On Latinos and the U.S. South: Process and Product

Posted August 25th, 2008
by Jose Maria Mantero

As I lay in bed with a stomach virus in Cuernavaca, Mexico, some years ago, I began to consider what type of book I would most enjoy writing. Whatever it would be, I knew that it would have to be something that would incorporate academic research with field work and, at the same time, bring in my experience as an individual raised between two cultures, Spain and the United States. Having spent most of my time in this country in Georgia, I considered which aspects of Southern culture in the United States were undergoing transformation, and I realized that, due in large part to the statistically significant influx of Latino/Hispanic* immigrants to states such as Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, and North Carolina, for example, communities in these states are changing in ways that address the future ability of this nation to welcome immigrant populations to more nontraditional areas of foreign migration.

My intentions were varied. First, I wanted to examine the possible parallels between the distinct and somewhat overwhelming varieties of Latino and U.S. Southern cultures. Second, I wanted to explore the motivations behind the recent increased immigration of Latinos to states in the U.S. South. And finally, I wanted to consider the manner in which these populations are assimilating to their host communities, and how — and if — these communities were welcoming Latinos and the resulting changes to the fabric of their host communities.

Although I was born in Madrid, Spain, and am therefore not considered a Latino due to my more Iberian Hispanic origin, I most definitely share and enjoy an affinity to the tremendous diversity of Latino cultures in the United States and to their respective versions of “Latinoness.” I have also traveled extensively throughout both Mexico and Central America, have taught a course on Latin American women’s literature in Mexico, attended conferences in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama, climbed volcanoes in Guatemala and Nicaragua, enjoyed the biodiversity of Costa Rica’s rainforest, lived for months at a time with families in Managua and saw firsthand the poverty of that nation, and have simply taken pleasure in and learned from the commonalities and differences between the cultures and citizens of these nations.

In the U.S. South, I have also spent an important amount of time traveling the highways and back roads of booming cities such as Atlanta and Montgomery, the hills around Asheville, N.C., and Bainbridge, Ga., and the coastlines in and around Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans.

When I began research for this work in the summer of 2000, I wanted first to spend time in those parts of the U.S. South with which I am not familiar (Memphis, Tenn., Jackson, Miss., and Mobile, Ala., for example), interviewing individuals who were familiar with the Latino communities and attempting to unscientifically gauge the relationship between immigrant Latino populations and non-Latinos. In my travels, I spoke with social workers in Fairhope, Ala., a priest in Memphis, Tenn., a founding member of the Latino community in Jackson, Miss., members of a Latino neighborhood organization in Nashville, and a Nicaraguan immigrant in New Orleans, among many others. As they all told their stories from their own particular perspectives, they frequently concluded by recounting their experiences with either words of caution about oversimplifying the parallels between superficially similar Latino populations or congratulating me on what would surely be a new and necessary perspective on Hispanic immigrants in the United States.

My conversations were by no means intended to be exclusive nor scientific; I simply wanted to listen to as many voices as possible and witness firsthand the changing Latino statistics of towns and cities throughout the U.S. South. But they did establish an important, albeit somewhat anecdotal, groundwork for the later “academic” research that would serve as the organizational backbone for the work.

As is evidenced by the table of contents, my work is organized according to topics that center on the possible parallels between the varieties of Latino and U.S. Southern culture. Beginning with a summary of the historical foundations of these commonalities, and continuing with chapters that examine the potential similarities between 19th Century escaped slaves crossing the Ohio river and today’s Latino immigrants entering through the border formed by the Rio Grande, the mutual economic exchanges between Latinos and non-Latinos in the U.S. South, the political parallels between Latin American caudillos and dictators and U.S. Southern “good ole boy” politicians, literary commonalities, and possible linguistic and racial tensions between recent Latino immigrants to the U.S. South and their host communities (among other topics), my work, Latinos and the U.S. South, is an attempt to understand the transformations that are affecting nontraditional areas of transnational immigration in the United States. My perspective is by no means exclusive, quite the contrary: I acknowledge the incredible diversity of both the U.S. South and the Latino population and, therefore, insist on a perspective that is both inclusive in intention and heterogeneous in nature. The research and the experiences that have gone into the writing of this book are only semantic markers for the multiple avenues of interest and dialogue that lay ahead for communities throughout this country. I am certain that my future travels, research, and writing will lead me down paths that will continue to enter territory that is appreciably yet recognizably distinct and that will contribute toward an even deeper understanding of the innumerable hazards and opportunities that will continue to challenge both the host communities and the individuals who are choosing to leave their homeland in order to live and work within the borders of the United States.

*Note: Although I use the words “Latino” and “Hispanic” somewhat interchangeably, in my work I recognize and explore the political and semantic differences between these two terms and summarize the contextual arguments of each.

A Novel Approach to Latino Politics

Posted August 4th, 2008
by Lisa Pierce

En mi opinion host Ilan Stavans’ newest book is a graphic novel from Soft Skull Press, illustrated by Roberto Weil. Mr. Spic Goes to Washington tells the story of Mr. Spic — Samuel Patricio Inocencio Cárdenas — as he rises from a his rough-and-tumble past to the mayor’s office of Los Angeles, then on to the U.S. Senate. Weaving humor with social commentary, the novel follows Mr. Spic as he uses his influence to confront corruption and promote pacifism and tolerance.

