I’m throwing another quick weekend update at you. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Cain’s Arcade. In sum, a nine-year-old boy here in Los Angeles (specifically, in the Latino-heavy neighborhood of East LA) had a dream.
I won’t spoil it by revealing all the details. But check out the short film here to see what one kid with a lot of energy and creativity can pull off.
I used to write for a website whose target audience was upscale Hispanic men. My job was to find the hippest, most happenin’, muy caliente places and products.
Of course, I soon grew weary of writing for guys who think $5,000 stereo speakers are their god-given right. But I also got tired of explaining the gig to people who asked, “Just how many rich Latino guys can there be?”
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I’ve toyed with the idea of instituting a Wordless Wednesday feature on this site. But of course, I update on the weekends (more or less), and I usually can’t shut up once I get writing, so just slapping a picture online isn’t going to happen.
But as an experiment, I’m going to sidestep my loquacious tendencies and simply post a photograph with minimal text.
Here we have a young Hispanic boy whose parents are taking him to a school board meeting in Arizona. This is how he was greeted at the door.
Draw your own conclusions.
There is no room for second place.…If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
—Vince Lombardi
Recently, I wrote that American education pales in comparison to other countries’ school systems.
But America is still the place for those hardworking, ambitious people who want a better life, right? After all, one reason so many Latinos have come to the USA is that it is the land of opportunity.
Well, when it comes to social mobility — the cornerstone of the American Dream — we have more of a caste system than most industrialized nations, so “if you want your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder higher than you did, move to Canada.”
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OK, the Democratic president who insisted, “Si, Se Puede” hasn’t kept his promise to make immigration reform a top priority. Furthermore, he has deported more Latinos than anybody in history, despite the fact that there are fewer undocumented people to arrest.
So getting the Hispanic vote should be easy for the GOP, which continues to insist that Latinos are Republican but don’t know it. In essence, conservatives say Latinos are voting against their own interests, which is ironic considering that Republicans depend on their rural white base to do exactly that.
There’s just one problem.
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I’ve written before about my mother. Recently she visited my wife and me here in LA.
One evening, the three of us headed out to a party. I wondered aloud what we should bring as a gift for the hosts.
“Just remember,” my mother said. “Everybody likes tequila. Everybody.”
It struck me as an especially profound piece of maternal wisdom. But just to be sure, I ran through the list of potential exceptions to the rule.
Left-wing suburban dentists? Disgraced former CEOs? Kalahari bushmen? Argentinean gauchos? Inner-city kindergarteners? Transgender German prime ministers?
For each objection came my mother’s reply: “Everybody.”
It’s official. This isn’t a hypothesis. This is a fact.
Use the information wisely.
Illegal immigration is down.
Climate change is real.
There were no WMDs in Iraq.
These are well-supported facts with the strength of data and/or obvious proof behind them. Yet millions of Americans don’t believe them. We’re not talking about conspiracy nuts or argumentative jerks.
We’re not even talking about the obvious players in the dumbing down of America.
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Certain concepts are so ingrained in the American character that we rarely question them. Among them is the idea that we’re tops in everything. We’re “the greatest country in the world.”
But the truth is that, in many ways, we’re far from the greatest. When it comes to education, for example, we’re average at best.
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Two recent polls caught my attention.
The first was taken at the height of Tebow-mania, when many otherwise rational adults believed that a mediocre quarterback could actually win the Super Bowl.
Black Hats
So I recently watched the horror-comedy Attack the Block, a British movie about an alien invasion of the inner-city projects. Yes, it’s as preposterous as it sounds, and while far from brilliant, it’s a fun ninety minutes.
However, I made a classic internet mistake after I saw the movie: I read other people’s comments on the film.
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