I came across a native creation myth while reading local history a few years back. The imagery and themes stuck with me and the recent round of rain gave me the perfect opportunity to share it with the local paper.
Last Fall, a producer from the Magnolia Network reached out to me because they came across this site and thought the Big Brown Fambam might have a story that would make sense for their program, Recipe Lost and Found.
And sure enough, we delivered.
Here’s the preview
You can catch the full episode on Discovery Plus.
My op-ed on participation trophies recently ran in SCNG papers, including my hometown SGV Tribune and Pasadena Star News.
This was an occasion to talk growing up in the hood, studying philosophy, making media and slanging coffee. Dive in.
I enthusiastically share my thoughts on identity terms in advertising with Ad Age. As a bonus, this ran in the print edition, too.
This first appeared in in The San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Pasadena Star News.
The best dads work hard. And after nearly three years of parenting during a pandemic, the data demonstrates we’ve worked even harder.
But don’t kick off those boots just yet. Indeed, lace them tighter. We must reckon with the fact that moms continue to outwork dads, inside and outside of the home. And it’s not even close, even if it’s changing.
While the amount of housework married men do has more than doubled since the 1960s, married women still, on average, do twice as much housework as men. Even as the last 15 years has seen women become less likely to be the primary partner handling grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, dishwashing and cleaning, they still occupy those roles in a majority of households. So even while dads are assuming more domestic responsibilities, we haven’t reached parity.
In case you think this disparity is the result of moms being home more often than dads, it’s important to note that when moms have jobs outside of the home, they continue to outwork men inside the home.
In my case, working from home during the pandemic radically increased my domestic workload. I took responsibility for grocery shopping, picking up the kids from school and taking them to football and flag practices. I cook and clean regularly (er, occasionally), too. These responsibilities were previously assumed by my wife, Angie, who has worked full time as director of the Harvey Mudd College Upward Bound Program for the last 20 years. Even then, we haven’t reached parity. As every parent knows, there’s a laundry list of work to do — including laundry.
Why does a more fair split in responsibilities matter? The type of responsibilities parents assume impacts a child’s social outcomes.
A recent Harvard Business School Report noted the impact gender roles play in a child’s expectations and behavior. Sons of working moms tended to hold more egalitarian gender attitudes. Daughters whose mothers worked outside the home were more likely to hold leadership roles at work and earn higher wages than daughters whose mothers stayed home full-time.
We’ve seen this begin to bear out in our kids, Joaquin (10) and Maya (13). Joaquin eschews traditional gender assumptions. A budding politico, he lobbied for L.A.’s first woman mayor and he regularly chooses mom as his quarterback during our intramural games. Maya understands the importance of leadership. When she was 6, she started The Cozy Collection, a family service project that has donated over 20,000 pairs of socks to the homeless across the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire. When dads step up, it has a real impact.
But dad’s newfound duties mustn’t stop at doing the dishes. It should include childcare, in a broad sense of the term. Childcare, and the emotional labor it entails, is often wrongfully thought of as mom’s work. This turns on the premise that dads are unwilling to develop emotional intelligence. This assumption is wrong.
In May 2021, the Office for National Statistics found that while women still performed more childcare, the gender care gap narrowed. In 2015, men were spending 39% of the time that women spent on childcare. During lockdown, that number increased to 64%.
Dads are not only capable of assuming more emotional labor, we’re a primary beneficiary of the work. When we exercise our emotional muscles, we not only experience the immediate rewards of filial connection but we set ourselves up for future success, too. As our kids mature, we’ll need an even stronger set of emotional resources to help them navigate the world.
Dads need to do more. We’re capable.We’re powerful. We’re important. And our children, partners and society will be the better for it.
Carlos Aguilar is editorial director at Quantasy and Associates and publisher of bigbrowndad.com, a fatherhood blog.
