When I was a senior in high school my parents bought me a new black Nissan Sentra. One day I was driving with my cousin and two other Latino friends in the middle of the day in the suburbs of Alhambra, California. We saw a police car behind us, so I tried to drive especially safely. Within a few blocks, the officer pulled us over. He asked, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" He said that he couldn't see our temporary registration, which was a lie, because it was clearly posted in the back window of the car. After showing him my license and registration he tells us, "I pulled you over because I thought you stole the car. Four Mexicans in a new car." The police officer was Mexican American himself.
I am glad that so many more people are now becoming open to understanding the reality of racism in policing and other aspects of society. As a Latino, however, it is at the same time very frustrating because POC have been talking about these important matters for decades. Why are people just now starting to listen?
With respect to Latinas/os in the Southwest, we have been on the receiving end of U.S. government violence for hundreds of years--ever since half of Mexico (California, New Mexico, Nevada, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma) was stolen by the United States in 1848 as part of what Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses Grant called the unjust U.S.-Mexico War (and prior to that, Texas). According to Grant, "I do not think that there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico...Only I had not moral courage enough to resign...I considered my supreme duty was to my flag." Grant even believed that the overwhelming bloodshed of the U.S. Civil War was God's punishment for the wickedness of the war against Mexico.
The U.S.-Mexico War was fueled by a twisted theology called "Manifest Destiny," which said that God had given Anglo-Saxon Protestants the divine destiny of conquering North America from the East Coast to the West Coast in order to spread their form of Christianity and democracy. The violent toll of this theology was the genocide of Native American communities and the murder and colonization of the 100,000 Mexican Americans who had lived in the land for hundreds of years prior, but who were considered racially undesirable and inferior. Along with the horror of African Slavery, Manifest Destiny is one of the grave original sins of the United States. Here are two quotes from Anglo American soldiers of the time which exemplify the mad theology of Manifest Destiny and its violent consequences:
"I wish I had the power to stop their churches...to bring off this treasure hoard of gold and jewels, and to put the greasy priests, monks, friars and other officials at work on the public highways as a preliminary step to mending their ways...It is perfectly clear that this war is a divine dispensation intended to purify and punish this misguided nation." "The majority of the Volunteers sent here, are a disgrace to the nation; think of one of them shooting a woman while washing in the bank of the river--merely to test his rifle; another tore forcibly from a Mexican woman the rings from her ears. Their officers take no notice of these outrages, and the offenders escape."
The violent attitudes of Manifest Destiny ring through the ages in modern day quotes and attitudes such as, "Mexicans are rapists and criminals," we have the right to put their children in cages. Make America Great Again by keeping the "dirty Mexicans" out and sending them back home where they belong.
If the Church in America is serious about repentance from its complicity in the horrors of African Slavery and Manifest Destiny, then it must also recognize the violent consequences of such complicity which have rippled through decades to the present moment. And then it must ACT. Transform the structures and systems of local churches, denominations, Christian colleges, seminaries, and campus ministries which still reflect the attitudes of Manifest Destiny and ignore the voices and leadership of Latinas/os, Native Americans, and African Americans. And also go to the voting booth to elect officials who are truly committed to understanding and remedying the vast socio-economic and political inequalities which persist in Communities of Color because of the jagged racial legacies of our country. If all we hear is talk without action, then we will have to lament once again, with the brother of Jesus:
"14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." James 2:14-17
Robert Chao Romero