Hispanic Fanatic

My family has expanded to the point where they are simply too many people to buy Christmas presents for. So we’ve decided that, from now on, gifts will be purchased only for the children. Partly we’re doing this to reject the grotesque materialism of the holiday season. But mostly, the economy is crashing around us, and nobody wants to go broke buying gifts for adults who don’t need any more knickknacks.

I’m curious if this next generation of children will be subjected to the same rules and rituals that the cousins and I grew up with. At first, the system was inflexible: first came Midnight Mass, then the presents. The youngest kids required naps, often in church, but we were all awake at 2:00 am to open gifts. It helps that my family is composed overwhelmingly of night people. Successive years of whining pushed up the gift-opening ceremony, to the point where we exchanged presents around 10:00 pm and enjoyed them before heading off to church.

In any case, before any gifts were opened, Aunt #1 always asked us to explain who Mary and Joseph were, why they were on the road, what the innkeeper said, and whose savior arrived in the manger. It was a study group for Christianity 101, and Aunt #1 filled in the blanks and embellished the more miraculous elements. She did this every year –- the same quiz with the same answers. But it was vital to her that we understand the story of Christmas. The youngest cousins gave the bulk of the answers. The older ones hung back, like wily veterans who had given their peak performances long ago.

The presents were then handed out, with the accompanying rule that everybody had to have at least one gift before anybody opened anything.  Each year, we gripped our presents in crazed anticipation until the last person received a gift. Only then, when it was verified that everybody had a present in his or her hands, did the shredding begin.

The sound of wrapping paper being ripped to death filled the room, and exclamations cascaded around the house over shouts of thanks. It was a crazed wrenching open of boxes and flinging of ribbons. It was a blur of hands and shower of sudden confetti over tumbling objects. And every now and then, mixing with a bellow of “Cool!” or the rapid tittering of the authentically thrilled, came the sound of young girls quite literally squealing with delight.

Then it was off to Midnight Mass. We stomped off snow as we entered the church. The holy water felt odd on our reddened faces, and we didn’t unbutton our bulky coats until we found a pew to take over, because we always had to sit together.

Our church was lit up with hundreds of candles, and the band gave revved-up acoustic meringue versions of “Cascabellas” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” The mass started with a processional of parishioners dressed as the three wise men, Mary and Joseph, and assorted shepherds and angels. Usually, a neighborhood teen mom’s baby represented Jesus. For some reason, a knocked-up Latina’s infant was often the default symbol for the Christian messiah in the annual service.

After the mass, we drudged into the bitter cold, gave final hugs and holiday blessings, and went home to sleep until noon.

Today, we more or less skip the mass. Sometimes, the celebration gets going late because we have to account for work schedules and in-laws and other details that we could skip when most of us were under twelve and could fit into one car. And some of us won’t even be there. We live in different states or even different countries now.

Still, I hope that at some point, Aunt #1 will call a halt to our games or conversations or gorging or whatever we’re doing. Then she will sit in front of the tree, call the children over to her, and ask them to tell her the story of Christmas.

Like many Hispanic families, we celebrate on Christmas Eve. As kids, the cousins and I loved this arrangement because we didn’t have to toss and turn in bed while wrapped presents taunted us with the delayed gratification of Christmas morning. But now, we’re grateful for the nighttime celebration because we can recover from our drinking, and sleep in the next day.

As a child, I thought everyone’s holiday consisted of a house crammed with family and friends of the family or friends of friends of the family. In those times, chaos was a friend and bedlam had to take a number. Children bounced off the furniture and yelled jokes over the booming stereo, which alternated between tejano jams and warped LPs that blared the pop music of the day. The adults mixed margaritas while new attendees entered to festive shouts among a whirl of snow. I assumed that everybody’s Christmas was a raucous house party.

We played games, of course. But our activities weren’t quaint, Dickensian formalities where everybody sat with hands folded and chuckled at the outcome. Instead, we started boisterous rounds of “Life” or “Candyland” or whatever was available, making up our own rules because no one had the patience to read the directions. And regardless of what we were playing or watching or doing, ten different conversations started among us.

As adults, most of our Christmas games begin with an inebriated demand or shouted inspiration, and contests end when another, better game starts or a cousin declares, “I win and you all suck!” At any time, a heated match of “Clue” may draw to an ignominious conclusion when a mojito splatters the board, or a hand of poker dissolves into frenzy when everyone begins openly cheating.

