Hispanic Fanatic

I had a friend in high school who thought my mom came from San Salvador. I corrected her a few times by pointing out that the mi madre’s homeland is actually El Salvador. But eventually I just gave her partial credit for at least naming the nation’s capital city.

As annoying as my friend’s misstatement was, it’s important to note that she was a teenage girl living in the pre-internet era.

What excuse do we have for paid journalists in 2019 who think El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — three Central American countries —  are more or less Mexico? Of course, I’m talking about Fox News’ infamous chyron screw-up that recently blared, “Trump cuts aid to 3 Mexican countries.” 

As many people have pointed out, the perplexing statement illuminates a right-wing mindset that is more than just simplistic and laughably ignorant. It is also highly disrespectful, in that this thinking homogenizes all of Latino culture under the term “Mexican.” 

Oh yeah, it’s also a bigoted ploy to dismiss all Hispanics as “a race of ‘others’who can easily be scapegoated for a whole slew of structural problems.”So I’m pretty sure that counts as racist bullshit as well.

You see, once you’ve decided that all Latinos are Mexican, it’s just an illogical, prejudicial jump or two to deduce that all Mexicans are undocumented immigrants, and that all undocumented immigrants are drug-dealing rapists and murderers.

This is all very A=B=C.

However, maybe we are being too hard on Fox News and its right-wing fan base. After all, these are people who routinely confuse opinion with fact.

We’re talking about people who believe that cutting off aid to those aforementioned “Mexican” countries will reduce immigration, when in reality, it would have the opposite effect. 

We’re talking about supporters of a president who believes shutting the border is a viable strategy, when all it will do is bludgeon the American economy.

We’re talking about people who desperately, obsessively want a massive new infrastructure project (i.e., a wall built on the Mexican border — or three walls for the three separate Mexicos). But they don’t care that our existing infrastructure is collapsing, and that our country’s bridges are falling down.

We’re talking about people who are genuinely confused about why Latinos don’t vote Republican in overwhelming numbers, even as the GOP routinely demeans and threatens Latinos(or just dismisses all Hispanics as “Mexican” as Fox News did).

In short, we’re talking about people who are either not too bright or who engage in willful delusion. So maybe they can’t help but say bizarre, insulting things and then stumble around half-ass apologies.

Perhaps they deserve our sympathy.

Of course, there is one more explanation. Our country’s educational systempales in comparison to just about every other industrialized nation. So maybe people who work at Fox News just didn’t learn basic geography.

Along those lines, just in case you thought our nation’s ignorance is confined solely to Latin America, let me tell you about a recent conversation I had. 

I was talking to a fellow American, and I mentioned that I had once lived in Minneapolis. She furrowed her brow and asked, “Is that anywhere near Minnesota?”

And I had no idea how to answer that.

But I should have told her that it was in Mexico.

It is, perhaps, the most pathetic attempt in a long line of pathetic attempts to distract from the president’s colossal failures and massive corruption.

I’m talking about the right wing’s frenzied, frantic endeavor to get you to focus on the tragic death of Mollie Tibbetts, a young white woman who was allegedly murdered by — and I bet this is the first you’re hearing about it — an undocumented Latino.

The grotesque individual who killed Tibbetts supplied the perfect imagery for the Republican Party, which wants“voters to believe they’re living in a horror movie” as part of their plan for avoiding disaster in the midterm elections. You see, “it is no accident that a president whose supporters are overwhelmingly white and less educated, who tend to live among other whites, are being targeted” and motivated to vote Republican based “on fears of the other and the unknown.”

I mean, what else are they going to run on? An unpopular president in legal jeopardy, a tax cut for billionaires, and a total lack of progress on health care, the opioid crisis, and the fabled wall with Mexico are not very compelling highlights.

So instead we have GOP leaders publicly admitting that they want to make Tibbetts’ murder a midterms issue.

And yes, this is the very same political party that insists any talk about gun control after a mass shooting is “politicizing” tragedy (by the way, there was another mass shooting just this week).

However, the opportunistic xenophobia of conservatives has disgusted Tibbetts’ family, which has called out the racist fear-mongering and callus exploitation of their agony. It has prompted at least one family member to tell right-wingers to “keep her name out of your mouth.”

