By Antonio Castillo
Dear Editor:
The city of Brownsville and Texas Southmost College are guilty of honoring racist traitors in public spaces. The Brownsville Independent School District is guilty of worse things.
Let’s take a look at their mascots. Stell Intermediate, Southmost Elementary and Resaca Elementary schools claim to honor native Americans by using Chiefs or Warriors as their mascots. I guess they haven’t heard about the national movement of indigenous people and allies trying to change the degrading mascot names of public schools and professional sports teams.
These schools disrespect indigenous cultures even more when someone dresses up as the mascot and parades around with a ceremonial headdress.![]()
Castañeda Elementary School’s mascot is the Crusader. Catholics continue being the biggest religious group in the city, but the demographics of the city are quickly changing. More Muslims are moving in. We don’t welcome them by keeping the name of a group that slaughtered thousands of their ancestors.
So much for separation of church and state.
To better understand this, it would help to connect this information to us. For those who don’t know their history, most residents of Brownsville are mestizos — of native-American and Spanish ancestry. Our brown skin comes from the indigenous tribes of North America and the Moors (Muslims) who left their mark in Spain.
By defending these mascots you admit that your ancestors don’t deserve respect.
Let’s not forget Yturria Elementary. Its mascot is the Ranger. You won’t see anything wrong with it if you accept revisionist history.
Thousands of Tejanos and Mexicans were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Texas Rangers. If you did not read about these atrocities in college, a simple Google search can teach you about this. You can also ask your older relatives about these events.
Brownsville’s very own Jose T. Canales took on the Rangers when he was a state legislator in the late 1910s. I wonder what his descendants think of this mascot.
According to the school district, BISD does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability or genetic information in employment or provision of services, programs or activities. With these mascots, I can think of several violations.
We are the least-educated region in the United States. Nothing will change if we don’t demand change in our city, college and school district. Appropriately honor the right people and perhaps residents will stay in Brownsville after they graduate from college.
We don’t want to live in a backward and racist city.
Dear Editor:
The city of Brownsville and Texas Southmost College are guilty of honoring racist traitors in public spaces. The Brownsville Independent School District is guilty of worse things.
Let’s take a look at their mascots. Stell Intermediate, Southmost Elementary and Resaca Elementary schools claim to honor native Americans by using Chiefs or Warriors as their mascots. I guess they haven’t heard about the national movement of indigenous people and allies trying to change the degrading mascot names of public schools and professional sports teams.
These schools disrespect indigenous cultures even more when someone dresses up as the mascot and parades around with a ceremonial headdress.
Castañeda Elementary School’s mascot is the Crusader. Catholics continue being the biggest religious group in the city, but the demographics of the city are quickly changing. More Muslims are moving in. We don’t welcome them by keeping the name of a group that slaughtered thousands of their ancestors.
So much for separation of church and state.
To better understand this, it would help to connect this information to us. For those who don’t know their history, most residents of Brownsville are mestizos — of native-American and Spanish ancestry. Our brown skin comes from the indigenous tribes of North America and the Moors (Muslims) who left their mark in Spain.
By defending these mascots you admit that your ancestors don’t deserve respect.
Let’s not forget Yturria Elementary. Its mascot is the Ranger. You won’t see anything wrong with it if you accept revisionist history.
Thousands of Tejanos and Mexicans were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Texas Rangers. If you did not read about these atrocities in college, a simple Google search can teach you about this. You can also ask your older relatives about these events.
Brownsville’s very own Jose T. Canales took on the Rangers when he was a state legislator in the late 1910s. I wonder what his descendants think of this mascot.
According to the school district, BISD does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability or genetic information in employment or provision of services, programs or activities. With these mascots, I can think of several violations.
We are the least-educated region in the United States. Nothing will change if we don’t demand change in our city, college and school district. Appropriately honor the right people and perhaps residents will stay in Brownsville after they graduate from college.
We don’t want to live in a backward and racist city.