James Villanueva Photo by Chris Schumaker

Why Brown is the new Gay!

By: James Villanueva

At first it was the great same-sex marriage scare of 2004/2005. For over a year, and even still today, many people ran for cover as they feared the worst: The country being taken over by raging liberal gays without even the slightest hint of straight men participating in the girl on girl action that threatened to invade our nice clean American suburbs, the kind of suburbs that Ted Haggard dreamed of while getting massages from former military men.

Now, however, there is a new scare. A new type of people that have threatened the kind of America we have come to love and appreciate. The Mexicans are coming! However, they have and always will be a part of this American culture, whether we like it or not.

Growing up in the agricultural community of Lubbock, TX, immigrants were just as common as football games on a Friday night, cheerleading squad bake sales in the spring time and live nativity scenes during the holidays. My family came from Mexico and because of generation after generation of acculturation, we learned the language, played by the rules and became the type of Mexicans that Texans like, the legal ones to clean their houses and scrape up the cow poop. Our backs had dried up years ago.

Still, even after earning the degrees and going without well-fare, as so many Texans claim we do, I canít help but feel as if my family is being attacked. When they went after the gays, it only affected me. Now they are going after my family, this time it is even more personal. In high school I made the honor roll a few times, was on homecoming court and was even class vice president, how did I become such a threat to this state by becoming the type of teenager and later adult the Lone Star State has always wanted me to be?

The city of Farmers Branch, Texas recently passed laws that would prohibit apartment or house rental to those who cannot prove citizenship. They also passed a law that would require all of the city business be spoken in English only. Currently, a bill is being sent to Austin that would not allow children of illegal immigrants into public schools. Many of these laws are very reminiscent of former sodomy laws and even laws that allowed tenants to throw homosexuals out of their homes and apartments on the basis of suspected homosexual activity. Sodomy laws are no longer in existence but now there are laws staking out potential Mexicans. Should I be thankful that my family emigrated from Mexico over a hundred years ago or should I be angry that many Texans/Americans feel as though I only have a right to be here because of good timing? As long as I donít marry the man I love whom, ironically, is fighting in Iraq. Do I dye my hair blond, promise to speak English only and change my last name? Or do I hide in a closet as to not frighten the children with my homosexual agenda? Which is it?

As the harvest season begins to draw to a close, you can bet that the number of border patrol agents will be out sweeping the streets of Texas for suspected illegal immigrants that are no longer needed for labor. Many of these labor workers will go back to their homes south of the border and wait around for another harvest because, like football season, it will come around again next year. I canít help but feel a little jealous. They, at least, can go back to a place that wants them. I, however, have to stay in a Texas that has tried to get rid of people like me over and over again; people who are a lighter shade of brown, and as gay as the color pink.