The feast has altered over the years. As kids, the announcement that dinner was ready provoked us to rush the kitchen like the bulls of Pamplona zeroing in on a chubby tourist. Because there was no line or system whatsoever, everyone crowded into the hot room while reaching over, around, and past each other. Drinks were mixed up, plates were tipped, and hips were checked. But we got what we wanted and danced around one another until retreating to the dinner table or the couch or a folding chair or just a wall.

Today, we all chip in to help. Cousins bring food to share in an adventurous potluck. We pile our plates high with tamales or Puerto Rican rice or ham or lasagna or Aunt #1’s special turkey with mole sauce. Who knows what will be served?

We uncork the wine bottles and pop open beers. Most important, Cousin #1 has long had the responsibility of mixing the tequila sunrises. She performs this task with a focused intensity, hunched over like she’s defusing a ticking bomb. The constant flow of beverages is far too vital to be assigned to amateurs.

It isn’t really Christmas, of course, until our abuela throws a fit. Each year, she denounces the food as inedible, even if we made a separate dish solely for her (often something that she consumes every other day of the year). The first few holidays, someone brimming with Christmas spirit would try to cheer her up. By now, however, we barely notice when she storms off. It’s tradition.

Everything leads up to the opening of the gifts. But I’ll post more on that later.

Latinos are still coming down off our post-election high. After all, the mainstream media anointed us a crucial voting block in President-elect Obama’s victory.

Well, the good news keeps flooding in. As evidence of our newfound clout, we can now say that we’re number one in a very important sociological category:

Hispanics are officially the top victims of hate crimes that are “motivated by ethnicity or national origin,” as the FBI puts it.

Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you… well, not you, per se. But we couldn’t have done it without that small percentage of racial supremacists out there (which is most certainly not you, otherwise you would not be reading this).

Just how overwhelming is the Latino presence on the hate-crime index? According to the FBI, Hispanics made up almost two-thirds (61.6 percent) of victims in this category – so in your face, Asian Americans!

Now the first disclaimer to this enlightening statistic is that blacks are still number one in the racial category – remember, race and ethnicity are often two different things. Also, the statistics only cover through 2007, so it’s possible that some other ethnic group has surpassed us as objections of scorn in the last year.

But I doubt it.

Recently, we heard about a group of teenage boys in upstate New York who, according to police, wanted “to find Latinos and to assault them. They were actively seeking victims.” The guys succeeded, killing an Ecuadorian immigrant who made the mistake of walking down their side of the street. At a court hearing for the lynch mob, a prosecutor quoted the leader of the thugs as saying, “Let’s go find some Mexicans to fuck up.”

This apparently is a worthwhile goal in some parts of America.

One might ask why there is so much hatred of Hispanics. I don’t know… maybe it has something to do with the psychotic level of rage focused on Latino immigrants, most of which has a basis in xenophobic fears that have been jacked up by demagogues looking to score cheap political points.

Actually, I’m sure that’s all just a coincidence.

Regardless, I’m surprised that we’re still the favorites. In this post-9/11 world, I thought Middle Easterners were the primary objects of fear and loathing. But it wasn’t a very long ride at the top for the Abduls and Muhammads of America.

Irrational fears that every Muslim is a terrorist have been supplanted in these tough economic times. Now we’re back to the irrational fear that a Latino is going to steal your job.

It proves that in dark days, some Americans find comfort in returning to the classics.

I’m still in a good mood from achieving post number one hundred (see my previous article). So here’s a positive, uplifting story… no, I really mean it. This isn’t some cynical trick, although I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking I would pull such a thing.

This feel-good tale has been covered in other places, but it can’t get too much publicity. Basically, years ago, a guy named Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa jumped a fence and entered America illegally. He became one of the numerous Mexicans who wound up toiling in the fields. But he strived to do more with his life.

So today, he is, quite literally, a brain surgeon.

Go ahead and check out this article if you don’t believe me. I’m waiting for the movie treatment on this, ala “The Pursuit of Happyness.” But since we have a dearth of Latino movie stars, I have no idea who would play Quiñones-Hinojosa. Maybe it will be Johnny Depp after a few tanning-booth sessions.

Now, I’ve seen objections in the blogosphere to this most uplifting of tales. Some people are so filled with rage at anything Hispanic that they will twist even inspirational tales to fit a xenophobic agenda. It’s a knee-jerk emotional reaction, which I’m sure Quiñones-Hinojosa could tell you is controlled by the amygdale portion of your brain.

My favorite comment was “One brain surgeon does not legitimize millions of illegals.” No, I guess mathematically it does not.

Still, how about we celebrate this guy’s tremendous achievement rather than taking another shot at immigration? What is Quiñones-Hinojosa’s story but the American Dream come true, which is what we’re all supposed to be encouraging? He worked hard against enormous obstacles, embraced education, and is contributing a rare and crucial skill to American society.