Scroll down to check out the cover and a scene depicting the solo walking tour of Washington Mr. Spic takes on his first day on the job as junior senator from California.

Spanish or English? Meeting the Needs of Hispanics

Posted July 14th, 2008
by Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Some years ago in a letter to Críiticas, an English Speaker’s Guide to the Latest Spanish Language Titles, Irma Flores-Manges encoura­ged the magazine to “include reviews of books by Latinos written in Eng­lish,” citing relevant reasons. While expressing sympathy with her reasons, the editors responded that their “current focus was on the Spanish-language pub­lishing world.”

Críiticas fills an important space by focusing on the Spanish-language publishing world, but if that space is focused only on the Spanish-language publishing world then that space is not the space of U.S. Hispanics. For in focusing only on Spanish language publishing Críiticas contributes to the proposition that U.S. Hispanics are essentially a Spanish-language reading group or that non-Hispanic English-speaking Americans are interested in Spanish-language materials. Both are tenuous assumptions, particularly the first.

In the Census Bureau 2000 Supplementary Report on immigration in the 1990s, two-thirds of the children of Hispanic immigrants from this period “rated themsel­ves as speaking English very well” which, by extension, makes them English-language readers as well. U.S. Hispanics are not a linguistically monolithic group, although the lead article in the premier summer 2001 issue of Críiticas read: “How book-sellers can reach out and bring in readers of Spanish: Selling to the 35+ million” by Judith Rosen suggests, mind you, I say suggests, they are. When I was Associate Publisher of La Luz magazine in Denver from 1972 to 1982, we published La Luz in English because our research and market data then showed that only 15% of U.S. Hispanics were monolingual Spanish-language speakers (ergo readers, if literate) while 85% of U.S. Hispanics were English-language speakers (ergo readers). Of that 85%, 15% were monolingual Eng­lish speakers (ergo readers). That’s why we launched La Luz as the first national Hispanic public affairs magazine in English.

Mostly, second-generation U.S. Hispanics become primarily English speakers. All around them the English language captures them. First-generation U.S. Hispanics like me tend to hold on to the Spanish language, albeit ya mocha­do (mangled) oftentimes, but neverthe­less a working Spanish, not necessarily a reading competency. Bilingual does not mean bi-literate. My work with U.S. Hispanic writers indicates that most of them produce their works in English. Writing in English has little to do with preservation of the Spanish language or the culture. English is the koine of the country.

It seems to me, therefore, that Críticas is not about U.S. Hispanics but about Spanish-language publishing as the editors told Irma Flores-Manges. That’s a legitimate market, but there’s the rub. It appears that the editors of Críticas do not see the forest for the trees or else wrong-headedly they are push­ing an agenda that profits them but is inconsistent with the actualities they profess to serve. In other words, they’re about Spa­nish-language books. They don’t ask: Who will read them? They think U.S. Hispanics will read them.

It turns out, only a small percentage will since only a small percentage of U.S. Hispanics are Spanish-language readers. In this matter, Críticas’ posture seems to be “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s made up.” When my wife, Gilda, and I lived in Phoe­nix we noted that the Spanish-language collection in her library was used mainly by recent Hispanic arrivals. A Spanish-lan­guage collection is therefore important in serving the literary and information needs of this population. They need applications, directions, and ballots in Spanish. But the mass of U.S. Hispanics get their information from English language sources. I think of myself as a “coordinate” bilingual, that is, I function linguistically as well in Spanish as I do in English. I read Spanish as well as I do English. But I’m gravitationally an English-language reader. This is not to diminish the significance of the Spanish language in my life. This is just the reality of what takes place in the cauldron of languages in the United States.

How many second-generation German Americans in the Austin area Hill Country, for example, are still German speakers and German-language readers? Not many. Do American marketers try to reach this German American population in German?

As I said, Críiticas is serving an important space, but it’s not the space of all U.S. Hispanics. Sadly, while serving this important space, it aggressively underscores the assumption that all U.S. Hispanics are Spanish language speak­ers/readers and therefore linguistically monolithic. In the end, like English-language media, Spanish-language media is a business. Críiticas should be looking at the whole spectrum of U.S. Hispanic literary needs and production. But it’s not. U.S. Hispa­nics need a publication that does. This is not to dissuade Criticas from its role in promoting Spanish-language books and materials.

It seems to me the assumption Criticas and other media (especially Spanish-language media) promote is that the best way to market to the Hispanic population of the United States is with Spanish when the preponderance of that population is English speaking. I do not criticize Criticas for its role in promoting Spanish language materials for that portion of the U.S. His-panic population whose functional language is Spanish and that portion of the U.S. population (including Hispanics) interested in Spanish language materials. That’s an important function, and Criticas is doing an admirable job in that arena. The point of this piece is to question the proposition that U.S. Hispanics are essentially a Spanish-speaking population. My experience and research as a lexicologist and semiotician point to a U.S. Hispanic population mostly assimilated and/or acculturated in the ways of the English language.

