APRIL 2007
Something new and exciting is happening! After long decades of neglect, Latinos are finally becoming a serious topic in scholarship. In the last twenty years the number of monographs, symposia, institutes, and courses taught in high school as well as undergraduate and graduate levels has grown exponentially. The news isn’t only about quantity but about quality. Unquestionably, the academic and intellectual explorations we’re witnessing are of the first order.
They don’t stand on thin air, of course. Today Latinos make 12 percent of the total population of the United States. The Census Bureau has predicted that by the year 2025, one out of every four Americans will have a Hispanic background. This minority has been around since before the arrival of the Mayflower. During the colonial period, it evolved in what became the Southwestern states. In the aftermath of the wars of 1846 and 1898, waves of immigrants have also come. And they continue to doso, hoping to find a better life for themselves and their children in this country. The forty-five million Latinos nowadays might have different national, linguistic, economic, racial, political, and cultural backgrounds, but they are united by a common denominator: the pursuit of the American Dream.
Happily, the demographic explosion has made teachers, politicians, business people, and researchers focus their attention on the history of Hispanics in the United States. Who are we? Where do we come from? What elements unite us? Are there tensions between national groups? How about age and class differences? Are ideologies also a balkanizing factor? I’m proud to be a participant in this inquiry. In order for Latinos to find their proper place north of the Rio Grande, it is crucial to appreciate in depth the complexity of their past.
In the past fifteen years, I’ve devoted my energy to a handful of projects. I’ve written a psycho-cultural meditation, The Hispanic Condition, and concentrated a large portion of my attention on Spanglish, the hybrid tongue, part English, part Spanish, that serves as a sideboard of cultural transformation. My interest has resulted in a lexicon that includes some 6,000 words in Spanglish and a detailed examination of the development of this hybrid tongue from 1848 to the present. The dictionary is called Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language. It also includes my translation into Spanglish of the first chapter of Don Quixote of La Mancha.
Serving as Advisory Editor of the Latino American Experience is an extraordinary opportunity to help push Hispanic scholarship into the next frontier. What better venue is there to gather information, create bridges, and encourage critical thinking about Latinos than a virtual site? In this column, “En mi opinión…,” and in the invitation I’ll extend to other scholars, a debate of crucial issues of the day will take place, though not in a partisan fashion. Immigration, for instance, is a topic on the minds of a large portion of Americans. In 2006, a series of large marches and political debates shook the nation to the core. With the 2008 presidential campaign under way already, the controversy is alive and well. However, it is essential to approach it in an informed, balanced fashion, and the material in this portal is designed to accomplish the task. To what extent are immigrants from Mexico and Central America different from their predecessors from say Italy, Poland, and Finland? Is the process of assimilation expected to be as successful today as it was a century ago? Has globalization changed the perspective of newcomers, making them remain loyal for a longer period of time to the place once called home? In what way is the Spanish language helping or impeding that assimilation?
Only by informing ourselves about the past, are we better able to understand the present and future of our country. In this column, and in the Latino American Experience in general, I promise information and insight.