Posted on 11/13/2001 9:23:12 AM PST by healey22
Monday, November 12, 2001 - Maria Chavez painted a mural on her high school wall last spring that was intended to promote unity - within families, at school, in communities and between nations. But that mural has recently sparked some disunity.
Chavez's mural depicting the Delta High School panther mascot between two flags - the Stars and Stripes and the banner of Mexico - has raised a protest from some veterans because the two flags are given equal representation. When facing the mural, they say, the American flag should be on the left rather than the right, and the American flag should be larger or somehow more prominent.
At least one vet doesn't believe the Mexican flag belongs there at all.
"My main gripe is some foreign flag taking the same prestigious position in a school as the American flag. A foreign flag doesn't belong in our schools in a permanent mural," said World War II veteran John Sukle.
Chavez, 18, said she never dreamed she would be creating controversy when she painted the flag on a hallway wall at the school for her senior art project. Chavez was a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national organization with local chapters in schools, so she painted a mural that would represent the league's ideals.
"I never intended to do anything to make people offended. That's so not me," said Chavez, who now attends the Delta Montrose Voc-Tech School.
There was no offense taken until Sukle recently saw a photograph of the mural in a local newspaper and contacted the American Legion Post 65 in Delta.
Gordon O'Brien, commander of the post, met with school officials, Chavez and some other members of the league last week.
"We weren't upset. We just brought it to their attention," O'Brien said.
Chavez agreed to paint gold fringe on the American flag to make it look larger. School officials also decided to place a plaque in the front of the mural explaining the goals of the League of United Latin American Citizens and Chavez's motivation for painting the mural.
Chavez said she wanted to show understanding, cooperation and unity of two nations in a school where nearly 20 percent of the students are Hispanic. The plaque will say: "Working together as a family, school, community and as a country to make a difference in our youth."
That settled the matter as far as most people were concerned.
Not Sukle, though.
Sukle, 89, said he fought in four key World War II battles. He helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp. And he is not going to back down from defending the honor of his flag now.
"I intend to fight on. I don't mind yelling as loud as I can," Sukle said. "Too many people don't understand what our flag stands for."
School Superintendent Bill Carlquist said Friday that he understands that the flag means different things to different people.
He said the school's 30 or so members of the Latin League are very patriotic: They recite the Pledge of Allegiance before every meeting and handed out miniature flags in the school after Sept. 11. He said the group promotes leadership, community service and the importance of education.
Carlquist said he can also understand the veterans' deep-seated feelings about proper protocol for display of the flag.
Carlquist contacted school attorneys for advice and delved into the details of the U.S. flag code. They found that there are no rules specifically addressing flags in murals. The district, however, agreed to make changes that would satisfy the majority of the American Legion members.
No one, including Sukle, knows what his continuing protest will lead to.
Carlquist said right now he considers the entire matter a good learning experience for students.
"It's been a great civics lesson," he said.
I guess that, if only Red-Bloodied Americans are the only ones that are offended....then no one in authority really cares....
As I will similarly await reasons why I should "respect Mexico" in some general sense.
I'll give you four, sir.
1) My grandfather, who enlisted in the US Army Air Corps in World War 2.
2) My great-uncle, a US Navy Pearl Habor survivor.
3) Another great-uncle, who served on a destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1967.
4) My father, who served for 25 years in the United States Air Force and fought in the Gulf War.
Sons of Mexico and its culture all. And proud Americans, too. In between this, they built roads and buildings, raised families, and served their parishes.
Your turn.
That's a valid point. But given that the muralist, LULAC, and the school are all trying to please the American Legion (with the exception of this fellow Sukle, who doesn't want to be pleased) and render proper etiquette, it doesn't seem like there's much to be indignant about here.
Why doesn't he just admit a mistake was made and right the wrong? It's a shame this young lady had to suffer this embarrassment due to lack of leadership within her school. Every teacher who saw her working on this should have corrected her at the time. But noooooooo, not one d@^^n one of them cared enough about our flag to know, themselves, that she was making a mistake. What a bunch of $uck@ss government whores.
However, I asked why I should respect Mexico.
My family, and those relatives, are all products of a culture and way of life that is distinctly Mexican. Their nobility and selfless service was not an exclusively American creation. You should respect Mexico because it too produces people with strong feelings of patriotism, duty, and honor.
If many Mexicans today come to the US only to freeload and disparage the US, then frankly, I blame the leftist elements of American culture for that. I don't blame Mexico. My family is proof positive that traditional Mexican values are wholly compatible with staunch American citizenship; Mexicans have to come to the US to learn identity politics and racial divisiveness.
Until the recent past, Mexicans assimilated as Americans, and assimilated well. You should respect Mexico for that. When they stopped assimilating so well, it was because America changed, not Mexico.
Rendered in idiomatic English it should be:
"That's (like) so-o-o not me (okay?)!"
I respect anyone with sense enough to love my country. I do not have to respect Mexico any more than you have to respect the land of my ancestors. To suggest I should is silly.
I didn't say you have to. I said you should. If you choose to ignore virtue outside of your own back yard, then that's your business.
It does make you somewhat more shortsighted than the Mexicans -- and other immigrants -- who looked afield, saw virtue in America, and came here.
In many ways, it is the newest Angelenos who seem to be taking the tragic events [of 11 September] most personally. While the millions of Anglos who moved here in the post-war years from the East came to escape America--to the place that novelist Frank Fenton called "a city of refugees from America"--the more recent newcomers, largely from the South and West [Latin America and Asia], are running toward it. And many are feeling more fully American now than ever before. Two Spanish-language radio stations sponsored the single largest solidarity rally here....And there are more flags hanging from houses in the working-class barrios of the Eastside than there are in tony Brentwood. Nobody is talking about the ethnic balkanization of L.A. anymore.
As for the cranky old vet in the news story: his heart is in the right place, but he needs to switch to decaf and have a taco. Breaking some earnest high school kid on the wheel in the name of Tio Samuel isn't going to endear our native land to anybody.
Como México, no hay otro.
Now you're talkin'. ;-)
Waving a Mexican flag on US soil a show of unity? I don't think so. What kind of semantic bull is this.
Well, yes, but....oh, hell. Read the thread.
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