It’s true. I started boxing a little over a year ago. I wrote about my experience for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
They have a paywall, so I’ve included the text below:
There’s a 900 sq ft boxing gym, tucked into the furthermost corner of a well worn strip mall on the northside of Arrow Highway where Azusa’s city limits rub against Covina’s. You have to want to find Valverde Boxing Gym to see it. I found it 8 months ago as a 47 year old dad looking to lose some pandemic weight. In the process, I’ve learned the sport of boxing, and the consecrated place and space where it happens, the gym, reflect the values that ground our pride during Hispanic Heritage Month (and beyond).
Take for example the ambition of gym owners, Daniel and Yuridia Valverde. Daniel came to the United States in 2005 from Coahuilla, Mexico, landing first in Philadelphia where he took odd jobs, squeezing in time to train at renowned Philly boxing gyms, and then onto New York City for a brief work stint and finally in Los Angeles, where he turned his boxing expertise into a business. His wife, Yuri, is foundational to the operation.
Together, at 6:30 am, they open the gym doors Monday through Friday and close them around 9:00 pm, as the last student and her parents amble out. You’ll find their 6, 5, 3 and 1 year old children at the gym, the three oldest boys not only learning to bob and weave but also tossing baseballs and playing tag. The gym has almost 100 students and Daniel trains a handful of professional fighters. These fights take him across the country, away from the gym and his wife and kids. In boxing, you fight to eat.
Enter the gym and you’ll note the diversity of people piling in. Even if most of the students are Hispanic, their stories and stations are varied. You’ll find Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Central and South Americans. Some students are Black. Others are Korean, And still others, Polish and Chinese. Filipino, too. You’ll find a lawyer, a bouncer, a former San Gabriel Valley Mayor. Women and children. And even as all those distinctions serve to differentiate gym goers, it’s all but erased when they enter the ring. There isn’t a degree or strand of DNA that can block an overhand right. The ring is the great equalizer.
As for me, I’m pulled towards environments where people volunteer to suffer together in pursuit of a higher goal…or lighter weight. I make my way into the gym 4 mornings a week. I’m there for an hour or two, jumping rope, shadow boxing, hitting the pads and the bags and on Fridays, other students. That’s when we spar. There’s often a palpable sense of adrenaline and dread on those days. I rely on the adrenaline to get me over the ropes and into the ring. The adrenaline keeps my hands up and my head moving. And if things go according to plan, I’ll be punched several times by a grown man training to throw punches.
You can understand the dread.
But while there is ferocity in the ring there is also charity. I often face off against students with more experience and skills. They punch faster and harder than me. But we share a coach. We share a gym. We share an objective. So there’s an implicit agreement that teaching and learning is more important than hurling and hurting. Nevertheless, I’ve been hit. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been back.
At Valverde Boxing Gym, I’m reminded there’s much to celebrate. Our ambition, courage, and persistence are on display, not only in gyms across the USA and not only during Hispanic Heritage Month, but always, everywhere.
Carlos Aguilar lives in Covina and is Editorial Director at Quantasy and Associates, a full service advertising agency in downtown Los Angeles.
This article is part of a series in partnership with Lalo, an ad-free social media app for family and friends. Share your memories in a safe and private space.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It has all the splendor of Christmas with (almost) none of the disappointment. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure I’ll wear those Daffy Duck boxers sooner or later, kids but the way this Candied Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie is hitting right now, it’s a no-brainer. Color me team turkey.
.It’s not that we need to go about the business of comparing holidays. It’s just that the last quarter of each year is filled with so much action for Big Brown Fambam, with back to school, flag football, tall flags, two birthdays and five holidays, we have to prioritize and minimize, rank then file.
Each Thanksgiving, we go BIG. And by we, I mean my aunt Missy. She doesn’t play.
Having been the thankful recipient of high quality Thanksgivings, allow me to offer a few ways to elevate your Thanksgivings moving forward.
