"Corruption of My Mexican Identity," by Dan Acosta, Ph.D.

There is a lot to appreciate from this story by a former member of the University of Texas at Austin faculty, Dr. Dan Acosta, who also previously served as Dean Emeritus of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati. He offers a powerful narrative that resonates deeply with struggles faced by Mexican Americans. In my own research, I describe the systemic erasure of our identities as "subtractive schooling," a deliberate process that undermines our cultural heritage, as well as individual and community power.

Dan Acosta, Ph.D.

In Dr. Acosta’s story, I sense profound pain and frustration rooted in a long history of prejudice and discrimination. The inability to speak Spanish, or not speaking it “correctly,” reflects the success of assimilationist policies designed to strip away cultural ties. The stakes are high for those in power—especially as manifest throughout ongoing battles within the State Board of Education over culturally relevant curriculum and Ethnic Studies programs.

The irony here is striking. Current anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies seek to suppress initiatives that promote these very principles. Albeit with a few exceptions, the tragedy here is that DEI efforts have rarely been abundant in any meaningful way, as Dr. Acosta’s experiences illustrate. On the contrary, his story reveals a history of exclusion to which I can relate as one who has fought for her own place in higher education despite my Stanford Ph.D. and credentials.

Anti-affirmative action and DEI opposition appear to be preemptive strikes in an environment where people of color might otherwise gain access to higher education and subsequently assume their rightful places at the table in culture and society. These policies send a clear message: These opportunities are reserved primarily for white people. So wrong-headed. So sad.

So much talent has been wasted. It is truly a shame. Thanks, Dr. Acosta, for your story. We need more of these so folks out there don't believe the lies about the academy getting overtaken by "woke" students and faculty of color. Rather a more sinister agenda is at play.

—Angela Valenzuela

Corruption of My Mexican Identity

By Dan Acosta | Summer/Autumn 2024 | Rise Up Review, Resistance is Fertile

Now that I am retired one of my weekly tasks is to read what is happening at the Society of Toxicology, the largest professional group for toxicologists of all types--academic, government, and industrial- in the world. As the first elected Hispanic president of the organization, I like to keep up to date with issues facing the society. One current topic is to increase membership and to bring in more diverse scientists into the discipline, especially non-toxicologists who want to learn more about toxicology. Without getting too much into the weeds about the issue, I was struck by a comment made by a past president who strongly objected to the possibility that standards would be lowered to allow more people of diversity (i.e. people of color) become members of SOT. He did not want a "dumbing down of the society with unqualified individuals". He was alluding to affirmative action and "DEI" issues that have become hot political topics in America. It got me thinking about my life and qualifications as one of those people of diversity that SOT wants to have as some of its members.

As a first-generation Mexican American, my mother and grandparents emigrated to El Paso from Mexico; her parents wanted to create a new life for themselves by escaping the discord and troubled times in Mexico during its revolution in the early 1900s. Nana Cuca often told me stories of what it was like to live in Mexico and recounted her vivid memories of some of the revolutionaries like Pancho Villa. My paternal grandfather also came from Mexico; he later married his wife who was born in Presidio, Texas. My father was born in Valentine, Texas. He stopped going to school after the sixth grade so he could work with his father who was a hired hand on a ranch near Marfa. My parents never completed high school.   

When I was very young especially before I started grade school in 1951, my mother was often asked about my heritage. I later learned that they really wanted to know if I was white and not a Mexican. Nana Cuca used to brag that our family tree had strong Portuguese ties and that the lighter skin colors of her ancestors were passed on to her daughters--my mother and her sister, Babe. Although as a young boy I looked like a chubby white kid with fat cheeks, my Mexican heritage became more apparent as I grew older. My light brown hair started to become darker and by the time I began high school my hair had turned black, and my facial features were more Mexican-like.

I refused to speak Spanish at home and at school; my parents and family spoke to me in Spanish and did not force me to respond in Spanish. Many of my teachers wanted to help me because of my eagerness to learn and my desire to become the best student in their classes. I wanted to acquire at all costs those American traits or characteristics of my white classmates who were most successful in the classroom. Because of my skin tone and hair color when I started grade school, I did not experience the discrimination and hatred that my brown-colored friends and classmates often encountered. This Americanization process corrupted my Mexican identity at a very young age, and it has taken me a lifetime to confront my mistake. As I progressed through college, the army, graduate school, and my academic career, I was no longer that smart little Mexican boy. I now faced subtle discriminations and at times overt racist remarks from highly educated individuals.

