RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.: Sometimes, anti-immigrant racism hits you like a tossed tortilla

Americans still refuse to address the elefante in the room. I’m talking about systemic racism in the immigration debate.

I can hear you now: “Immigrants aren’t a race!”

Race isn’t just biological. It’s also a social construct based on people relate to one another.

Americans have long treated immigrants poorly — based on skin color, ethnicity or nationality. Throughout U.S. history, we have often decided how many people get in, based on who is trying to get in.

There I go again. Some readers accuse me — and other journalists — of dividing Americans by looking for racism everywhere. You got me. I’ve been on the job since 1990 and, before I sat down at my computer, everyone in America was getting along swimmingly.

Sometimes, you don’t have to look that hard for racism. It can literally hit you in the head. Like a tortilla flying through the air.

This was the spectacle that unfolded recently at Coronado High School, a wealthy and predominantly white school near San Diego. The Coronado basketball team squeaked out an overtime victory in a close championship game against Orange Glen High School — which, not for nothing, is working class and predominantly Mexican American. After the final buzzer, some Coronado players and fans scuffled with members of the opposing team — and then disdainfully flung tortillas in their direction.

Yes, tortillas. The ruckus grew bigger, as fans and players from Orange Glen reacted viscerally to the racist put-down.

Still, some folks are in denial. They shrug off the incident as a harmless prank. Certainly not racist.

Deniers include Coronado team captain Wayne McKinney — who is African American. McKinney apologized, calling the tortilla toss “unsportsmanlike and inexcusable” but “not based on race or class.”

One person who acknowledges the racism is JD Laaperi, the now-former head basketball coach at Coronado High School. The school board voted unanimously last week to remove Laaperi, not just for failing to control his players but also for allegedly taunting the Orange Glen coach by shouting expletives. In a tweet, Laaperi expressed regret that “a community member brought tortillas (to the game) and distributed them,” a gesture which he described as “unacceptable and racist in nature.”

For what it’s worth — and the answer is “not much” — the person who brought the tortillas is half-Mexican and claims to be a Democrat and a union member. Luke Serna, an alumnus of Coronado High School, told the school board in a letter that the plan was to toss tortillas in the air if Coronado won the game. He professes to have “not a shred of ill-intent or racial animus.”

Yeah. Somehow, I doubt Serna brings tortillas to games where his alma mater squares off against a predominantly white team.

Enrique Morones, the San Diego-based immigrant activist and founder of the human rights group Gente Unida, thinks this is a no-brainer. “It’s not the purveyor of the insult who decides whether it is racist,” he told me. “It’s the person who receives it.”

Morones connects the tortilla toss to the immigration debate. “Hate words lead to hate actions,” he said. “Hate actions lead to deaths on the border. The border wall is a symbol of hate.”

Morones wants Coronado students to undergo cultural sensitivity training, even though he believes the problem is closer to home. “The parents are the worst,” he said. “They make their kids into little racists. Racism is taught.”

So are good manners. And honesty. Mexican American students are pelted with tortillas, and some people are fine with that? “When did the tortilla become a weapon?” a Facebook user sarcastically asked.

It’s not the food. It’s the context. You have to recognize code language. Let’s serve up another disturbing story involving students of color and a racist trope centered on food.

In 2019, about two dozen seventh graders from the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester, Massachusetts — where the majority of students are Black or Latino — took a field trip to the city’s Museum of Fine Arts. According to the Boston Globe, a member of the museum staff, in attempting to explain the rules, allegedly told the group: “No food, no drink, no watermelon.”

Museum officials later apologized for the fact that the students had to put up with “unacceptable experiences that made them feel unwelcome.”

Don’t overthink it. The incident in Boston was racist. So was the one in Coronado. We have to call out ugliness when we see it. Otherwise, ugliness wins.

Contact Ruben Navarrette at ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His podcast, “Ruben in the Center,” is available through every podcast app.