Hispanic Fanatic

The New York Times recently reported on a small rural town where longtime residents complain about “young Mexican men working construction and driving down wages, the children of laborers flooding crowded schools…and strip clubs springing up on roads that used to be dark and quiet.”

Is the town in Wisconsin, Kansas, Alabama, or even (shudder) Arizona? No, it is “a precolonial Mexican village outside Oaxaca City, filling up with fellow Mexicans.”

It seems that the urge to hate immigrants — even of the same nationality — is universal.

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Imagine my surprise.

I’m a huge baseball fan, and I take pride in knowing some of the more arcane figures and obscure facts in its history. Come on, it’s pretty geeky to remember UL Washington — the Royals shortstop who played with a toothpick in his mouth — and to know that Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Three-Finger Brown pitched their final games against each other (Mathewson’s team won).

So when I recently read a list of top Latino players in baseball history, I expected to see names such as Clemente, Marichal, and Pujols. But then I saw…Ted Williams…what?

http://beinglatino.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/secret-latinos-in-our-midst/

In a recent post, I asked if assimilation was truly a positive goal, or if it is often used as a justification to push around new immigrant groups. I think the answer is that it’s a bit of both.

Still, let’s dwell on the positive aspects of this tricky, amorphous concept. Rates of assimilation are down among today’s immigrants, which has caused no shortage of alarm among many Americans.

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My friend Nichole has again captured haunting imagery that depicts… well… something about how Hispanic culture continues to thrive in America.

This gargantuan fellow was spotted outside a Mexican restaurant in a mall. He was busy promoting the “Corona lifestyle” – which sociologists have theorized is identical to the “Budweiser lifestyle,” but with little slices of lemon thrown in.

The restaurant promised “authentic Mexican food.” I have to agree that there is no better way to promote one’s authenticity than by dragging out a huge dead-eyed mariachi with a symbolically tiny trumpet, strapping him into a walker that implies he can shuffle around the mall at will, and placing him in front of the establishment to surprise, delight, and/or terrify first-time customers.

Actually, that all sounds more like the Dos Equis lifestyle.

In any case, I encourage you to bring any other oddball pictures or images that say something about Latino life to my attention. It doesn’t matter if they’re offensive, deluded, self-righteous, insane, creepy, or bizarre. I just want to hear about them. So comment on this post, or send images to hispanicf@gmail.com with the heading “Fanatic image.”

Otherwise, I will depend upon Nichole to come though with more shots. She obviously has an eye for such things.