Hispanic Fanatic

I’ve avoided saying too much about the midterm elections, mostly because the results are depressing, infuriating, and mystifying. Also, I don’t think the internet needs one more shrill voice proclaiming how Republicans are going to rape the environment just for the hell of it, burn gay people at the stake, and allow corporate CEOs to legally hunt us for sport.

Still, I have to address one side issue of this grueling election season. Perhaps its just semantics, but I have officially run out of patience. I don’t want to hear one more social conservative bellow, “I want my country back!”

There are 300 million of us living here. This is not your country. Neither is it mine, his, or hers.

It is ours.

As cheesy as it sounds, we have to find a way to live together. And exclaiming (threatening?) that you are going to claim this nation for yourself — and the minority of Americans who happen to align with your political and/or religious beliefs —  is not just selfish; it’s foolish.

After all, if you took the country, where would you keep it?

Of course, those insisting that this is “their” country are furious that so many people look different from them, or speak something other than English, or praise some other deity. This was never an issue back in those fabled good old days when everyone was straight, white, and Christian.

But the times are not a-changing. They have a-changed.

And insisting that there is some way to make it all go away, electorally or otherwise, is just a waste of time. So you can stop now — thanks.

My cousin (actually, my wife’s cousin, but we’re all family) recently called me from London. He’s living there for the next couple of years, but he still keeps an eye on news from America. He was upset, close to apocalyptic in fact, about the upcoming elections.

“Those Republicans are crazy,” he said. “You need to write a piece telling Hispanics that they have to vote for Democrats.”

My immediate reaction was that my cousin had a greatly exaggerated impression of just how influential I really am. He was so agitated, however, that I didn’t get a chance to tell him that or my secondary issue. Namely, it’s rather arrogant for me to tell people that it’s their racial duty to vote for anybody, especially when Democrats haven’t exactly been whiz-bang in getting Latino issues to the forefront.

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I can still recite the Boy Scout Oath.

Those words, along with various patriotic slogans and wilderness-survival tips, were instilled in me during my early teens, when I was part of a scout troop at my local church.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the troop was an attempt by community leaders to nurture “at-risk youth,” that euphemistic term for minority and/or low-income kids.

Indeed, most of my fellow scouts were Latinos with brothers in gangs, or parents on welfare. They were sinewy pre-adolescents with insouciant attitudes and a willingness to start a brawl.

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One of my favorite words is “internecine.” Of course, I don’t admire the concept (i.e., hostility or conflict within a group). I just like the sound of its syllables clanging together.

In any case, “internecine” describes the situation whenever ethnic minorities beat up on each other. It’s most famous application is “black-on-black violence.”

I have yet to hear about brown-on-brown violence, but perhaps it is only a matter of time. For example, a few months ago in Staten Island, a Mexican immigrant became one of the borough’s recent victims of a hate crime.

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Let me say a quick thanks to Antonio, Robin, and my old friend the Bitca for their recent comments.

Next, let me introduce the subject of today’s post: sex.

Yes… sex… sex… sex.

Sorry, I was just trying to drive up the site’s traffic.

However, the topic is relevant, in light of a recent study that looked at everybody’s favorite pastime (i.e., getting’ it on) and filtered it through a racial prism.

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It’s dangerous, not to mention intellectually dishonest, to insist that any racial or ethnic group has specific likes or dislikes. After all, in today’s multiracial society, it’s often debatable who is or isn’t a member of a certain group. And let’s not forget that such assertions, even well-meaning ones, open up the door to stereotyping.

But like most dangerous and/or offensive things, it’s also a lot of fun to do.

Recently, the good people at OK Trends did a little analysis on people who joined a dating website. The researchers looked at over a half-million individuals and divided them into groups by their self-stated race or ethnicity. The authors then “isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group’s essays statistically distinct” and posted the results.

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Until a few years ago, I had never heard the term “dishwasher guilt.” This odd phrase describes the tendency of immigrants to resist buying or using this symbol of American convenience. It’s “a quirk in the assimilation process that baffles social scientists.”

My mother, who came to America from El Salvador over forty years ago, owns two houses. Neither has a dishwasher.

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With all the recent love that has been extended to immigrants (really, it’s been nonstop kisses and flowers), one could be forgiven for believing that hate groups in America are on the decline.

However, a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says that the number of hate groups increased just a little — 244 percent — over the previous year. Now, this intimidating statistic provokes a natural question: What is the definition of a hate group?

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I recently wrote about self-loathing among immigrants and among Latinos in general.

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.

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Whatever happened to the controversy over bilingual education? I don’t mean that the topic has gone away or been resolved.

However, with all the hysteria over immigration and assimilation and undocumented Latinos stealing our jobs… well, it just seems like the debate over the best way to educate immigrant children with poor English skills has been rendered quaint.

Perhaps this is because English-immersion appears to be the de facto winner. Teaching immigrant kids in their native language seems to be a 1970s concept — like gun control and no-nuke rallies — that failed to accomplish much.

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