AmoXcalli

I was born in 1961 which makes me almost 47 years old.  My mother is Mexican-American, my father was Irish-Jewish (go figure).  I learned about discrimination early on.  My father’s parents didn’t think much of my Mexican Catholic mother.  She hated them for hating her.  Growing up in a Mexican barrio in Southeast  L.A.,  my sisters and I were too light-skinned, too freckled and we had that funny Irish last name.  No one liked us.  It didn’t matter that we were nice girls, we were different and so we learned to depend on each other and make our own way.  I found books and found I didn’t need friends.

In 1968, my mother moved to Watts.  What she was thinking, I’ve no idea.  We were worse off than before.  We were the only three “white” girls in a school of African-Americans.  Yeah, we got jumped all the time and life really, really sucked hard until my mother moved again.

I went to Junior High School in a mixed neighborhood.  Cubans, Mexicans, and Caucasians.  We still didn’t fit in anywhere and made few friends.  The Mexicans thought we were too white, the Whites thought we were too Mexican.  You get the picture.  Still, we got through it and the few friends I made are still with me.

As a mother, a single mother with Mexican-American kids, I ran into racism and discrimination over and over again.  I had one teacher tell me it didn’t matter if my daughter didn’t do well on a test because she’d probably end up pregnant and drop out of high school anyway.  Yeah, that was a conversation with the school board.

Over the years, I’ve seen things get better.  L.A. is very diverse and I don’t run into too much bullshit anymore.  I’m not the target anymore, it seems.  This year, the target of choice for hatred and discrimination is Gay Marriage and I’m just fed up.  Haven’t we learned that hatred, discrimination, racism and intolerance doesn’t work?  What gives us a right to decide who people fall in love with and want to marry?  Who are we to judge?

We have a constitution that says we are all created equal but we don’t practice it.  We’re quick to yank out a constitution and call upon our given rights but equally eager to subvert it.  It breaks my heart to see Latinos for 8, led by their churches, which really need to stay the holy fuck out of politics.  What happened to separation of church and state?

What is traditional marriage?  If we go back to the bible, it would mean a man had many wives.   Or it could mean that as a woman, your husband had all rights to your property and your children – you’d have no legal recourse if he chose to take your money and kids.  How’s that for traditional? There is no such thing as traditional marriage as proponents of Prop 8 would have you believe. Marriage has constantly changed as have people.  Evolution.  Of course, some people don’t believe in evolution.

My definition of marriage is this:  Two humans who love each other and are deeply committed to each other, their relationship and want to make a life together.  Marriage is hard work and not everyone can swing it.  I’m divorced and have yet to find a partner that I am willing to share that level of commitment with.  For those of you that have found such love and devotion, you deserve to have the marriage you want and all the joy that comes with it.

Discrimination and I are old enemies and so I am voting No on Prop 8 – it breeds hatred, exclusionism, divisiveness, racism, discrimination and intolerance.  Ya basta!

I’m begging you, if you’re thinking of voting for it, to please stop and think of what you are really doing.  You’re not saving marriage, you’re breeding hatred and stripping people (including yourself) of fundamental rights.

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