The Cinco de Mayo Flap

I'm coming late to this discussion, but some thoughts were prompted by friend and colleague Eugene Volokh's post on those high school kids who got sent home for wearing t-shirts with US flags to school on Conco de Mayo:

Even if the students wore American flag garb only on Cinco de Mayo, I take it that the message was “you want to stress your Mexican heritage, and we want to stress our American heritage” or at most “we don’t entirely approve of your stressing your ethnic heritage, since we should all think of ourselves as Americans.” This might convey some disagreement, but it hardly strikes me as discourteous; and to the extent that it’s a “rebuke,” it’s the sort of message that people are entitled — not just as a matter of law, but also of good manners — to send. Courtesy doesn’t require absence of disagreement. It requires that the disagreement not be framed in a rude way, and I don’t think there’s anything rude in the messages that I infer the clothes were trying to send.

As always, Eugene makes a good case. But I still think the kids who wore American flag clothing were wrong for two reasons:

1. When I was growing up, it was generally regarded as a serious social faux pas to wear orange on St Patrick's Day even if you were descended from Ulster Protestants. It was something you just didn't do. Wearing US flag clothing on Cinco de Mayo is the modern equivalent of wearing range on St Patrick's Day.
2. When I was growing up, you treated the US flag with respect. You didn't make clothing out of it.  Indeed, Section 176 of 36 US Code provides rules for respect of the flag, which includes the following: "(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery" and "(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform." So the kids were not only disrespecting their fellow Hispanic students, they were also disrespecting the flag.

Comments

[save_the_rustbelt]

To clarify, an image of a flag on a shirt or a flag patch on a shirt is NOT the same as a flag being used as a shirt.

So the kids were NOT disrespecting the flag.

Wearing the US flag on some imported pseudo-holiday is not disrespectful either.

The US flag is good to go 24/7 - 365.

[DaveL]

As for point 1, the Irish Troubles are a conflict in a foreign country, and the American etiquette or lack thereof for dealing with it aren't really germane to the appropriateness of displaying the US flag as a comment on an ethnic holiday. It's all made much more complicated by the fact that although Cinco de Mayo commemorates an event from Mexican history, the holiday is celebrated mostly in the United States, not unlike St. Patrick's Day.

As for point 2, that ship sailed decades ago. We may regret it, but it's too late now for that argument to stay afloat.

[KenB]

In America we are neither Irish Republican nor Irish Unionist. Neither are we French or Mexican. The good manners of refraining from symbolism associated with one antagonist on a day celebrating the other is an argument for not wearing French-related clothing on Cinco de Mayo.

Implicit in the folderol is that the United States itself is adverse to Mexico in a way that the Irish Unionists are to the Irish Republicans. Descendants of neither the Irish, the Scots, the Germans, the Czechs, nor any other group I am aware of looks at it that way. That some people of Mexican descent do so is disturbing.

By no means do I think my point applies to most Mexican-Americans, people who are generally highly patriotic and who disproportionately serve in our military.