But of course, Trump and his enablers are not going to allow little things like overt racism, blatant hypocrisy, and a devastated family’s loss get in the way of their political playbook. They fully intend to keep insisting that undocumented immigrants are killing their way across America.

Oddly, conservatives can write whole impassioned editorials about the Tibbetts murder without once mentioning, even in passing, the well-established fact that immigrants — including undocumented ones — are substantially less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

Also lost in the conservative outrage over Tibbetts’ death is the fact that the woman died because a man decided he had the right to take her — and take her life — without a moment’s hesitation. Acknowledging misogyny’s killer strain is not big with the Republican Party, which tends to appeal to men and female apologists for sexism.

However, “the truth is that any young woman like Mollie Tibbetts has a much greater chance of dying at the hands of a husband or boyfriendof any type than meeting harm at the hands of an undocumented immigrant.”

If you don’t believe me, just look at the week’s other big story about homicide. Apparently, some monstrosity in Colorado murdered his wife and two daughters — or triple the women that Tibbetts’ killer has confessed to.

But hey, at least that guy was a citizen, so I guess it’s no big deal, right?

One of the more disconcerting facts about America in 2018 is that about 40 percent of us approve of the job President Tiny Fingers is doing.

This comes despite the knowledge that his administration has no accomplishments other than a massive tax cut for rich people and corporations. And this approval level has held relatively steady even in the face of constant disasters, comical ineptitude, overt corruption, and borderline insane behavior, to say nothing of Trump’s constant attacks on decency, the rule of law, America’s standing, and the humanity of anyone who isn’t a straight white male.

Hell, even his fellow Republicans say that you must be delusional or comatose to be unconcerned about how horrific the situation has gotten.

It doesn’t matter. Because line up 10 Americans, and four will say, “I like him, because he’s shaking things up” or some such nonsense.

Of course, Trump’s approval rating is highest among angry white men. The rest of us aren’t so keen.

You can see this by measuring the level enthusiasm for his greatest ambition — that fucking wall on the Mexican border. A recent poll finds that a bare majority (51 percent) of white voters think that it’s a bad idea. That percentage, unsurprisingly, is substantially higher for Latinos, 71 percent of whom know that a wall is just flat-out idiocy.

But what’s most interesting is that “the community that is the least supportive of one of the main tenets of Trump’s immigration plan isn’t Latinos; it’s black Americans.” Yes, a full 87 percent of black voters oppose the wall.

That’s right — black people hate Trump’s immigration policies even more than Hispanics do. In fact, “no ethnic group opposes the border wallmore than black Americans.”

One reason for this could be that some Latinos are so self-loathing, so eager to gain status in the eyes of white conservatives, that they will support something as crazy and denigrating as the wall (which, as I’ve stated before, will never be built). As such, the percentage of Hispanics who support the wall, while low, is still embarrassingly high.

Another reason is that, as the survey authors point out, “some Americans who identify as black may also be Latino since Latino is an ethnicity, not a race.”

But you knew that already.

In addition, “some black Americans feel that despite Trump’s focus on immigration from Latin America, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from predominantly black countries are affected by his policy, as well.”

That’s all true, of course.

However, those reasons do not fully explain why black Americans are so overwhelmingly hostile to Trump’s immigration madness.

So maybe it is because African Americans, with a history of persecution that continues to this day, aren’t buying the conservative bullshit that there is no racism to see here. Or perhaps black Americans are empathetic to people who are trying to improve their lives in the face of harassment and discrimination.

Or just maybe, as author Raquel Reichard wrote, “Our struggles, even for those of us who aren’t Afro-Latino, are linked…. Black and brown people in the U.S. have always lived in the same neighborhoods, worshiped at the same churches, attended the same schools and frequented the same stores and restaurants. We are neighbors and allies in the class and race struggle.”

And in times like these, it’s good to have allies.

We are now approximately 1% of the way through the Trump presidency. That means, mathematically, it will only get 100 times worse.

To be fair, things are actually going great… for white nationalists and people who think immigrants are plotting to kill them in their sleep.

