people-from-new-mexico

"Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, Greenest state in the Land of the Free, Raised in the woods so's he knew ev'ry tree, Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three— Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier."

"Cpl. Miyamura, a member of Company H, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. On the night of 24 April, Company H was occupying a defensive position when the enemy fanatically attacked, threatening to overrun the position. Cpl. Miyamura, a machine-gun squad leader, aware of the imminent danger to his men, unhesitatingly jumped from his shelter wielding his bayonet in close hand-to-hand combat, killing approximately 10 of the enemy. Returning to his position, he administered first aid to the wounded and directed their evacuation. As another savage assault hit the line, he manned his machine gun and delivered withering fire until his ammunition was expended. He ordered the squad to withdraw while he stayed behind to render the gun inoperative. He then bayoneted his way through infiltrated enemy soldiers to a second gun emplacement and assisted in its operation. When the intensity of the attack necessitated the withdrawal of the company Cpl. Miyamura ordered his men to fall back while he remained to cover their movement. He killed more than 50 of the enemy before his ammunition was depleted and he was severely wounded. He maintained his magnificent stand despite his painful wounds, continuing to repel the attack until his position was overrun. When last seen he was fighting ferociously against an overwhelming number of enemy soldiers. Cpl. Miyamura's indomitable heroism and consummate devotion to duty reflect the utmost glory on himself and uphold the illustrious traditions on the military service."

"I was resting, and some sergeant comes up to me and says, 'There's a guy from your home state wants to talk with you.' I said, 'Who?' He said, 'I don't know. Just follow me.' So I follow him into another room, nothing but lights in that room. A desk and a commanding general standing at the foot of it, a brigadier general of the Third Division. His name was Osborne. I was told to go up and see him. I'm wondering, 'What the hell am I going to see him for?' And he tells me, he says, 'Do you know you received the Congressional Medal of Honor?' All I could say was, 'What?' I'll never forget that. 'What for?' Then he asked me to relate my story. Why? I figured. Hell, I said, 'Geez.' I figured I might get court-martialed. And I told him I just felt I was doing my job, doing what I was trained to do. I didn't think I was a hero deserving of the Medal. That's when he told me the reason they didn't let my family know was they were afraid of reprisal from the enemy. Even though they finally released names and all, they still didn't let my wife know I'd received the Medal. They just told her I was alive. Then we were sent to a port of debarkation, and I was given a choice of flying home or going home by troopship with the rest of the fellas. I figured, geez, that's a good time to recuperate, get built up a little. I think I weighed ninety-eight pounds. That ship took nineteen days to reach San Francisco. I was seasick I think eleven days on that boat. I went to Italy and back on a ship, never got sick. I went over the Japan Sea, one of the roughest, never got sick. And here was the smoothest ride back home, and I got sick. Anyway, we docked in San Francisco and I was the first one to debark. They gave me that honor."

"I've been to so many places, met so many people. Whenever we have these conventions, you always meet the elite of the city and the state. And then the privilege of going to Washington, sitting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff during inaugurations. All the military organizations have banquets for us, and they foot a lot of the bills. So we meet so many people that you would never meet in your lifetime. Foreign dignitaries, go to embassies, stuff like that."

"I was the type of person, and I still am, who always wanted to be in the background. I'm a good listener. I'd rather be a listener than the one up there doing the talking. All through my school years, I could never get up in front of a class, and talk, read even. But wearing the Medal requires us to be in the public's eye, especially for the youngsters, the schoolkids. We get asked to talk to them whenever we attend the Medal of Honor conventions. That has changed my life."

"It’s all we can do. Otherwise we’ll go crazy. It’s a really good time [for creativity]. People will probably look back on these few months and say these Americans were pretty creative during this virus. Some artists are using it to their advantage: making videos and coming up with songs. As a cartoonist, I'm simply on that train."

"We have to have optimism about the future. Sometimes it seems bleak and I hear a lot of comments about what kind of world we’re leaving the kids...We can fix all that. We can make it better. I’m very optimistic."

"I like to think that this is a universal cartoon in which the characters just happen to be Native."

"I grew up in the 70s when Mad was huge, especially for us nerds. Mad was just big at the time and I was in grade school seeing humor for the first time that wasn’t Native humor. Don Martin was my favorite cartoonist at the time and he was just a big influence. The way he drew the cartoons and the sounds were just hilarious. Around that same time was Andy Capp. He also had the big nose and you couldn’t see his eyes. I always thought that was pretty cool. You could still get the point across, you could still get his emotions even without using the eyes. I saw that as a challenge, so in 2010, I took the eyes off my characters."

"It’s planting seeds. That’s all we can do as teachers—plant the seeds through knowledge, through art, through wisdom, and through our actions."

"My panels are simple. I get to do that. People say, It’s badly drawn. I say, Well, I’m not making an effort to make it great. The thing is the message, not the drawing. And then they said, Well, if you drew a little better, maybe you would get considered for the Pulitzer Prize. Okay. Maybe I’ll work on it."

