To the editor:

Andy Gonzales is certainly entitled to his opinion on “The Road to El Dorado,” but I do hope that while he is studying political science at Iowa State, he might take the time to educate himself on American Indian and Latino history before publishing anything else on the topic.

His statement that most racial and ethnic minorities “haven’t felt any real oppression; we’re just a bunch of cry babies” is outrageous for anyone to make but incredibly naive for a Hispanic person from El Paso, Texas, such as himself.

It is one thing to take a stance against political correctness but another to cut against your own ethnic community. Andy, you have shamed Latinos and American Indians all over campus with your ignorance and seeming contempt for your own heritage.

If you didn’t “understand the whole protest thing,” as a newspaper columnist and budding political scientist, you should have spoken with the protesters to try to understand their point of view.

Please take the opportunity to pursue serious coursework in the American Indian studies or Latino studies Programs at Iowa State. If you don’t have time for that, I can certainly recommend some good books for you to read. I guarantee that you will learn a lot about race and ethnic relations in the United States and how seemingly innocuous cartoon stereotypes of racial and ethnic minorities really do work against all of us, including you.

Maybe this will all make sense to you when you graduate and start interviewing for jobs and your resume has the name “Gonzales” on it. I can tell you that you, unfortunately, are the one who has no idea what the world is really like.

Susan Vega Garcia

Assistant professor

Parks Library