Canto CCCXCIX: My Andor Moment

Gentle cabrones:

For maybe the second or third time in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly history, I’m offering a rerun. But it’s not from a previous canto, and not a full repeat: It’s an excerpt from my barely read 2008 memoir Orange County: A Personal History.

Don’t bother buying it. I’m proud of it, but you’re better off nowadays buying my co-book instead, which I always plug below because it’s that good.

I’m sharing the excerpt because of the times we live in, especially in Southern California, where migra goons have been grabbing people — citizens and not and almost all Latinos — for the past week and vow to do it even more. Where a section of Fourth Street, SanTana’s historic Latino business corridor and where my honey has her Alta Baja Market, is currently under National Guard occupation because Trump wants to humiliate sanctuary cities and anyone who dares oppose him.

But people aren’t taking it, and are pushing back against government overreach in whatever way they can. Some are old hats at resistance. But I’m seeing more and more people experiencing their Andor moment.

It refers to the incredible Star Wars television series that released a second season this year that I haven’t seen yet so don’t give me any spoilers. It’s a prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the only Star Wars movie besides the trilogy that kicked off the whole universe to actually be good. And Rogue One itself is a prequel to the first Star Wars aka Episode IV: A New Hope and is based on a plot point in the film that spies with the Rebel Alliance stole the plans for the Death Star that allowed Luke Skywalker and his crew to destroy it (George Lucas recycled that exact plot in Return of the Jedi smh).

The ultimate lesson in the Andor story is that good people have their breaking point against tyranny. The moment where they commit themselves to fight in whatever way they can when they never thought they would. Their Andor Moment.

Mine happened in August of 1999, when the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees met to vote whether they wanted to sue Mexico for $50 million for educating the children of illegal immigrants. The resolution’s champion, Harald Martin, was an Anaheim cop and himself an immigrant, the damn hypocrite.

It’s a story I’ve told many times, especially how it threw me into the current of dissent that I’ve surfed in ever since. Instead of telling that story, I wanted to publish The Speech — the three or so minutes of babble I read before the board of trustees the evening they approved it. I recently came across The Speech in my archives, because I have almost everything I ever wrote from kindergarten through Orange Coast College. But after reorganizing my archives, I stupidly put it away — and I don’t have time right now so late on a Friday evening for me to splelunk into my archives to find it.

(Aside: Did you know I write these cantos on a Friday evening and almost never any earlier and only later? It happens).

So instead, I’ll just grab the excerpt of Orange County that I can find on Google Books that addresses my Andor moment because my copy is in another archive I don’t have access to. As a bit of a set-up, this is the part of the book where I’m merrily assimilating, with a gabacha girlfriend and about to enter Chapman with dreams of Hollywood and a home in South County. But news of Martin’s move — he said it was necessary because the kids of illegal immigrants were destroying the district — enraged me.

Actually, a similar line is where I’ll pick up the excerpt. I will add footnotes that’ll be at the end of this section of the canto so I’m not giving you a pure retread, you know? And away we go…

But Martin's proposal — Star Trek similes aside (1) — infuriated me in a way Proposition 187 only barely had five years earlier. Proposition 187, while potentially devastating to friends and family, wasn't as immediate. I almost even accepted the case for it (2). Martin, on the other hand, was directly targeting me.

I was one of those students he claimed were destroying Anaheim schools. So many of my peers at Anaheim were the children of illegal immigrants, kids who filled the hallowed positions of an American high school. Our star wide receiver — parents from Jomulquillo. Homecoming queen — parents from El Cargadero. Student body president (3). Band geeks. Stoners. Geeks — all the progeny of illegals (4). All good Americans, yet our trustees and administrators treated us the way students treated my mom and her siblings during the 1960s. My freshman year, the lockers for gym were in trailers; by the end of the year, the stench of pubescent (5) wafted as far as the parking lot. My chemistry class was also in a trailer. Our principals were uncaring outsiders who cracked down on cherished school traditions such as the Orange Fight (where the football players would gather a bunch of oranges and harmlessly throw them at each other) (6) and painting our school year on the benches of the track stadium, claiming it inspired gang violence (7).

