The Tennessean

5 October 2002

Our nation should focus on unity, not divisiveness

The following Hispanic Heritage Month moment comes from Dwight Wilson of Allenton, Mich.

He writes on the occasion of my column on Robber Baron Cornelius Vanderbilt and the furor over the renaming of a university dorm endowed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy:

''My cousin and his lovely Mexican bride were driving through Tennessee and occasionally stopping at Confederate cemeteries and looking for family names on the headstones. My cousin on my mother's side could not find his last name (Clements), but they found his wife's maiden name Rodriguez. We laughed awhile about that one.''

Yes, it is humorously ironic. All the Hispanic immigrants in Tennessee drawing the ire of natives are not necessarily newcomers. Rodriguez is also a name in my extended family.

The presence of Hispanics fighting and dying more than 140 years ago on Tennessee soil is an eye-opener in the history of a nation we like to portray in black and white, good vs. bad. How could one minority group be fighting for a side enabling the slavery of another minority group?

Yet politics and human shortcomings make history difficult to generalize — be it of the past or that we call ''current events.''

For instance, our leaders call Saddam Hussein a threat to innocents as an exporter of terrorism. We want war. Yet U.S. embargoes of Iraq since the Gulf War have assisted in the deaths of more than 100,000 children there. What does that make us?

Mexicans in the Confederacy came from a nation that did not allow slavery. They also came from a country that had been invaded 15 years earlier by the United States. That's a reason why they fought with the South.

Native Americans in my home state of Oklahoma did, too. The ''civilized'' tribes there had been marched by federal troops through Tennessee and the South 30 years earlier on the Trail of Tears. More than 4,000 people — mostly women, children and elderly — perished. These first Americans also saw an exception to the North being all good and the South being all bad — despite the issue of slavery dominating the conflict.

Hispanic Heritage Month straddles two months, running annually from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. It first marks Independence Day in several Latin American nations. Sept. 16 is Independence Day in Mexico. Oct. 12 is ''El Dia de La Raza,'' or Day of The People. It celebrates Indian and Hispanic cultures.

Heritage months for minority groups, however, run contrary to where this nation needs to move year-round. We're out of balance, focusing on differences and not enough on things that unite.

War, though terrible, has often opened eyes to the valor and worth in all people. More than 40 Hispanics have won the Medal of Honor. The first Hispanic recipient was Union Cpl. Joseph H. DeCastro at the Battle of Gettysburg. The last was Alfred Rascon, who was not even a U.S. citizen when he volunteered to go to Vietnam. Rascon's contributions can serve as a reminder today in how we view immigrants. You don't have to be a citizen to contribute to America.

Few figures or events in history fit comfortable generalizations. A Tennessean story this week told the history of Father Ryan High School, the largest private co-educational high school in the state. Father Abram Ryan was a Confederate chaplain. So shouldn't the Catholic diocese change the name?

To follow Vanderbilt University's lead, even a dorm with the word ''Confederate'' on it is wrong. Will Vandy no longer accept Father Ryan graduates lest another student be made uncomfortable?