From Ilan Stavans, Advisory Editor
After years of devoting my attention to the study of Latinos in the United States, there’s a single Spanish word that keeps coming to my mind: encuentro. At various levels, from politics to music, from cuisine to sports, Hispanic culture in general is the result of a series of serendipitous encounters that have taken place over more than five hundred years. Prior to 1492, the three major Western religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, coexisted in the Iberian Peninsula. After Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, Spanish civilization interacted, often through violence, with pre-Columbian civilization. Then came an influx of African slaves to the Caribbean, Central, and South America. In the second half of 19th century the French influence on culture was felt everywhere. It was then replaced by American culture.
The approximately 44 million Latino living north of the Rio Grande are a result of those changes. But they are something else: American citizens. They are the protagonists of yet another encounter, one characterized by uprootedness. They are either immigrants, descendants of immigrants, or dwellers in a territory (Puerto Rico, the Southwest) with a conflicted relationship with the mainland U.S. As such, they are the perfect example of encuentro: an encounter with different social and political modes, an encounter with a new language, and encounter with a different way of dreaming.
The word "encounter" is defined by The Oxford English Dictionary thus: "To meet face to face, to experience." But the lexicon is quick to add: "to go counter to, oppose, thwart." That encounter is never passive. It requires involvement, active participation. It requires a voice, an opinion, a sense of self.
This portal into the Latino American experience in the United States is designed as an encounter. Its objective is to showcase the richness and complexity of a heterogeneous civilization. The Origins section of the site alone highlights history and culture from all the countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as from the perspective of some indigenous peoples. In fact, the mission is not to present one Latino experience but many. Not only are Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, and other Hispanics different from one another, but every one of the 44 million is a universe onto itself: unique, self-sufficient, filled with possibilities.
Looking at the Latino American experience as a multiplicity starts with the rubric: Is it Latino or Hispanic? You'll notice that in my previous paragraphs I've gone back and forth between them, as is often the case in political speeches, education, and the media. In my view it is less important to resolve the duality than to point to the fact that a minority in search of a name is a minority in search of itself. For purposes of this project, the term Latino, preferred by artists and intellectuals nowadays, is the one used, but not in a single-sided fashion. And therein the objective of this portal: to enlighten, to educate, to invite discussion. The site already includes approximately 150 titles, some 225 vetted web links, hundreds of primary documents, etc. It presents information that goes from the pre-Columbian past to the most pressing issues of today. The Timeline alone goes from about 50,000 BC to the 2006 immigration protests, for example. In the next couple of years, the Latino American Experience will grow exponentially to become the most important getaway available on the topic. To make it live up to its mission—to be a place of encuentro—it is crucial that it grows along with its users, by making connections and creating conversations.