If there’s food there’s photos and video, too. Help yourself by getting a haircut, trimming the facials and putting on Thursday’s best. It’s Fall. Pull out the faux cashmere and lone pair of brown dress shoes.
I’m as American as they come. Born in California, I’ve pledged allegiance to the flag (up until 3rd grade) and treat football as my religion. While proud of our Mexican heritage, you won’t find a lick of Mexican food on our table (notwithstanding the fact that turkeys are native to North America. Probably pumpkins, too. And corn). We save tamales and menudo for Christmas and New Year. On this high holiday, though, color me pilgrim.
Also, fuck the pilgrims.
Fun. Games. Gossip. We’re having a blast. But when it’s time for the prayer, I suggest exercising discernment. If the person praying is most familiar with Grace and Mercy because they dance at Spearmint Rhino, have them step aside. Similarly, if the person praying hasn’t confessed their sin in the last year, they’ll be tempted to do so during this prayer, so please have them step away, too.
Your best bet is to let one of the kids pray, even if they’re most thankful for Xbox.
Look. I’ve seen the photos from Thanksgiving dinners from across the country. Many of them violate the principles laid out above. Haircuts that weren’t. Weird beards. Foul food. And some straight hood activities, including stepping outside before family prayer to smoke another blunt with your primo because you still have 9 minutes before the turkey hits the table.
Some of these moments are best kept within a tight circle. That’s why I recommend Lalo, an app where you can keep memories in a secure, private, ad-free environment. You can add family and friends to the memory capsule and enjoy the excuses about why you and your cousin smelled like a Christmas tree while at the Thanksgiving table.
This article is part of a series in partnership with Lalo, an ad-free social media app for family and friends. Share your memories in a safe and private space.
I just finished the last of my kids’ Halloween candy, almost two weeks after trotting around the neighborhood in army green makeup.
While this is our thirteenth consecutive family Halloween costume ensemble, it’s the first time I’ve lathered my face with $13 worth of shmear. And why not? We enjoy Halloween because we can hide in plain sight. And because of the free Peanut M&Ms.
When you start a family you soon realize each partner comes with their own Halloween baggage. Halloween was a blast when I was a lad but alas my enthusiasm didn’t hold. It was a lower-tier holiday, an anticlimactic punctuation to my birthday month. So I was reluctant when Big Brown Mom suggested we dive headfirst into the holiday after the birth of our daughter, Maya. And even more when Joaquin came along.
Big Brown Mom didn’t do much Halloweening as a kid. But she wanted to change that for Maya and Woks. She has skills and determination and a growth mindset. She’s worked her magic on cloth and lace, corduroy and denim. She’s sowed, even hemmed. But never, ever hawed. We’ve been mutant turtles and cereal box characters, The Flintstones, the cast of Scooby Doo and the 4 faces of Michael Jackson (see: no blackface). This year, after floating a dozen or so options and then voting, we went with classic monsters.
Sure enough, we hit thrift stores and halloween stores and makeup stores and convenience stores and candy stores to get everything we needed for the getting. And then the good news came that we were going to be able to wear our costumes twice! We got invited to a Halloween Party!
This also meant that our costumes would be under closer scrutiny. So Big Brown Mom was determined there’d be no slacking or lacking. And I can’t front, we looked pretty fly. Sure, showing up in a well executed costume is a statement. But showing up as a family ensemble is a moment. Indeed, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
But I have to tell you my favorite part each year is looking back at the photos from years prior. They’re time capsules. They’re treasures. They’re fucking hilarious, too. I take videos of the process. I capture Big Brown Mom transforming into Big Brown Stage Mom, nipping, tucking and preening her work.
Some of these photos and videos are meant for public consumption. But not all of them. That’s one reason I value Lalo. It’s a private but social space for my family and loved ones to preserve and share personal memories.
So while you might see select pictures and videos of Big Brown Family on the gram, you’ll never see the footage of me wrestling the last bag of Peanut M&M’s from Maya’s hands because the tears were too embarrassing. But I couldn’t help it. She pulled my hair.