I mean, damn, that’s most cool.

To be fair, I’m sure being a brain surgeon has its own set of problems. For starters, the guy is probably sick of people dismissing his accomplishments with “Well, you’re no rocket scientist.”

The Fanatic doesn’t celebrate many milestones. Perhaps it’s because of a sullen cynicism bred into the very core of my Gen X being. Or maybe it’s centuries of Latino paranoia that makes me think, “Somebody in a position of power is going to steal this moment from me.” Or perhaps it’s my strong sense of humility and modesty that prevents me from boasting… actually, who are we kidding? It can’t possibly be that last one.

In any case, I’m going to take a moment to acknowledge the significance of this post. It the one hundredth piece to be published on The Hispanic Fanatic.

Yes, I know. Pop the champagne (or perhaps more appropriately, pour that tequila). It’s been fun, and even enlightening, for me to post all these observations, anecdotes, opinions, profiles, and rants that would otherwise just rattle around in my obsessive-compulsive mind.

Because of these one hundred pieces, I have received dozens of insightful comments, had my worldview challenged, provoked the occasional reader, gotten into a flame war with an angry Chicano, snagged a gig at the Huffington Post, and pissed off at least one member of my family.

So I’ve enjoyed it, and I plan to go on as long as I have something to say. It could be a month or a decade. I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, I thank you for reading.

Eventually, every kid wants to know the answer to the big question. I don’t remember when I first asked about it, but I’m sure my father supplied me with some vulgar hypothesis.

For Cousin #5 (one of the youngest of us) the question bolted out fully formed almost thirty years ago. She was a little girl, and we were riding in my mom’s car (probably on the way to church) when she blurted, “Where do babies come from?”

I was surprised at her inquiry, and as a teenager I had no idea how to tell a pixyish girl the traumatizing answer. I looked at my mother, who was driving. I expected her to say something like, “Your mother and father love each other very much, and one night…”

But instead she smiled as if she had been waiting all day for just the opportunity to talk about sex with a kindergartner. Without hesitation, she gave my cousin an honest answer steeped in rigorous scientific principles.

“Babies are made from flour, mixed in a bowl, and baked in the oven like cookies,” my mother said.

My cousin nodded at this. It made sense, of course. But a moment later, she upped the ante.

“But why are we different colors?” Cousin #5 asked.

Now we were on to racial issues.

Even Hispanics fall into the trap of thinking there are no other skin tones besides black and white. The history and clear dichotomy between those two colors supersedes everything else. So how was my mother going to explain our burnt-sienna existence now that she had committed to the cookie theory of creation?

Again, she smiled and spoke without pause.

“Babies are cooked at different temperatures for different amounts of time,” she said. “White babies aren’t in the oven too long, so they come out light. Black babies are in the oven longer, so they are darker. It depends what the mother and father want.”

Cousin #5 brightened at this perfectly logical explanation, and her enthusiasm increased when my mother added, “You are brown, so you were cooked just right.”

In one effortless movement, my mother had tackled existential quandaries, explained basic biology, bridged the racial divide, boosted a little girl’s self-esteem, and came up with one hell of a concept for a cooking show.

To this day, I’m still impressed.

One of my original goals for this blog was to serve as a conduit to Hispanic artists, writers, and general mover-shaker types who might otherwise be overlooked. So far, alas, I have been largely remiss in addressing this goal.

That’s why I’m pleased to have discovered the art of Gabriela Gonzalez Delloso. Her paintings were prominently displayed in a gallery that I wandered into, and they immediately caught my attention. Although her work is not explicitly about being Hispanic, her images (to my untrained eye, at least) carry the weight of the Latino experience.

A bride gazes longingly at a pair of red shoes, and I think of my cousins’ quinceneras. An abuela-type figure presides over a table of food, and I remember random feasts that brought my family together.

Of course, none of this would work if the images were wrapped in sentimentality or cliché. But the artist avoids such traps. In addition, she sets her pieces in the smoky realm of the old masters, as if Rembrandt were Latino. Her work is unlike anything I’ve seen, and I encourage you to check it out.

One of my recent pieces (“Muy Fabuloso”) also appeared on the Huffington Post last week. The post was about homophobia in Latino culture. On the Huffington site, I received numerous comments.

Many were supportive. Several were insightful and thought-provoking. Others were diatribes. But as usual, what I focused on were the bitchy ones.

