Hi John,
Thanks for the post. and Thanks for your work as a high school teacher.
I want to begin with a confession, but I confess I don't know what confession to begin with.
First Confession:
As someone who self-identifies as Mexican but who does not pretend to speak as a representative of any "Mexican" group, I don't find Robert's costume idea "sickening" and actually think that it is rather humorous.
The humor of the costume lies in its contradiction of work and play. Had Robert used a real lawnmower in addition to the dirty flannel clothes the joke would have fallen short. But the use of the Fisher-Price mower was a stroke of comedic brilliance.
It is not the costume then that is offensive, but the Hobbesian attitude behind it. We laugh, Hobbes argues, at the failings, infirmities, and absurdity of others because that ridiculing allows us to conceive our own eminence. What is sickening is Robert's imagined superiority. And, John, thanks again for addressing this problem in your classroom.
I do think, though, that this imagined superiority goes far beyond Robert. What should the lesson be? To respect and value those who work for us and who are beneath us in class and social standing. Or should we ask Robert to question his privileged status at this mostly white affluent school and the notable absence of the "Mexican" at this same school. What is sickening is how imagined superiority naturalizes the historical and economic factors that allows the lawnmower to become a symbol for the "Mexican."
Second Confession:
When I was 16 I spent my summer working la yarda. Adolescence is a time of identity crisis. I wanted to work for a landscape company because I, as Robert did, identified being Mexican with the lawnmower. My aunt's husband worked for this landscape company, so did a friend of the family who was living with my aunt and her husband. More importantly so did Carlos, the 16 year old brother of my aunt's husband. Carlos had recently arrived from Mexico and when given a choice to work or to go to school he decided to work. I had become good friends with Carlos. I wanted to show that I, too, could be a good "Mexican," so I decided to work alongside Carlos. I was privileged enough, however, to work only for the summer. I always knew that I would return to school in the Fall.
Carlos still works in the landscaping business. For some people, the lawnmower isn't a stereotype but a livelihood. Carlo's life, though, can't be reduced to the lawnmower. He goes home to his wife and two children.
Third Confession:
I first learned of Octavio Paz on April 19, 1998, the day he passed away. I read of his death in one of the local Spanish newspapers in Houston. The headline grabbed my attention: “Literario Mexicano Octavio Paz Ha Fallecido.” It grabbed my attention not because it announced the death of the Mexican Nobel Laureate—my confession is that I had never heard of Paz—but because the combination of “literario” and “mexicano” sounded so strange to me. A Mexican man of letters? I spent the rest of my Spring 1998 semester at the University of Houston reading everything by Paz that I could get my hands on.
Though I admire the work of Paz, I’m not sure he is the right poet to bring up in battling the stereotypes of the “Mexican.” I would argue that Paz is as far removed from an understanding of the Mexican with the lawnmower as Robert is. John, your post shifts from the yard worker to the major Mexican intellectual of the 20th century without complicating the class differences between the two. Paz knew that his experience differed from the experience of the Mexican worker in the United States. In the controversial first chapter of The Labyrinth of Solitude, Paz describes the pachuco in particular and the Mexican-American in general as “one of the extremes at which the Mexican can arrive.” If we want a literature that battles negative stereotypes of the Mexican in the United States, we should turn not to Paz but to Chicano/a Literature. And because the focus of the discussion has been the yard worker, I would recommend the poetry collection The Date Fruit Elegies by John Olivares Espinosa. He has a beautiful poem that challenges our images of the yard worker: “Grass Isn’t Mowed on Weekends.”
Fourth Confession:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/10/worst_halloween_2.php
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Now I have to rethink my costume for this Halloween.
Fifth Confession:
To answer your last question, John, I think the poetry of James Wright challenged some stereotypes I had. Not sure what specifically those stereotypes are, but I’m sure they have something to do with Terreson’s claims for class as a problem.
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