The nicest thing my mother-in-law has ever said to me is, “In a certain light, you kind of, a little bit, resemble Johnny Depp.”
Now, even a straight man like me knows that it’s a compliment to be compared, however vaguely, to this guy. Sure, he’s a talented actor, but what he’s best known for is being the uber-hunky male of so many women’s dreams. Even the tough-as-nails Bitca has been known to swoon if she catches a glimpse of Mr. Depp’s visage.
It’s good to be bi.
Wait, let’s try that intro again. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not sufficiently bilingual to be dazzling all the time and avoid slip-ups, malapropisms, and brain freezes. In fact, if I spoke Spanish better, I would be a lot more confident of fighting off Alzheimer’s as I get older.
At least that’s the conclusion of “neuroscience researchers [who] are increasingly coming to a consensus that bilingualism has many positive consequences for the brain.”
By now, you’ve heard all about the Kansas legislator who said it was a fine idea to hire gunmen to fly around in helicopters and shoot undocumented immigrants. Republican Virgil Peck made what he calls a “joke” during a public hearing on how to control the feral-pig population (like you, I was unaware that this was a huge problem in Kansas).
In any case, Peck has apologized for comparing immigrants to hogs, and while he was at it, for advocating that the state just start executing people it doesn’t like.
Of course, Peck’s comments are not in the smallest way indicative of the GOP’s hatred for Hispanics. As conservatives are quick to point out, that is all a liberal-media myth, and the Republican Party truly loves Hispanics. After all, you only joke about slaughtering people like vermin if you really respect them.
I’ve written before about the fact that the U.S. population is growing at its lowest rate since the Great Depression. But what does this statistic really tell us?
Well, among other things, it means that for the first time in American history, large swaths of the country are essentially emptying out. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “a near-record number of U.S. counties are experiencing more deaths than births in their communities, a phenomenon demographers call natural decrease.”
Of course, there’s a more common term for it: ghost town.
I may owe the Pope an apology.
I’ve been critical of the Catholic Church and its stranglehold on Hispanic culture. It seems to me that religious dogma is a big reason why Latin America can’t dig out of its poverty-lined hole and, furthermore, why U.S. Hispanics are constantly scraping by for political, economic, and sociological power.
Well, I’m not rescinding any of that. But I am wondering if there is a bright side to overreliance on the Vatican.
You see, I recently wrote about the U.S. government’s fear that al-Qaida is trying to recruit American Latinos to its sick cause. The terrorist group supposedly thinks Hispanics can “move in and around the United States without arousing suspicion,” making it easier to execute crazy shit like setting off bombs.
However, there is no hard proof that this strategy is underway. As such, I have to wonder if al-Qaida has found it difficult to shake the Catholicism out of Hispanics.
I’ve written before about the powerful bonds between Latino culture and the Catholic Church. The Hispanic predilection to believe in a big guy in the sky is well-documented.
U.S. government officials are worried that it is at the “intersection with prison radicalization, gang culture, religious zealotry that you have a potential problem.”
This seems like quite a jump in logic. Yes, Latinos are overrepresented in American prisons, and gang imagery is unfortunately as big an albatross in Hispanic culture as it is in African American society.
But is religious zealotry more potent in Latinos than it is among, say, white evangelicals or African American Baptists? Why would believing in the Catholic doctrine make Hispanics more likely to convert to radical Islam?
And while we’re at it, why haven’t we seen terrorists from Latin America like we have from the Middle East? Indeed, residents of Latin America have more reason than most of the world to hate the United States. Our support for the region’s brutal dictatorships and/or drug-running rebels (whichever is convenient) has been so blatant that even jingoists don’t bother to lie about it.
And yet, citizens of Latin America don’t talk about exacting revenge on the United States or waging war. Far from it — they love the opportunities that the United States offers so much that many of them are willing to risk their lives to start over here.
Certainly the commonality, proximity, and shared history of the cultures have something to do with it. To people in Latin America, the United States isn’t some exotic, evil land over the ocean. They probably have family members who live here.