I heard that I was fanning the flames to turn this into a racial issue. I was accused of saying all Hispanics were Catholic and all Catholics were homophobes (could someone Venn diagram this for me?). I found out that I was “scapegoating Latinos” and “pitting minority groups against one another.” I discovered that I was spreading “anti-religious heterophobia,” which I’m pretty sure is a brand-new term (and concept). Finally, I learned that I simply “don’t understand the dynamics” of California, which is hilarious considering that I lived in the heart of Los Angeles for half a decade.

But my point wasn’t about California. It wasn’t about Catholic dogma. It wasn’t about Hispanics and blacks and gays all fighting it out, like we’re fireflies shook up in a jar. It wasn’t even about Proposition 8.

It was about homophobia in Hispanic culture.

As I said in my response on the Huffington Post, Hispanic culture has a powerful one-two punch in traditional machismo and religious upbringing that makes homophobia tough to eradicate.

I stand by that.

Again, using Proposition 8 as a rough gauge, we see that more Latinos supported rescinding gay rights than did the general population (53% versus 52%) The fact that it was close diminishes in comfort when one sees that an actual minority of white and Asian voters (49% of each) supported the proposition, meaning that only blacks were more likely to vote yes on this.

Add to this the fact that Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Obama (Asian voters were less enthusiastic, and whites were more likely to pick McCain), and we see that it is not a powerful strain of social conservatism that drove the vote. Hispanics are more likely to agree with Democratic or even liberal ideas. So clearly, there is something in the culture specifically about gays that many Latinos don’t like.

The glimmer of hope, as some commentators pointed out, is that younger Hispanics are rejecting the gay-bashing of their elders. As such, they mirror the general population, providing further proof that assimilation is taking place, despite what so many conservatives insist (but that’s another topic).

Still, the feedback has prompted me to emphasize once more what I’m trying to say with this blog. My goal has been to praise and celebrate a culture that is largely ignored (except during election season) by mainstream America. However, my additional goal is to point out the flaws in this culture in the hopes that they will be rectified.

I may not always be successful, but I will continue to strive for that balance between lifting up and tearing down.

The emerald hue of his eyes is freakishly rare, especially for a Latino. Our grandmother teased him when he was a child, saying that he had stolen the eyes of the cat.

He is no good at hiding his emotions, so surprise or happiness or annoyance all dance on his brow whenever they want attention. Or maybe it is the curse of the cat’s eyes that makes him so expressive.

His other distinguishing physical characteristic is a scar on his chin from a mishap that occurred during one of our childhood baseball games. Other scars aren’t as conspicuous, and they flair much less than they used to.

Cousin #2 is entitled to his scars. He came to America when he was a spindly little kid, shortly after his father died. He is the oldest child of Uncle #1, the brave man whom I profiled a few months ago.

On the plane to the United States and his new life, Cousin #2 asked a question of my mother, his aunt, whom he had just met. He was a child of El Salvador, on the first flight of his life, who knew of just one reason for planes to exist. He knew of only one function that they served and one consequence that the whirr of their engines signified.

So he asked my mother why we were going to drop bombs on people.

His antipathy for such childhood memories is so virulent that he refuses to ever set foot back in El Salvador, even for a visit.

“I’m never going back there,” Cousin #2 has said often, as if the statement is explanation, rationalization, and vow all rolled into one.

The last time he told me this, he punctuated the remark by pulling off a hat that he was wearing (which I had praised) and slamming it on my head in a fit of generosity so intense that he nearly decapitated me. Then he repeated his words in his distinctive somber voice.

When he had arrived in America as a child, he became the man of the house for his immediate family. As one can imagine, this is an ungodly amount of pressure for a kid, especially one who has not been given any time to mourn his father. He was expected to help raise his younger siblings (Cousins #4 and #6), learn English quickly so he could translate for his mother, and figure out this culture’s strange new priorities.

As expected, Cousin #2 struggled. His troubled teen years led to poor choices as a young adult. He was no thug, but his friends were often the riff-raff of the barrio. He became a father young, drank too much, and owed too many family members money.

As his problems mounted, he withdrew from the family, and many of us had only sporadic contact with him for a few years. Then, in a scene right out of some hooky Christmas special, he ran into Cousin #3 at a crowded mall, and she hugged him as shoppers swirled around them. She extracted a promise that he would stop by the traditional holiday feast.

He did, and the rapturous welcome that he and his toddler daughter received convinced him to return. Most important for him, he found an amazing woman to love him and guide him back to the land of the living. They married, and they had their first child last year.

His children – two sons and a daughter – were among the first members of our family’s next generation. In many ways, they are the first in our line to be wholly planted in this county.

