Author: Gene Cortez, Jr.

Will Women Rule the World?

Gene Cortez, Jr. 2 Comments

I heard that question on the air recently? I said “really?” It’s not that I relinquished my title of “man of the house”. My wife says that I am the head of household so, that’s it.

There has been researched on this subject and they lay everything on women’s empowerment and the men’s unwilling to pursue responsibility in their home life.

Maybe so. Now I’m speaking on behalf of my fellow Hispanics. There are certain things that men won’t do. Those things that women are doing nowadays. First of. PTA. Women do that. Men don’t. Go to speak with school counselor. Men don’t, women do. Protest. Women do, men don’t. Work as secretaries, women do, men don’t. Should I keep going fellas? There are certain things that Hispanic men belief that women are qualified to do. Like they say, “esos es para las Viejas”. This is a cultural thing and yet, some men rise above it.

Will women rule the world? They already do. It started with Eve telling Adam to eat the apple. When Caesar’s wife told him not to go to the senate chambers. When Custer’s wife told him not to rout the Indians. When Woodrow Wilson wife was acting president when he was incapacitated. There are so many instances where women actually ruled. Look at the queens in the European countries and the women presidents in south and central American countries.

Women nowadays are being empowered to head the big corporations that handle defensive contracts like Boeing and others. They are now passing the mantle to other talented and ambitious women who aspire for greater heights in the once male dominated fields.

Women have always been involved in politics and the most crucial time was when they were given the right to vote. Women felt that they were smarter than men and moved to get involved in legislature. Men on the other hand, either accepted or acted negatively or childish based on their belief that women can’t make good decision because of their womanhood.

I remember the story of an Indian chief being asked how he liked the changes in America. He replied “before this, women cooked, washed, work the fields, take care of children and we could hunt and fish to our hearts content. White man messed the system”.

Maybe we should go back to those times and let the ladies run the government. We can go fish and hunt and have plenty of time to meet with our buddies at the local watering hole.

We are all Americans

Gene Cortez, Jr. 2 Comments

At one time we were classified as Latinos, Chicanos, Mexicanos and Hispanic. Even the census records back then indicated white, black or others as far as race was concerned. My family was always considered white going back to the 1900 census.
When I was overseas, the populace didn’t recognize me as an American because of my brown skin color. Only white people were Americans according to what they see in advertisements and the movies. It took some explaining to make them understand that immigrants from third world countries were also Americans because they became citizens by naturalization or by being born in the United States.
I don’t like to be called Mexican Americans. It’s a hyphenated term used to identify us as a race. Our parents are from Mexico, however, some of them are not Mexicans. They’re natives from Mexico. We can tell by their facial features which indicates what part of the country in Mexico they’re from. Here we call them Indians, In Mexico they call them indigenous people because they’re made up of different ethnic tribes who speak both their own language and Spanish. There are over 300 indigenous tribes in Mexico.
The current DNA testing is proving that a lot of people who classified themselves as Hispanic in the United States are finding out that they have a mix of native American and European bloodlines and now changing to Others when they’re asked what race they belong. The other problems are marriages of mixed races. The same thing that happened in Mexico with white Spaniards marrying Mexican women. It went so far as to identifying the children of the mix marriage as mestizos and so forth. They actually had a name of all children of mixed races from creole from blacks and Spanish couples and other names not so popular.
Even in America one cannot say they’re 100% Spanish, Jewish or others because of the mixed races. So, we have to take the word Race off the census record and just write in We are all Americans.