For the rest of us, not so much.

You see, the start of the Trump era is, by many accounts, “the most alarming in the history of the American presidency.”

The rate of Trump’s grotesque actions outpaces our ability to react to them. Are we really supposed to call our congressional representatives and organize protest marches and boycott companies and sign petitions every single day?

Hell, we barely have time to unboggle our eyes and force our slackened jaws shut before another monstrous executive order comes washing over the American landscape. The best we can manage most days is to force down our vomit.

But here’s one thought that will keep us focused. One inescapable truism that we should keep in mind at all times.

And it is simply this: Trump means everything he says.

All the talk about whether we should take him literally but not seriously, or vice versa, was overcomplicated nonsense from the start. It should have been apparent long ago that when a wannabe dictator says he’s going to do something, he fully intends to do it.

Trump is not capable of metaphor. I doubt the man even knows that word means. I’m serious — the guy boasts about never reading books.

You see, our tiny-fingered, small-minded president does not engage in subtlety, and the only time that he backs off on some of his more egregious pronouncements is when he no longer has any interest in them and/or because they no longer serve a purpose (e.g., prosecuting Hillary Clinton).

Otherwise, he is remarkably consistent.

This does not mean that he will succeed in his endeavors. For example, that fabled wall with Mexico is never going to be built. But this is only because reality will intrude. This barrier might take the form of logistical issues or— it’s possible — political resistance.

But he will not stop of his own free will. He will not moderate his views. He will not listen to reason or decency.

I have never understood why any sane person would think otherwise.

For example, some conservative Latinos voted for Trump under the bizarre assumption that he would be more respectful to Hispanics or even compromise on immigration. That idea doesn’t look so bright now.

Of course, that’s not as bizarre as Middle Eastern immigrants who just assumed his talk of banning them was, I don’t know, some oddball banter from a kooky billionaire.

Heed their regret. And please remember this for the next four years. He means everything that he says.

That makes it even scarier, doesn’t it?

Yes, we’ve all been highly entertained by the chaos, comedy, bluster, and insanity of this year’s presidential campaign.

And perhaps no single concept illustrates the bizarre, parody-proof nature of this election more than Donald Trump’s plan to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the Mexican border.

This idea is hugely popular with his base, many of whom are rather overt about their preferences for a certain type of skin hue. But other supposedly rational people are onboard with this proposal. Its simplicity speaks to them: “It will keep out all the illegals!”

So John Oliver recently devoted a segment on his show to how realistic Trump’s wall really is.

Just to summarize his findings, it seems that the wall would cost $25 billion to construct, and billions more per year in maintenance costs.

But that’s not our problem — right? Because Trump is going to make the Mexican government pay for it.

Well, the Mexicans themselves have no intention of spending money on this xenophobic folly, and we have no real way to make them do so.

Except of course, if we go to war over it, which Trump has not ruled out.

Naturally, we have to ask if this wall thing is really fighting about.

Well, building a wall presupposes that America is being overrun by… well, you know who.

But in that place called reality, immigration of all types — legal or illegal — is down. In fact, “the number of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally is at its lowest number in more than a decade.”

And despite all the fear, hatred, and blame thrown at undocumented people for their supposed killing and raping, the truth is that “immigrants are less, not more, crime prone than their native-born counterparts.”

So the wall would be a drastic solution to a problem that is overblown in the first place, and that is resolving itself.

Thus, the bottom line is this series of questions:

Do you really think the United States can force Mexico to pay for a wall?

If not, do you believe we should go to war —literally killing Mexicans and sacrificing American troops — over this?

If not, are you willing to cough up $25 billion (just to start) to construct this thing?

If so, are you aware that illegal immigration is down and undocumented immigrants are actually less prone to crime?

If so, are you aware that a wall will be of limited usefulness and not stop people who are truly determined to come here?

Answering these questions brings us to a pair of incontrovertible conclusions.

If you support the idea of a wall, you are possibly a racist.

But if you honestly believe a huge wall is going up in your lifetime — regardless of who is elected president — you are either delusional or actively stupid.

