U.S. identity still shifts to many hues

By JOE RODRIGUEZ
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Baby-faced and with a few more inches to grow in the summer of 1964, I had no idea how much America would soon begin to change and how I would fit in.
My experience would be much different than that of my parents, grandparents and generations of Mexican-Americans before them. They strove for acceptance by white America even as they were legally banned from certain schools and systematically denied higher education, good jobs and professional careers.
Yet some of them, maybe most of them, would tell you they never intended to establish a bona fide, blended culture. For example, my Aunt Bea Cortez. Almost 90 now, she still insists, "I'm not Mexican. I'm not Mexican-American. Don't even call me American of Mexican descent. I'm American, just American."
The irony is, when it comes to our social and family values, our ability to speak Spanish or cook traditional dishes or sing old songs, Aunt Bea is more Mexican than I'll ever be. The difference is that she and her generation grew up in an era when white culture defined America politically.
The black essayist and novelist Leonce E. Gaiter once wrote, "You can't ask who is 'white' without asking, by association, who is 'American.'"
He argued that "white" identity had become overly broad, the result of Germans, Jews, Irish, Italians and other groups abandoning their cultural identities. In the process they adopted a new political identity based on freedom, equality and justice. Tragically, some reserved those noble ideals only for whites.
Reform came slowly by civil war, riot, street protest and legislation, but Gaiter said we should credit the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed 40 years ago last week, for putting "the last nail in the coffin of the political definition of [white] American. Whiteness had made sense in a segregated world."
Congress didn't know it at the time, but when it banned segregation in housing and discrimination in employment, it expanded the idea of nationhood and the definition of American identity.
With legal access to higher education, financial institutions, suburban housing, and employment in the trades and the corporate world, racial minorities finally could pursue roles that once defined white America. Minorities could relax in their unique cultures and enjoy the rewards of their individual talent and labor.
OK, none of this happened overnight. We're still dealing with the vestiges of discrimination, such as red-lining and education inequality, but there was a dramatic change in how racial minorities saw themselves as Americans.
You could be as Mexican as you wanted and still attend a university, as black as you felt and get a home loan, as Asian as you wished and run for elected office. Black is beautiful. Asian pride. S se puede.
Choices
A kid like me in 1964 barely considered the skin lotions that promised to turn brown skin white. A kid like me chose instead to study Mexican-American history in high school, Latino politics in college and go on to write for mainstream newspapers for general audiences.
He could be Chicano, Latino and American at the same time. He could still be changed by the cultures around him, which is to say the melting pot is still alive. It just isn't dictated by a white majority anymore. Aunt Bea would never understand.
This shift in American identity is not complete. A backlash from cultural, white conservatives has been under way for some time with attacks on bilingual education and affirmative action. These reactionaries are beginning to call for a moratorium on immigration from Latin American, Asia and Africa, and a return to the white, political and moral values on which this nation was founded.
But as we knew 40 years ago, some of those political values were corrupt. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed the exclusivity of whiteness and declared all cultures equal, and we're all better off for it.
XJoe Rodriguez is a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.