In the matter of the word “Hispanic” we should consider what that term covers. This is not a new term coined by the Census Bureau. The term has been around for centuries. The word “Hispan­ic” is one of those large rubrics, like the word Catholic or Protes­tant. By itself, the word refers to all Hispanics (persons whose cultural and/or linguistic heritage derive from historical origins in Hispania: the Roman name for Spain), attesting to a common denominator, conveying information that the individual is an offspring or descendent of a cultural, political or ethnic blending which included in the beginning at least one Spanish root either biological or linguistic or cultural. That means a Mexican Indian with no Spanish “blood” (as we understand that term) in him or her, but who speaks Spanish and has amal­gamated or internalized Spanish culture is an Hispanic just as an Indian of the United State who speaks English and has amalgamated or internalized Anglo culture is an American though in the case of American Indians they are Americans both by priority (they were here first) and the United States made them Americans by colonization and later by fiat.

Talking about people in terms of labels can be misleading. For example, a person may be an Hispanic in terms of cultural, na­tional, or ethnic roots. Nationally, Colon (Columbus) was a Spaniard, though born in Genoa. Wer­ner Von Braun became an American national though born in Germany. In Argentina there are Hispanics who have no “Spanish blood” but who, nevertheless, consider themselves Hispanics, speak Argentine Spanish and are fluent in Italian or German, the languages of their immigrant forebears to the country.

Put another way, the term Hispanic is comparable to the term Jew, which describes the religious orientation of people who may be ethnically Russian, Polish, German, Italian, English, etc. There are also Chinese Jews, Ethio­pian (Falashan) Jews, Indian Jews, et al. So too the term Hispanic describes people by linguis­tic orientation (Spanish speakers) who may be Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Chileans, Argentines, et al. Additionally, there are blended Hispanics often identified as Indo-Hispanics, Asian Hispanics (many  Filipinos), Afro-Hispanics and a con-geries of other mixtures. There are also Hispanics who are identified as Black Hispanics and White Hispanics. There is an array of Chinese Hispanics, Lebanese Hispanics, Pakistan Hispanics, Hindu Hispanics, Jewish Hispanics (Sephards) et al. This all points to the fact that Hispanics are far from a homogeneous group.

In the main, though, their common characteristics are language (Spanish or a distinctively evolved version of Spanish as well as a distinctively evolved version of English oftentimes called Spanglish) and religion (most are Catholic, though there is a growing number of Hispanic Protestants). There are other lesser characteristics as well.

To avoid confusion between Hispanics who are citizens of countries other than the United States and Hispanics who are U.S. citizens, we refer to the former as Hispanic Americans and the latter as Ame-rican Hispanics, that is, U.S. Hispanics with roots in one or more of the Spanish-language countries of the American hemisphere. There are American Hispanics whose origins are in Guam, Hawaii, and other locations in the Pacific and the Pacific Rim, including the Philippines.

The United States has the fifth largest Hispanic population in the world exceeded only by Mexico, Spain, Columbia, and Argentina. In 10 years only Mexico will have a larger Hispanic population. In 2000, close to 7 million American Hispanics lived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, another 3 million in New York City. Since 1980, the American Hispanic population of both cities almost doubled. And over the 1990s the Hispanic population of the United States grew 58 percent. Since 1980 Mexican Americans almost doubled their population size. The 2000 Census count enumerated almost 36 million U.S. Hispanics, not count­ing the 4 million or so undocumented Hispanics in the Uni­ted States and the 3.5 million Hispanics in Puerto Rico who are not included in the Census count. That means that at the start of the new millennium there were 43.5 million. Today that figure is closer to 50 million Hispanics in the United States (counting the Puerto Ricans of Puerto Rico). That is, 16 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic. Or, one in six Americans is Hispanic. Projections suggest that by the year 2050 one in four will be Hispanic. Peter Francese of American Demographics notes that “America really had no clue that the Hispanic population was that big.”

Per the U.S. 2000 Census count, Hispanics are in every state of the country. Five states are 15 percent or more Hispanic (New Mex­ico, 40%; California, 31%; Texas, 30%; Arizona, 22%, Nevada, 15%) and five states are 10% or more Hispanic (Colorado, 14%; Florida, 14%; New York, 14%; New Jersey, 12%; Illinois, 10%). Nine states and the District of Columbia are 5% or more Hispanic (Connecticut, 8%; Idaho, 7%; Utah, 7%; DC, 7%; Wyoming, 6%; Washington, 6%; Oregon, 6%; Massachusetts, 6%; Rhode Island, 6%; Kansas, 5%). Five states account for almost 75% of the U.S. Hispanic population (California, 34%; Texas, 20%; Massachusetts, 9%; Florida, 7%; Illinois, 4%).

These figures don’t take into Census errors like the one in 1970 that failed to count some 3 million Mexican Americans. One of the reasons for so much difficulty in counting American Hispanics is that a significant proportion report themselves as White or Black, not Hispanic.