There’s always next year.
I started boxing December 2021 at Valverde Boxing Club in Azusa, California.
Only a mile from my house, the gym is tucked into the corner of a sagging strip mall, squeezed in between a medical clinic and dance studio, and only only three doors from a sub par panaderia with weak-ass pumpkin empanadas.
I get my ass up early Monday through Friday, drink Mestizo and Athletic Greens and some protein and some collagen and some green tea extract and some Vitamin D-3 and alpha lipoic acid, so that I’m punching air and leather by 7am with the rest of the morning crew. By my estimations, 95% of the nearly 100 students who attend the gym have no aspirations of becoming a professional boxer. Like me, they practice for the sake of fitness and for an appreciation of the art and science of the sport. And to kick some ass, of course.
Earlier this year, a new face joined us in the morning. I overheard he was a boxer from Brazil. And by the looks of it, he ran from San Paolo to Azusa…that morning.
As it turned out, the boxer was Sidney King Rosa, a professional fighter who’d come to California to train with Daniel Valerde, in pursuit of bigger fights against better opponents . Rosa (5-0-0) will have his chance this Friday, May 13th in Detroit, Michigan when he faces off for the NABF Jr. Super Welter title against defending champ Ermal Hadribeaj.
Mestizo had the opportunity to serve as a sponsor for this match. You’ll see Mestizo on Rosa’s shorts.
I sent the Ring King a few questions in advance of the fight.
Q+A
4. How do you think this fight will go? We’re going to win, the goals are working on taking advantage of his mistakes and keeping my rhythm.
5. Tell me about your relationship with your trainer. The relationship with Danny is amazing. We really understand each other, he’s increasing in my technique and we’re working a lot of fundamentals. We talk about everything, boxing and life, stuff that I’ll bring for the rest of my life. I’m even learn Spanish with him 😅.
6. How’s the boxing community in Los Angeles? This is one of the things that surprise me a lot. There’s a lot of gym around and they take it to the other level. We were sparring at some gyms and the sparring looks like fight. They take it so serious, it’s helped me a lot. I’m not the same fighter after that.
7. Why do you fight? I I fell in love with the beauty of the science of boxing, it’s something incredible, self knowledge, self improvement, boxing speaks a lot about who practices it, we will never be good enough and that’s why we are always learning and practicing everyday in gym.
We know King Rosa has worked hard and deserves to win. I’ll update this post with video after this weekend. Let’s go, King!
A guest post by Rumbi Mavima
The year is now 2022 and only about 1 in 10 employees at large tech companies is black or Latinx. As the United States faces an overlapping health and civil rights crises, many companies have increased their efforts to change the tech industry’s talent dynamics. While tech companies continue to release statements of corporate solidarity against racism, they are also under more pressure than ever to demonstrate tangible progress — especially after recent cuts to diversity programs at companies including Google.
For many years, industry giants resisted calls to disclose workforce diversity data, making it difficult to pinpoint how much whiter and more male Silicon Valley was than the population at large. But Google’s 2014 decision to publish the racial and gender breakdown of its workforce appeared to signal a sea change. What does the data say?
The numbers revealed an industry dominated by white and Asian men. Of nearly 50,000 employees at Google in 2014, 83% were men, 60% were white, and 30% were Asian. Just 2.9% were Latino, and 1.9% Black. A year later, as other major Silicon Valley companies began releasing their own diversity numbers, Google announced it would dedicate $150 million to increasing diversity at the company.In the years since, Google has more than doubled its workforce but made minimal progress toward a more representative one. The numbers are similar across the industry.
Leaders in the industry have pointed at a “pipeline problem” to explain the lack of black and brown hiring and promotion. But in 2016, 12% of graduates with a degree in science, technology, engineering or math were Black, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Even the graduating class of computer science majors at Stanford,is more diverse than the companies just down the road from campus.
