Dear Emily Austen,
Earlier this week, Texas student and valedictorian Mayte Lara Ibarra announced on Twitter that she is undocumented. “Valedictorian, 4.5 GPA, full tuition paid for at UT, 13 cords/medals, nice legs, oh and I’m undocumented,” she wrote.
In response, you joked that you "didn't know Mexicans were that smart" on a Barstool Sports live Facebook broadcast. In a mere 35 minutes, you even managed to squeeze jabs at Chinese and Jewish people, too. Your co-hosts jokingly called you "Trump Jr." but didn't do anything else to call you out. In fact, they seemed to agree with you. But the rest of us watching were shaking our heads and thinking, "There goes another casual racist." Ibarra doesn't deserve to be the butt of your tasteless joke—she should be applauded. She worked hard to become valedictorian and now has a full ride to University of Texas at Austin.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, yes, Mexicans are smart. Maybe you haven't met enough of us to learn this, but we are doctors, teachers, lawyers, scientists, soldiers, and journalists. Ever heard of Rodolfo Neri Vela? Octavio Paz? Laura Esquivel?
You publicly humiliated yourself, and I'm glad you suffered the consequences, but the real problem is bigger than you. The ignorance you displayed by negatively stereotyping Mexicans isn't unique to you or Donald Trump (remember when he called us rapists?). Not everyone is as flagrant with their racism as you are—others say the same things in private and aren't confronted for their remarks. But these "jokes" are prevalent because so is the attitude. I've had to end "friendships" with people who joke about Mexicans and immigrants, people who think it's okay to wear ponchos, sombreros, and mustaches on Cinco de Mayo (a holiday Mexicans don't even celebrate), and people who think even saying "Mexican" is offensive (it's not).
As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, allow me to debunk your claims. While technically, Mexican immigrants are less educated compared to the overall American population, you have to contextualize these statistics in America's systemic racism. Many of our parents worked long, difficult hours, and some of us simply can't afford a college education. In Mexico, my father had to quit high school to work on the ranch and help his parents. My mom didn't pursue further education after high school, either. But my brother, two sisters (who were undocumented until their teens), and I all have bachelor's degrees.
Maybe you don't get enough face time with Mexicans or Mexican immigrants to consider me, a U.S.-born citizen, anything but foreign, strange, and "othered." Some people will never see me as anything but "the other" because of the color of my skin. You might not consider yourself one of "those kinds" of racists—to be fair, your comments were not as bad as those who said Ibarra was "stealing a citizen's scholarship" or those claiming they reported her to ICE—but make no mistake: Your comments were harmful.
You enforced the idea that there is something inherently wrong with being Mexican. But there's nothing wrong with being Mexican or undocumented. In fact, like hundreds of thousands of children brought to the U.S. by their parents without choice, Ibarra is working and going to school lawfully, thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Comments like yours are what allow people like Trump to say that Mexicans don't belong here, and that a Mexican-American judge is unfit to serve because of his race. He was even praised for those comments, because America is full of racists who lack sympathy and compassion and see Mexicans as a monolith.
But these stereotypes that you, Trump, and other racists believe aren't real. You think Mexicans aren't smart, but Ibarra proves you wrong. In a country that values "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," she's a shining example that the American dream doesn't just belong to white people.
Sincerely,
A Mexican-American
