Hispanic Fanatic

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.

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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!”

He was clearly talking about Mexican 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.

Your Salvadoran friends will be impressed.

One of the best movies of last year was the Coen Brothers remake of True Grit. Among the film’s many charms is the archaic, bizarrely formal speech of the characters. I have no idea if real people of the era said things like, “You give out very little sugar with your pronouncements” and “I do not entertain hypotheticals.” But it’s cool to imagine that they did.

Of course, Americans don’t speak like that anymore. A century later, in fact, we’re considered articulate if we keep it down to three uses of “you know” and a pair of double negatives per conversation.

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It’s been a while since I shared the contents of my reader correspondence with you. I’m not talking about the comments that my posts receive. You can see those for yourself on this site, on the Huffington Post, at Being Latino magazine, or at whichever outlet is running my rant.

No, I’m talking about the emails that I get from readers who simply don’t want to be confined to the comments section. These emails usually offer praise, issue constructive criticism, or request help with some Latino-centric cause. All of those are legitimate reasons to reach out to a blogger.

But some of my readers’ emails get my attention for very different reasons. They are so colorful that it makes me wish I could be on their holiday card mailing list.

For example, there was the person who insisted that, because I was not an illegal immigrant, I had no right to blog about illegal immigration. The writer then went on to slam undocumented individuals as parasites on society and subhuman scum. The writer added, almost as an postscript, “By the way, I’m illegal myself.”

I set aside the Freudian implications of his self-loathing and moved on to read missives from right-wingers who insisted that I was a delusional idiot. One angry man disputed my conclusion that Latinos were poised to become a political force. The writer said, “Hispanics just aren’t smart enough to get organized.”

Well then, I guess the Republican Party has nothing to worry about.

But lest you think it is only social conservatives who hate me, let me point out that one furious leftist accused me of painting the Hispanic community in a bad light. The writer said that he was “going to do some digging” and expose me as a fraud. I’m indeed curious what his digging will uncover (maybe I’m secretly Italian!).

But my favorite email is one that I received in response to my piece about tribalism. The writer began her email with the ultimate rhetorical question:

“Are you retarded?”

Without waiting for my response, the writer pointed out that “White people took over this country fair and square. It’s not our fault we had the will, adventurous spirit, and superior weaponry to expand our territories.”

Clearly, this was a fresh perspective on history, as was the writer’s insistence that slavery was “a small price to pay for blacks getting to live around whites.”

However, the writer added that white people are not perfect. Apparently, they made a mistake putting Native Americans on reservations instead of “killing or deporting all the Indians after we kicked their asses.” The writer then asked, “Why do whites suffer the curse of compassion?”

That is indeed a stumper. But the writer apparently isn’t letting the mistakes of the past hunt her. She advised me that I “better shut the hell up and listen with respect when you are in a nation that was created by whites.”

She summed up her correspondence with the assertion that “this entire goddamn country is ours from sea to shining sea” before signing off with the identifier “White Woman.”

Although I thank everyone for taking the time to write in with his or her thoughts, I have to admit that White Woman made the most vivid impression.

Yes, it looks like I have a new pen pal.

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.”

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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.

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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.

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I’ve written before about the fact that the U.S. population is growing at its lowest rate since the Great Depression. But what does this statistic really tell us?

Well, among other things, it means that for the first time in American history, large swaths of the country are essentially emptying out. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “a near-record number of U.S. counties are experiencing more deaths than births in their communities, a phenomenon demographers call natural decrease.”

Of course, there’s a more common term for it: ghost town.

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By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Brown Invasion. No, I’m not talking about all those Latinos stealing our jobs, selling our kids drugs, and hooting at our wives.

Hey, that’s old news. Even right-wingers are tired of peddling such fictions.

I’m referring to the recent study that showed ethnic minorities are no longer content to live in barrios and inner cities. For example, “metropolitan New York is being rapidly reshaped as blacks, Latinos, Asians and immigrants surge into the suburbs.”

Yes, my friends, it’s a damn surge out there. Watch out, suburbia.

I used to live in NYC, and my neighborhood, although primarily white, was decently mixed. The same is true of the LA area in which I live now. It’s one reason that I’ve loved both neighborhoods.

However, I have never lived in a suburb, nor do I have any desire to do so. Every time I visit a friend who has bought a house on a cul-de-sac, I get a little jittery, like the 1950s are going to suddenly explode all over me. I expect to look over a manicured lawn and there, in the distance, see a nuclear family in black and white, playing croquet and drinking lemonade.

But that’s just my hang-up. As much as I love living in cities, it would be a sad commentary if every Hispanic thought exactly as I do. By all means, if the Rodriguez family wants to take the commuter rail, I say enjoy the ride.

Still, it’s not like Latinos are blending in effortlessly with their suburban compatriots. That old barrier — segregation — exists even when Hispanics leave the big bad city behind. Latinos tend to be “typically clustered in ethnically or racially monolithic communities,” even in suburbia. So Wally and the Beaver won’t necessarily be hanging with Juan and Maria.

But perhaps that’s in the future, and maybe there are other positive developments yet to come. For example, suburbanites may have more diversity at their key parties someday.

And perhaps the whole concept of suburban angst will have to be redefined. Maybe a couple named Hernandez will feel ennui for once.

This opens up exciting possibilities. Perhaps a Hispanic director will remake “American Beauty” or “The Ice Storm,” but with Latinos in the lead. And of course, maybe someone can take another shot at “Revolutionary Road.”

If so, can we talk Kate Winslet into playing a Latina?

Yes, I still have a monster crush on the woman; sue me.