In the twentieth century, the U.S. Hispanic population grew five times faster than the overall population. Since 1980, the nation’s Hispanic population has grown by more than 40 percent compared to 7 percent for the overall population. At present growth rates, the American population is expected to reach 325 million by the year 2020. Projecting the U.S. Hispanic figures per their growth rates, they could num­ber well over 60 million by the year 2020. That means that about one in five Americans could be Hispanic, roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population. By the year 2050 some demographic forecasters expect the U.S. Hispanic population to triple.

Twenty years ago, the Arizona Republic indicated that in the year 2013, “Hispanics will make up nearly half of Arizona’s population compared with 16 percent today, raising the prospect of their taking a strong leadership role in the state.” What makes this population growth of American Hispanics so significant is that little planning has been undertaken for such an eventuality, including the question of how to reach them — with Spanish or English?

Who are these people whose presence in the American population will have such a major force in the American future? Surprisingly, most Americans tend to think of U.S. Hispanics as a loose aggregation of “immigrants” who speak only Spanish, somewhat aware that the largest number of them live in the Southwest, a fair number in the Upper Middle Atlantic states and New England with a growing group in Florida.

Essentially, American Hispanics may be sorted into five groups: (1) Mexican Americans, many of whom identify as Chicanos, an ideological designa-tion that identifies their generation, (2) Puerto Ricans, some of whom identify as Boricuas, (3) Hispanos—U.S. Hispanics who identify themselves as Spanish, (4) Cuban Americans, and (5) Latinos— His­panics from countries other than Mexico, Cuba, Spain, and Puerto Rico. Not counting the residents of Puerto Rico, Mexican Americans today account for 66 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population, about 32 million.

Two out of three U.S. Hispanics are Mexican Americans. Puerto Ricans make up almost 10 percent of U.S. Hispanics (18% counting Puerto Ricans on the island). One out of ten U.S. Hispanics is Puer­to Rican. Together these two groups make up about 80 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population, In other words, four out of five U.S. Hispanics are Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. Latinos make up about 14 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population; and Hispanos (mostly in New Mexico) comprise about 1 percent of that population. Cuban Americans make up the remaining 4 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, March 2000).

In profile, U.S. Hispanics are a “young” population with a median age in 1999 of 26.6 years compared to 32.4 years for Anglos. Hispanics are predominant­ly an urban population: 82.5 percent live in cities, compared to 65 percent of Anglos. In terms of median income, in 1999, U.S. Hispanics earned $23,300, some $2,450 more than Blacks but some $26,000 less than Anglos. Nearly one out of every four American Hispanics fell below the poverty level in 1999, more than thrice the ratio for Anglos. In 1999, American Hispanic unemployment rose to 13.8 percent com­pared to 7.2 percent for the total population. While there were gains for some American Hispanics, all of these figures remained relatively unchanged in the year 2008 for the mass of American Hispanics who are still searching for America.

Importantly, American Hispanics are not recently arrived immigrants to the United States. Given the finite immigration quotas for “Latin America” since 1924, the present population of U.S. Hispanics would not be as large if its source of growth were solely from immigration. Their sheer size in the American population points to the fact that Amer­ican Hispanics are of longer duration in the United States and that their growth stems principally from fertility. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2006 there was a marked increase of  birth rates for every 1,000 Hispanic women compared to 1000 Anglo women.

The initial core of Hispanics in the U.S. population came from the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, later renamed New York after the British acquired it in the 17th Century. Later, the Hispanic Jews (Sephardim) who came with the Dutch colony contributed significantly to the colonial revolutionary efforts of 1776 and to the later prosperity of the country. In the 19th Century, in two swift “blows” within 50 years of each other, the United States “acquired” a sizable chunk of its Hispanic population, not counting the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803 with its Hispanic residents and Florida in 1819 with its Hispanic population.

The first “blow” was the U.S. War against Mexico (1846-1848) out of which came the Mexican Americans of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. No one is sure of the numbers of “Mexicans” who came with the wrested territory (almost half of Mexico’s domain) but figures range from 150,000 on the low side to as many as 3.5 million (including Hispanicized Indians). 

The second “blow” was the U.S. War with Spain (1898) out of which came the Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, Guamanians, Virgin Islanders, and the first wave of Cubans (though Cubans had been emigrating to the American colonies first, then the United States, since the 17th Century). In 1917 Cuba was cut loose by the United States. The figures for these groups range variously as well. But the point is that American Hispanics have been part of the United States historically for some time.

Unfortunately, Americans have tended to think of them as newly arrived and to confuse them with Hispanic Americans, the 400 million who populate the Spanish-language countries of the American hemisphere, failing to note that in the Americas there are more speakers of Spanish than speakers of English.

Not all American Hispanics agree on the term Hispanic to iden­tify themselves. Many American Hispanics from the Southwest, for example, prefer to be called Mexican Americans or Chicanos and think the term Hispanic is an arbitrary label imposed on them by a bureaucracy with a colonial mentality. Many Puerto Ricans agree with that sentiment and prefer to be called Boricuas. Other American Hispanics contend the term Hispanic dilutes their individual identities as, say, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, etc. At best the term Hispanic is a convenient way to talk about a diverse group of people, much the way we use the term American to talk about an equally diverse group of people. Actually, the term Hispanic is used (and has been used) extensively in Latin America by Hispanics there to identify their common roots and heritage. In vogue now with many Hispanics in the Southwest and elsewhere is the term Latino, which could very well include Italians and other groups with links to Roman Latinization.