And similarly, it’s difficult to fire up a religious war when most residents in this hemisphere are some form of Christian. So again, is one factor for the absence of Latin American terrorists the prevalence of Catholicism in the culture? And might this strong faith be a hindrance to recruiting American Latinos for jihad?
Of course, I have no evidence for this thesis. I’m like the U.S. government that way. Still, I’m willing to give the Pope the benefit of the doubt and say that Latinos’ obsession with Jesus is one reason there aren’t a lot of Jose Padillas out there.
So score one for the Catholic Church. Now, if they would just listen to some modern ideas about birth control…
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Brown Invasion. No, I’m not talking about all those Latinos stealing our jobs, selling our kids drugs, and hooting at our wives.
Hey, that’s old news. Even right-wingers are tired of peddling such fictions.
I’m referring to the recent study that showed ethnic minorities are no longer content to live in barrios and inner cities. For example, “metropolitan New York is being rapidly reshaped as blacks, Latinos, Asians and immigrants surge into the suburbs.”
Yes, my friends, it’s a damn surge out there. Watch out, suburbia.
I used to live in NYC, and my neighborhood, although primarily white, was decently mixed. The same is true of the LA area in which I live now. It’s one reason that I’ve loved both neighborhoods.
However, I have never lived in a suburb, nor do I have any desire to do so. Every time I visit a friend who has bought a house on a cul-de-sac, I get a little jittery, like the 1950s are going to suddenly explode all over me. I expect to look over a manicured lawn and there, in the distance, see a nuclear family in black and white, playing croquet and drinking lemonade.
But that’s just my hang-up. As much as I love living in cities, it would be a sad commentary if every Hispanic thought exactly as I do. By all means, if the Rodriguez family wants to take the commuter rail, I say enjoy the ride.
Still, it’s not like Latinos are blending in effortlessly with their suburban compatriots. That old barrier — segregation — exists even when Hispanics leave the big bad city behind. Latinos tend to be “typically clustered in ethnically or racially monolithic communities,” even in suburbia. So Wally and the Beaver won’t necessarily be hanging with Juan and Maria.
But perhaps that’s in the future, and maybe there are other positive developments yet to come. For example, suburbanites may have more diversity at their key parties someday.
And perhaps the whole concept of suburban angst will have to be redefined. Maybe a couple named Hernandez will feel ennui for once.
This opens up exciting possibilities. Perhaps a Hispanic director will remake “American Beauty” or “The Ice Storm,” but with Latinos in the lead. And of course, maybe someone can take another shot at “Revolutionary Road.”
If so, can we talk Kate Winslet into playing a Latina?
Yes, I still have a monster crush on the woman; sue me.
I never get tired of writing about Hispanic culture. But I have to admit that certain related topics have started to wear on me. Check that — one subject has pummeled me into stunned disbelief and ulcer-causing frustration.
Yes, once again, I have to grit my teeth and pound the word “Arizona” into the keyboard. It wasn’t enough that the state passed SB 1070, the most overtly Latino-hostile piece of legislation in modern history. Nor was Arizona satisfied when it banned ethnic studies in high schools, under the guise that kids who learned about Cesar Chavez would get riled up and burn down Tucson.
Like you, I receive a lot of strange requests via email. Thus far, I have resisted invitations from strangers to take part in their pyramid schemes or to meet them for illicit affairs or to order pharmaceuticals by the truckload.
But I recently got a missive that captured my attention. I have been asked to join a pokatok league.
A natural question, of course, is what the hell is pokatok? Well, I didn’t know either.
When I was a college student, I worked at the student newspaper. I was a longhaired, hard-drinking journalist — a Woodward and/or Bernstein in training — who would someday expose wrongdoers and bring down corrupt powerbrokers.
Well, at least that’s how I saw myself back then. It didn’t quite work out that way. And it’s not just because my chosen field, print journalism, soon became as relevant as the telegraph.
In truth, I got soured on the crusading-reporter thing pretty quickly. One of my first interview subjects was an intense man who proudly called himself a black separatist. He gave lectures around the country that outlined how African Americans needed to reject integration and establish their own nation.
