THESE lines have to do with two ways to use paint -- first, as a gift or invitation to others; second, as a weapon used to erase, exclude and belittle. The first use was performed by Latino/Hispanic students to share the riches of Hispanic Awareness Week (speakers, movies, discussions) with the community by adorning Beta Bridge with flags, phrases and a schedule of events.
Paint was employed in the second fashion by certain individuals to cover up and replace what was on the Bridge with an ugly attack on Latinos. This second group decided that, instead of the painted gift, students, faculty, staff, neighbors and passers-by would be treated to the phrase "Durty Sanchez: ¿Donde Está?" (Dirty Sanchez, Where Are You?) in large letters, accompanied by other words and the caricature of a Mexican under a large sombrero.
This use of paint as a weapon saddens, surprises and infuriates many, not only because of its hostility to members of this community, but because it equates difference with inferiority. In a few strokes, the "overpainters" evoked centuries of painful history.
They dipped their brushes not only in paint, but in a centuries-old reservoir of ill-treatment and prejudice toward Hispanics/Latinos. ("Hispanic" and "Latino" are often used interchangeably; here, I will use "Latino" to mean "Latin American birth or descent.")
First, the emblematic use of "Dirty Sanchez" attempts to affix uncleanliness, dirtiness, to Latinos. As historian Paul Gaston so passionately reminds us, systems of segregation have operated in this country not only to keep groups separate, but to keep dominant groups "pure" and free of contact with others they deemed "unclean." Most famously such a system attacked black people, but in large regions, particularly the West, similar pejorative separation was applied to Mexicans and other Latinos. "Dirty Sanchez" also has a slang, sexual meaning, conveying to those aware of it another, parallel level of "dirtiness."
Second, the symbol chosen to represent Latinos is an age-old cliché of American visual culture: the stereotypical Mexican peasant, usually depicted as a short, dark-skinned male with drooping mustache, nearly hidden beneath an oversized sombrero. Connotations of "dirtiness" enter here too, for the icon the overpainters chose evokes rural manual labor; people who work with their hands have often been viewed by the middle classes as unclean. In the mid-19th century, Mexicans first were saddled with the epithet "greaser" which even received official sanction in a myriad of local anti-Mexican ordinances known as "Greaser Laws." As with African Americans, Mexican-Americans' subordinate separateness was enforced not only by law and custom but at times by lynching too.
Third, the Mexican imagery lumps Latinos together, with absurd inaccuracy, as foreign, non-English speaking, and of one national origin. These oversimplifications also have their history. Beginning 1846-8 with U.S. conquest of Texas, California and the rest of the Mexican Far North, the dominant society treated native born inhabitants as foreigners. A contradictory dynamic was born which continues to this day: actively recruiting Mexicans to come North to apply their muscle and skill to mining, agriculture, railroads and factory work, while simultaneously holding over their heads the insecurity and threat of deportation expressed in the terms "wetback" and "illegal." In 1848 the national habit was established of looking upon Latinos as peoples whose conquest or occupation was a foregone conclusion, and a chief means to national expansion and wealth. This imperial mindset, not entirely vanished, is still audible in phrases like "banana republic" and "down there" and "our backyard."
The preceding, fortunately, are far from the only strands in the U.S. cultural attitude toward the Latino heritage. Latino culture also has fascinated North Americans for centuries, whether Scott Joplin, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton dipping into the Cuban, Mexican and Puerto Rican musical heritage; millions of readers delving into Neruda, García Márquez, Allende; or, closer to home, University students lining up to learn salsa/merengue steps or enroll in Spanish courses.
The University's Latino students are not only part of the community's rainbow of diversity; they are a rainbow in and of themselves. This is true not only for nationality (the last four presidents of La Sociedad Latina had roots in Colombia, Panama, Chile and Brazil) but also interests and passions. Students have organized to promote bilingual theater (Babel); Latino student recruitment (LSAC); hip-hop culture (OAHHC); professional formation in law (Voz Latina), business (LASA at Darden), and engineering (SHPE); alumni (Bolivar Network); community service through sorority/fraternity (Omega Phi Beta, Lambda Upsilon Lambda); multiracial identity (Kaleidoscope); African diaspora (Afro-Caribe), and more.
In the end, the overpainters have fouled only themselves with their vicious folly. For the community will surely and proudly repudiate their abominable behavior. After all, the venom they splattered on the Bridge utterly misrepresents an institution whose highest ideals include respect for the origins and outlooks of all who are here to learn and to teach -- whether in the classroom or in the countless, quiet acts of exchange and appreciation that occur throughout the University every day.
(Pablo J. Davis is an Assistant Dean of Students.)
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