Hispanic Fanatic

Maybe you’re overjoyed that you survived the holidays.

Perhaps you’re looking forward to the new year, and you’re optimistic that 2022 will deliver on the potential that 2021 just didn’t deliver.

Or maybe you appreciate any excuse to drink at midnight.

In any case, this time of the year is notoriously slow for writers of political commentary. Plus, I recently had my third eye surgery in the last decade, and everything looks a bit fuzzy right now.

So when you add it all up, I have very little drive to write anything more insightful than “Happy New Year” and to wish you the best.

Take care, and see you in 2022.

We met freshman year in high school, and yes, that was a couple of decades ago. She became one of my best friends, not just during the four years of adolescent angst, but through college and the travails of early adulthood. 

Even after moving to separate states, we stayed tight. But eventually, we segued into that maintenance mode of friendship, where you’ve probably had all the adventures you’re going to have with a person, and your continued relationship consists of staying in touch and enjoying the rare times you get together.

And then even that was gone. I had not heard from her in about five years, when last month — abruptly and seemingly at random — she sent me a text. 

Before I tell you the content of that text, let me tell you about my friend. I’ll call her Anna, which is not her real name and is clearly not an anagram.

Anna was one of the first people I ever knew who came out, and she was outspoken in both her defense of gay rights and her condemnation of racism. Overall, she was about as progressive as it gets.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read her text — a hodge-podge of reintroduction — that culminated with the alarming phrase “Trump 2020!”

What the actual fuck?

I ran through the scenarios. Was this a bad joke? A jab to see if I had turned to the dark side? Perhaps a highly improbable typo?

Nothing made sense, so I texted her back and asked, as calmly and politely as I could, just what the hell she meant by that sign-off.

Anna responded with the following text:

“President Trump is the best thing that’s ever happened to our country. I am done with the Democratic Party. All the states and cities that are burning right now are run by Democrats. There’s a darker agenda.”

Ok, so that’s no to the whole idea of a typo.

I responded (again, as peacefully as I could), and asked what she was talking about.

Here was her response:

“Mayors kneeling to a mob of rioters is one clue to this agenda. Antifa, who has done most of the rioting, is funded by George Soros, a far-left puppet/frontman of a shadowy group of international bankers. This group is notorious for bringing countries down from the inside out. Through infiltration instead of invasion. The Democratic Party has also been infiltrated to an astonishing degree, but you probably don’t want to hear about that.”

Well, Anna was right about one thing. I didn’t want to hear crazy anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. I’ve heard enough of them.

So I wished her well and ended our correspondence. The last thing she wrote to me was “Your mayor is a traitor who wants to defund the police,” which is a particularly odd, random, and sad way to finish our friendship. Believe me, when we were 14, I would not have predicted that this exchange — decades later — would be the final word on our relationship. But I highly doubt that I will ever hear from Anna again.

I will never know what happened to Anna. How did an open-minded, kind-hearted liberal morph into a paranoid, delusional conspiracy monger? Did her mind suddenly snap? Or did she just gradually decide to abandon all the principles of the first half of her life? Did someone hypnotize her? Did she decide to give racism a try and liked it? 

Other troubling questions bubble up. Is it a common occurrence for young progressives to turn into bitter reactionaries as they age? If so, is that what happened to the hippies who went to Woodstock who became Trump supporters 50 years later? Could this happen to anyone? Are we all at risk?

I have no answers to any of those questions.

My only hope is that, in later years, when I think of Anna, I will not remember the middle-aged woman furiously texting me bizarre, offensive rants. Instead, I hope that I remember the funny, creative, sweet artist who hung out with me in our youth, when we were close as could be, and when we shared dreams about our bright, limitless future.

As you can imagine, it has not been a great time for one’s productivity. 

For proof, check out my post-modern “poem” from last week that substituted for my regular post (it was actually kind of fun to create, so maybe I’ll revisit the idea and launch it as a regular series or bizarre radio show or something artsy like that).

In any case, I still made time this week to talk to my friend Hector Alamo for his podcast Remember the Show.

We spoke about Covid-19, of course. But we also touched upon the inevitable changes this pandemic will bring, the political games that Americans play to pretend that we live in a unified country, and the odds that the younger generation will have fewer Nazis in it (spoiler: the odds are good).

So go ahead and listen to our conversation.

In the meantime, stay safe and continue to look out for one another. 

Thanks

For my last post of the year, I thought I would share some of my recent fan mail. In general, the people who comment on my articles here, or on the Huffington Post, are either supportive or respectfully disagree. But this is the internet, people. And as such, it is a motherlode of, shall we say, more spirited correspondence as well.

Recently, I have received emails telling me to go back to Mexico. My family is from El Salvador, actually, and I’ve been to Mexico just once (about thirty years ago, when I was a kid). But still, if those commentators are so insistent that I go, I am willing to accept their invitation, so long as they pay for the plane ticket to Cancun.

