About the Editor

I, Chuck Diaz, am an American of Mexican descent. I'm not Latino, Hispanic nor am I Mexican-American. There is a difference. Congress allowed the creation of Latinos, Hispanics and other hyphenated Americans. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, from a broken home and as an ethnic minority.

I grew up believing that being American was the best thing that could happen to a fellow. My parents being Mexican only meant that was the country they migrated from. They migrated to come to the land of freedom and opportunity. I remember movies that portrayed immigrants, arriving from Europe, seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time; actors like Spencer Tracy playing parts where the first thing to do was to learn the language. Next they would study to become citizens and the day they did was a glorious day. To be an American was foremost in the mind of the immigrant. Next to being an American the most important thing was to be your own person.

Anything I have accomplished or failed is because Diaz, the man, did it. Not because I'm an American, not because I'm of Mexican descent. America gave me the chance to accomplish or fail. Whichever, Diaz did it!

I joined the military at age seventeen and by the age of twenty I had made Staff Sergeant and was responsible for my own crew of men. I wasn't old enough to drink with them but I was their crew chief. After my discharge in 1958, at the age of 21, I joined a company in Los Angeles as a machine shop loader. A "loader" is the guy who carries the heavy materials to the machines, basically, the bottom of the ladder.

In the following three years I was promoted from Loader to Expediter, to Coordinator, to Lead-Coordinator, to Production Control Supervisor. In my sixth year I was passed over for a promotion that I thought I deserved and I decided to leave the company.

Next, I was hired as a Planner and within three months was promoted to Management Systems Analyst and then a few months later, to Inventory Control Manager. At that point, my former boss' boss offered me a job as Supervisor of Fabrication Control for a company that was building helicopters. I took the job and in three months I was promoted to General Supervisor of Fabrication Control and in charge of 350 people.

Later in life I founded and ran a consulting company and published a semi-technical magazine that was read in 22 countries. I have traveled extensively to South Korea and Canada as a consultant. Throughout my life, I've never thought of myself as anything but a man who had been given the opportunity given to every American: the chance to succeed. I have never been ashamed of being of Mexican descent, nor have I ever felt any prejudice against me.

In trying to analyze why I have never felt any prejudice against me, I've come to some conclusions I would like to share with you.

When my mother came to the United States she was only six years old and my grandparents settled in a part of Los Angeles that was predominantly white.  As a result, I learned English as my first language. These factors created the opportunity for my ability as a human being.

Let me reword what I just wrote: They didn't move into a barrio. They learned and accepted English as their language.

Back then there were no schools that taught in Spanish, the government created that.

There were no signs in Spanish, the government created that.

I got my first job (after the military) without equal opportunity employers and affirmative action. The government created that.

I was accepted because I wasn't an adult that walked around saying "Orale man, Que pasa?" The government created that too.

When I was passed over for promotion I didn't claim prejudice. The government created that.

No prejudice was ever shown against me because I was an American of Mexican descent. I'm not a Latino, Hispanic or a Mexican-American, the government created that.

I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to South Korea on several occasions. On my first visit I was the guest of Samsung, one of the largest corporations in Korea. During that visit I went to a city called Kumi to tour a telecommunications assembly plant. Kumi is about three hours south of Seoul by train.

In Kumi I exited the train station and looked out on the streets filled with people, and I felt something was different. At first it was a funny feeling, then it struck me I was the only American in a street filled with hundreds if not thousands of Koreans. This was the first time in my life I was where I was the only American in such a large crowd.

