Hispanic Fanatic

This one comes courtesy of our friends at Fail.org (a damn funny site).

No, there isn’t some organization out there with a master plan to combat the obesity epidemic by ostracizing Hispanics. A cursory examination of the picture shows that the word “Eating” was vandalized to change it into “Latino,” leading to the racist non sequitur.

I’d like to say that the sign indicates deep-seeded sociological problems, but it’s probably the work of some bored teenager who got tired of defacing the instructions for hand dryers (yeah, changing “press button” to read “press butt” never got old…). As such, it means little, but makes for an attention-getting picture. It’s worth noting, however, that the perpetrator used white-out, which is a heavy-handed way to make a racial point.

In any case, before we try to figure out why both “food” and “eating” are prohibited (what else is one to eat other than food?), let’s address a more pressing question: Is the act of drinking, or black people, allowed past the sign?

If all goes according to plan, the Space Shuttle Discovery will lift off this Friday morning. Two Hispanic astronauts – Jose Hernandez and Danny Olivas – will be aboard, marking the first time that multiple Latinos will be on the same shuttle.

I imagine it drives racists insane. Not only are Hispanics spreading out beyond their home countries and inner-city barrios, now they’re taking off into outer space.

Watch it, there’s no place where Latinos aren’t poised to take over!

In any case, much of the media attention has been fixed on Hernandez rather than Olivas. There’s a good reason for this. Hernandez has an amazing life story: As a child, he worked in the fields with his immigrant parents and didn’t even learn English until he was twelve. When he was a teenager, Hernandez read about NASA’s first Hispanic astronaut (a man with the truly cool name of Franklin Chang-Diaz). Thus inspired, Hernandez applied himself and moved beyond a lifetime of manual labor.

And now, he and Olivas will become two of the few Latinos to ever work in zero gravity. It’s a compelling saga, and I now look forward to hearing about the first Latino on Mars.

By the way, “First Latino on Mars” would be a great name for my autobiography. I’ll just have to make clear that I’m speaking metaphorically.

I’m going with another brief update today. But it’s good news. With all the chaos about the economy and healthcare dominating the news, you may have missed this little morsel: Apparently, the whole debate over immigration is over.

According to “Newsweek,” a study has proven that immigrants, even illegal ones, add more to the economy than they take.

According to the study, done by the right-leaning Cato Institute, “The net impact on U.S. households from tighter border enforcement is unambiguously negative.” The article says that “even low-skilled immigrants expand the economic pie and create jobs farther up the ladder.” In fact, the Cato Institute says that tightening the border could cost America up to $250 billion.

So that’s settled….

Except, why do I have this nagging suspicion that the argument isn’t over?

Recently, I wrote about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, an incident that has resuscitated the issue of racial profiling. In that post, I said that I’ve had run-ins with the police, but they’ve been rare.

What I didn’t mention is that non-authority figures – like storeowners, next-door neighbors, fellow riders on the subway, and the like – also engage in racial profiling from time to time.

I was reminded of this last week when I stopped in a new wine shop that recently opened in my neighborhood. I thought it would be a good idea to support the local merchant (plus, I really like wine).

The only other person in the shop was the white, middle-aged woman behind the counter. I browsed under her suspicious glare for a moment before spotting the open bottle of red before her.

As you may know, many wine shops have free tastings to encourage people to buy. It was the standard set-up, complete with little plastic cups, so I asked, “Are you having a tasting?”

“No,” the woman said.

Then she grabbed the bottle and put it under the counter.

Now, this was odd. In fact, I could think of only three reasons why she would hide the wine from me.

• The bottle was hers, and she gotten sloppy in concealing her day drinking. Naturally, stealing from the inventory and getting blitzed on the job is something you want to keep from the customers.
• The bottle materialized from another dimension in some kind of time-space anomaly. The woman, an amateur scientist, recognized the cosmological implications, and instead of calling Stephen Hawking at once, she hid the bottle rather than acknowledge the frightening paradox that its existence posed.
• The bottle was for a tasting. But she just didn’t like me.

