DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University
Seated from left, Mexican revolutionaries Tomás Urbina, Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and Otilio Montaño in a now famous photo taken by Agustín Casasola in Mexico’s National Palace on December 6, 1914. Villa is sitting in the presidential chair.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist . . . . Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
That quote, from the former Nazi supporter Pastor Martin Niemöller, a man who once stood on the wrong side of history, is about experiencing the maltreatment of a marginalized group of people. He later became an outspoken critic of such injustices—injustices that we as a people are deeply entrenched in now, perhaps even more than we’d like to admit.
But the greatest tragedy is that of our own isolated naivety and ignorance; our nature makes it impossible to will ourselves out of this rubble of seclusion. We struggle to identify with ourselves, yet are expected to be able to stand firm, to speak freely about the degradation of our communities.
In El Laberinto de la Soledad, Octavio Paz analyzed the impact of our history and the overbearing feeling of loneliness and seclusion within each of us—a legacy passed down, yes, but reshaped into new, unrecognizable forms. Forms that even Paz, with his piercing intellect, might have scorned.
We, the Mexicans, the aliens, the illegal immigrants, have no choice but to feel alienation—not only from our own home country but also from the American mainstream. We are seen as corrupt and rapacious individuals, fit only for crime, chaos, and irrational thought. No commendation for our contributions, no round of applause for our assimilation and determination, no grievances for our sacrifices.
None of it matters if the color of our sun-corded skin, wrinkled with native impurities and the sorrows we’ve endured, fails to meet their pristine standards.
We are expected to assimilate, yet often face rejection deflected by impassivity. Ridiculed for not mastering a language or accessing education systematically denied to us. We’re accused of malice while propping up an economy that despises us. We’re seen as opportunists yet revered for our relentless work ethic—all in the same breath. We cling to traditions, our fiestas (as Paz called them), our devotion to La Virgen de Guadalupe, down to our careless pride—yet remain outsiders in both nations.
The Mexican has been sold a vision of prosperity, a falsehood of truths disguised as hope. But it comes at an excruciating cost—a cost that’s ignored, a subjugation met without retaliation, not even a flicker of resistance. Chingar o ser chingado: To fuck or be fucked. And too often we’re the latter.
The Mexican American is overworked, underpaid, and politically scapegoated. We are not seen as societal leaders or dignified citizens, but rather we are looked down upon as mere pawns on this ruthless chessboard—pawns to be disgraced, reproached, exiled.
Our labor builds wealth for the very system that oppresses us—from agriculture to construction to service industries—work non-Mexican Americans refuse yet blame us for “stealing.”
The demonization of our people carries the subtle echoes of imperialism. Our beautiful homeland of Mexico—with its unique set of innate problems and characteristics—is stripped of its people and resources while the United States reaps the benefits of our labor only to grant us the shameful refusal of belonging. We are not embraced but tolerated, pitied, and shunned—not in shackles but still subjugated by the very system that profits from our toil.
Not only are we pawns in the economic sense, but we are also victimized to an even greater extreme, as our people are used for political weaponization. One side vilifies us and paints us as invaders, criminals, and parasites, unsympathetic to the causes that bring us here. The other side offers hollow sympathy but often fails to enact real change. Both are sides of the same predatory and self-serving coin, with their own sets of talking heads spewing ramblings with no actual merit or sincerity—just an overwhelming craving that looms large in the back of the minds of all the news anchors, podcasters, and politicians alike. A hunger for plata o poder.
This in itself is another form of solitude; we Mexicans in the United States are caught in a political labyrinth, where we are very much needed yet unwanted, visible yet invisible, spoken about but hardly spoken to. We are like the cattle they slaughter—deemed less than but necessary; dispensable yet crucial.
The audacity of the Mexican American who willingly voted in these indecent politicians is irredeemable, cowardly, and immoral. You’d be a fool to believe you share the same privileges as the white American. In the words of David Gaider: “Privilege is when you think that something’s not a problem because it’s not a problem for you personally.”
I like to believe that our arrogance and lack of self-awareness dance a bailada del huapango, spinning in circles of distraction and self-destruction. It is not that we are incapable of organizing and demanding justice—it is that we are blinded, and distractions numb us.
The older generations—our mothers, fathers, uncles, abuelos—have no other way to see it but with reverence, no choice but to bow their heads in quiet gratitude. To them, being in this country is not to be questioned, only endured with grace. But what is grace, if it is merely survival dressed in devotion? What is gratitude when it is forced?
Our own motherland strangled us to a forsaken life of poverty and malnourishment. The United States—the haven of independence and liberation—offered salvation. Yet, here too we are forsaken in this “promised land.”
That blindness is palpable, but it does not excuse the mess that is our people’s individualism. Octavio Paz and Samuel Ramos understood: Our solitude erodes us. Our seclusion ruins us.
We must reject complacency—“It doesn’t happen to people like me”—for then we are no better than those who have contravened against us. They do not empathize because they have not been subjected to our lives. They do not see the wrong when it is not at their doorsteps knocking in treacherous fashion. They do not care because they are simply not us.
We do not have those privileges; we have blinders on, perplexed by the idiocies of social media and trivialities masquerading as purpose. No, it is not that we cannot organize and sustain assertiveness. It is apathy that paralyzes us.
Yet look to our revolutionaries: Villa, Zapata, Madero, Orozco. We are people of fire, revolution, and reformation.
Our people have endured conquest, oppression, and instability for far too long. Since the Bracero Program in the 1940s and, later, Operation Wetback, we have been essential, yet treated as disposable. We are exploited for our vulnerability, toiling in unsafe and abusive conditions only to receive the bare minimum. Our families are torn apart by borders. And when we attempt to cross those borders, we risk becoming one of the thousands of nameless skeletons in the desert—our final resting place, a forgotten death in a land that never wanted us.
We are scapegoats for crime and drugs despite statistics proving we offend at lower rates than native-born U.S. citizens. We contribute millions of dollars in taxes through individual taxpayer identification numbers and fake Social Security numbers, all in reckless pursuit to maintain our sorrowful livelihoods. Hardly receiving the benefits of our labor due to fear of deportation. A slow trickling descent of cash flow to the political conglomerates.
There is no right in wrongs. No honor in silence. Only the weight of injustice mistaken for grace. We must take a stand against the tyranny which the Mexican American faces—not because it is easy, not because it is comfortable, but because it is necessary. Because we are one as people.
We must stand together—my brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, amigos y enemigos, compadres y desconocidos—to fight for what we believe. To fight the fight which conditioned us to be the resilient people we are.
The time for silence has passed. We will not sit back and ask for freedom—we will take it. We idolize our luchadores and boxers; we will strike and seize with the same precision as our heroes.
I call upon everyone—from the humblest to the arrogant, the wealthy to the poor, the unheard to the outspoken—to strive for change. You may feel discouraged and powerless. You might even tell yourself that your minuscule efforts will not ignite change or bring about a revolution. You would be incredibly mistaken. Pivotal moments in history were sparked by those who doubted their own significance. The world will only ever change if the ordinary person dares to act—dares to believe that their voice will be heard. We are not just the hands that labor—we are the hands that build, that write, that paint. The hands that bring rhythm and flavor to this insatiable life.
And when we finally rise and pull back the curtain, we will not be seen as pawns in their game, but instead be cast upon by the glimmering spotlight of our own making, no longer unforeseen background characters, but the esteemed architects of our very own making.
In unity, we will find strength in our silence, power in our voices, and the courage to break the chains that bind us.
As the great leader Emiliano Zapata once said: “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” The people united will never be defeated, for we are bound by a shared purpose, a strength forged in the fire of struggle.