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TWO
LANGUAGES, Candice Coots and Jaime Valderas are both proud of their Mexican heritage. They share the feeling that Latinos need a supportive cultural community in the predominantly white city of Eugene. But even though they are both young and sociable, their lives are worlds apart. Coots, a UO student, was born in Anaheim, Calif. and moved to southern Oregon when she was 8 years old. Despite her shiny brown hair and dark eyes, those who don't know her might not guess that she is ethnically half-Mexican. She's visited Mexico and she loves her mother's tamales, but her Spanish is limited. Valderas, a recent immigrant who works as an installer for a heating company, was born in Veracruz, Mexico. He came to the U.S. in 1999 to visit a brother in California, and moved to the Willamette Valley in 2001 because he liked the area's tranquility. He chats in Spanish with friends and co-workers, but he speaks only broken English. Coots and Valderas represent two distinct groups in the Latino community: those who speak Spanish and those who don't. According to the 2000 Census, 15 percent of Eugene's Latinos speak Spanish only. But Eugene has an exceptionally high percentage of monolingual, English-speaking Latinos, at almost half of the local Latino community. In comparison, only 21 percent of Latinos in the U.S. speak English only. At 5 percent of the total population, Latinos are Eugene's biggest minority group, according to the 2000 Census. Numbering nearly 7,000, the local Latino population has more than doubled since 1990 — three times the growth rate of Latinos in California, and twice the growth rate of Latinos nationwide. According to Coots, who collected data for the 2000 Census, the number of Latinos in Eugene is likely even higher because many undocumented residents decline to fill out Census forms for fear of deportation. Differences separate the Latino population into distinct demographic groups. About two-thirds were born in the U.S. and the other third were born in Latin American countries. Seventy percent have Mexican ancestry. Though Mexican nationals and native-born Mexican-Americans share a common heritage, disparities in language and culture make it hard for the two groups to relate.
DIFFERENT
WORLDS Pocho is a slang word used by Mexican nationals to insult Mexican-Americans who speak English and identify with American culture. It literally means "faded in color." For Mexican-Americans, it is a derisive term that suggests a disconnection from their cultural heritage. Yet the insults fly both ways. A Mexican national who emigrates to the U.S. is "what people would call a 'wetback,' straight from the river," says Coots. The terms "wetback" and "pocho" illustrate the rift dividing native-born and immigrant Latinos. Language is a primary factor affecting that gap. "It's often a question of cultural legitimacy," says Tomas Hulick-Baiza, the coordinator for multicultural recruitment at the UO. "Speaking as someone who was born on this side of the border and raised biculturally, it often seems that Mexicans are going to judge us by the quality of our Spanish. I've always seen it as an oppressive behavior. Often you'll find people from each side who make fun of one another, like 'your Spanish is pocho,' or 'look at your English.'" Sanchez, like Hulick-Baiza, is a Mexican-American who was born in the U.S. He speaks only English, and he does not identify strongly with Mexican culture. "I do not feel I share a lot with immigrants from Mexico," says Sanchez. "We live in different worlds."
MAINTAINING
ROOTS A red and white hand-painted sign marks Las Brasas, a Mexican restaurant located on Blair Blvd. and 5th Ave. Inside, indigenous masks and photographs of the dishes on the menu decorate the bright yellow walls. A large wood carving dominates one wall, displaying an eagle holding a snake under the words "Estados Unidos Mexicanos." Valderas has come to Las Brasas for lunch on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Sipping a Mexican soda and speaking in Spanish, the 26-year-old immigrant says he appreciates the friendliness of non-Mexican people in Eugene. "Here, you go to the store, and people say 'Hola! ¿Cómo estás?' in Spanish. White people," he emphasizes. In contrast, he says, Mexican-Americans born in the U.S. "are a little bit racist … It's like they see you as a little beneath them. As if you are illegal." He complains that many Mexican-Americans don't want to speak Spanish or share in the Mexican culture. "I prefer an American … to a 'Mexican' who was born here, a pocho," he says. Unlike pochos, asserts Valderas, Mexican nationals are humble and know the value of hard work. "The immigrant who comes here isn't so arrogant, so envious, as someone who is born here," Valderas says, "He knows what sacrifices he had to make to achieve what he has. That's why what he has is worth more." Valderas notes that it is harder for Latino immigrants to learn English when they live and work within a Spanish-speaking community. "They don't practice, and that's not good. We should practice more in English. For example, in my work, I have American friends, and I speak with them to learn more. But I stopped speaking [English] for a while, because I haven't practiced much. It's a bit difficult." Valderas recognizes the critical value of speaking English in the U.S. "When you speak two languages, there are more possibilities … for employment, for the future. It's an advantage to speak both languages, English and Spanish." Though he hopes to become an American citizen one day, Valderas considers himself "completely Mexican." He says, "I'm content. It's fine here, but I'm not going to change my customs." If he has children in the U.S., adds Valderas, they will definitely speak both English and Spanish at home. "They should never forget their country," he asserts. "They should never forget where they come from. They should never forget their language. This is the mistake that I think Hispanic-Americans have made — to forget their roots. More than anything, where they come from and their language are very important."
