Diego Rivera Alameda Park

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ABC Television and Jimmy Kimmel la rego!

By Diego Gallegos. The Sunday, May 27, 2007 San Antonio Express-News ran a front page article regarding the shabby manner by which Mexican American Veterans have been ignored by National Public Television and how they have been ridiculed by Jimmy Kimmel of ABC Television. Fortunately, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a professor at Texas University, Austin, has had the tenacity to insist that Mexican American soldiers are adequately represented in the documentary being prepared by Ken Burns of PBS. Previous to Maggie’s involvement the 14-hour documentary had ignored that Mexican Americans had any role in winning the wars in Europe and Asia. What a stereotypical stance by PBS in believing that only the whites were instrumental in winning the many battles necessary to bring peace to the world and to relegate the 750,000 brave Mexican Americans as not even counting in the grand scheme of making America the great power that it has become. Maggie Rivas Rodriguez has been able to research the many contributions that have been made by Mexican American soldiers in many theatres of war to include the fact that 12 Mexican Americans received the Medal of Honor. The greatest dishonor has been the racist depiction of Mexican American soldiers by Jimmy Kimmel during one of the Jimmy Kimmel Live shows where he showed a Mexican American soldier as Speedy Gonzales, another showed a soldier with a large gut to portray the Battle of the Bulge, and still another showed marines at Iwo Jima wearing Mexican sombreros and raising a piƱata in place of a flag! This racist attitude is encouraged by ABC Television and the sponsors of the show. One can only assume that they find this insulting depiction of Mexican American soldiers funny and an acceptable stereotyping of a band of brothers and sisters who gave they lives to keep the enemy from our shores. Should we be pissed off? Hell yes, we should shout this anger from every roof top throughout the land and let these people know that just as Mexican American fought and died to protect this country, we will fight the bigots and racists who try to squash us into the ground. You can make your feelings known by writing or calling ABC Television, making a list of the sponsors and guests on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show and then chose another product that does not encourage or tolerate racism.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damn straight we should be pissed off at the arrogance of anybody who thinks Latinos have not contributed. Those racists are full of caca, and need some educating. I served in Vietnam,Homeland Security, and will continue to do my job of protecting our country. So let's show them how much America has benefited from the brown race. Arriba!!!!

fike2308 said...

kimel is a racist, and should be taken off the air. as for the previous poster who talks about serving in viet nam like thats something to be proud of. you should be ashamed of yourself. youre a murderer and were murdering innocent vietnamese people. i hope you go to hell for that. guys like you are exactly what is wrong with society, and working for homeland security makes perfect sense because guys like you are making america an uglier place that it already is.

Anonymous said...

kimmel is a racist. saquenlo!

Anonymous said...

he should apologize to the mexican american/latino community and other people of color that he's offended in the past and stop offending us in his show, which I don't really even watch yet i can't help but notice the racialized comments and skits he makes when i do catch it, especially with the Latino security officer that supposedly works on his show. either that or they should take his show off the air. the previous comment was mine too by the way.