Also, I have been called a traitor to my race. I presume these comments are from my fellow Latinos who don’t like something I wrote, but because the offending passages are never referenced, I have no idea what constitutes the treasonous act. For all I know, it’s because I mentioned that I prefer Foo Fighters over Tito Puente, or admitted that I don’t like guacamole (“Treason!”)

But two commentators went above and beyond. First, there was Jose M., who I’m guessing was using an ironic screen name, because he informed me that “I’m outraged by the blatant bigotry and prejudice endemic within your race. My race is fed up with it.”

Jose M. went on to explain that “My race lives in peaceful communities where you can walk down the street at night without worry that some Latino racist thug is gonna jump out of the bushes and do what comes natural to Hispanics.” I’m not sure what comes natural to Hispanics. Perhaps he meant salsa dancing. In that case, I certainly understand that it would be alarming to be walking in your neighborhood — where crime is absolutely nonexistent — and have a Latino jump out of the bushes and start shaking to the beat. Yeah, pretty scary.

In any case, Jose M. reminded me that “illegal alien sex offenders, rapists, drug dealers, and murderers (mi rasa) are flooding this country,” and closed with a simple “Viva Caucasians! My Race!”

Then there was Pete G., who wrote to kindly inform me that “Hispanics are without a doubt the most exclusionary and racist bunch of bigots living on this planet.” To prove that he himself was neither a racist nor a bigot — nope, not him — Pete G. then pointed out that “Hispanics are running like hell from their own kind to live with Whites” because they are trying to “find a civilized culture.”

He then said I should “own up to the ​racist drivel you vomit,” and asked, “Why is America being overrun with Hispanic gringos?”

Of course, “Hispanic gringo” is contradictory, and I’m unaware of America being overrun by this mythical, oxymoronic animal. But maybe I missed the report on Fox News.

In any case, keep those comments and emails coming, and thanks for reading!

I am not just a struggling writer. I am also a wretched musician. When people come to my house, they see the guitars in the corner, and then ask me if I play.

“Play is the wrong verb,” I say. “Manhandle is the right word.”

So you can imagine my surprise when I jammed with a friend of mine. He paused to take in my fretwork for a moment and then said, “You know, your playing reminds me of Santana.”

Now, Carlos Santana, in addition to being one of the world’s greatest guitarists, is also the most famous and influential Latino rock musician of all time. I suppose one could make an argument for Jerry Garcia, but I would disagree.

I’m a big Santana fan, and I grew up with his music (my mother played “Abraxas” all the time, and I got into it). So I was understandably amazed when my friend made this comparison.

“Really,” I said. “My playing reminds you of Carlos Santana?”

“No,” he said. “Tito Santana.”

Actually, that comparison makes a lot more sense.

First, thanks to Emily and De for commenting on my post “Prepare for Impact.” It’s good to see that some people out there still like to hug.

Second, I have neglected to actively push some traffic toward the Fanatic’s friends. So I must rectify the situation.

Among the worthy sites on my blogroll, I want to point out Aqui magazine and TC Daily Planet, both of which I’ve had the privilege of writing for.

Also, Macon D runs the great blog Stuff White People Do, and Profe takes care of things at summerssandoval.com. Both sites deal with a lot of the issues I address here, and I recommend them highly.

In addition, check out Dennis Cass Wants You to Be More Awesome. Dennis is an impressive writer and all-around creative guru.

Third, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Turner Classic Movies is running a new series, Latino Images in Film, throughout May. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the network will air movies that address Hispanic themes, feature Latino actors, or just say something about how Hispanics have been portrayed on the big screen.

Yes, I know the month is half over, but you can still catch “The Mambo Kings” and “Lone Star,” two very good movies, among others. Or you can see “West Side Story,” if you can tolerate musicals (sorry, but I can’t).

In any case, enjoy the films, but try not to be freaked out by a very unglamorous J. Lo in “My Family.”

This year is my twentieth high school reunion (let’s hear it for the class of ‘88!). Or I should say it would be my twentieth reunion, if my class were actually marking the occasion.

A couple of my good friends are ostensibly in charge of organizing the event, but their enthusiasm for a celebration has ranged from apathy to outright hostility (one of my friends said that he “could give a piss less about a reunion” – ouch). Considering these responses, and the fact that it’s already late summer, I doubt I’m dressing up and sucking in my stomach to hobnob with people I haven’t thought about in two decades — alas.

I’m not exactly sad there will be no reunion. But the fact that it’s not happening provoked me to leaf through my old yearbook for the first time this century. I was struck by something that I had never noticed before.

Most of the people I went to school with had names that fell into one of two categories.

There were the Meyers, Millers, and Schultzes – good hardy Germanic stock, usually tall and/or big.

There were the Zelewskis, Swiecichowskis, and Kocorowskis – Eighth-generation Polish kids.

The exceptions, in turn, usually fell into two subcatagories:

There were the Radovancevics, Stojsavljevics, and Videkoviches – basically, the Serbs (my hometown has the biggest population of Serbs outside Serbia).

There were the Washingtons, Jeffersons, and Carters – obviously, the black kids.

