In the United States the notion of freedom has always had an ambiguous relation to race. Even if we set aside the genocide that led to the establishment of the country, it remains the case that African Americans were not only denied the vote for around two centuries, but were initially enslaved in a system that largely built the wealth of the U.S. One might imagine that after so much time has elapsed this situation would have resolved itself. However natural, this hypothesis would be clearly incorrect. African Americans remain disenfranchised and are largely excluded from taking place in the country’s electoral process through mass incarceration, district gerrymandering, and voter I.D. regulations that are barely able to disguise their racist intent and purpose. Yet African Americans are not the only minority that has suffered under official and tacit U.S. oppression. Luis Rodriguez explains how Latin Americans, many but not all of whom migrate to the U.S. from Mexico, suffer from a similar sort of oppression and disenfranchisement. On the surface, Rodriguez’s book is about gangs. However, a deeper analysis shows that gang activity is merely one of many similar responses to the racial oppression that has always been at the forefront of the United States’ social, economic, and political agendas.
No state in the union is more closely connected to Mexico than is California. One might argue that Texas should be given this designation, but Texas is much more stalwart in enforcing immigration rules and laws than is the progressive state of California. Nothing could be further from the present author’s intent than to minimize the important differences that separate different immigrant and racial groups that find their way, through one method or another, into the United States. However, the topic at issue is the relation of freedom to race. It is arguable that the similarities experienced by the different immigrant and racial groups that fall into this category outweigh the differences. The United States was not only founded on genocide but has since this founding used race as a central way to keep elite powers in their positions of strength. The different ways in which this has been accomplished, with respect to different races and ethnic groups, are certainly importantly distinct. However, overall disenfranchisement and appropriation of race as a way to stabilize and maintain class differences is arguably constant across racial divides.
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The most important manifestations of racism are implicit and hidden from view. The reason for this is that, as Michelle Alexander has argued at length, overt acts of racism—whether they manifest themselves merely in speech or also action—are easy to detect, and relatively easy to discourage and punish (Alexander). More importantly, racism can thrive even in the absence of frequent overt acts of racial hatred and bias. One solid example of this is provided by Rodriguez himself, who writes about a sign that looks race-neutral but was almost certainly not. The description of the sign was in all capital letters, but this will be avoided for the sake of fairness in the quotation provided: “No one allowed after 4:30 PM, by order of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department” (Rodriguez, 35).
Anyone who has studied race relations in the U.S. will be reminded, in considering this sign, of the so-called “Sundown Towns” that were so pervasive in previous decades, and to some extent still are. These towns, more often than not, had an unambiguous message for African Americans: “Ni***rs, do not let yourselves be found in the city limits after sundown”. The implied threat was clear and was often enough acted upon that its veracity was seldom doubted (Loewen).
Nevertheless, one of the chief virtues of Rodriguez’s book is that it brings out the ways in which, as difficult as it might be to imagine, Latin Americans are treated more poorly even than African Americans in the contemporary United States. This statement might have been controversial two years ago, but under the current United States’ Presidential administration it is a mere platitude. Latin Americans, or people who come to America from Latin American countries, are in at least one sense much more vulnerable to maltreatment than are African Americans. This is, of course, because their legal standing in the country is challenged. Some but not all of the additional difficulties that Latin Americans face are due to border controls and the erroneous supposition that the “suffering” of American workers is due principally, or even in substantial part, to immigration—legal and illegal.
It is true that the world in general is suffering from a “migration crisis”. This is due in part to climate change, and in part to the fact that the United States has invaded and occupied Middle Eastern countries in violation of United Nations’ standards. However, the particular people that Rodriguez is most concerned to describe and plump for have little to do with these rather recent developments. These people have more to do with desperate conditions in their home countries—many of which the U.S. has been instrumental in creating—and their understandable desire to provide at least minimally adequate living conditions for themselves and their loved ones. To these people the U.S. has no non-embarrassing message to impart. As Rodriguez brings out, in many different ways, the U.S. offers negligible help or hope to migrants from the south; and what little it does offer is fraught with violence, danger, and uncertainty.
- Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2012.
- Loewen, James. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: The New Press, 2005.
- Rodriguez, Luis. Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. New York: Open Road Media, 2012.