"“Sometimes I get letters from non-Natives who have called me racist and insensitive to Natives untl they realize that I am Native myself. Non-Natives often walk up to me and say, "I didn't get the cartoon today," and I reply, "That's ok, I don't get the cartoons in The New Yorker either.”"

"(Are there many other Native American cartoonists?) There are tons, but the thing is they’re drawing for their respective tribal newspapers. I’m the only one that I know of with a daily cartoon in a mainstream newspaper."

"I’ve been tweaking it for the last 13 years...Back then I did a lot of inside jokes where only Natives would get it. People would constantly tell me, “I didn’t get yesterday’s cartoon.” And I would simply say, “Well, that’s okay, because I don't get the cartoons in The New Yorker sometimes.” But then I thought about it, and I thought that's not a very good answer. As an artist I shouldn’t be offended that people don't get it. I should be improving myself so more people get it. So about five years ago I grew up and stopped thinking like that and I thought, “Okay, let's get to work, let’s see what I can do to tweak this so more people can understand it.” Because ultimately that's my goal, to get more non-Natives to read it so I can put these Native issues on the table and then go from there."

"To forgive doesn't mean you don't suffer consequences. There has to be punishment."

"And what about Latin America? We can't expect the nations of this hemisphere to break their necks to help us in the event of another war if we continue to mistreat their cousins in our own country."

"I wish that the congressional opponents of FEPC could ask the helpless hulks of men in New Mexico, the prisoners who survived the death march and the salt mines of Japan, if it was wise-not right, mind you-to keep the man-power represented by thirteen million Negroes and some two million Mexican-Americans out of the defense plants because of color or race."

"Is it fair Mr. President, to employ only those who happen to be of one racial extraction? I do not find anything in the Constitution which says that only those whose ancestors happened to be from the British Isles may be Americans. The Constitution says nothing at all like that. I have known some pretty good Americans who were not of British extraction, and when the country was in the midst of an emergency, when the shooting started, we found the Levines, the Gallaghers, the Negroes, the Assyrians, the Jews, and others doing their part in the war effort."

"Most speakers try to be as circumspect as possible when handling a subject as delicate as racial discrimination. But the world situation today is so critical, the fate of western civilization is so precarious, and the future of our nation as a great power is so imperiled that we find circumspection out of order; it is time to speak out boldly let the chips fall where they may. Discrimination endangers our country, and a threat to our national safety is a matter which vitally concerns us all, and it behooves us as good citizens to study and understand the problem. And if we find that racial discrimination presents such a threat to our safety, then we should immediately, with every ounce of resolution and determination at our command, seek to eradicate it from our way of life."

"I have been fighting for the so-called underprivileged all my days, because I was one of them. I was reared in that atmosphere, and I am proud of the chance I had in America under the government of the United States, and I want my fellow beings to have the same chance I had."

"I am opposed to dividing them in times of peace into racial or religious groupings, as I am opposed to so dividing them in times of war."

"Mr President, what about those promises? Were they supposed to be made but not to be kept"

"If the Constitution is worth anything, if the Declaration of Independence is worth anything, if the boys who died on the field of battle did not die in vain, fair-employment practices are correct and necessary"

"I do not know any Communists, but personally I am becoming tired of hearing men who are merely interested in human beings and in human rights accused of being Communists."

"Because I happen to have been rather fortunate, and when I go home I have a fairly good meal, or, at any rate, plenty to eat, it does not make me happy to reflect that possibly there are thousands and millions throughout the country who do not have anything to eat. Others may feel happy, others may be content when there are poor people in this country as a result of discrimination. I cannot be contented with such a condition. It is not American."

"Hitler believed in discrimination. We know what happened. He carried it to its finality. He believed in a superior race. He believed in a superior people and the power of might and dictatorship. I believe in the law. I prefer due process of law to paying tribute to any individual in this country."

"What we want most now is action. We know that practices growing out of discrimination and intolerance, which are thoroughly un-American, must not be allowed to continue."

"The implications of discrimination, however, are not always so well known or understood. That an American citizen of Mexican descent in Arizona or Colorado may not occupy public office is a national disgrace."

"Imagine the feelings of the Japanese-American, who fought so valiantly in Italy-we had no better troops, not excepting the Marines-fighting for democracy and all the while his country was gathering up his father, mother, and sisters and herding them like cattle into concentration camps."

"These things are wrong. I know that there are many among us who refer to the Italians as "Wops," to the Mexicans as "Greasers," to the Jews as "Yids," and the Irish as "Harps," but if we stop to consider how important it is that we be united now, we would forget our differences, forget that we are of Irish, Spanish, English, or Italian extraction and concentrate on being Americans."