The problem doesn’t seem to be education but lack of access and support. A number of minority tech professionals agree that the industry’s reliance on personal relationships to grant access and opportunity is partly to blame, producing a network effect that goes against Black and Latino inclusion.
“The problem is not a lack of qualified candidates, but the companies’ unwillingness to open the door,” said Bari Williams, the head of legal at Human Interest, a financial services startup. Companies are also reluctant to broaden the schools they recruit from to include historically Black colleges and universities, said Williams, who advocates for diversity in Silicon Valley.
“It always comes down to some semblance of seeing it as lowering the bar,” she said. Williams, who used to work at StubHub and Facebook, said she’s seen candidates get passed over because they attended an HBCU.
Then there is the origin of the tech ecosystem — venture capital funds — typifies the problem.
“The industry’s reliance on personal relationships perpetuates a system of gate-keeping that is almost designed to keep investors like me out,” says Kanyi Maqubela ,managing partner of Kindred Ventures.
Black investors make up less than 1% of venture capitalists, a very small world to begin with. According to Govtech.com, in 2018, just 713 individual investors at large venture funds, defined as having more than $250 million under management, had the power to lead deals, sit on boards, and write checks to invest in companies, according to an Information survey. Of that group, 11 were Latino and seven were Black. A number of premier firms, such as Sequoia, Benchmark, Greylock, and Kleiner Perkins have no Black partners at all.
When a Black VC goes out to try to raise a new fund from those limited partners, Maqubela said, “They’re taking all the demographic patterns they know and applying them purely against you.”
Blacks and Latininx individuals have made genuine progress in penetrating the nation’s tech sector. Blacks, for example, have increased their presence in several important tech occupations, such as computer programming and operations research. Likewise, Hispanics have increased their representation in the overall C&M occupational group.
As the job market reels after COVID-19 lockdowns, some tech headhunters say companies have an opportunity to rethink the way hiring is done to make sure they don’t pass over candidates they need to build products that appeal to a broad customer base.
There are a number of organizations aimed at changing the scope of diversity in the tech field. Organizations such as Sabio hold coding bootcamps for anybody wanting to take a leap into the field.
Having a diverse team of Instructors and Software Engineers that are dedicated to student success lays the groundwork for a bright future for those who complete the bootcamps.
Here is to seeing an increase of more Black and Latinx people in the industry that shapes our day to day lives.
What if I told you that there was a brown army with real world power looking for an opportunity to help you get to where you want to go in?
My Gs, it’s true.
And I have proof. A lot of it. And I’m rolling it out in a series called, Operation Level Up. Check out the inaugural piece with HR consultant Raul Pereyra who provides solid advice for advancing your career during Covid.
In this article, we connect with John Fraire, a university administrator with an Ivy league degree, a a penchant for exploring Mexican American history and willingness to give back…to you, even.
Meet John (who happens to drink Mestizo coffee, if you hadn’t heard).
I was living in Seattle when in 2018 I was offered a one year interim senior leadership position at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a Chicago located Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Part of the arrangement was they put me up in one of their university’s on campus apartments, fully furnished and equipped. That’s where I lived when COVID started and I stayed there alone until the start of 2021. I guess you could say I was living in a college dorm. I was with students, had to go down the hall to do my laundry, and lived on the fifth floor. I finally moved out and now live in Indiana with family.
2. Tell us about your college experience.
In 1973, I was one of 15 Mexican Americans/Chicanos who enrolled at Harvard, Class of 1977. Prior to that year, Harvard had admitted only one or two Mexican Americans/Chicanos a year. So, we joke among ourselves that we were a social experiment. “Would Harvard survive if 15 Mexicans came to campus all at once?” We did all right and Harvard is still standing.