Anaheim High School definitely had problems, but it wasn't the ilelgal immigrants or their children who caused them. We all tried our damnednest in spite of a crumbling school — and now a fellow Colonist was going to tell us that we were the cause of our alma mater's ruin?

(1)This refers to Martin telling NPR that the children of illegal immigrants were like Tribbles, the furry animals in a famous Star Trek episode that rapidly multiplied until they took over the Enterprise. Martin was SUCH a racist fuck.

(2) Not a nice sentiment but it’s true. Again, most people aren’t born opposing what’s wrong.

(3) My fellow “Most Likely to Succeed.” Now married to my cousin. Part of the Xalos Anacrime diaspora.

(4) Back in the days when my bosses let me use words like that to be able to reappropriate them

(5) Damn copy editor didn’t catch the error — it should be “pubescence.” Although now that I read it, I like the use of “-scent” — hey, I’m great at creating malapropisms, much to the groaning of those enlisted to corral my words. Regardless, the stench was rancid.

(6) In the fall of 1995, Anaheim High’s principal suspended a bunch of football players for it. Nearly derailed the career of running back Reuben Droughns, the best player Anaheim High ever produced who went on to win a Super Bowl with the New York Giants and had 1,000-yard rushing seasons for the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns. The principal was Mr. Munsey — more like Mr. Menso, amirite?

(7) The stadium no longer exists. Sigh…

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The Los Angeles Times announced that the AUHSD trustees planned a vote on the matter during a board meeting. I wanted to go — I didn't know what to do, but I wanted to be there, as if my presence might trigger a change. I tried to convince my parents and friends to go voice their complaints, but no one cared. I didn't mind. When I arrived, I was amazed by how many people showed up. Old. Young. Latino. White. Black. Martin had his supporters, but most attendees were there to protest him.

I ran into a young reporter. Nowadays, Yvette Cabrera is one of the nation's top Latino columnists, but back then she had just started at the Orange County Register (8) Yvette asked why was I there. I told her my story. She wondered if I was going to address the board. I didn't even know that was possible, I responded. She passed along a green comment slip to me, which I promptly filled in and returned to the clerk. (9)

The rest, as they say, is historia.

Actually, if you have a copy of Orange County: A Personal History, you can read most of my speech, since I excerpted it at the beginning of the chapter from where I grabbed this excerpt. Kinda kumbaya but not bad for something I wrote in an hour at just 22 years old.

But you know what? According to Orange County, I scribbled it down. The copy I found was typed up. I must’ve done it for posterity’s sake, knowing I’d have a day to try to inspire people to resist.

So when’s YOUR Andor Moment?

P.S.: When I put this one to rest Friday night, I was going to see the final episode of the first season of Andor to gird me for what’s to come. Instead, the control somehow put on the live-action recording of Hamilton with the original cast. I know wokosos hate it now, but it’s brilliant and the opening song is one of the most brilliant openers I’ve ever heard. Went to sleep to “Right Hand Man” — discuss…

P.P.S: I messed up on my Roman numeral numbering again, and none of you noticed! Does no one want 100 easy dollars in this world anymore? So I’ll claim it for myself — three or so bottles of Evan Williams, here I come!

(8) Yvette would go on to a career of some note, although I couldn’t tell you a columna that she wrote other than the one about the neighborhood posadas we used to hold (Canto CCCLXIII) and one she wrote about me. In fact, she and the late Agustín Gurza once did basically the same columna about the same weak-salsa topic: a Latino husband and wife decided to combine their names into a knew one ala Antonio Villaraigosa and his first wife. SNORE…

(9) Interesting how God works — I was the first person to address the board.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: A baleada with Tropical banana soda at La Troca Catracha, an awesome Honduran truck that parkrf on Wilshire Boulevard for years but is now at the corner of Vermont and Beverly — support them and all businesses suffering from the Trump Imperium.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “What breaks our heart, Billy Wilder finds funny.” — Berliner Zeitung

LISTENING: “Sally, Go Round the Roses,” The Jaynetts. A cult classic of the hipster set, and can you hear why? Furtive singing style, ambiguous lyrics (is it about a heroin addict? A breakup? Sapphic realizations? Mental breakdown), and a street-smart organ lurking in the background. One of the great one-hit wonders. P.P.S. Don’t forget to put on Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto!