I couldn’t decide which of these scenarios was true. So I just nodded and left. And of course, I didn’t buy anything.

Now, the shop is a brand-new establishment, locally owned and without the benefits of major corporate sponsorship. It is no doubt heavily in debt from start-up costs, and it has opened in the midst of a devastating recession. And it was not exactly crawling with customers. So why would an employee take even the slightest chance on offending one of the few people who walked through the doors (a person who was, until the moment of refusal, ready to buy something)?

Well, if it wasn’t scenario one or two, above, I can only figure that the woman thought, “We may be on the verge of financial ruin, but damn it, if we let in browsing Latinos (unemployed ones at that!), it will just be a matter of time before all kinds of riff-raff are shoplifting Chardonnays.”

No, you can’t be too careful.

I’m continuing my recent trend of highlighting news stories that haven’t gotten enough publicity.

So let me tell you about the Mira family of Minnesota, who come from my family’s homeland of El Salvador. They crossed into America illegally to flee MS-13, which is a homicidal gang of heavily tattooed thugs who run wild in that nation.

The Miras say that deporting them is a death sentence, because MS-13 members will kill them upon arrival. So they’ve applied for political asylum. The case has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Any ruling could have a major effect upon immigration law.

Now, we can argue whether their plight rises to the level of granting political asylum. I think it does, but perhaps a lawyer or sane conservative would like to educate me why it doesn’t.

However, I imagine the common rejoinder is “They came here illegally, so it doesn’t matter if we send them back and they get killed.” That argument, often made by people who consider themselves pro-life, only showcases the level of hostility and irrationality that the immigration debate brings out.

In any case, maybe it will work out for the Miras. Or maybe we’ll just send them packing because we can.

Ultimately, it was pretty anticlimactic. As we all know, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed this week as the latest Supreme Court Justice. She took the oath of office today.

She is the first Latina on the court, of course, and her success can’t help but be an inspiration to Hispanics, even to surly bloggers who think they’re above it all (ahem…).

Sotomayor was confirmed by a 68-31 vote, with all the Democrats and nine Republicans voting for her. That means about three-quarters of the GOP Senators said, “Never mind the uplifting story and impressive qualifications, I’m terrified she’s going to rule that we all have to speak Spanish.”

The newest justice will have plenty of time to prove whether she’s an intellectual jurist who exercises solid judgment, or if she’s a crazed left-wing agitator who empathizes all over the place.

Sane people should have little trouble guessing where she’ll land on that continuum.

As I mentioned earlier, my move to California is taking up a lot of my time, forcing me to concentrate on short posts and quick observations – rather than the lengthy, behemoth-like diatribes that I prefer. Also, my schedule for posts will also be irregular, at least for the time being.

But this lifestyle upheaval is better than my previous excuse for neglecting the blog, which was that eye surgery left me afflicted with double-vision (that’s finally cleared up, by the way).

In any case, I see this as an opportunity to direct you to news stories that I may have otherwise overlooked in my mad rush to publicize, well, myself.

So I draw your attention to the plight of Daniel Guadron, a teenager from New Jersey. He was a straight-A student in high school, where he was also a popular athlete.

Then about a year ago, U.S. immigration found out that his parents were in the country illegally. So they arrested him, although he had legal permission to work and study in America.

He was stuck in detention for seven months. He finally got out, after being charged with no crime, and managed to graduate with his high school class.

The kid has tenacity, obviously, but the issue goes beyond one unjustly persecuted Latino. Locking up Guadron for over half a year did nothing to make our borders more secure or save a citizen’s job or discourage illegals or advance any of the myriad rationales given for zero-tolerance policies on immigration.

In the end, nobody won, except maybe one determined Hispanic teenager who now has a hell of a story for his college-application essay.

And I say, good for him.