We all know about Martin Luther King Jr.’s resistance to the unjust laws of the Jim Crow South. King believed that achieving justice sometimes necessitated breaking the arbitrary rules that flawed humans had devised.
Similarly, in Latin America, where many of our families originated, priests often took a stand against the repressive authority of the oligarchies. Sometimes, as with Archbishop Oscar Romero, they paid with their lives.
So it’s clear that religious leaders should urge their followers to disobey laws that are unjust or run counter to the principles of their faith…right?
My mother came to America from El Salvador. My paternal grandparents came from Europe. All emigrated legally, which is the essence of the American experience – huddled masses yearning to be free, and all that.
However, in the eyes of many Americans, my mother and grandparents were selfish and immoral. After all, whenever a debate starts up about immigration, it’s just a matter of time before someone says, “They need to stay and fix their own countries instead of coming here.”
The implication is that people have an ethical obligation to remain in their homelands rather than try to improve their own lives. Of course, none of the Americans saying this have ancestors who took that advice. As soon as Ireland ran a little low on potatoes, for example, lots of people said, “See ya,” rather than stick around for the sake of rescuing Belfast.
I watched my mother hammer a nail into the wall. She missed, hitting her thumb.
A stream of Spanish obscenities leaked out of her. I was alarmed, and not just because she was shaking her hand and hopping around. I had never heard so many undecipherable words at once. Then again, I was six years old.
When my mother calmed down, I asked, “What did you say?”
Certainly, one of the great delicacies of the world is the humble pupusa. I’ve written before about my abuela’s technique for making this Salvadoran dish. In the Midwest, where I grew up, the only way to actually get a pupusa was to have an old woman like my grandmother make one for you in her kitchen.
However, now that I live in Los Angeles (and of course, because Hispanics continue to exert a growing influence on American culture), it’s easy to go to a pupuseria and order a dozen of them.
There’s a great place a short walk from our apartment, and my wife and I go there often. Recently, we were picking up dinner when I noticed that they also serve Salvadoran quesadillas.
I ordered a slab, and a guy standing in line behind me got very excited.
“Wow!” he said. “They have quesadillas too? I love quesadillas!”
The Salvadoran version is actually a dessert, and very tasty. The more famous Mexican quesadilla is synonymous with bleary-eyed happy hours that feature cheap appetizers based on cheese.
The guy behind me resembled a white-collar worker on a break, and I figured he expected the quesadilla to be a tastier version of something he picked up at TGIFs.
He ordered before I could tell him that there was a substantial difference between the two dishes. It was a golden opportunity to explain how Latino culture is vast, and that each country has its own proud quirks and wacky traditions. I could have went on about how the quesadilla is a metaphor for the differences in Hispanic society, and I may have urged him to avoid making generalizations about Latinos.
But then I figured I would just come across as condescending, and possibly a little bizarre (who discusses abstract food metaphors with total strangers while standing in line?).
So I let him order the quesadilla, knowing that he would be completely perplexed when they presented him with the Salvadoran version.
He was baffled, of course, when he received his order. But then he shrugged and accepted it. With hope, he discovered a new culinary favorite.
In any case, the next time you go to a pupuseria, walk right up to the counter and in a clear, confident voice, announce that you want some quesadilla. When some smug guy interrupts you to say that it’s a dessert, smile and say that you know that already.
I’ve written before about my family’s roots in El Salvador. I’ve also written about how I have never been there, but hope to go someday.
Well, it looks like I sure can pick lovely vacation spots. A recent report pegged my family’s homeland as the most dangerous country in the world. The homicide rate is 71 per 100,000 inhabitants — the highest rate on the planet.
For the sake of comparison, such terrifying places as Colombia (35 per 100,000), South Africa (34 per 100,000), and Haiti (22 per 100,000) all register at less than half the homicide rate of El Salvador.
I am less than thrilled to hear this, if for no other reason than Cousin #7 now lives there, and I am naturally concerned about him. But I also don’t like hearing that one of the few countries I really want to visit someday has so many murders that you have to wonder if the babies carry handguns.
The culprit, as it is in much of Latin America, is the out-of-control drug war. El Salvador had actually gotten on the right track after its gruesome civil war ended in the 1990s. But the cartels and their bloody business model have wiped out the nation’s meager improvements.
I suppose I can use this new information to create some kind of tough-guy origin myth. I mean, how many Americans can say that their family emigrated from the most dangerous country in the world? Come on, how badass are we?…
Actually, that’s not very satisfying, and nobody’s impressed anyway — so skip it.
By the way, the United States clocks in at 5 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, which is a pretty good number compared with the rest of the planet. But if you really want to feel safe, go to Iceland, which has the lowest crime rate in the world and a murder rate of zero.
Think about that — nobody gets killed in Reykjavik. The same cannot be said of El Salvador.