BEING
BIRACIAL Coots is the only child of a Mexican-American mother and a white father. Though she spoke some Spanish with her mother's family as a child, she says that most of her Spanish-speaking abilities deteriorated when she moved to southern Oregon at age 8. English was the predominant language spoken at home. It wasn't until she visited Mexico last year that Coots renewed her study of the Spanish language, and she says she's far from fluent. Coots is the first member of her family to go to college. An electronic media major, she aspires to document minority life in the U.S. She is especially interested in the role of Latinos as the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. "I would like to do some kind of bicultural reporting," she says. "That's really interesting to me … Are we going to become a bilingual country?" Rather than focusing on her ancestral roots in Mexico, Coots celebrates her identity as a biracial Mexican-American. She is the external director of the UO chapter of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), a political group of Mexican-American students. "I like being biracial," she says. "I like having the two cultures, having to compare. It's an advantage in some aspects, and in others it's not." Coots cares deeply about the welfare of Spanish-speaking Mexicans in Eugene, but she is sometimes frustrated by the language barrier. "The boundary, I think, is speaking," she says. "I'm not looked upon as different, unless [other Latinos] come up to me and they're like, 'Hola! Buenos días!' and they [continue speaking], and then sometimes I can't understand, and I'm like, 'Oh, there's a boundary.' But I find, for the most part, they appreciate you being out there. I think I find the boundary more than they do. I want to be fluent. It's gonna happen, and I'll feel better." Still, Coots doesn't regret growing up in the U.S. "If I was born in Mexico, I think we would've been a poor family — not that we're rich now, we're still low-income … but I definitely wouldn't have the opportunity to go to school and educate myself and be empowered as a female. America has a lot more opportunities, and I wouldn't take it back, but I'm sure that if I were a full Mexican citizen, my life would be a lot different." Coots' reality is far removed from that of Mexican immigrants in Eugene. "But I feel like I have a connection," she says. "I know how I can help you if you want help; I know places where you can go if you want to get involved here … so different worlds, but I can still relate. I feel their needs, maybe?"
ERECTING
BARRIERS Rosa Lopez, a 24-year-old graduate student at the UO, agrees. "It's a class thing," says Lopez, who once resisted speaking Spanish. When her Mexican-American parents spoke Spanish to her, "I'd speak English back," she says. "I'd be like, 'Don't speak Spanish to me. I speak English.'" In high school, she struggled to distinguish herself from the Mexican-Americans who spoke Spanish among themselves. "I felt like, 'I'm Mexican-American, but I'm not like those Mexican-Americans.'" As she got older, however, Lopez's attitude changed. She married a man who speaks very little English, and she speaks Spanish at home with him. Her career focuses on helping Spanish-speakers to learn English and find work here. Lopez says that people who speak only Spanish have an extremely difficult time finding work in the area. "Here, as far as the job market goes, it's really hard for people to look past accents," she says. "They think that if you speak with an accent, you work with an accent." For jobs that don't hinge on constant communication, says Lopez, the discrimination is unfair. "How you speak a language has nothing to do with your competency at your job."
On the other hand, she adds, Mexican-Americans who speak only English should not be made to feel like they are betraying their culture. "You can be Mexican-American and not speak Spanish at all," she says. "One doesn't have to mean the other."
OUR
HOME, TOO Hulick-Baiza postulates that animosity between English- and Spanish-speaking Latinos in Eugene stems from shared roots. "It's easier to criticize somebody you know little about," he says. He suggests that Mexican-Americans find common ground in the U.S. and move forward from there. "It's a real slippery slope when Mexican-Americans look back to Mexico for cultural legitimacy," he says. "But I don't buy that. This is my home. We need to claim the U.S. as our country, too." |
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