This “looking for a name” has created particular problems for American Hispanics, especially in libraries (including the Library of Congress) and with bookstores and booksellers. Irma Flores-Man­ges, an Austin librarian, thinks “we are leaving a whole group of people in limbo without any positive literature about Chicano or other Latino experiences in which the only books available are written by authors in English. The books are not available in some libraries because if you are not familiar with the authors you will not buy the books as librarians. The book stores usually have a small section on Latino studies, and sometimes our books are lumped in with immigration studies. I don’t know why it’s so hard for these stores to carry books by Chicano or Latino authors in English; there is usually a huge section for African Americans or Native American materials.”                

The difficulty lies in the fact that indeed Americans (including librarians) do not really have a handle on the His­panic taxonomy. For them all Hispanics are alike. Unlike African Americans who are not lumped in with Africans, Ame­rican Hispanics are lumped in with Hispanics of Latin America. The Library of Congress is a good example of this lumping. When one wants to find material on African Americans in the Library of Congress one does not go to the African Section. They are found in the American Section. But to find materials on American Hispanics in the Library of Congress one has to go to the His­panic Section where all other Hispanics are included also. Mostly, American bookstores have separate sections for African materials and for African American materials. Not so for American Hispanic materials. All Hispanic materials are lump­ed into the Hispanic section. Peddling the Colombian wri­ter Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books in Spanish or English translation for Chicanos instead of Rudol­fo Anaya’s works only strength­ens the proposition that Americans do not differentiate between Hispanics because they don’t know who Hispanics are.

Admittedly, there is much to a name. I’m an American Hispanic of Mexican stock who subscribes to a Chicano perspective of life in the United States. I’m not an Hispano because I’m not Spanish. And I’m not a Latino because I’m not from one of those “other” Spanish-language countries of the Americas. A Puerto Rican friend of mine explains that he’s an Hispanic of mainland Puer­to Rican stock and subscribes to a Boricua perspective of life in the United States. Another friend of mine tells me he’s an American Scandinavian of Norwegian stock who is a registered Republican. I don’t find that confusing at all. We’re all Americans, rich in cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversi­ty.

What’s in a name? Everything. That’s why my name is Feli­pe and my friend’s name is Sean. Names help to tell us apart. They also reflect our heritage and background. Unfortunately, many Americans tend to think the word Hispanic refers to a homogeneous group of people—which it does not, anymore than the word German, say, (as in German American) refers to a homogeneous group of people. American Hispanics come in all sizes, shapes, and colors.

Ideologically, Mexican American Chicanos say the term Hispanic diminishes their demographic priority when “lumped” with other American Hispanic groups (all of which are considerably smaller than the Mexican American group). Those Mexican American Chicanos contend that this lumping suggests all U.S. Hispanic groups are equal in size and have passed through the same historical process in the United States, a suggestion not supported by the facts. Not all U.S. Hispanic groups have passed through the same historical process as Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. The historical process of these two groups has been distinctive, not shared by “other” American Hispanic groups in the United States. A sizable number of Mexican Americans and all Puerto Ricans are American territorial minorities by virtue of conquest. For this reason, shrill groups of Mexican American Chicanos and Puer­to Rican Boricuas have resented across-the-board applications of legal remedies (affirma­tive action, for one) for all U.S. Hispanics for historical discrimina­tion they have not endured nor suffered. Militant members of these groups say that hiring a U.S. Hispanic of Peruvian descent, say, to head a major federal program does not remedy discrimination suffered by Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans at the hands of Anglo-Americans since it is their conquest for which these legal remedies were enacted. More­over, Peruvian culture — while Hispanic — is neither Mexican Ame­rican culture nor Puerto Rican culture. There are notable linguistic differences as well.

Additionally, Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans point out the difference between an “oppressed territorial minority” (the U.S. came to them) and “political refugees” (they came to the U.S.). Many Chicano scholars explain that Hispanics from Mexico who gravitate to San Diego, Tucson, El Paso, Del Rio, San Antonio, and Brownsville are migrating to a part of what was their ancestral homeland of greater Mex­ico (previously New Spain) until 1848 (1853 in Southern Arizona with purchase of the Gads­den Strip) the way Jews have gravi­tated toward Palestine, their ancestral homeland. Moreover, those same Chicanos point out, most Mexicans migrating to the United States are racially more Indian than Spanish. On their Indian side they are, thus, autochtho­nous people, here long before the Niña, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, and the Mayflower. They are not immigrants. They are of the Americas, sharing a common bond with the indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada.

In view of the foregoing, plans for meeting the needs of American Hispanics must take into account their overwhelming reliance on the English language, particularly that 15 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population which is mono­lingual English operant. The same is true for that 15 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population which is monolingual Spanish operant. For them Spanish-language publishing makes sense. Reaching the 40 million-plus American Hispanic population requires balance.

