Letters

Comments (0) Thursday, Aug 6 1998

Why not give us the weekend rave schedule complete with Mapsco coordinates? How about the new Swingers club locations? Huh? That's bullshit to blame the cops. Cops have to do what they're told.

You told them where freedom was, and they crushed it.
Steve Abell II
Arlington

More ethnic than thou
Maybe it has something to do with my Mexican-born father and my Polish-American mother, but I was not aware that politicians in Dallas or any other city had the right to determine whether or not I or anyone else was a true Hispanic ["Hispanic enough," July 9]. Indeed, I always had the weirdly un-American idea that a person's ethnic origin--whether he or she be a Ted Benavides, a Wendy Gramm, a Colin Powell, etc.--was ultimately nobody's business but his or her own.

If you're proud of your ancestors, good for you. After all, I'm proud of my ancestors too. But por favor! Let's have no big sermons about how Mr. Fulano de Tal [roughly translated, "Mr. So-and-So"] obviously isn't a true Latino because he doesn't eat this or he doesn't do that. That type of rhetoric is insulting enough when it comes from Anglo bigots, much less one's fellow Latinos. And in any event, have not recent events concerning a certain Hispanic mayoral candidate and a certain Hispanic DISD president taught us a lesson about trusting those Latinos who wave the Mexican flag just a little too freely? Add to that the obvious problems in determining cultural purity in an age of increasing interracial dating and marriage, and one wonders why Dallas' Mexican-American leadership even bothers. After all, we need more unity in the Latino community, not less, and we're not going to get it by automatically ceding to the opposition every Spanish-surnamed individual who fails to match our personal stereotypes on the grounds that he or she might be a vendido. They tried that tactic in California just before the last election, and look what happened.

Rogelio Mendoza, Jr.
Garland