I eventually graduated as one of the top students in my high school class, and later on I graduated top of my pharmacy class at the University of Texas in 1968. I received one of the few highly competitive national fellowships awarded to graduate students to attend a school of their own choosing. I earned a doctorate in toxicology at the University of Kansas and accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Texas in 1974.

However, I was rudely introduced to the role of DEI and affirmative action in hiring more people of color at Texas. Pointedly, I was told several times by my supervisors that the only reason I was hired was because the college needed to hire more Hispanics and Blacks. During my 22 years at Texas, I helped develop one of the first graduate programs in toxicology in the state and mentored over 50 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellows in my research program. I later became dean of pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where I established one of the first councils on diversity at the university. In the final phase of my career, I accepted a position as Deputy Director for Research at FDA's major research center--The National Center for Toxicological Research. Although I had what many called "a successful career", I paid the price of never becoming fluent in Spanish and having to live with the shame and embarrassment of not being able to converse in Spanish with my family and many of my former classmates and friends.

I also experienced many times during my career what are now known as "microaggressions" or thinly veiled putdowns of my accomplishments and successes. For example, when I was elected president of the Society of Toxicology, some of my colleagues suggested that I won the election because I was a person of diversity. I grew up in Texas where this attitude was quite common; it did not really bother me. I just laughed it off.  

In the past, it was all right to ask where you were born or what was your family ancestry. It was out of curiosity because many Americans have relatives who were not born in the US. People were interested in knowing more about you, especially if you recently moved into the neighborhood, were a new employee, or a new customer in a local store. But in today's America asking that question is fraught with anxiety and possibly danger for a person of color who is asked that question. As a Mexican American who has lived in one of those states that border Mexico, I have observed the tension when one is accused of being an undocumented immigrant and not an American citizen. And as America has become more polarized, there are many reports of violence against people of color because it is thought that they are not truly American or to be more blunt-not white enough.   

Today, affirmative action and DEI policies that were supposedly lauded and supported by institutions of higher education, corporate America, and local, state, and federal agencies and departments have come under attack by many white Americans who believe that they are the ones who have suffered from discrimination. State legislators, especially in red states like Texas, Florida, and several others, have passed laws to abolish or limit the use of offices that help students and employees of diversity navigate organizational obstacles. White students and employees are not denied assistance as some of them like to suggest. 

Where are those colleges that thought that it was right to limit the admission of students of color to keep their classes filled with mostly white students? Where are those corporations and institutions that thought it was right to employ mostly white men and restrict the hiring of women and people of color in the workplace? The answer is that they never left and are ready to go back to the pre-affirmative action era. 

When I left the UT College of Pharmacy in 1996, there were two Mexican American Ph.D. professors on the faculty. When I returned to Austin for my retirement years, there was only one full-time professor; no progress has been made in the 50 years since I joined the faculty as one of those two Mexican American professors in 1974. There has been some improvement for people of color and women in the classroom and workplace, but the Supreme Court has now declared that it has seen enough of this intrusion into the lives of white men. American universities must turn a blind eye to matters of race and gender in student admissions. It will happen very soon in the workplace, but that does not mean that we should stop trying to admit more students of color and to hire more faculty of diversity. My biggest regret was that I did not speak up sooner about what I faced as a student and professor during my career in Texas and elsewhere. 

It took me a lifetime to realize that my generation has failed in maintaining America's faith in our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I write this story to reach out to the young people of the country with the hope that they will restore and secure those rights for all. If they don't, who will?

***

Dan Acosta is a first-generation Mexican American, whose mother and grandparents emigrated from Mexico. He is a former professor, research scientist, and administrator, who retired in 2019 at age 74. He writes about his experiences as a Mexican boy trying to succeed in white America. His stories have appeared in The Acentos Review, Sky Island Journal, Somos en Escrito, The Rush, Toasted Cheese, Latin@Literatures, Midway Journal, and The Manifest Station.