Back in 1996, I wrote “Recruiting Minority Students in Post Modern America” for the College Board Magazine in which I detail some of my experiences at Harvard. One of the things I said in the article was that Harvard was racist, even by 1973 standards, and that includes faculty and staff, not just students. Yet, I was determined to stay and succeed. I felt if I dropped out or quit it would reflect badly on other Chicanos who followed me. I also believed it would be disrespectful to my family, community and others who sacrificed so I could attend a place like Harvard. They would have been disappointed if I let racism and a challenging environment defeat me.
3.How did your Harvard uniquely prepare you? Were there any blindspots in your education?
One critical way that Harvard prepared me is that I learned what it meant to come from a working class family. My father worked in the steel mills and my mother was a school secretary. I could clearly see the privilege and class difference in my classmates. After my junior year I decided to take a year off, something about a third of Harvard students do, but unlike my classmates who spend their year off back packing in Europe or interning with a senator their daddy knows, I went back home and worked in the steel mills where most people in NW Indiana work, Mexican and non Mexican.
My parents had helped my two older brothers in college, and there were three siblings following me, so I wanted to make some money to help out my parents. I was also not happy at Harvard and wanted a change of scenery. While working in one of the mills (Inland Steel where my dad worked), I also studied labor history, assisted by my brother Rock’s friend, Dr. James Lane, a Gary historian and Indiana University history professor. That year was also the year Ed Sadlowski challenged the old union bosses when he ran for presidency of the United Steelworkers (USW) union in what I think was the last attempt in this country by rank ‘n file unionists in the traditional industries to seize power. So, I returned to Harvard much more confident and with a much stronger sense of my class background. I even wrote about the USW union election for my Harvard senior thesis. You can say one of the most elite and privileged institutions in the country helped teach me about my class background.
As for blindspots?
My first couple of years at Harvard were difficult for me because I was intimidated and clearly experiencing the impostor syndrome. I felt I was an admissions mistake. Everyone else seemed so much smarter than me. That is why that year off, going home, working in the mills, and studying labor history was so transformational for me. By time I graduated, I was no longer intimidated and felt empowered by knowing and appreciating my history better.
4. Tell us about your career trajectory.
Upon graduation in 1978, I was hired to be on the Harvard undergraduate admissions staff and worked there for six years, primarily helping to advance their recruitment of Mexican Americans/Chicanos and other students of color. Even though I understood Harvard to be a training ground for the elite and powerful and did not enjoy my student experience there, I still believed people of color needed to attend such institutions. Along with Connie Rice, an African American woman who was hired at the same time I was, I helped establish Harvard’s minority recruitment programs and increased the diversity of their enrollments.
After my time at Harvard, I worked several years full time as a political and community organizer, and when I needed to return to a “regular” job, it made sense to turn to recruiting and admissions. It was still enjoyable work and helping students get a college education was both noble and needed. I was able to move up the ladder, so to speak, from director of admissions (Brooklyn College), dean of admissions (Western Michigan), associate vice president for enrollment (Truman State), and vice president for student affairs and enrollment (Washington State).
5. What can Latinos who work in higher education do to advance the prospects of the next generation of both students and administrators?
I was a consultant for the Gates Millennium Scholars program for minority students for the 16 years the program existed. My job was to train and supervise the primarily Latino group of educators who reviewed the applications from Latino students. It was important work, but what was developmental professionally for me was that I was able to meet and work with Latinos in higher ed throughout the country. I am still in contact with many of those folks. It is a good network. Many social media groups focusing on Latinos in higher exist, and they are growing. On Facebook there is Latinx in Student Affairs, Latinx Scholars, Chicana and Chicano Studies and more, and more on LinkedIn. I encourage Latinos interested and involved in higher education to network and support each other as much as possible. I also encourage Latino educators to consider positions in finance and enrollment. Those areas involve revenue and are critical positions for a university. We need more diversity in those positions. I have not been able to find exact statistics, but it is a good bet that I am only one of a handful of Mexican Americans/Chicanos who is a full vice president of enrollment at a major university. There should be many more.
