For Latinos, 'Wetback' is Just Like 'Nigga' — It's Only Racist When White People Say It

I find the term repulsive, and the backlash against Rep. Don Young is well deserved. That said, if "wetback" is genuinely racist, then it shouldn't be acceptable for discourse among any demographic, not just when uttered by those of the hegemonic "racist" white oppressor class.

Behold the hypocrisy, at the Los Angeles Times, "For Latinos, a Spanish word loaded with meaning":

When Boyle Heights shop owner Arturo Macias hears fellow Latinos use the Spanish word for "wetback," he doesn't necessarily take offense.

Macias, who crossed illegally into the U.S. through Tijuana two decades ago, has heard the term "mojado" for much of his life and sees it less as an insult than a description of a common immigrant experience.

"As a country of immigrants," he says in Spanish, "in one way or another, we're all mojados."

Macias is very offended, however, when he hears a non-Latino say "wetback." That distinction befuddles his 20-year-old daughter Karina.

"It definitely is a term to divide people," she said. "You can't use it as a term of endearment at all, whether it's someone outside of your culture or not."

An Alaska's congressman's reference to "wetbacks" during a radio interview last week stirred an uproar and he was forced to apologize. In Latino communities, the episode highlighted how cultural reactions to the word have changed through generations.

Everyone seems to agree that the English version of the term is highly offensive to Latinos when others use it. But when Latinos use mojado — which literally means "wet" but is also used to describe illegal immigrants in the United States — it's different.

"My grandfather, for all practical purposes, was a mojado. They call each other mojados," veteran Latino activist Arnoldo Torres said. "It's about understanding the complexity. Of seven, eight, nine, generations of Latinos that have lived in the United States."

Torres was already dealing with the fallout of the word 30 years ago.

In 1983, Ernest Hollings, a South Carolina senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination, used the English term at a dinner during a campaign stop in Des Moines. Hollings apologized and met with a group of Latino leaders, including Torres, then the executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

"We said, 'Look, this is why it's offensive.' We weren't looking for some astronomical apology," Torres said. "Our hope was very simple. If we're able to educate him, maybe he can tell others."

Each time the word resurfaces, it carries with it a long history and a nuanced reputation.

The English term, originally coined after Mexicans illegally entered the U.S. by swimming or wading across the Rio Grande, evolved to include a broader group of immigrants who entered into the country on foot or in cars. The Spanish translation espaldas mojadas, is typically shortened to just mojado or mojada, depending on the person's gender.

In 1954, as the U.S. economy sputtered to find its footing after the Korean War, the government launched the now-infamous Operation Wetback, a deportation drive that sent Mexicans back to Mexico in droves and roused complaints of racial profiling and fractured families.

During that decade, the term was still splashed across the pages of the country's major newspapers.

Yes, because you know it's okay when non-Latinos spew "wetbacks."

More at the link. And at Memeorandum.