As odd as it seems, I had never noticed the lack of Hispanics in my school. We had one Martinez in my class of three hundred or so. Even I didn’t stand out back then, because I had a different last name (see my earlier post on this).

I don’t know if my awareness of this fact is because I’ve embraced my Hispanic identity more over the last twenty years, or if I simply was more focused at the time on teenage obsessions like girls, music, and girls.

Or maybe I was a unknowing pioneer in my city, a stray Latino who was a harbinger of a more diverse, multicultural future. I’d like to think that this last option is the truth, and that the class of ’08 has so many Hispanics that the place is up to five categories of names.

But to verify this theory, I would have to wander the halls of my old high school, and I don’t believe anyone wants to see an unaccompanied Gen X guy skulking around, asking random teenagers racially loaded questions. No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.

Regardless, perhaps it’s for the best that I’m not having a reunion. I’d probably just spend the time talking to the friends I’ve stayed in touch with (defeating the purpose of a “reunion”) and scouring the event for that Martinez kid so that I could share my insight. And I just know that, eventually, a group of aging jocks would get hammered and start singing “Welcome to the Jungle.”

So yes, perhaps it’s all for the best.

The ideal location for a date varies, of course, depending upon the couple’s taste and motives. Maybe your perfect date setting is an upscale restaurant or a tropical beach or the backseat of a 1998 Dodge Neon. It’s up to you.

Coming up with an event for a double-date is naturally more complex. And where it really gets cumbersome is the rare, even mythical, triple-date. But if you and your loved one find yourselves hanging out with two other couples, I have a suggestion: the Hollywood Bowl.

A few years ago, my wife and I went on a triple-date to see the Buena Vista Social Club in concert at that California landmark. We were grooving to the Afro-Cuban jazz beats when I noticed that all three couples consisted of a Latino male and an Anglo female.

Now in Los Angeles, the Hispanic-white combination is not exactly the most exotic. Still, it struck me that all three of us were officially interracial. My observation was seconded later in the evening when one of the women (not my wife) said, “It’s the white girls with their hot Hispanic studs!” She perhaps had a sipped a little too much wine by that point.

But it’s not like she was lying.

In the 21^st century, a trio of Latinos can meet up with cute white ladies and jam to tunes from the motherland, and only an obsessive-compulsive blogger will even notice (at least until the alcohol kicks in). Now that’s progress on the road to racial harmony.

As it turned out, two of those couples (including of course, my wife and me) wound up married. The third couple broke up a few months after the concert and then had guilt-ridden sex semi-regularly until they finally got sick of each other.

She’s now married to a white guy, and he’s single.

On occasion, the Bitca will interrupt me at work (or more likely, interrupt my own self-imposed interruption of work) to ask me a stray question or make a unique observation or confide her hatred of a co-worker. The other day, she approached me with the earnestness of a Buddhist monk in training, looking like she sought answers to the big questions on life and existence.

“Hey,” she said. “Doesn’t ‘cucaracha’ mean cockroach?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why would anyone sing about a cockroach? And isn’t it insulting to Mexicans to be associated with cockroaches?”

I had to admit that I had never given the subject much thought. Now that she mentioned it, why would Mexicans be happy that one of their most famous pop-culture contributions refers to a loathsome, disease-carrying insect? As I pondered this, the Bitca went on.

“I hope you know that I asked you that question, not because you’re Hispanic, but because you carry a lot of useless trivia in your head,” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

“I don’t want to be prosecuted for hate crimes.”

“Who does?”

The she punched me on the arm, announced that she had just committed assault after first provoking me with racial hate speech, and stated that the incident should be noted on my blog.

I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, but she had piqued my curiosity. So I looked into the matter. Five minutes of internet research revealed that “La Cucaracha” has murky origins.

It could have originated as a drinking song, much like the melody for our national anthem (it’s true). The tune may have been a coded reference for drugs (“roach” is slang for marijuana even in the United States), which makes sense when you consider how many oh-so-witty musicians have written odes to that perennial dream girl, Mary Jane. Or the song may have been a political allegory, which is a much deeper genesis than I expected. My favorite theory of this annoying tune’s meaning is that it was a result of “the great Mexican cockroach scare of 1827,” which we can all agree would be an excellent title for a direct-to-DVD horror movie or punk-rock anthem.

In any case, the Bitca has gotten her way again, and we are all just the slightest bit wiser because of it. 

When I lived in Southern California, I resembled most residents in that I spent way too much time on the freeways, to the point where numbers (eg, 405 and 101) became not indicators of specific routes but destinations in and of themselves. The 10 was my endpoint, and the 134 to Pasadena was a state of being.

One evening, I was a passenger in a car driven by an Anglo friend, and we were doing the LA crawl on the bumper-to-bumper freeway. He mentioned that, because there was more than one person in the car, we could work our way over to the carpool lane and zip past the traffic.

As he maneuvered toward this nirvana of speedy access, I smirked and said, “That’s the great thing about being Hispanic in California. I mean, the carpool lane only requires two or more people? Most of us have three times that many just in the front seats.”

He didn’t laugh. And we drove on in silence.