Clovis' perspective on mexicanos

I just returned from visiting family in Clovis a couple days ago and had a few interesting conversations at the dinner table about Spanish in NM that I would like to share with you all. My mom's family has lived in Clovis all of their lives and generally speaking, Clovis is a very white, sheltered and racist community. Mexicanos (and African Americans) are greatly looked down upon, are constantly called inappropriate names and are not completely integrated into the community. I have a couple cousins (18 and 21 years old), that grew up in Clovis. After speaking with them this past weekend, I could tell that my younger cousin, who goes to school at ENMU in Portales, still holds these racist ideas about Mexicans and Spanish. He refused to take Spanish in high school and still refuses to take it in college. This weekend I heard him using the term Mexican in a very derogatory way and saying a slew of other things that I don't want to repeat. Needless to say, I was very disappointed but because I have known how Clovis is all of my life, I am not surprised. The older cousin is finishing her degree here at UNM and has made great changes in her view of Hispanics in Albuquerque. She no longer uses the terms she used to use that I used to get on her case for so many times, and she loves the Stuff Burqueños Say videos because she can now relate to them. One of the neatest comments she said while at the dinner table was that she thinks Albuquerque is such a cool place because we can throw Spanish words into our everyday English language and no one thinks it is weird. She gave examples like: gracias, de nada, por favor, hola and que pasa. Keep in mind, she does not speak Spanish, but she knows these words well simply because she has lived in Albuquerque for 4 years. Her perspective has really changed since growing up in Clovis.

My aunt (my cousins' mother) was also involved in our conversation that night. She works at an elementary school in Clovis that is made up of low-income non-white families. Many of her kindergartners speak only Spanish when they first come into her classroom and she has to work extra hard in order to integrate them and make them learn English like the rest of the kids. One of her strategies is to receive help from one of the other kindergartners in her classroom. Since my aunt does not speak any Spanish, she asks another child to translate for the new child. She says, to her surprise, that the child looks at her like, you want me to speak Spanish?! She never understood why they were so shy about it and didn't understand why they all of a sudden didn't want to speak Spanish when my aunt is deliberately asking them. I explained the NM school history and explained that the don't-speak-Spanish-outside-the-home attitude could well be passed down from the grandparents, parents and brothers and sisters down to these innocent 5 year old children. Finally, she understood why they were looking at her like, are you going to punish me if I speak to him in Spanish? My aunt said that they will also speak Spanish among themselves when they are alone, but once she walks over to them, they will immediately switch to English.

Isn't it amazing that little 5 year old kids already have these attitudes within them?