesirable elements of society – precisely the rationale behind the Marijuana Tax Act, which provided the legal ammunition to expel with those pesky Mexican immigrants in Texas and California back in the 1930s.
Mark Pesce
[T]he larger moral cowardice that has overtaken the party... Trump's shtick is that he's the grievance candidate... He's focused on the economically squeezed Caucasian voter... He is speaking to that rage. Mexican rapists, clever Chinese traders, African American people as dogs. That's Trump's DNA.
Mike Murphy (political consultant)
By the time the United States took possession of the Southwest in 1848, after the Mexican War, the Navajo had become the dominant military force in the area. ...The American soldiers who marched into Santa Fe had no trouble with the Mexicans, but the Navajo stole several head of cattle from the herd of the commanding general himself, not to mention thousands of sheep and horses from settlers in the vicinity.
Peter Farb
On the one side, the Mexican side, Mexican peasants are tantalized by the American possibility of change. On the other side, the American side, the tyranny of American optimism has driven Americans to neurosis and depression, when the dream is elusive or less meaningful than the myth promised. This constitutes the great irony of the Mexican-American border: American sadness has transformed the drug lords of Mexico into billionaires, even as the peasants of Mexico scramble through the darkness to find the American dream.
Richard Rodriguez
Certainly in Mexico, the Latin American country I know best, white ascends. Certainly, the whitest dinner party I ever attended was a Mexico City dinner party where a Mexican squire of exquisite manner, mustache, and flán-like jowl, expressed himself surprised, so surprised, to learn that I am a writer. One thought he would never get over it. Un escritor... ¿Un escritor...? Turning the word on a lathe of tooth and tongue, until: "You know, in Mexico, I think we do not have writers who look like you,” he said. He meant dark skin, thick lips, Indian nose.
Richard Rodriguez
Nothing else Chavez wrote during his life had such haunting power for me as that public prayer for a life of suffering; no utterance sounded so Mexican. Other cultures in the world assume the reality of suffering as something to be overcome. Mexico assumes the inevitability of suffering. That knowledge informs the folk music of Mexico, the bitter humor of Mexican proverb. To be a man is to suffer for others-you're going to suffer anyway.
Richard Rodriguez
He knocked the chess set off his desk, screaming at me, "You're not a stupid Mexican! You're just lazy! I'm one of the best chess players in all Carlsbad and you treat me with no respect!” I was shocked. All my life I'd been called stupid because I was Mexican, not because I was lazy. This was really good.
Victor Villaseñor
Suddenly I remembered Jeannie Windflow, who'd taught me how to kiss when we were kids. At the age of seventeen, she'd run off with a Mexican guy from Pozole Town who was nineteen years old, had a job, and was one of the handsomest guys I'd ever seen. He was a semi-professional boxer and real dark. She was a track star, a straight-A student, and real blonde.
Victor Villaseñor
"YOU'VE GOT RAGE. THEN YOU RETURN TO THE STATES WITH THAT RAGE! YOU DON'T RUN AWAY! You saw bad, terrible things happen to you and other Mexican kids in school, then YOU DON'T CHICKENSHIT OUT! No, you go back, and you do something with that rage that will MAKE A DIFFERENCE for all those kids! That's the beauty of the United States! Even the little guy can fight back!
Victor Villaseñor
"Look,” said Jake, "last night, after you went to bed, we told your dad how we'd come across you running away from home.” "You did?” I said. "Yes, we did. It was the honest thing to do, son. And you should've seen the hurt look on your dad's face, because, you see, Mexican kids don't run away from home. White kids, gringo kids, like me and Luke, we're the ones who run from home, but Mexicans, they ain't never do that.
Victor Villaseñor
I cannot forbear recording a most daring feat performed by a Mexican muleteer, named Antonio Chavez, during the hottest of the first onset. Seeing the danger of my two favorite riding horses, which were tethered outside within a few paces of the savages, he rushed out and brought safely in the most valuable of the two, though fusil-balls were showering around him all the while. The other horse broke his halter and made his escape. Although sundry scores of shots had been fired at our people, we had only two men wounded.
Josiah Gregg
Prior to the adoption of the Sistema Central in the Mexican republic, the province of New Mexico was under a territorial government. The executive was called Gefe Politico (political chief), and the Diputacion Provincial very inefficiently supplied the place of a legislature. Under the present system, however, New Mexico being a department, the names of these powers have been changed, but their functions remain very nearly the same. The Gobernador (governor) is appointed by the President for eight years. The legislative power is nominally vested in a Junta Departamental, a kind of state council, with very circumscribed powers, somewhat analogous to, and certainly not more extensive than, those of a board of aldermen with us. But even this shadow of popular representation was 'prorogued' by Gov. Armijo soon after his accession to power (five or six years ago), and has never since been convened; so that its functions have been arbitrarily exercised by the governor ever since.
Josiah Gregg
It had been reported in Santa Fé as early as November, 1842, that a party of Texans [the previous year an armed negotiating party had crossed the border] were upon the Prairies, prepared to attack any Mexican traders who should cross the plains the succeeding spring; and as some Americans were accused of being spies, and in collusion with the Texans, many were ordered to Santa Fé for examination, occasioning a deal of trouble to several innocent persons. Than this, however, but little further attention was paid to the report, many believing it but another of those rumors of Texan invasion which had so often spread useless consternation through the country.
Josiah Gregg
I have been assured by Mexican hunters and Indians, that, from Santa Fé southeastward, there is but one route upon which this plain can be safely traversed during the dry season; and even some of the watering-places on this are at intervals of fifty to eighty miles, and hard to find. Hence the Mexican traders and hunters, that they might not lose their way and perish from thirst, once staked out this route across the plain, it is said; whence it has received the name of El Llano Estacado, or the Staked Plain.
Josiah Gregg
