Flags

Why do all those immigrants carry flags? Why do they wave Mexican flags? Why do they wave Colombian flags? Why do they wave Honduran flags? The images on television are striking. They are often interpreted as an invasion—an assertion that these people are irreconcilably “other” and will never be accepted.

In carrying a flag from another nation, these individuals are calling attention to their identity—whether Mexican-American, Guatemalan-American, Salvadoran-American, Honduran-American, Venezuelan-American, Colombian-American, etc. Justo González notes that many people of Latin American descent live in the dash between their Latin American heritage and their U.S. identity. When they wave these flags, they highlight how their culture has had to survive in a society frequently hostile toward them. Many of these protestors are U.S. citizens, asserting their heritage precisely to those who find that heritage offensive. They are saying: This is where I come from, and I am here. I am also an American. For some, their connection is personal—parents or relatives may have entered the country without documentation. First-generation U.S. citizens may want to honor their culture, their heritage, and even the complicated circumstances by which they came to be here.

However, in other protests, they wave the flag of the United States.^[i] Jennifer Brown’s 2006 article notes that, in one day, 75,000 marched in Denver, 400,000 in Chicago, and an estimated 300,000 in Los Angeles. Many carried the Star-Spangled Banner. Yet they were still criticized. It is as if no action they take is perceived as acceptable.

Here lies the tension in the phrase e pluribus unum—“out of many, one.” The United States is a nation built from many cultures. From the earliest colonies, the land included Europeans of many backgrounds, people of African descent, Indigenous peoples, and immigrant communities. Over time, the pluribus has only grown. Minnesota, for example, has a large population of Scandinavian descent (hence the NFL's “Vikings”). Even within whiteness, some groups have historically been considered “more white” than others.

My own heritage is Honduran-American. Typically, Honduran families are Roman Catholic or Pentecostal. They value education, family life, and often dream of starting small businesses. These are among the reasons many voted Republican. Yet the same political forces they aligned with are now deporting their families, friends, and community members. Immigration scrambles the usual political categories.

The foreign flags are meaningful. I often recall the image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium during the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, raising their gloved fists in protest of racial oppression in the United States.^[ii]Their gesture cost them their careers, yet it declared the beauty, dignity, and power of their identity.

Likewise, the Mexican and other Latin American flags being raised in protests today make a statement. Many waving those flags are U.S. citizens. The flags speak to the Latin@ experience in the U.S.—an experience marked by racial profiling, exclusion, and cultural erasure. They are told not to speak Spanish, though the oldest continuously inhabited city in the U.S. is of Spanish origin (St. Augustine, Florida). Their music, food, and customs are ridiculed. They are called slurs. They work jobs many refuse to do. And so, they wave their flags because they refuse to be erased.

Notes & Bibliography