Val COLORED CincoDeMayo Theme

Been poking around at this one for the afternoon. I decided to kickstart the weekend by celebrating holidays the best way I know how. Sitting in front of a computer screen, scratching at a Wacom tablet in Photoshop. This year's Cinco de Mayo particularly strikes a nerve with me as the whole illegal immigrant discussion has finally come to the table, even though I've been considering it a very important topic of debate since I first started closely watching the news in early 1998. Heated political speak has been churning across not just the dA website, but naturally, across the whole nation. My biggest wonder is why people suddenly care. It's nothing new. The numbers haven't changed. There hasn't been any spike in illegal immigration, nor has there been any incident in particular that triggered the sudden awareness of our undocumented bretheren.

It has gotten so bad, many conservative-minded folk have decided to reject celebrating Mexico's Independence from French occupation, mostly because that event had allegedly no effect on America, nor is it America's business to partake in it much in the same way they believe the Spanish language need not apply to the National Anthem. That is, of course, their opinion, their standpoint, and I'm in no position to take such ideology away from them.

While not a fan of the economic drain illegal immigration has on the taxpayer, I've always felt the issue to be way over my head. I refuse to have an opinion on illegal immigration on a whole. The recent marches in Los Angeles garnered a mixed reaction from me, a combination of pride, shame, and wonder. I'm proud to live in a country that allows these demonstrations to take place. I'm proud that they had such a massive gathering that, aside from traffic, congregated, chanted, sang, and departed without any massive cataclysmic incident. At the same time, I'm ashamed to see so many people wraught with rancorous rhetoric, taking advantage of one's protest to set up their own wacky soapbox of insane ideas. I'm ashamed to bear witness to utter hypocrisy, seeing massive groups of high school children talk about how oppressed they are, and demonstrate it by ditching the schools they attend on the taxpayers pocketbook, and throwing themselves into peril by consciously marching ON busy freeways. I'm ashamed to see these marches being made parallel to the civil rights march, even though illegals don't have constitutional rights (unlike blacks half-a-centry ago), didn't have water cannons turned on them, weren't lynched, and weren't marauded by attack dogs. But overall, I feel wonder. To see history in the making. To see the very degree of influence our foreign brothers down south have on our very society.

2006 is special this May 5th. It's not just another drinking holiday to spend with Tom Leykis at Commacho's. No. This is the first Cinco de Mayo where America seems, for the first time since the Chicano movement and Salvadorian exhile in the 1960's, aware of its own racial diversity. A quality we recognize. A quality we value. And I feel that there's no better way to show my own sincere fanfare towards Latino culture than by ringing in the green, white, and red banner on a medium much like Latin history; open, flexible, sexy, playful, and sturdy.

A mis hermanos del sur. A todos quien me gustan. *clink*


Photoshop 7
Wacom
Original lineart: [link]

Comments appreciated. Criticism honored.