Why I Like the Word Latino

Posted July 14th, 2008
by D.H. Figueredo

 

I like the word Latino.

 

It has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to do with a cultural affirmation. It’s a word that I like.

 

I don’t like Hispanic. It makes me think of panic … His panic! What about a woman who is from Latin America running away in panic … is it Her panic? 

 

But Latino has a melody that reminds me of Nabokov and the novel Lolita: rolling the l’s and vowels out of your month: La-ti-no. The word comes closer to my heart: Latino brings to mind the verb “latir,” as in “mi corazon late,” my heart beats, pulses … Latino late … late … Latino… heartbeat… heartbeat.

 

Latino also allows me to admire a Latino woman, such as my wife, by going directly to the word without the need to convert it into an adjective: Latina woman. Latina is a woman, standing by herself, no need for additional nouns, no need for adjectives. With Hispanic, you need explanation, as Desi Arnaz used to say “a lot of splaining.” A Hispanic man, a Hispanic woman. 

 

Latino also allows me a choice. You see, Hispanic was imposed, the way I see it, anyhow. It is not a word in Spanish, it is an English word. I love English and the sound of it and the literature that is written in English. But I feel that Hispanic was thrown at me by the powers-that-be sometime ago. There are many histories of how the designation came to be and there are many sources on the topic, so I won’t go into it. But I think that it evolved as a way of tallying up folks from Latin America as the U.S. Census attempted to understand their presence in the early 20th century. Thus, there is a touch of the government in there, a statistical approach which places all of us into the same hole. And Latinos do not want to be so easily categorized. Give us our nationality first – be it Mexicano, Cubano, Argentino, Puertorriqueño, Dominicano – and then maybe give us an umbrella term.

 

This umbrella term is important, though. I lost one friendship over the designation. This particular friend identifies so much with the term Hispanic that he despises the term Latino. To him, it is a ridiculous term that insults him. Therefore, my preference for Latino was an insult to him and he dropped our friendship (maybe it wasn’t much of a friendship, anyhow) over an argument. The point is that the term matters and is important.

 

Does it help the general community in dealing with a population that is from Latin America or whose ancestors are from Latin America? This is my recommendation: ask your friend, your neighbor, your students, which term to use: Hispanic or Latino/a.

 

As for me, you know my answer. Now, please, share with me your answer, let me know what you think.

The Fortunate Librarian

Posted June 5th, 2008
by D.H. Figueredo

D.H. Figueredo, author of  the Latino Chronology and the Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature, among other titles, recently delivered the following keynote addess to the Joint REFORMA Northeast Mini-Conference at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City. 

 

It would be pretentious of me to speak of myself as a writer. I have been blessed that I have published 11 books, that reviewers actually review my books and study my words and sentences and come to intelligent conclusions about the value, or absence of value, of my literary and scholarly attempts. But I don’t think of myself as a writer: that terrain belongs to Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Junot Diaz, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Hijuelos, Tomas Rivera, Phillip Roth. And I don’t think of myself as a scholar or a social observer: I lack the sensitivity so characteristic of Richard Rodriguez, who is both admired and despised; I don’t have the intellectual virtuosity of Nicolás Kanellos; I cannot approach the scholarly universe of an Umberto Ecco, of an Octavio Paz. I’m not a writer, an intellectual, a scholar; I am but a fortunate librarian who, like Desi Arnaz, stumbled onto words that, as if in a García Márquez novel, managed to assemble themselves into a panorama that sometimes makes sense and points readers to the fruits of far better writers.

 

I’m published, yes, and often say: I can’t believe that this happening to me. It is the same sentiment that I experience when I gaze upon my wife: I can’t believe this woman is married to me. In our youth, she could have been the inspiration for any of Shakespeare’s sonnets and here she was, this beauty that could outlast the beauty of a rose, being my phantom of delight. So it is with the fact that I have been published and when I gaze at some of my books, I’m astounded that my name is on the cover of the displayed volumes. I’m amazed because I feel that I know so little. There are people, according to Leo Tolstoy, who are made great by historical events or who are great because they make history. For me, I always think of Abbott and Costello, those comedians from the 1940s and 1950s, when Lou Costello, after giving Bud Abbott a lengthy explanation on a particular subject, would always end saying: “I don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

 

But I do know about having fun researching and being a librarian and, like Lucy Ricardo, I do know about not giving up. And that is essentially what writing is all about. I always wanted to write. I guess I always wanted to feel that I would linger in the universe long after my earthly departure. My first fantasy of lingering was that of becoming a movie star, an infantile notion that took me through my teen years wanting to look like Errol Flynn, if in the U.S., or Jorge Negrete, if in Mexico. Fantasizing that I was a swashbuckler hunk transported me to the era of the musketeers, which was easily achieved when my family and I lived in the town of Gijón, Spain, a seaport resort next to a medieval village of narrow cobble-stone streets, gothic balconies, and wooden doors with knockers in the shape of animals and angels. Wondering through the alleys and streets of that town, called Cima de Villa, I was D’Artange, Don Juan Tenorio, Scaramouch, and Captain Blood, and in my head I crossed swords with the villain, who was darkly dressed, and leaped and pirouetted into the arms of Olivia de Havilland, of María Félix. The stories in my head became mental books and the narrative that took over my daily thinking possessed my daily life. I was in the world of stories, the world of books. I was already bound for the written page and the quiet halls of libraries.