That got me thinking about my own insecurities. Yes, I have a couple, believe it or not. One of them relates to this website.
As I’ve stated before, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not 100 percent Latino. I’m half Hispanic, through my mother’s side. That side is, of course, fanatical – hence the blog.
I’m also one-quarter Italian, which comes out when I talk (my hands never stop moving). The Irish quarter in me comes out… I don’t know… whenever I feel the urge to drink strong whiskey, I guess.
As I’ve written before, I dropped out of the Catholic Church when I was a teenager. I haven’t become an atheist, although I see nothing wrong with that philosophy. It’s just that I prefer to keep my distance from religion. However, I’ve also been upfront about my belief that one reason Latinos don’t make bigger social and economic gains is our overreliance on the Church.
So perhaps I should excuse myself from a debate taking place across the Hispanic community, Latin America, and the Catholic Church. The cause of this debate is that old rabblerouser himself, Archbishop Oscar Romero.
For those of you who don’t know, Romero was the head of the Church in El Salvador from 1977 to 1980. During this time, he spoke out against the brutality of the government and the oppression of the poor. For having such crazy ideas, he was assassinated, presumably by members of a right-wing death squad. Following his death, a civil war ripped the country apart and killed tens of thousands of civilians, including members of my mother’s family.
In the thirty years since his death, Romero has been lionized as a martyr for the cause of social justice, or criticized as a dupe for communist agitators, depending on whom you talk to. The Catholic Church has been considering him for sainthood for years, but weirdly enough, they can’t seem to go ahead and canonize the guy.
The debate over Romero goes to the heart of the Church’s standing in Latin America. Is it an institution that upholds the traditions of the culture, even if those traditions include exploitation and enforced poverty? Or is it a force for peace and compassion, which is what that famous hippie Jesus espoused?
The perception of the Church in Latin America has a direct impact upon U.S. Hispanics. Many of us who are first-generation, for example, saw an organization that gave lip service to helping the poor, but supported corrupt regimes in our parents’ home countries. Priests like Romero, far from being supported, often earned Rome’s disdain. The dichotomy (some would say hypocrisy) was not endearing.
But Romero’s legacy may finally be thwarting the establishment culture that shunned him during his life. In a truly surprising moment, my mother’s home country of El Salvador has finally gotten around to acknowledging its most famous citizen.
The LA Times reports that “For the first time, the Salvadoran state is publicly commemorating Romero. Through most of this month, marches, concerts and debates have honored the priest.”
Furthermore, the country’s president, Mauricio Funes, recently asked forgiveness on behalf of the state for Romero’s assassination. Funes said, “This is something that should have been done a long time ago” and added that his government would “end the decades of silence” that have been Romero’s official legacy.
If El Salvador can finally acknowledge that Romero was killed because of his strong drive for justice, maybe the Vatican can get around to saying that he was a pretty good guy.
By the way, and at the risk of taking a cheap shot, it seems like the Catholic Church’s current issues prove that it’s not the best judge of morality and saint-like behavior. But then again, what do I know? I’m just an ex-Catholic.
Recently, I wrote about the Pew Hispanic Center’s report that detailed the countries of origin for America’s Latinos. To no one’s surprise, Mexico is the top source of our Hispanics, with Puerto Rico and Cuba following.
Those Latinos who don’t have the blood of those fine nations/territories in their veins (including your humble blogger) have felt a little on the fringe. So you can imagine my surprise when Pew said that my family’s homeland of El Salvador was number four on the list.
The reason this intrigued me is because, as I’ve written before, I grew up in the Midwest, where Latinos were sparse (at the time). Even rarer in my hometown was someone like me who answered, “Hispanic” but then had to clarify that I was not part Mexican. Many kids I grew up with became flummoxed when I explained that Latin America did not consist entirely of Mexico. Many of their parents, sadly, were similarly befuddled.
I spent a lot of time in my teen years explaining that El Salvador was an entirely separate country, and nowhere near Acapulco or Cancun. One of my friends had never heard of the nation and referred to it as San Salvador (the country’s capital) until I gave up correcting her.
So it’s amusing to me that today, so many Latinos in America hail from the place. I had no idea we were so popular.
Of course, one reason that many Salvadorans are here is because of the devastating civil war that ripped the country apart in the 1980s. Although my family’s genesis in America goes back to the 1960s (quite a while for Salvadorans), some of my cousins came here to escape that conflagration. They, and millions more like them, stayed to become Americans.
But again, back in those days, being from El Salvador was like saying, “My family hails from San Marino.” A look of WTF was the most common reaction.
That is most likely not the case today. If you’ve heard of the Dominican Republic (number five on the Pew list), then you’ve probably heard of El Salvador. And although it’s a little sad to lose that flair of exoticness, it’s a relief to not have to explain where the hell our ancestors came from.
