The Frito Bandito Syndrome

I never did get too upset when the Frito Bandito was romping around America’s television screens selling corn chips.

He was a Mexican stereotype, that’s for sure, but, like most commercials, the whole thing was more an insult to one’s intelligence than to one’s ethnic background.

The idea that we’re prone to buy a commodity because of a cartoon character says more about the national IQ than anything I could offer.

I will admit, however, that I was slightly annoyed at comic Bill Dana’s characterization of the Mexicanish bellboy “Jose Jimenez.”

Here again, however, it was the utter lack of redeeming social qualities that bothered me, not the inappropriate mocking of an ethnic group. It just wasn’t funny.

Friends kept telling me I should have been offended by both the Bandito and the Jimenez shtick due to my Latino background, but I just couldn’t get worked up over it.

It has to do with cultural sensitivities, and I guess I have none. Insults to the entire human race, like wars and holocausts, bother me more than a cartoon character trying to sell me a greasy chip.

Which brings me, however circuitously, to what may be the longest-running protest of its kind in L.A. County: Arcadia High versus the Indians.

After its initial burst of attention, the matter has slipped into the background of current events, but it’s still there, and it’s been there for almost three years.

At its core is the insistence of Arcadia High on calling its teams the Apaches, and the insistence of some Native Americans that it’s demeaning to a proud and historic people.

One activist told me angrily, “We are not mascots, we are not pets. Dogs are pets. People are not.”

The protest began in 1997, shortly after the L.A. Board of Education voted to eliminate all references to American Indians in the names and images of school mascots.

Braves, Mohicans and even Warriors bit the dust.

Thereafter, Indian activists turned their attention to Arcadia High’s Apaches, where stereotypes abounded. They asked the school board there to follow the example of the board in L.A. and drop the Indian name and logo.

The board left it up to a student council, which voted, without Indian input, to keep the name, although an insulting caricature was eliminated as an icon.

Principal Martin Plourde drove to Arizona’s Fort Apache Reservation to determine on his own how the Apaches felt about use of the name to identify the school’s teams.

He came home convinced he had their blessings, but that hasn’t made a big difference with the local activists.

Plourde says the Apache Tribal Council gave its approval to use the name Apaches. L.A. activists say he failed to give them the background of the debate and that there was no actual vote.

“We are human beings with an ancient culture and spirituality,” says Fern Mathias, “and we don’t want it demeaned on a football field.” She’s executive director of Southern California’s American Indian Movement.

Mathias claims that in his visit to Alchesay High on the Arizona reservation, Plourde was told by the students, “you’ve taken our land, but you’re not going to take our name.”

“I’ve always wanted to do the right thing,” Plourde says. “I’ve never wanted to disrespect anyone. That’s why I went to Arizona.” He’s white and married to an African American and considers himself an advocate for social justice.

Plourde has made a significant effort to eliminate the Apache as a “pet” at Arcadia High and elevate it to a symbol of American history. “The activists have raised our consciousness,” he says. “We have not always been above reproach. But now we’re learning about a people, and when you learn you respect them.”

That’s not good enough for the Indian activists. Mathias says they’ll go on picketing school board meetings and sports events at Arcadia High until the name Apache is dropped. They’ll also demonstrate at the school’s graduation later this month, wearing Indian garb and sometimes beating drums.

“We’re not finished,” she promises.

Sometimes I weary of the nit-picking that characterizes the age of political correctness. But the Indian activists have a point. Until we can treat each other with respect, the demand for cultural atonement will continue in many ways, and this is one of them.

Maybe I should have cared a little more about the Frito Bandito when he was selling chips and stereotypes.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.