Is this term an ethnic slur; offensive terms for a person of Mexican descent?

[Gadfly]

Well, if you call someone who is in the US legally a wetback, it is a racial slur.  If you call someone who is here illegaly a wetback, it is just a derogatory term.

[DmdNexus]

Yes it is a racial slur.

It's sad that the question even has to be asked.

[Dune]

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic.

- Theodore Roosevelt

[mrblack]

I think that it is said in a distastfull manner.
So therefore it is very rude to call someone a wetback.

[Gunslinger]

Kinda OFF TOPIC but a mexican american is not geographically a hispanic.  A peurto rican i work with corrected me on this common misconception.  If you ARE hispanic it means you or your ancesters stem from hispanola.  Hispanola is the Island in wich the dominican republic sits on.  A mexican or somone other than that are "LATINO" (a whole nother whopper in itself) are NOT hispanics.  

Wetback is a term that offends most mexicans and americans of mexican dessent......."most"

[Regular]

Why? Someone called you a wetback at the factory today Ripsnort?

[Airhead]

Originally posted by Regular
Why? Someone called you a wetback at the factory today Ripsnort?

No, what happened was Easymo refered to illegal immigrants as "wetbacks" on another board and Rip called it racist. I see that when the Dogs of AGW nip at Rip's heals he comes scurrying back to Aces High's BBS to get his wounds licked.

[DiabloTX]

From what I have experienced, "beaner" is more derogatory than "wetback" is.

[Airhead]

Originally posted by DiabloTX
From what I have experienced, "beaner" is more derogatory than "wetback" is.

Exactly. .

[Gadfly]

In my wide and close personal experience with both the term and the target, as well as my long friendship with hispanics, the only ones who feel it is a racial term are limo libs. They also consider "illegal alien" to be a racial term, so that should let you know where they are coming from.  Even the wetbacks that I know, and have known for most of my life, realize that it refers to the method by which they enter the US, not the race of the one refered to.

[Dinger]

WOP = "WithOut Papers", somehow got applied to italians in general.

"Wetback" is a dysphemism, even if used to refer to illegal aliens who got into the country by swimming the Rio Grande.

So yeah, it is an insult to call someone a Wetback.
Now if you use it in reference to people of a certain ethnicity, it's particularly insulting; this is even more so if you're in a part of the United States where the dominant non-native population used to be hispanic.

[Gadfly]

Yeah, Ripper, and you got your ticket punched by getting some brown sugar when you were a kid.  The only thing worse than an overt bigot is one who is so certain of the bigotry in his heart that he over-compensates in public.  And MY garage is tiled.

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
LOL! Oh PUL_LEASE!

I know of several Mexican Americans that play AH. I wanted THEIR feedback. But in typcial California Cracker defense you're here defending someone who hates Bush along with you and that is why you're here, racial slurs and all.

As mentioned in a previous post up above, if you can't see its a racial slur, then I feel sorry for ya, Archie Bunker.

I hope you're attending the con, and I pray a Mexican American comes up to ya and pops you back to reality.

A Mexican-American wouldn't be a wetback.

[NUKE]

Calling someone a wetback is derogatory at best. It is an ethnic slur and very racist.

[Gadfly]

It is easy to say that, Nuke, but explain why that is so, in your opinion.