 

But the sequence did not flow in the manner presented: Before my own written pages came the pages written by others, the pages of the books housed in people’s palaces: the libraries. Given to disappearing in the labyrinths of medieval Spain, it was natural for me to want to disappear in the sweet labyrinths of large libraries. As you know, since it all also happened to you, it was but a small step for me to enter the world of libraries.  

However, I was surprised: I did not disappear in the book stacks. For librarians do not disappear, if anything else they become – by design, by accident, by the need to survive –  prominent members of the community we serve. Love it or not, we’re mentors, we’re role models, we’re activists, we’re preservers of the past and creators of the future. We don’t get to read as many books as people think we read –  “You’re librarian? You must read a lot,” people often conclude – but we do get to shape a little the lives of many: young Richard Wright reading his first novel, Main Street, while in Memphis; Tomas Rivera and the librarian in Iowa who gives him a library card, transporting him out of the harsh world of tomato fields into the world of dinosaurs, conquerors, and the most effective conqueror of all, poetry.

 

The people I served, the patrons I worked with, the readers I helped, took me away from my dreams of writing, satisfying my need to see a book touch a heart: it wasn’t my book but it was my heart because I felt I was doing what was good. But then the writing began. Fiction at first, a feathery desire with which I struggle; non-fiction later, a more attainable desire because of the clarity of the mandate: to share with those who care my pride in Latino culture.

 

I began writing book descriptions for catalogues published by Lectorum Publications and Bilingual Publication: the wonderful Terry Mlawer and Linda Goodman, the former from Lectorum, the latter from Bilingual Publication, gave me piles of books to read and then I wrote my descriptions of the books. It became my training ground for writing for Booklist, after I contacted Earle Gladden, from Donnell Library, and submitted to him a bibliography on Cuban writers. From Booklist, I made my way to the Multicultural Review. That was the moment of change. The editor, Lyn Miller Lachman, who is now a dear family friend, introduced me to the publishers at Lee and Low Books, not too far from here, who published my first children’s book, When This World Was New, and three other titles. An article I wrote for the Multicultural Review on Cuban American literature brought me into contact with scholar Luis Martínez Fernández, now a dear friend, who was getting ready to work with Greenwood Press on the Encyclopedia of Cuba. He knew that I knew about Cuban literature and he felt that I could write. Thus, the world of libraries led me to the writing of book catalogues, which in turn took me to Booklist and the Multicultural Review, which brought about my contact with publishers, editors, and agents. It was the writer in me that made me a librarian. It is the librarian in me that pushes me to be a writer.

 

With the push and the good fortunes that I have had, there were some practical steps that I took and continue to take.  I will share the steps with you, suggestions that might be helpful. 

  1. Don’t write Gone with the Wind.  It’s already been done.
  2. Follow your passion.
  3. Use your knowledge of sources and the community.
  4. Does your passion address a need of a particular community?
  5. Do aspects of your passion address a need, a vacuum, a neglected area?
  6. What’s being written on your passion, on your subject, and from what perspectives?
  7. Go to conferences, seminars, workshops on your passion.
  8. Attend ALA exhibits, special conference exhibits.
  9. Try out the idea on yourself: If it’s boring to you, it will be boring to others.
  10. Try out the idea on a handful of people you know, but not your friends and relatives.
  11. Once you have selected the area to research and write about, stop talking about it. 
  12. Keep the desire to write about your passion within yourself: Ideas are fragile and can sometimes be killed by exposing them to the air.
  13. Write an article on your passion.
  14. Send the article, or articles, to journals: little journals, academic journals, local publications.
  15. Show people you can do it; show people you can write.
  16. Check out publishers and what they publish.
  17. Once you’re dealing with publishers and editors, don’t fall in love with your passion. Be flexible about different approaches to the writing of your topic.
  18. Tell yourself you’re not Hemingway, you’re not Virginia Woolf, and don’t fall in love with your writing. Be ready to make changes.
  19. Your writing is not biblical, is not sacred. Accept suggestions and comments from editors.
  20. Take the long view: It’s not going to happen tomorrow, it might happen next year or five years from now.
  21. Accept rejections and don’t take them personally.
  22. Read.
  23. Take and keep notes.
  24. Write, write, write.
  25. Don’t give up.
  26. If you can live without the passion, if you don’t go around fantasizing, if you have excuses not to follow your passion, then let it go.
  27. But if you can’t let go it, then let your passion drive you.