Now that’s simplicity.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of PostSecret. However, my interest isn’t based on the admirable quality of PostSecret’s mission, which is that by revealing hidden fears and dark thoughts, we bond and embrace our common humanity.

No, I just like scrolling though the site to see how many freaks are out there (and there tons of them).

In any case, last week’s PostSecret included the following:

This explains a lot.

First, we’ll ignore the fact that the card includes the slur “illegals.” Although I must point out that when revealing your sexual fantasies in a public forum, you should employ proper terms (e.g., “the undocumented”).

We’ll also overlook that the card writer specifies “illegal Latinos,” which implies that he or she doesn’t hate “illegal” Brits or Nigerians or Koreans. Nope, it’s just the Latinos, thank you very much.

The essence of the card is that the writer is simultaneously attracted to, and repulsed by, undocumented Latinos. Yes, it all makes sense now.

All those right-wing blowhards who scream about “illegals” taking over America? All those Minutemen at the border with rifles aimed at Mexico? All those suburban dads who spew racist epitaphs at Hispanics?

Yeah, they really just want to fuck us.

It’s sort of a more vulgar, sociopolitical version of a Hollywood romantic comedy in which the heroine and hero despise one another for 80 minutes before falling into each other’s arms at the end. Yes, someday the whole immigration debate will look as quaint as a repeated viewing of When Harry Met Sally.

So the next time some Fox News commentator rails against “illegals” or uses the term “brown invasion,” just nod and smile, knowing full well that this is his or her awkward attempt at flirting.

They just can’t help it.

I hesitate to mention this, but I know way too much about Sofia the First.

You see, we have a two-year-old boy, and while we limit his TV time, he still catches the occasional Doc McStuffins or Jake and the Neverland Pirates. And Sofia is on right after Jake, so we’ve caught bits and pieces of the show (just enough to drive me mildly insane).

Now, it turns out that Sofia is going to be the launching pad for Disney’s first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor, who is inspired by “diverse Latin cultures and folklore,” according to the good people at Disney. She will receive her own TV show next year.

Of course, the issue of diversity is a touchy one in Hollywood. Just ask Sean Penn about Hispanic representation in the film world… well, on second thought, don’t ask him anything.

In any case, Elena’s arrival shows that Hollywood is sensitive to its reputation as indifferent to ethnic minorities, and that the entertainment industry is trying to improve the representation of Hispanics in pop culture.

But everybody’s a critic. And those critics are saying it’s too little, too late.

First, there is the issue that Elena is going to originate as a sidekick, and worse, there are no plans for her to have her own movie, despite the fact that many Disney princesses of various ethnicities and races have received their own feature films. Hey, Mulan got a pair of movies over a decade ago, and Asians are even less represented in film than Hispanics. So, yeah — what gives?

The second irritation is that Elena’s exact nationality is being kept vague. By not being specific about her homeland, critics argue, Disney is failing to explore the diversity within Hispanic culture, and instead using one brown-eyed princess as an interchangeable stand-in for all Latinas.

This is where I can be of assistance. I can tell you that saying Elena is from Cuba or Bolivia or Puerto Rico would be more bizarre than anything. That’s because the setting for Sofia is a magical dreamland where unicorns run wild, and little kids take classes on how to cast spells, and cutesy-pie dragons burst into song for no reason. Yeah, it’s that annoying.

But while most of the characters speak in a whiny faux British accent, it’s not specifically European. It’s otherworldly. So if this princess from, say, Mexico, just shows up, the effect will be a little jarring.

I told you I knew too much about this damn show.

Regardless, Elena is a step in the right direction. And even if I hated the idea of a Latina princess, it wouldn’t matter, because I’m going to see her, one way or another.

Yes, at this point, I’m just looking forward to the day when my son is finally old enough for Phineas and Ferb.

Two facts you probably know about me: I live California, and I am the parent of a toddler.

Those two seemingly unrelated items mingled recently when a measles outbreak hit our state, and much of the blame was placed on New Age hippie Californians who didn’t vaccinate their kids.

Now, I believe in science and have little patience for religious nutjobs who fear the modern world. Also, I am not down with uber-libertarians who think it’s their right to infect other people’s kids because of, you know, personal freedom and shit.