"The translation into law of the new concepts of religious and economic liberty was not easily achieved any more than the enactment of fair-employment legislation will be easily won. Rigid religious conformity was woven into the law of some of the separate colonies, and rebellious sects were driven forth to found new colonies where religious freedom could flourish. At one point, Catholics and Jews were not allowed to vote. For many years people without property were denied the franchise. But the ideal of freedom was not to be downed, and when the crisis which precipitated the American Revolution came about"

"We have just fought a great war to a successful conclusion. It would be a national disaster and humiliation if those who have fought valiantly abroad to defend the freedom and dignity of the individual against racial barbarism should now come home to find that the bringing of peace meant a wiping out of the antidiscrimination policy that we achieved in wartime. Today we stand embarked upon the task of reconversion for peace. Shall we reconvert to racial prejudice, national bigotry, and religious discrimination, or shall we reconvert to full peacetime employment based on the American principle of equality of human rights?"

"of all the issues confronting our country today, the issue of racial and religious discrimination is at once the most neglected and the most critical. There is no victory over Hitler and Tojo which by itself will erase the injustice of economic discrimination practiced against the minority groups among our people. Full employment without fair employment means the fastening of religious and racial minorities to the bottom rung of the economic ladder regardless of their education, abilities, and skills. Unemployment compensation will not break down the barrier of prejudice. There is nothing in the so-called GI bill of rights which will protect the returning two millions of minority veterans from the pattern of job discrimination which exists in this country. We in this nation stand at a crossroads in history. Either we will take the road which will lead us past another goalpost of human progress or we will be forced into the path riddled with the pitfalls of human hatreds which led Europe into World War II. We shall not be permitted to stand still. Whichever road we take will be for you, the people, to choose."

"Every great crisis in American history has thus far had the moral result of increased protection and increased liberty for the individual. This country's first great crisis-the American Revolution-gave us political and religious independence. The crisis which was the Civil War gave us freedom from bondage for all menand women. Out of the crisis of the First World War came women's suffrage. Out of this World War II, with all its terrifying implications, comes: What?"

"No discrimination was shown by the Japanese enemy in his treatment of the Negro or the Jew or the Mexican or the so-called Anglo-Saxon stock-he murdered them all irrespective of their religion, color, or politics. On the beachheads of Tarawa, Okinawa, or Guam there was no discrimination. Along the sandbanks of Anzio no discrimination was shown by the German or any other common enemy. But here in our own country by people who should know better, and do know better, discrimination at times becomes rampant. Even now, the ugly head of racial and religious prejudice shows itself too vividly to be ignored. To outlaw the discriminatory employment practices stemming from racial and religious bigotry is the new task which must now engage us."

"The main point is that fair-employment practices should be adopted in this country. What with fair-employment practices? We love to talk about liberality and about saving the world. We sent our boys to Europe, to China, and to the Pacific. The only decoration which thousands of them received was a white cross surmounting a grave."

"It is most regrettable that some persons think that it was all well and good to use such men and call upon them to make the supreme sacrifice in foreign fields, to land on a deadly beach at Okinawa or Guam or elsewhere, but that they are not good enough to receive equal treatment in our country."

"These senators, recognizing that the tide of human progress has out-paced them, would try to stem its onrush by the extreme tactic of filibustering the bill."

"It's like watching Mario Andretti park a car."

"It's going, going, going — to be caught."

"He was a jewel. He loved the game of baseball. He loved to see it played correctly and smartly. He loved to talk baseball. He deeply understood the game, especially hitting."

"To have a federal administration that continues to attack, divide [the Latino community], and create racial unrest is disgusting."

"The old criminal abortion law of this state, only one of nine left in the entire country, must go. Bring me that bill and I will sign it."

"This old, outdated statute criminalizing health care providers is an embarrassment. That removing it was even a debate, much less a difficult vote for some senators, is inexplicable to me."

"The Supreme Court appears poised to overturn 50 years of constitutional protections for women to access to safe and legal abortions. This decision is catastrophic and will have consequences that will negatively impact generations"

"New Mexico is at the breaking point."

"It is really incredible about the depth of which they figure out what makes you tick, how you got to be where you are and what you did in every component of the course of your personal and professional life since you were in high school."

"I was institutionalized from age five to thirty years, first in an orphanage and then in prison. I kept running away and escaping and escaping and escaping . . . I had tried to escape so many times. When I got to prison I refused to work; I wanted to learn—I wanted an education. I was ready to give my life for an education…"

"The white kids are being conditioned to feel superior—so you can’t attack the whites, you have to attack the system. But we have to attack with loving ourselves first. If we don’t love more, we ain’t revolutionizing nothin’. People who love themselves won’t tolerate deception; they won’t tolerate oppression…"

"Not knowing how to read and write is only the top of that morbid state of being. Not knowing how to read and write leads to not knowing where windows come from, how cars are made, how people pay for cars. Not knowing how to read and write is only the top of the problem, because behind that wall you don't know anything and how anything operates in society, and that's the nightmare."