"In order to melt me in the pot you have to burn me first, and I’m not having it."

Magdalena Gomez writes --
Diversity events by their very nature are insulting perpetuating the idea that somehow people of color are not an integral part of U.S. society, history, culture, literature, workforce and all facets of what makes a nation function. We are exoticized, made other, and brought out for the festivities required of legislated tolerance. With few exceptions, school curriculums continue to deny our full integration into the educational unfolding of our children’s identity and intellect within school culture and learning. Why not begin with the realization that Mexicans are not crossing OUR border - we moved it. How many times must I remind people that Puerto Ricans are not immigrants and that having an accent doesn’t make one hearing or mentally impaired. Please do not mangle our names beyond recognition or give us nicknames. All human beings deserve the respect of having their names pronounced correctly, or at the very least our rigorous best attempts.

Why do I go into school after school to learn that students are not aware that we as Latinos also have s/heroes and literary classics? How can they not be taught of the Arawak Nation and the highly developed, socially and culturally Taino and Carib societies that thrived 1,500 years prior to the invasion and genocide sanctioned by Spain? Why do I mention names like Julia De Burgos, Eugenio María de Hostos, Lola Rodriguez de Tío, Betances, Pedro Pietri, Don Pedro Albizu Campos, Iris Morales, Sandra María Esteves, Judith Ortiz-Cofer, just to name a few, and draw blank stares from students and teachers alike? Not only is this inexcusable, it is imperialism, a form of intellectual tyranny, a systematic cultivation of the colonial mind and the forced assimilation of our children. Please do not confuse social integration with assimilation; one welcomes and embraces diversity, the other dilutes it. In order to melt me in the pot you have to burn me first, and I’m not having it. Tolerance comes from the Latin, tolerare, meaning to bear or endure. Is that really the best we can do? Diversity day? Think again. Please, think again.

To read Magdalena Gomez’s complete commentary go to La Prensa del Oeste de Massachusetts by clicking on the title of this post above.