Later, on the train back to Seoul, I started to reflect on things I had seen but not given any thought to while traveling. Like the time I was sitting in the bar of the Shilla Hotel, one of Seoul Korea's finest five star hotels. I noticed a German fellow and a French fellow talking to the bartender who was Korean. I observed the German couldn't speak French or Korean, the Frenchman couldn't speak German or Korean and the Korean couldn't speak German or French. They were communicating in English and I felt a feeling of pride when it hit me that our language is the language used by the world to communicate. If you do much traveling there is another fact you quickly learn. There is only one currency that will never be turned down no matter where you are, the American dollar.  I started comparing the difference between a country like Korea, a homogeneous society with one race and nationality, and America. In America we aren't the melting pot we used to be but we are a multi-racial multi-nationality country. I asked myself, "What does an American look like?" An American can be white, black, red, brown, or yellow. An American can have blond hair, black hair, kinky hair or straight hair. In short, you can't tell an American by his or her physical traits.

If there is no physical trait that identifies an American then it must be something else, possibly a frame of mind. It could be an idea or a philosophy we live by. An attitude towards a way of life with a little bit of conceit and arrogance about being American, a pride.

What amazed me was it took my traveling outside the United States before I really started to think about what's happening inside the United States. If you are anything like me, when you return to the U.S., you feel a certain pride in being an American. You can feel good, that is, until you get home and listen to the news, pick up the local newspaper or turn on the TV.

There are certain so-called Americans that have become racially motivated minority groups and are tearing at the fabric of America. Instead of a melting pot, we are becoming more of an egg separator. Factions professing that heritage as more important than being American are unknowingly dividing America into ethnic groups. It seems all some people care about is taking what America has to offer and not give anything back. Not even being proud enough to call themselves Americans first, they hyphenate their nationality by placing an ethnic nationality reference before the word American. They are predominantly Afro-American and Mexican-American. They claim ethnic heritage is more important than American heritage. Instead of assimilating the American thought, the American way, the American dream, they prefer to use all that America has to offer to place their ethnicity above being American. They reject American heritage.

As an American of Mexican decent, I was born in America, and I was taught and believe George Washington was a hero for me as an American. Today's hyphenated Americans must reject that premise and believe they need to be taught of some other hero's. They demand bilingual education as a better option for their hyphenated American children. The worst possible thing the American educational system could do would be to graduate a student who could not speak English fluently.

When the Irish, Germans, French and Jews migrated to America they didn't demand to be taught in their languages. Today, Americans of oriental descent aren't demanding to be taught in their language and they are consistently the top performers in our scholastic system. Is it they thought becoming an American was the most important thing in their life, important enough to leave their country in favor of the land of freedom.

Why is there so much support for today's hyphenated Americans to be brainwashed into believing it's more important to be a hyphenated American? Why aren't they being encouraged to assimilate? In doing what they are doing they not only destroy their children's chance, they add unnecessary costs to our educational system by claiming ethnic heritage education is required for self esteem. I'm an American with Mexican decent and I have enough self-esteem for a dozen people. But then I'm proud of being an American.  I'm proud of being of Mexican Descent.  I grew up eating beans and tortillas for breakfast lunch and dinner.  Right next to steak, meatloaf and fried chicken.

When it comes to teaching a child reading, writing and arithmetic it doesn't make any difference where you or your parents were born. Yet certain educators say you can't teach all kids out of the same book. What does a child's ethnicity have to do with American history, with grammar, math or science?

Being born American or naturalized a citizen should not be the totally free ride it has become. It is said America gives many freedoms to all when it should say America gives many freedoms to all those who embrace her.

The last time anyone tried to divide America a civil war was fought and Americans killed Americans to keep this nation intact. Yet these so called Afro-and Mexican-Americans do nothing but preach division. They and their supporters believe history must be revised to include a point of view other than American.

They try to belittle America's history by making the white male European connection sound chauvinistically racist. They completely forget the white European male dominated constitutional congress created the very document that allows them the freedom to make those ridiculous charges. They forget the white European male dominated explorers helped carve the greatest nation in the world.

If this experiment had not happened, and succeeded, all those who are complaining would be bowing down to a King or sacrificing virgins to some sun god at noon on a daily basis. If we allow them to demean American history we are allowing them to demean the very core of "What it means to be an American."