So yes, our son is vaccinated.

Of course, as upsetting and infuriating and generally bizarre as the measles outbreak was, there was still room for right-wingers to up the craziness.

And that’s how we got Republican politicians and conservative blowhards who blamed the outbreak on undocumented immigrants from Latin America.

To these paranoid minds, it is all those undocumented kids who flooded the border last summer, who were then “just sent out across the country. Many of them had measles.”

In fact, none of them had measles. More disturbingly, “in this latest outbreak, measles has actually spread from the United States to Mexico.”

Ouch — that’s not pretty.

In sum, there is no evidence that undocumented kids are poisoning America. There is, however, plenty of proof that immigrants, particularly Hispanics, continue to be the scapegoat for America’s issues.

If only we had a vaccine against xenophobia.

There I was, ready to enjoy some enchiladas suizas and a generous helping of tequila, when I saw them.

But first, let me be clear about the Mexican restaurant in which I was dining. Years ago, I saw Brad Pitt in the place. He wasn’t around on this night, so I don’t want to implicate him. The point is that this is a popular LA site that teeters on the edge of authenticity (good food in a simple setting) and hipster irony (the kid of place where Brad Pitt walks in to show off his bona fides).

So I shouldn’t have been too surprised to see a large table of yuppies (tangent: do yuppies still exist?) hooting and hollering nearby. It was a birthday party apparently, and they had their own wait staff.

Now, the waiters and waitresses for our area were dressed casually, in jeans and polo shirts. The wait staff for the private party, however, was dressed, well, more colorfully.

The waitresses had frilly dresses and Carmen Miranda-style headpieces, and the waiters were decked out in campesino attire, complete with huge sombreros.

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It’s the end of the year. So let’s address immigration one last time.

Listen, if you don’t know by now that most Americans support a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, well, I can’t help you.

But I will point out that President Obama’s recent executive decision doesn’t offer an actual route to citizenship. I know, I know. You heard that this was amnesty and the end of America and all that. But the people who are telling you this lie don’t know the difference between amnesty and Amway.

Basically, the administration is deferring the deportation of undocumented immigrants whose children are U.S. citizens or legal residents. The order also expands protection to more children who entered the country illegally with their parents (that’s right — the Dreamers). The president’s decision could mean that up to 5 million undocumented people will be allowed to stay in the country, without threat of deportation.

More than half of the undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America are now eligible to remain in America. But again, they would not be eligible for citizenship.

It’s not surprising that Latinos overwhelmingly agree with Obama’s approach. One poll shows that 90% of Hispanics support the president’s plan. Wow, you can’t even get 90% of us to agree that Shakira is hot (she is, by the way).

Now, undocumented immigrants themselves almost universally desire a way to legalize their situation. But many of the immigrants who are eligible for citizenship aren’t taking advantage of the offer. In fact, less than 10% of the 8.5 million immigrants who are eligible for naturalization have applied so far.

Why is this? Well, some still struggle with English, and they don’t feel confident they could pass the English-proficiency language exam. Others can’t afford the naturalization process, which usually costs $680 and is often multiplied by several family members.

Some still intend to return to their homelands, even if they have been in America for years. And yet others are afraid that it’s all a scam, and that some notario will fleece them. Remember, con artists love to take advantage of hopeful, desperate people who are reluctant to report fraud.

OK, so immigrants — Hispanic or otherwise — aren’t necessarily in a big rush to become citizens. But having the option is more than a nicety. You see, undocumented people who live in constant fear of being deported exist in a perpetual hell. And if you don’t care about that, perhaps you will care about the chain reaction of misery that cascades down upon actual citizens.

For example, many Latinos — born and raised in America — haven’t signed up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, because they worry that doing so could cause family members to be deported. They’re concerned that giving detailed info online will cause the INS to come knocking on their door. That’s not true, of course, but it’s understandable. And that has a very real effect on the ACA’s effectiveness and our health care system in general.

Oh wait, if you hate the president’s executive order, you probably hate Obamacare too.

Well, that explains a few things.