For decades, saying that you were Hispanic was analogous to saying, “I’m Mexican.” That’s no longer true, of course (and I’m not referring to the whole “Chicanos are different from Latinos” debate). Rather, Hispanic culture, like everything else in America – except for the Deep South branch of the Republican Party – has grown and evolved.
Recently, the Pew Hispanic Center issued a report revealing where all these foot soldiers in the Brown Invasion are coming from. As you can imagine, the top two demographics – the Beatles and Stones of Latino culture – are Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans. This is hardly a surprise, nor is the third-place finisher, Cuban-Americans, a shocker. As I’ve written before, Hispanic culture in the United States has often been relegated to East LA Chicanos, Nuyoricans, or Miami-based Cuban émigrés.
I was surprised, however, that number four on the list of Latino countries of origin is none other than my family’s homeland: El Salvador. The Dominican Republic comes in at number five.
These five countries account for the vast majority of Latinos in the United States, which isn’t so shocking when one considers that Mexican Americans alone account for more than sixty percent of the Hispanics in the United States.
The Center breaks down the traits of each group and contrasts them “with the characteristics of all Hispanics and the U.S. population overall.” That’s how I found out that Latinos who claim El Salvador as their country of origin are younger than the U.S. population but older than other Hispanics. I also found out that such Latinos have less education than other Hispanics, but they’re not as likely to have out-of-wedlock births. These are categories, of course, that no one wants to be tops in.
One thing caught my eye when going over the Center’s stats, however. People who responded to the survey were free to pick their country of origin, with few guidelines. As a result, the Center points out that “a person born in Los Angeles may identify his or her country of origin as Mexico. Likewise, some people born in Mexico may identify another country as their origin depending on the place of birth of their ancestors.”
So when it comes to counting Hispanics, it’s still an imprecise science.
First off, thanks to Quickbeam and Allegra for their thoughtful comments on my last post (“Believe”). I appreciate their faith, in every sense of the word.
Now, my previous post may have given people the impression that I base everything upon logic, and disdain the supernatural or unexplainable. That’s not true, of course, because I love a good ghost story.
I just don’t love them as much as my mom does.
For proof, let me regale you with the time that my mother and I got into an argument at the video store. It was the mid- 1980s, and the selection was sparse in those pioneering days of the VCR. Still, it was probably a little odd to see me, a sullen teenager, arguing to rent “Raging Bull” while my mother insisted on getting “The Omen 3.”
You see, my mother, about whom I’ve written before, has very definite ideas about what constitutes fine cinema. By her criteria, a great film must include at least one of the following elements:
A car chase with the monstrous villain in hot pursuit
An unstoppable killer robot/android/cyborg
A hidden door leading to a hellish parallel dimension
A good-looking vampire
A winged demon ripping people’s souls out through their chests
These are pretty great standards, of course, and I have no issue with them. But at one point, I thought they were a little too restrictive. Could a great movie also feature subtle character development, dramatic perspectives on another era, or startling insight into the human condition?
Well, my mother would point out that such factors only slow down the movie and delay getting to the really good part where that slimy alien creature devours the lead astronaut’s head.
In a way, she’s correct.
Horror movies have been unfairly maligned as empty, moronic time-wasters – the creepy third cousin at the cinematic family reunion. Even mainstream comedies get more respect.
But films of this genre are often the cultural barometer of where we stand. In addition, they can serve as a cathartic release for our fears and pain. This may especially be true for those of us who have witnessed violence or suffered through the abrupt departure of loved ones, like my mother has.
The history of Latin America, in truth, has been one long horror movie for some time. I don’t know if Hispanics are more likely to embrace scary movies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this were true.
For example, one of my friends, a man who is originally from my family’s home country of El Salvador, has a vast treasure trove of horror movies. His wife, born and raised in America, tolerates his fascination and puts up with the overflowing boxes of tapes and discs, all of which offer some kind of gruesome imagery.
With so much real-life horror in our backgrounds, we seem well-suited to fictional depictions of terror. Perhaps this is why my mother constantly overrode my fledgling attempts at film snobbery when I was younger.
More than once, she would arrive home from a hard day of work to announce that she had stopped at the video store on the commute. Then she would enthusiastically proclaim, “I picked up the ‘Seven Doors of Death’!”
But let me be clear. She actually has good taste, singling out classics like “Rosemary’s Baby” and contemporary masterpieces like “The Descent” for high praise. She dismisses substandard fare with a direct “That is not scary” – the ultimate insult for a horror film.
Maybe because I grew up on them, or because I’m Latino, or because movies like “The Others” are so damn cool, I still love these kinds of films. Our joint appreciation for terrifying spectacles is one of the things my mother and I have in common.
For this reason, I have never understood my friends who say they don’t know what to do for entertainment when their parents visit. When my mom drops by to see my wife and me, we can always just pop in a DVD of “The Thing.”
