Mexican Standoff at El Centro

In a recent article, The KC Hispanic News detailed the demise of Ian Bautista. The embattled and recently dismissed head of KCK social service agency El Centro . The article, entitled Changing times ahead for El Centro provided reported both sides of the controversy but failed to mention that Mexicans don't really like to see their own get ahead. While this is true of most people I've always thought it was especially true for Latinos.

If you look at the history of Latinos, the stories of self-hate and backstabbing are numerous. Pancho Villa was killed by his own people. Castro pretty much sent off Che to be killed. One of Selena's best friends, Yolanda Saldivar, gunned her down. Edward James Olmos' horrendous visage keeps getting in the way of his acting. And finally, I've heard rumors that the most effective and productive border patrol agents are in fact second generation Mexicans (Chicanos) who are desperately defending the affirmative action jobs occupied by their own relatives. The list never ends. It goes on and on . . .

The point of the article is that former Director of El Centro Richard Ruiz really didn't want to share power and wasn't very comfortable with his successor. Accordingly, I know of quite a few Latinos that don't want to step out of the limelight no matter how embarrassing their careers have become . . . Ricky Martin and Raquel Welsh are the first to come to mind.

Anyway, I wanted to relate this story of local Latino infighting not only because I'm down with the brown but also to clearly demonstrate that when we're not cutting the throat of American workers, by providing cheap labor, it's only because we're too busy cutting each other's throats.