POCHO HISTORY 101: Keep poor Irishmen, Italian gangsters, and English convicts OUT OF THE U.S.A! (toon)

Fear of immigrants has a long history in the United States. In this cartoon, published in 1891, illustrator Grant Hamilton draws a judge scolding Uncle Sam:

If Immigration was properly Restricted you would no longer be troubled with Anarchy, Socialism, the Mafia and such kindred evils!

From New York Harbor behind them comes a horde of arriving immigrants labeled “German socialist,” “Russian anarchist,” “Polish vagabond,” “Italian brigand,” “English convict,” and “Irish pauper.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENBIGGENATE.

In Spanish Harlem, they looked at me and asked: ‘What are you?’

I remember the first time I thought I might not be White.

I was about 8 years old, in my elementary school’s cafeteria. We had been learning about heritage in class that day, and everyone in my Michigan hometown, it seemed, had ancestors who came from Denmark or Holland. They were all blonde-haired and blue-eyed. I remember a classmate turned around and looked at me and said, “What are you?” “I’m a kid,” I answered, confused. “Just like you.”

“No,” was the reply. “I mean, what are you? Are you Italian? Indian?”

I was confused. “I’m an American,” I said, proudly. I knew my mom’s family went back in this country a long time, and had fought in the Revolutionary War. Why would I be Italian?

As I grew older, I became hyper-aware of my dark hair and dark eyes. Everyone in town—and in my family, it seemed—was tall, blonde, and blue- or green-eyed. They all had little ski-jump noses. My nose was big, round, and wide.

But my dad was a tall blonde Dutchman, and my mom always checked “White” or “Caucasian” on my school forms, and—why would I question my parents?—so I grew up White.

Except for the many, many times, White people did not accept me.

It gnawed at me, the question I received more and more the older I got: “What are you?”

By high school, I knew I wanted to go someplace where I didn’t stand out because of my features. Someplace where people looked like me. I chose New York City, where I instinctively knew there were people who looked like me, and where, I thought, no one would ask, “What are you?”

Mas…In Spanish Harlem, they looked at me and asked: ‘What are you?’

Tico man fed up with being called ‘Chino’ by everyone

Most friends don’t even know his real name, which is Ken

(PNS reporting from BELÉN, COSTA RICA) A local Costa Rican man born to Taiwanese immigrants is threatening to pack up and move to Taiwan though he’s never actually been there before.

Ken Chu, 28, who was born in Belén to Taiwanese immigrants, says his reasons for wanting to leave are simple.

“I’ve been known as Chino my entire life,” Chu said in a press conference at the Taiwan donated Puente de la Amistad in Guanacaste. “My friends, everyone I work with, my teachers at school, even Guachimen. Everyone calls me Chino. I’m not Chinese! I’m Tico!”

Mas…Tico man fed up with being called ‘Chino’ by everyone

Savage Wild West Adventures of the Border Patrol (1951 toons)

borderpatrolcover“Heroic” Border Patrol Agents of Lore: Or “That’s Not the Migra I Know!” More Tales of Greedy “Mexicans,” “Savage” Native Americans, and “Heroic” Uber Gringos!

Pappy’s Golden Age of Comics Blog is at it again — posting delectable artifacts from American comic book history that are also revelatory chronicles unraveling the collusion of race, ethnicity, violence, and more in popular “entertainments.”

Mas…Savage Wild West Adventures of the Border Patrol (1951 toons)

Pocho Ocho best ways to tell if someone is a member of ‘LA RAZA’

curiel-trumpcardcarryingYou know that “Mexican Judge,” Gonzalo P. Curiel? He can’t be impartial in the Trump University fraud case because he’s a member of that militant Mexican cabal known as LA RAZA.

And he’s not the only one! After all, you can’t have a conspiracy with only one conspirator, amirite?

There might even be card-carrying members of LA RAZA in your neighborhood, at your job, talking about you in Spanish at the next table over, or ohmygod in your kids’ schools!

Be aware and be prepared, America.

Here are the Pocho Ocho Best Ways to Tell if Someone Is A Member Of LA RAZA:

8. Nopal en la frente

7. MEChA meeting

6. No era penal

Mas…Pocho Ocho best ways to tell if someone is a member of ‘LA RAZA’

Can you spot the Latino in this photograph?

salvadorlitvakI’m pretty sure I was the only redhead at the NYU Latino Law Students Association Gala in the spring of 1990. The food was delicious, my date looked stunning, and I was glad I had jumped on the opportunity when I received the LALSA invitation.

My journey to that moment began 25 years earlier. I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1965: a third generation Chilean on my father’s side (whose people came from Odessa), and first generation on my mother’s side, who arrived when she was 12 from Hungary.

We left Chile in 1970 after the election of socialist president Salvador Allende. For Mom, socialism was close enough to the Soviet regime she’d fled in Hungary.

I started kindergarten at P.S. 81 in the Bronx. With a curly mop of flaming red hair and speaking only Spanish, I immediately embarked on a lifelong career of not fitting in. I learned English fast, but I still felt like an outsider. I got into X-Men comics because I identified with the mutants.

Mas…Can you spot the Latino in this photograph?

That time when Sylvester Stallone was a Mexican cover boy (toons)

argosythrillfWith all the press he is getting, you would think that Pendejo-of-the-Century Donald Trump had invented all the twisted tales of Mexicans floating on the interwebs.

But our pasty-faced, combover fatboy is not the first and not the last of the foolios who will get rich (and famous) for spouting hate-laced bon mots on the hygiene, sexual practices, and criminality of Mexicans or any other Latina/o for that matter.

Here, in some graphics from the 30s, we see some early 20th Century meditations on Latina/o/Hispanic subjectivities from the pages of Argosy Weekly.

As you can see, pulp magazine editors and illustrators were not ethnographers and whether the subjects depicted are Spanish, Argentine, or Mexican (or Italian — Sylvester Stallone?) is impossible to determine — though I am pretty sure the Buzzard Bait issue features some prehistoric Califas bandidos, and Señor Flatfoot’s “pampas” rogues look like they stepped out of the Mexico conjured in John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (which had not been made yet! Time travelers?)

Mas…That time when Sylvester Stallone was a Mexican cover boy (toons)

The REAL problem with Kelly Osbourne’s racist toilet-cleaner remark

kellyo“If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilets, Donald Trump?”

Uh. Yikes. Yikes yikes yikes.

By now you’re probably familiar with our latest racist media frenzy centered on remarks Kelly Osbourne made on The View, a response to the incredibly racist Donald Trump.

But she sounded just as racist.

Mas…The REAL problem with Kelly Osbourne’s racist toilet-cleaner remark

Coming Soon: Attack of the 14-Year-Old Black Girl!

texaspoliceComing soon from McKinney, Texas Police Productions, it’s the next summer horror science fiction cop flick, Attack of the 14-Year-Old Black Girl!

A frightening teen girl in a bikini terrorizes the police force of a small Texas suburb, making them respond with excessive force and brutality reserved only for the worst of America’s swimming thugs!

Who will protect our nation’s pool parties from this monster? Rated R for Racist!

Featuring Emma Stone as the Asian Neighbor.

Mas…Coming Soon: Attack of the 14-Year-Old Black Girl!