READING: “Mystic Nights”: There was a time in my life when Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde was THE album, and “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” my guide to the world. It was actually just before the 2007 publication of this essay, so I’m not sure how I’m just reading it until now. I usually don’t like to share excerpts from books for reasons no one will find out, but the writing is magnificent — academic yet earthy, the epitome of show-don’t-tell and take-the-reader-there. And besides, the author is Sean Wilentz, one of my favorite public historians and whom I somehow once shared a stage with alongside two other of my favorite public historians, Macarthur geniuses Jill Lepore and Annette Gordon-Reed (Canto CXXXI). Man, I’ve lived a blessed life.

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo in the News

“Why Mexican flags are being waved in LA protests”: India Today plugs a columna of mine…

“Mexican flag becomes L.A. protest symbol: What to know”: …and so does The Hill…

“The long history behind Los Angeles protestors’ Mexican flags”: …MSNBC courtesy of Julio Ricardo Varela (Canto CCCXXIV)

“Letters to the Editor: If you can’t take to the streets, financial assistance is a form of protest too”: Los Angeles Times readers respond to a columna of mine.

“Column: Endangered NPR Never Stops Ripping Conservatives”: Newsbusters is well-funded pendejadas.

“Civil Rights Leaders Condemn ICE Raids, Military Deployment in Los Angeles“: A columna of mine gets a shoutout.

“The gaslighting of Alex Padilla is already in full swing on the right”: My L.A. Times columnista colleague Anita Chabria shouts out a columna of mine.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“Are anti-ICE protests a political trap or responses to injustice?”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about the issue at hand.

“LA Times columnist shares his research into flags at immigration protests”: In which a CBS SoCal anchor calls me an L.A. Times editor AND butchers my last name within the first five seconds!

“Is the Mexican flag helping or hurting the protests?”: My conversation below with Mike Madrid about the issue at hand (there was also an email promoting this that I can’t link to).

“FOX 11 News at 6”: I talk to host Elex Michaelson about what’s going on in L.A…

“The Issue Is: U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Gov. Newsom, Gustavo Arellano”: …and then appear on his weekly news magazine.

"Gustavo Arellano on demonstrations, deportations, and downtown L.A.”: I appear on the California Sun podcast to talk about the issue at hand.

“California Sues Trump Over Guard Deployment Amid Immigration Protests”: I appear on KQED’s Political Breakdown to talk about the issue at hand.

“The View From LA”: I appear on the legendary Brian Lehrer Show to talk about the issue at hand and immediately corrected him when Lehrer said all of L.A. was under a curfew — he recovered fast!

“How communities in LA are responding to troop deployments as protests continue”: I appear on NPR’s Morning Edition to talk about the issue at hand.

“Why fly the Mexican flag at rallies in the United States?”: A video I did for the Los Angeles Times about the issue at hand.

“Trump’s immigration hammer bonks L.A. When will it smash down?”: My latest L.A. Times Essential California newsletter talks about an infamous 1931 raid in La Placita Olvera. KEY QUOTE: “And worse things are coming, Angelenos, though not from activists and professional rioters: What we saw this weekend is Trump bonking L.A. with a toy mallet while itching to swing his federal sledgehammer.”

“Protesters gather at Santa Ana federal building: ‘This is the healthiest thing to do’”: My latest L.A. Times dispatch talks about what happened in SanTana during the largest anti-ICE rally so far. KEY QUOTE: “T-shirts emblazoned with logos of beloved Santa Ana Chicano institutions colored the scene: Suavecito. Gunthers. Funk Freaks. Santa Ana High. El Centro Cultural de México.”

“Trump wants L.A. to set itself on fire. Let’s rebel smarter”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about the issue at hand. KEY QUOTE: “So I challenge all the folks simmering with rage against Trump’s war against L.A. and itching to do something about it — and that should be every Angeleno right now — to rebel smarter.”

“Sen. Alex Padilla’s crime? Being Mexican in MAGA America”: My next latest L.A. Times columna talks about the encounter between California’s senior U.S. senator and ICE Barbie Kristi Noem. KEY QUOTE: “Then again, Noem probably thought Padilla was just another Mexican.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!