Cousin #2 works hard and stays out of trouble. The man who several of us were once concerned would get into a fatal bar brawl has been known to go for Sunday bike rides with his wife. This stability, and the life that the two of them have built together, mocks his troubled early days.

He is proof, more than anyone I’ve ever met, that a person can always turn it around. He is evidence that we are not slaves to the past and are more than the sum of our scars.

He has my undying respect.

First, let me thank Raul Ramos y Sanchez for his thought-provoking comment on my previous post.

Second, let me give you a warning. If you should ever walk down the street of a major American city with my wife, you should not (by her own admission) listen to her she asks the innocuous question, “What’s over there?” I speak from experience. Her curiosity about hidden doors and blinking marquees has mistakenly led us into shady dives from coast to coast (imagine my surprise at walking into an S&M bar in Hollywood).

One evening, “what’s over there” prompted us to enter a covert LA nightclub, where the doorman smiled and waived the cover charge. I had assumed he did so because it was Ladies Night. But when we walked in, I saw that he had not let us in for free because of my wife. It was because of me. It was a Latino gay bar, and the doorman assumed that I was a non-straight who had brought along my hipster female friend. To make things more interesting, a talent show for drag queens was just starting. What could I do but order a beer and watch the performances? My wife and I agreed that the Christina Aguilera was pretty close to the real thing.

I was not surprised that Hispanic gay men might establish a safe house off the beaten path. Loathing of gays shows hydra-headed persistence within Latino culture. We are the society, after all, that defined the word “macho.” The old-school standards for strong Hispanic males include getting into brawls, avoiding the kitchen, and womanizing at will. They do not include an affinity for techno music and an interest in Jennifer Lopez’s wardrobe.

As such, possibly the worst insult that one can lob at a Latino male is the dreaded M-word. To call someone a “maricon” is to take the nearest English equivalent (“faggot”), triple its intensity, add several layers of hatred and disgust, and square the result. In my generation at least, nobody jokes about this word or uses it lightly.

In contrast, American gay activists have adopted the words “queer” and “dyke” in an attempt to rob them of their degrading power, similar to the way in which many African Americans throw around the fabled N-word. It’s a subject of fierce debate whether these tactics work or are self-sabotaging, but in either case, I’m pretty sure nobody in Latin America is even trying that with “maricon.” In fact, being gay in Latin America ranges from affront to God (we’re talking about heavily Catholic countries) to active death warrant in the small villages of Central and South America.

I was talking with the Bitca about the level of homophobia in Hispanic culture. She said, “But you’re not homophobic” and added that this is one of my very few redeeming qualities. Then she said, “So I guess sometimes you’re an individual and not just a stereotype after all.” I thanked her for her high praise.

But she got me thinking.

The passage of Proposition 8 in California, which bans gay marriage, received ample support from Obama backers. Much of the coverage of this oxymoronic outcome has focused on the high percentage of black people who shouted, “free at last” when they voted for president and then muttered, “damn the homosexuals” as they revoked a basic civil right.

But California has a high number of Latinos (ask any right-wing demagogue for verification of this fact), and Obama was hugely popular with them (see my previous two posts on this). It is indeed a sad fact that a great many Latinos mimicked their African American brethren on Election Day.

To be specific, 53 percent of California Hispanics voted for the proposition. While this is not an overwhelming majority, it still tops the percentage of overall voters who approved of the ban (52 percent). It is also contradictory to their supposed enthusiasm for a liberal president.

Is it possible that my old boogeyman, the Catholic Church, is somewhat responsible for the invincible strain of homophobia in Latino culture? To the surprise of absolutely no one, the answer is yes. Hey, is the Pope homophobic… I mean, Catholic? Yes, that’s what I meant.

Statistics from Hispanic Business show that 64 percent of Latino Catholics voted for the proposition. Just 10 percent of non-religious Hispanics voted the same way.

So it’s not just burly macho hombres who hate gays that are tipping the vote. It’s quiet, polite Latina grandmothers who are willing to overlook Obama’s pro-choice tendencies, but can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that gay people have rights. Let’s be clear: When pundits talk about social conservatism among the otherwise Democratic-friendly Latino population, this is what they’re talking about.

However, despite the fact that homophobia is strong in Hispanic culture, Latino gays still find ways to burst out from underground. These manifestations range from the intellectualism of the great Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas to the pop-culture pabulum of Hank Azaria dancing around in “The Birdcage.” And what would a gay-pride parade be without at least one Carmen Miranda impersonator?

It’s a broad range of expression. Perhaps it’s hopeful, or maybe it’s pathetic. I can’t tell you, because I’m just a guy who walks obliviously into gay bars.