 

Back to myself a bit. My passion drives me. I want to teach high school and undergraduate students about the history and accomplishments of Latinos in the United States. Why? There are so many Latino children who know so little of their heritage and are subjected to cultural neglect that sometimes they are ashamed of the land of their parents or grandparents and sometimes have such an overwhelming need to identify with the dominant features of the ruling society that they submerge their own cultural treasures, their own identity, even their own physique. We’re beyond the tragedy of The Bluest Eye, the novel by Toni Morrison, and yet there are people I have met who have undergone facial surgery to make their cheeks sharper and higher, to bring their noses closer to what they see as a more acceptable profile. That saddens me. Remember Rita Hayworth? That gorgeous Rita Cansino, of Spanish descent, went from brunette to strawberry blonde, from Cansino to Hayworth, to become cinematic legend. On the other hand, do you remember Selena? She accentuated her Latino voluptuousness and her Latino Tex-Mexican music to achieve fame. And Jennifer Lopez? A reporter once looked at her effervescent Latino anatomy and asked: “Is that all yours?” wondering if she had had surgery. To which Lopez proudly replied: “Todo Mio. Pero no para ti.” All mine but not for you.

 

Selena and Lopez, Junot Diaz and Sandra Cisneros. They make me smile.

 

And because of that smile, and because of my children, so that they can smile with pride when they think of their heritage, I will continue to pursue the glory of Latino history and culture and I will try to write about my parents and their parents and their stories. And hopefully, there will be publishers who will continue to think that I can write. And hopefully, one of my books will one day touch someone’s heart.

Thank you.

Puerto Rico’s Historic Vote

Posted May 29th, 2008
by Lisa Pierce

When my husband and I visited Puerto Rico in late February nearly everyone we spoke to wanted to talk about the island’s potentially pivotal role in determining the next Democratic nominee for President. Puerto Rico’s primary will be held this Sunday, and according to news reports from the island, the excitement has only mounted since we were there.

At the time of our visit the vote was scheduled to be held as a caucus, but back in March, as it became clear just how critical votes from Puerto Rican Democrats may turn out to be in the final delagate count, Roberto Prats, Puerto Rico’s Democratic chairman, decided to spend the extra funds to hold a primary.

There are eight superdelegates and 55 delegates at stake in Puerto Rico. Though many supporters of Senator Barack Obama contend he has enough delegates to win the nomination without Puerto Rico, he played it safe, arriving on the island last weekend on the heels of surrogates that included his wife and Gov. Bill Richardson. Senator Hillary Clinton arrived last Saturday, following on the momentum created by many visits to the island by her husband, President Bill Clinton, and by their daughter, Chelsea, who has become very popular with Puerto Ricans over the past few months, according to news accounts.

It’s an interesting situation given the unusual voting status of Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. territory, or Estado Libre Asociado (freely associated state) as Puerto Rico is often described in government agency documents when those documents are in Spanish. In official U.S. government documents, when those documents are in English, the island is referred to as a “Commonwealth,” but unlike citizens of the Commonwealths of Pennsylvania or Virginia, Puerto Ricans who happen to live on the island, U.S. citizens all, cannot vote in the general election for the President who will represent them.

Puerto Rican voters living on the island select Democratic and Republican presidential nominees every four years, traditionally by caucus. This year’s Republican caucus, held in February, drew fewer than 1,000 voters to caucus sites. Many of the people we talked to while we were on the island in February were not even aware that there was a Puerto Rican Republican Caucus or that they might have any role in any given election year in deciding who the Republican nominee for President might be. Clearly, the GOP hasn’t put much effort into reaching out to Puerto Ricans living on the island.

Puerto Ricans living on the island elect a non-voting representative to the U.S. House of Representatives, but they have no other elected representation in the U.S. government.

All this changes when a Puerto Rican moves to any state. Theoretically, a Puerto Rican citizen can move from San Juan to New York and the very next day register and vote for President or a voting member of Congress. If Puerto Rico were a state it would likely have at least eight representatives to the House of Representatives and two Senators.

Puerto Ricans living on the island elect their own legislative body, but they do not have a voting member of Congress to represent their interests in any number of federal governmental programs and policies that affect their daily lives. For example, there are more Puerto Ricans from the island fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan than the total number of military personnel serving in those conflicts from many more populous states.

Puerto Rico also elects a governor and when my husband and I were there this winter many people we talked to were proud to point out that the immediate past governor, Sila María Calderón, was a woman. Almost everyone we met said they were supporting Clinton, in part because Puerto Ricans were progressive enough to understand that a woman could run a government as well as a man. There was a sense that it was time to see how a woman might run things differently. To many, Calderón’s governorship was proof that Puerto Ricans do not hold to the traditional machismo attitudes they think mainlanders attribute to them. In almost the same breath, however, many Puerto Ricans told us they were supporting Hillary because it would take a woman and a mother to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

Though Clinton was the choice of nearly all the Puerto Ricans we talked to, they were quick to point out that both candidates were well qualified and that either would make a good president. Some were leaning toward Clinton, but said they planned to learn more about Obama in time for the vote and recent news reports show Obama gaining on Clinton among Puerto Rican voters. Everyone we met had such a sense of pride and excitement about their ability to affect the race. They cannot vote for or against Sen. John McCain in the general election, but they understood that deciding who he would face was a significant step in Puerto Rico’s post-1898 history.

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