The first time I recall being called “wetback” was in high school by a classmate.
In grade school I had been called “dumb Mexican” and I think it was eighth grade the first time I was aware of “beaner” being used as an insult at me. But “wetback”? That was a new one.
I knew the term was supposed to be an insult because it was preceded by the adjective stupid and by my classmate’s tone. But why was he insulting me with wetback? 
Was he saying I showered too much and my back was always wet and gross? Or was it an ironic observation meant to draw attention to my malodorous hygiene because I didn’t shower enough?
Or because I was on the swim team?
It wasn’t until one of my parents explained that it referenced people from Mexico swimming across a river to enter the United States to find work. Their backs get wet. Get it?
Well of course they do, I remember thinking. I also thought that racists and bigots were ignorant, unimaginative, lazy and intellectually amusing in a bad way. But today I wonder if the way they think is because they are enabled by the institutions that should know better.
In perusing the archives of The Star-News I came across a front page in which a story referenced people as wetbacks.
(I’ll attach an image on this column’s online version at thestarnews.com.)
Chula Vista Farmer Held in Double Murder
Lorenzo Semenza Implicated In Death Of Two Wetbacks by Farmhand; Denies Charge
As stunning as it is to see that word used casually in a newspaper story, maybe it shouldn’t be.
The term was used popularly in the decades preceding that 1953 sub-headline and was formally adopted by the federal government in 1954 when it enacted Operation Wetback, an effort to remove Mexican immigrants, including American citizens, from the United States.
It seems it was so easy then for two pillars of democracy — a free press and representative government, institutions that are supposed to embody the best principles of this country — to carelessly contribute to the cancerous growth of intolerance and hate. After all, if the government and the press can use terms that dehumanize people, paint them in pictures that portray them as other than human, why shouldn’t the average Joe?
Today we still read and hear “illegals” describing people who are in this country without authorization. While most reputable media outlets have moved away from that terminology in favor of a more inclusive or nuanced one, there are still television networks, people in the highest offices of government and neighbors who gleefully use that word as shorthand for Mexicans and other people.
While I still think racists and bigots are unimaginative and lazy, I don’t find them quite as amusing as I used to. They are also pathetic and tiresome because while the rest of us evolve, they are mired in willful ignorance.
