When I was a kid, my mother provoked a controversy in our neighborhood by demanding more funding for local schools. She even got in the mayor’s face about it during a public hearing.
Our neighbors, as well as the people who went to our church, were scandalized. It wasn’t that anyone disagreed with her about the pathetic state of the schools. No, what caused them to whisper among themselves was the fact that she had spoken up about it.
Recently, I wrote a post that received more, shall we say…passionate comments than usual. The article was about the Kansas politician who cracked the truly hilarious, knee-slapping joke about gunning down undocumented people like vermin.
In any case, among the hundreds of comments were people who said I was right, people who said I was wrong, and people who said I was a race-baiting hatemonger bent on destroying America.
And of course, there were the predictable, and rather sad comments of “Why can’t we all just love one another?” I assume that such individuals were issuing a plea for racial harmony that has eluded humankind for millennia. Well, it’s either that or they were using “love” as a euphemism while trying to organize an intercontinental orgy, and they stumbled into the wrong forum.
But of all the comments, one in particular caught my eye. The comment was, “My in-laws came from Mexico, and now just a generation later, they are fully assimilated and blend in. Except for being a little darker, you would never know where they were from.”
Recently, I attended the Hispanicize business conference, where I networked with smart people, snagged some free food, and hung out (however briefly) with Edward James Olmos.
I realize, however, that my post about the conference may not have given you the full flavor of the event. In the interest of rectifying that situation (and because it makes for a pretty easy post to write), here are some of the more interesting tidbits, observations, and general oddities that I heard at the conference.
There are ten of them, but there could easily be more.
“Telenovelas are a cultural touchstone for us. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
“On the Census form, there shouldn’t be a box to check for race. There should be a color wheel, and it goes from cotton to cinnamon to black, and everything in between. And you just mark your skin color.”
“When we polled people about the top characteristic of Latino culture, ‘emphasis on family’ was number one. Nothing else was even close.”
“I tell my clients who are immigrants, ‘You’re in America now. If somebody rips you off, you say those magic American words: ‘I’m calling lawyers on your ass.’ That’s when they know they’re assimilated.”
“Whether it’s English or Spanish, language is just a tactic. It’s a means to identify a group, but it’s not an identity in and of itself.”
“Univision is now ranked among the top four networks. Isn’t that wild? I think it’s ahead of ABC.”
“Too many Latina moms approach the public schools as if they were holy temples, and they give in to whatever the principal or the teacher says. So no fresh ideas ever get exchanged.”
“That sign is supposed to read Mami Bloggers. Not Miami Bloggers. Damn.”
“Acculturation originally meant a reciprocal process, with cultures influencing each other. But now it just means ‘Give up your culture when you get here.’ It’s become a one-way street.”
“Dude, I say, ‘Let the people just be the people.’ Entiendes?”
I’m sure you’ve heard the news that Hispanics now make up a record percentage of the American population. The U.S. Census says that one out of every six residents is Latino. Furthermore, in a “surprising show of growth, Hispanics accounted for more than half of the U.S. population increase over the last decade.”
Yes, Latinos are the chief reason that America has avoided a population decline.
However, not everyone is grateful, or particularly thrilled, about this fact. In fact, quite a few Americans are angry, anxious, or just plain freaked out over the ascendency of Hispanics in the United States.
I’ve been to a lot of business conferences. But up to last week, I had only gone as a grunt — one of those guys who represent the sponsoring company and whose job it is to hook up the PowerPoint demonstrations, tear down the rooms, and occasionally, tell the speakers what to say (yup, I’ve written a few presentations for zero credit).
So it was great to finally go to a full-fledged, hobnobbing, networking-frenzy, whip-out-those-business-cards kind of conference where I was an actual attendee.
The event was Hispanicize 2011, which may sound like a sci-fi feature about cyborg Latinos, but is actually the “premier marketing event devoted to … brand marketers, bloggers, non profits, and marketing agencies focused on Hispanic public relations and social media.”