6. You write. Why?
A significant part of my life has centered on community and political organizing. A couple of times I stepped out of my job in higher ed to work full time as a political organizer. I was part of the independent political movement for many years, and worked with many other political people. Much of that work was based out of New York City, so I was living there. It was shocking to me at the time that many of my fellow organizers had no clue or understanding of Mexican Americans or Chicanos. Most of them assumed Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, a larger population in New York city, were interchangeable. And if they had some knowledge Mexicans, they stereotypically believed we lived only in Texas, California and the Southwest, and worked in agriculture and lawn maintenance.
Mexican Americans were not steelworkers from Gary, Indiana. My response was to write a play with my brother Gabriel, a writer living in northern California (gabrielfraire.com), called Who Will Dance with Pancho Villa? It is a semi autobiographical, magical realism play that combined my interest in Pancho Villa and my desire to teach people about Chicanos from the Midwest. Since then, my brother and I have co-authored other plays and productions about the Midwest Chicano urban experience.
What was fun was that for many years I had already been collecting the oral histories of my mother, grandmother and other elderly Mexicans from Indiana Harbor, Indiana. And in 1992, the Señoras of Yesteryear, a group of elderly Mexican women, including my mother who was the group’s vice president, produced Mexican American Harbor Lights, a community history book of the Mexican community in Indiana Harbor. It is filled with text, lists, dates, photographs, and personal stories of their families’ migration to Indiana Harbor and other key experiences, all from women. Some of the stories were part of Who Will Dance with Pancho Villa. I continued to collect the oral histories of my mother and the early Mexican residents of the area.
The oral histories were part of my doctoral dissertation which focused on the formation of Mexican men and women’s baseball in Indiana Harbor in the 1930’s and 40’s and the simultaneous development of their Mexicanidad and U.S./American identity. My mother was one of the star players for the girls’ softball team called Las Gallinas. I continue to write the cultural history of the Mexican community of Northwest Indiana.
7. Tell us about your interest in Oscar Zeta Acosta.
When I was a teenager I had no problem reading articles (especially ones about sports and World War II), but for some reason books were difficult for me to read and understand. The only two books I was able to read completely were the Autobiography of Malcolm X and the Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. I connected connected culturally with Oscar Zeta Acosta and the concept and imagery of the Brown Buffalo. Having worked many years in the independent electoral movement I like that his history involved electoral work. For me, a Brown Buffalo represents quiet strength, power, culture and it connects with the indigenous part of the Chicano identity. I believe strongly in Black and Brown unity, but I also firmly believe if we are to make significant social and structural change in this country, there needs to be a greater unity of Chicanos and the Native American community. I think the Brown Buffalo represents that. And I thoroughly enjoyed the The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo documentary.
8. What’s the connection between you, baseball and Mexican American history?
Baseball is part of the social and cultural history of the Mexican community in Indiana Harbor, Indiana, my home community. Baseball played a significant developmental role for the early Mexican residents who were youth and teenagers during the 1930’s and early 40’s, my parents and their generation, the Greatest Generation. The early Mexican residents of Indiana Harbor, like my parents, did not play baseball as some sort of Americanization process, or as a method to become more incorporated into U.S./American society and become less Mexican. They played baseball as a developmental community activity and as a way to interact with other communities. It was their ability to continually develop their Mexican ethnic identity, not lose it or become more American, that in later years was a critical factor in their ability to become an integral and contributing community in Northwest Indiana. In short, they became more U.S./American by becoming more Mexican.
9. Where can people stay connected to your work?
I can be reached at my website brownbuffalonotes.com And if anyone would like to read my article “Mexicans Playing Baseball in Indiana Harbor, 1925-1942,” published by the Indiana Magazine of History, 2014; or “Recruiting Minority Students in Post Modern America,” by the College Board Magazine, 1996, just email me and I will send you a copy.