Hispanic Fanatic

My old neighborhood in New York City has become a bit of a yuppie den. My current neighborhood in Los Angeles is apparently being overrun by hipsters.

Can any of us escape gentrification?

As I wrote recently, Latino neighborhoods have increasingly become gentrified as white people move into what used to be called the barrio. This process is either a solution to urban blight or a desecration of Hispanic culture, depending on whether you’re the gentrifier or the gentrifee (yes, I made those words up, don’t bother to comment on them).

To continue reading this post, please click here.

Like all Americans, nothing makes me happier than arguing about emotionally loaded, extremely volatile political issues that have no clear solutions. Yes, that’s why I write about immigration so much.

However, I now realized that I haven’t been fair. I’ve simply assumed that racism — directed toward Latinos — is a primary motivating factor in the debate. But is this true?

To continue reading this post, please click here.

I live in a gentrified neighborhood.

At least that’s what I found out recently, when I spoke to a longtime area resident who informed me that “the damn hipsters came in and ruined everything.”

He didn’t consider me an invader, even though I moved into the neighborhood just two years ago. I presume my Latino status prevents me from being one of those evil hipsters (well, that and the fact that my iPod doesn’t have a single Belle & Sebastian song on it).

To continue reading this post, please click here.

Like many ethnic minorities, I have been accused more than once of hating white people.

But for someone who despises the white race, I am seriously guilty of fraternizing with the enemy. I don’t want to get into the whole “some of my best friends” are this or that, but I’ll just mention that my wife (of German ancestry) would be a little peeved to find out about my deep-seeded hatred of white people.

I guess I’m also wracked with self-loathing, because (as I’ve pointed out many times) I’m half-white myself (on my father’s side).

To continue reading this post, please click here.

I once hurt someone’s feelings, and not via my usual method of making an ill-timed, biting joke. No, I disappointed my friend because I said that eradicating racism is impossible.

She is a hippie type who inexplicably thinks that someday humanity will get its act together and take a break from the self-slaughtering. But that will never happen — at least not completely, everywhere on the globe.

Well, there is one solution…

To continue reading this post, please click here.

When I was in college, my editor at the student newspaper called me with an assignment: I was to cover a speech by a radical professor who, my editor breathlessly said, was brilliant “and so PC!”

I asked what that meant, and she said, with some amazement at my naivety, that it indicated “politically correct.”

I had never heard this term before. Of course, it wasn’t long before those juxtaposed letters entered the language and, in the process, went from leftist praise to conservative insult.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

Well, that was close.

A couple of years ago, it looked like the United States was in real economic trouble. But now everything is great… yeah, just great… yup.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

You’ve heard of the luck of the Irish. So what is the luck of the Hispanic?

Personally, I think the Latino propensity for serendipity is symbolized by Hugo Reyes, also known as Hurley, from the show Lost.

Despite being a fun-loving, friendly Latino, Hurley kept seeing everybody around him get killed in some random or grisly manner. He constantly bemoaned the fact that he was cursed.

Certainly, many Americans relate to Hurley. For the last decade or so, we’ve all felt jinxed. It’s been a nonstop joyride of economic turmoil, endless war, terrorist threats, and political chaos.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

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?”

“Never mind,” she said.

“But what does ‘puta’ mean?” I asked.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

Imagine my surprise.

I’m a huge baseball fan, and I take pride in knowing some of the more arcane figures and obscure facts in its history. Come on, it’s pretty geeky to remember UL Washington — the Royals shortstop who played with a toothpick in his mouth — and to know that Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Three-Finger Brown pitched their final games against each other (Mathewson’s team won).

So when I recently read a list of top Latino players in baseball history, I expected to see names such as Clemente, Marichal, and Pujols. But then I saw…Ted Williams…what?

http://beinglatino.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/secret-latinos-in-our-midst/