Basically, if you write about, or market to, or spend a lot of time thinking about Latinos, you would be a fool to skip this conference. So for three days, I hit the convention floor, went to breakout sessions, and networked with my fellow Hispanics and the people who love us.
It resembled many other business conferences, in that there were plenty of people in suits, and talk about monetizing this or that, and decent swag for the taking. But few other conferences have this much hugging. Really, you can’t get hundreds of Latinos together and expect everyone to stick to handshakes. Damn it, we like to hug, professional attire or not.
This was especially true when I met those individuals who had, to this point, only existed to me as online presences, or email buddies, or frequent commenters. There is no term for the discombobulating sensation of speaking face to face with people you have gotten to know through their writing, or via their comments. It is, of course, a brand-new emotion fit for the twenty-first century, and eventually, we’ll come up with a phrase to cover it.
In any case, my main reaction was to become a bit overwhelmed at the brilliance on display. My natural cynicism couldn’t dismiss some of the great ideas I heard. And my self-confidence (or is it arrogance?) took a backseat when I talked with some of the people who are leading the Hispanic community out of the dark ages.
The last major event was a keynote speech by Edward James Olmos. The Oscar-nominated actor gave an intense, freewheeling, intellectually challenging talk that covered his belief that there is only one race (that would be the “human race”). It also referenced the Mexican drug war, the documentary Inside Job, the value of the Swiss franc, and the fact that Harvard scientists have reversed aging in mice…Really, it all added up somehow.
I met Olmos after his speech and talked to him for approximately 9.7 seconds before a Battlestar Galactica fan interrupted me. But it was ok.
I gave him my card.
I once took a freelance gig editing a book about conspiracy theories. It was an encyclopedia of crazy shit like Mkultra and the Bavarian Illuminati and Area 51.
The book was a highly entertaining read, but it didn’t exactly keep me up at night. I just don’t believe humans are competent enough to pull off fake moon landings and shadow governments and the like. So I’m not prone to yelling, “Conspiracy!” and attributing sinister motives to shadowy figures.
But it’s not a conspiracy to say that Hispanics and African Americans have long been played off one another. And the reason for this is clear: It maintains the status quo.
After all, if America’s two largest ethnic minorities are busy fighting each other, they have little energy to combat the power structures that hinder their mutual growth.
Recently, I wrote about the low-level celebrity who confused me with the valet at a parking ramp.
While out having drinks, I retold the story to a couple of friends who, inexplicably, had not read it on the blog (yet they all claimed that they read my posts religiously… hmmm). In any case, we talked about whether the celebrity’s mistake rose to the level of racial profiling.
We never came to a definitive conclusion, because the topic soon drifted into a more concrete example of judging someone by the color of his skin. I’m talking about the TSA’s habit of stopping people like me for multiple wandings and the occasional frisking at airports. I’ve written before about this, but my friends all had theories on why the TSA is convinced that I’m the next Mohamed Atta.
“It’s because you look like somebody,” Friend One said. “There must be a guy on the terror watch list who looks exactly like you. It’s just bad luck.”
“No,” Friend Two said. “It’s because you look like everybody. You’re like the standard angry traveler with a bad attitude. They want to make an example out of you for going through the line with a scowl.”
“You’re both wrong,” Friend Three said. “It’s because you look like nobody. You’re still an exotic mix compared with most people who fly. So TSA thinks you could be a Muslim extremist, or a MS-13 gang member, or a yakuza for all they know. You could be something bad because nobody else in line resembles you.”
I thanked them for their insights. I finally had an answer on why I have to allow an extra fifteen minutes for airport security whenever I fly.
It’s because I look like somebody… or I look like everybody… or I look like nobody.
So there you have it. That certainly clears things up.
But just as I achieved this level of enlightenment, Friend Four spoke up.
“It’s because you look brown,” she said. “That’s it.”
Damn, I had never even considered that.
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.
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 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…
