In attempting to explain to one of my ride-share riders, himself Hispanic, how I'd observed men in our town who embodied a complicated and often uncomfortable kind of patriotism, I referenced my late father-in-law, Manuel Perez and now-deceased school teacher, Dagoberto Barrera. Both men had their lives shaped by migration, discipline, and an intense desire to belong. My late father-in-law was born in Mexico, yet he served thirty years in the United States military and wore that service as the core of his identity. America, to him, was something he had earned through sacrifice. But that sense of earned belonging came with a sharp edge. Despite his own origins, he routinely referred to Mexican nationals as “wetbacks,” a word loaded with contempt and distance, as if drawing a hard line between who deserved to belong and who did not. His loyalty to the United States was genuine, but it was also performative in the sense that it demanded constant reaffirmation, especially by rejecting people who reminded him too closely of where he came from.
Dagoberto Barrera reflected a strikingly similar posture. A former schoolteacher and a respected figure in his own right, he spoke disparagingly of Mexicans as people who “eat with their hands” and who, in his telling, were always ready to “rape, rob, and pillage our community.” His language was not just prejudiced; it was alarmist, framing Mexicans as an invading threat rather than as neighbors or kin. Like Manuel, Dagoberto positioned himself as a defender of order, culture, and country, even while targeting people who shared his ethnic background. Education and civic standing did not soften this outlook; if anything, they seemed to harden his belief that he had risen above others and therefore had the authority to judge them.
When I look at these two men alongside many Hispanic Republicans in Brownsville, the parallels are hard to ignore. There is often a shared worldview that equates patriotism with policing boundaries; cultural, linguistic, and national. In this framework, love of country is proven not just by waving the flag or voting a certain way, but by distancing oneself from immigrants who are poorer, darker, newer, or less assimilated. It is a kind of pseudo-patriotism, or performative nationalism, that blends sincere affection for the United States with a deep anxiety about status and acceptance.
This pattern is not unique to Mexican Americans. Among Cuban Americans, particularly in places like Florida, patriotism often takes on a highly visible and aggressive form, rooted in fierce anti-communism and the trauma of fleeing the Castro regime. Movements like “Patria y Vida” reflect a real and emotional love for a free Cuba, but that history of exile and loss can also translate into an intense need to signal loyalty to the United States. Because Cuban Americans hold a disproportionate amount of political power relative to their numbers, this brand of nationalism is especially loud and influential, sometimes blurring the line between heartfelt conviction and strategic performance within the U.S. political system.
Mexican Americans, by contrast, are often criticized for maintaining visible ties to Mexico, flying flags, celebrating traditions, or expressing pride in a country their families may have left generations ago. What outsiders sometimes dismiss as “pocho” or divided loyalty is more accurately a form of cultural survival. For many, these expressions are not anti-American at all, but a way of asserting dignity and belonging in a society that frequently treats them as perpetual foreigners. This “outsider patriotism” exists alongside, not in opposition to, love for the United States.
Across these communities, generational differences matter. Those who fled political violence or extreme poverty often cling more tightly to rigid ideas of nationalism, while their U.S.-born children may navigate identity with more flexibility. Solidarity with family and friends back home, protest against corrupt regimes, and the simple need to feel seen all shape how patriotism is expressed.
Seen through this lens, the attitudes of Manuel Perez, Dagoberto Barrera, and many like-minded Hispanic Republicans are not just personal failings, but symptoms of a larger struggle over belonging. What looks like pseudo-patriotism from the outside is often a complicated mix of pride, fear, trauma, and a relentless desire to prove, to oneself and to others, that one truly belongs, even if that proof comes at the cost of denying humanity to people who look very much like oneself.
.jpeg)
.png)