Washington Post
A group of mostly strangers will gather in a soggy cemetery on Sunday, stand around the grave of a Mexico-born man they never met and celebrate a significant moment: his citizenship.
Not his U.S. citizenship.
His Republic of Texas citizenship.
If that gives you pause, that’s okay. If there is one issue that should force us to stop accepting simplistic, easy-to-debate narratives, it is immigration. The historical fluidity of our borders, despite crowd-pleasing sound bites, is not as clear cut as a line on a map and illegal versus documented.
Understanding and acknowledging that matters more than ever now because we are at a point in our history where U.S. citizens with Latino last names are being asked to prove their American-ness.
In an alarming report fom my colleague Kevin Sieff about a surge in passport denials for Latinos along the border, he details the experience of a former U.S. soldier. The man, who has an American birth certificate saying he was born in Brownsville, Texas, tried to renew his passport and received a letter from the State Department saying it didn’t believe he was a citizen.
The 40-year-old was asked to provide what many of us would struggle to find: “evidence of his mother’s prenatal care, his baptismal certificate, rental agreements from when he was a baby.”
That man asked Sieff not to reveal his last name because he feared repercussions from the government — his government.
But his first name said enough. It was not Mike or Mark or John.
It was Juan.
Well, here is the story of another Juan, a man whom I have spent a lot of time learning about lately and whose place in our country’s history speaks to why it is dangerous to start judging people’s worthiness to live in this country based on their names.
Juan Vargas arrived in San Antonio with his wife and daughters when mesquite trees covered the landscape and homes were scarce. Texas was still part of Mexico then, but it would soon become its own Republic and then eventually part of the United States.
First though, there would come a fight — one that would become known as the Battle of the Alamo.
Don’t worry, this is not a history lesson. This is about what is happening at this moment.
Just a few days ago, Sen. Ted Cruz (R) referenced that battle on Twitter, commending the State Board of Education for deciding to continue describing the Texans who defended the Alamo as “heroic.” He wrote: “For generations, Texans have drawn inspiration & strength from the brave men who fought and died for independence at the Alamo. They remain a symbol of valor for all Americans.”
One of the most famous of those defenders is, of course, Davy Crockett. A Disney movie was even made in his name.
But Juan Vargas was also there.
He was a landowner when he saw the Mexican troops sweep into the city and take what they wanted — including him, according to several accounts.
A group of mostly strangers will gather in a soggy cemetery on Sunday, stand around the grave of a Mexico-born man they never met and celebrate a significant moment: his citizenship.
Not his U.S. citizenship.
His Republic of Texas citizenship.
If that gives you pause, that’s okay. If there is one issue that should force us to stop accepting simplistic, easy-to-debate narratives, it is immigration. The historical fluidity of our borders, despite crowd-pleasing sound bites, is not as clear cut as a line on a map and illegal versus documented.
Understanding and acknowledging that matters more than ever now because we are at a point in our history where U.S. citizens with Latino last names are being asked to prove their American-ness.
In an alarming report fom my colleague Kevin Sieff about a surge in passport denials for Latinos along the border, he details the experience of a former U.S. soldier. The man, who has an American birth certificate saying he was born in Brownsville, Texas, tried to renew his passport and received a letter from the State Department saying it didn’t believe he was a citizen.
The 40-year-old was asked to provide what many of us would struggle to find: “evidence of his mother’s prenatal care, his baptismal certificate, rental agreements from when he was a baby.”
That man asked Sieff not to reveal his last name because he feared repercussions from the government — his government.
But his first name said enough. It was not Mike or Mark or John.
It was Juan.
Well, here is the story of another Juan, a man whom I have spent a lot of time learning about lately and whose place in our country’s history speaks to why it is dangerous to start judging people’s worthiness to live in this country based on their names.
Juan Vargas arrived in San Antonio with his wife and daughters when mesquite trees covered the landscape and homes were scarce. Texas was still part of Mexico then, but it would soon become its own Republic and then eventually part of the United States.
First though, there would come a fight — one that would become known as the Battle of the Alamo.
Don’t worry, this is not a history lesson. This is about what is happening at this moment.
Just a few days ago, Sen. Ted Cruz (R) referenced that battle on Twitter, commending the State Board of Education for deciding to continue describing the Texans who defended the Alamo as “heroic.” He wrote: “For generations, Texans have drawn inspiration & strength from the brave men who fought and died for independence at the Alamo. They remain a symbol of valor for all Americans.”
One of the most famous of those defenders is, of course, Davy Crockett. A Disney movie was even made in his name.
But Juan Vargas was also there.
He was a landowner when he saw the Mexican troops sweep into the city and take what they wanted — including him, according to several accounts.
1 comment:
Juan you are correct, yet 90% of Brownsville has Hispanic blood line, they want to forget that they are Mexican even in 250 years they may have been born in the USA and they have American children, but they have Mexican in their blood line.
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