We don't want to be cute, we're fierce

Yesterday, a group of us met with a local TV station to discuss their coverage of the demolition of a historic neighborhood in my city that would result in the displacement of a long-time and close-knit community, mostly elders. Three of us, community organizers and historians, accompanied four women from the barrio. They were from their fifties to their eighties. The women were eloquent, witty, and incredible fountains of knowledge about la frontera.

At the end, the station manager called the group "cute."

I'm still thinking about it, offended, angry, maybe even a little bit shocked. I knew he was being dismissive and condescending. It was when I looked up the definition of "cute" that I understood his real message, part of a long history of infantilizing our community. .

Cute: attractive or pretty especially in a childish, youthful, or delicate way (Merriam Dictionary)

For almost two centuries,  employers, government officials, and those in power have categorized us in two ways: (1) we are dangerous, dirty, lazy, threats to either the nation or civilization or (2) we are childlike, infantile, docile, easily manipulated. In this case, the "cuteness" also targeted them for being older and women.

In our traditional culture, abuela power is real. Elders are respected and listened to. Abuelas make family decisions. They are strong. They have life experience. They have lived. Tienen educación , whether they attended school or not.

What Mr. TV Station Man really was telling us yesterday was that we were being tolerated, indulged like children. And it was racialized.

In his new book, Critical Race theorist Ian Haney Lopez writes that politicians now use coded speech in order to racialize policies without sounding racist. "This sort of coded speech operates on two levels," he writes. In Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, Haney argues that coded speech "lets the speaker deny that he's even thinking about race."

He underestimates the power and the tenacity of fierce fronterizas like the women of the barrio who sat in his conference room yesterday.

Doña Carmen in front of the Civic Center protesting for the right to remain in her home, 2006.

Señora Lupe at a meeting to defend El Segundo Barrio, 2006.

Margarita speaking on behalf of her small business, 2006.

As I enter my elderhood, these women are my guides, my heroes. They have raised generations of children. They have worked long hours inside and outside their homes. Their work has built this city. They have spoken in defense of their homes and their communities. I've seen them work an 8 hour day and then walk miles to their second job. I've seen them go house to house to talk to neighbors, organizing the neighborhood. I've listened to the stories of how they have spent years making their barrios safe and tranquil places to live. And they can still tell a joke and dance and laugh. They have hope and they take action.

No, Mr. TV Station Man. We are not cute. We are fierce.

Doña Toñita, la abuela del barrio.

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Photographs courtesy of Lucia Martinez and Paso del Sur. Thanks to Zeke Peña and Los Dos for use of the Duranguito poster.