I live in a gentrified neighborhood.
At least that’s what I found out recently, when I spoke to a longtime area resident who informed me that “the damn hipsters came in and ruined everything.”
He didn’t consider me an invader, even though I moved into the neighborhood just two years ago. I presume my Latino status prevents me from being one of those evil hipsters (well, that and the fact that my iPod doesn’t have a single Belle & Sebastian song on it).
Like many ethnic minorities, I have been accused more than once of hating white people.
But for someone who despises the white race, I am seriously guilty of fraternizing with the enemy. I don’t want to get into the whole “some of my best friends” are this or that, but I’ll just mention that my wife (of German ancestry) would be a little peeved to find out about my deep-seeded hatred of white people.
I guess I’m also wracked with self-loathing, because (as I’ve pointed out many times) I’m half-white myself (on my father’s side).
I once hurt someone’s feelings, and not via my usual method of making an ill-timed, biting joke. No, I disappointed my friend because I said that eradicating racism is impossible.
She is a hippie type who inexplicably thinks that someday humanity will get its act together and take a break from the self-slaughtering. But that will never happen — at least not completely, everywhere on the globe.
Well, there is one solution…
“There’s class warfare, alright. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war. And we’re winning.”
—Warren Buffett
Eat the rich!
—Aerosmith
In Manlio’s Argueta’s gripping novel, One Day of Life, soldiers of a repressive Central American government beat and abuse poor villagers. The peasants’ crime, as one militaristic thug puts it, is that “they don’t love the rich.”
It’s a rather harsh reaction to expressing displeasure with the ruling class. We haven’t come to that in the United States, at least not yet.
Still, the concept of class warfare, invoked primarily by right-wing politicians, holds that middle-class and poor people are simply jealous of rich individuals, or that they are being riled up to hate the wealthy.
When I was in college, my editor at the student newspaper called me with an assignment: I was to cover a speech by a radical professor who, my editor breathlessly said, was brilliant “and so PC!”
I asked what that meant, and she said, with some amazement at my naivety, that it indicated “politically correct.”
I had never heard this term before. Of course, it wasn’t long before those juxtaposed letters entered the language and, in the process, went from leftist praise to conservative insult.
So this is a first. I’ve co-written a post.
Up to this point, every article under my name has been created, written, rewritten, agonized over, and ultimately put online via the Fanatic and no one else.
However, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the very talented Louis Pagan, and I didn’t want to pass it up. The result of our efforts can be found on the Huffington Post. Please click here to see the article.
And another thing: I realized that I never linked to my new profile on Being Latino magazine. So you can check that out as well by clicking here.
In any case, this collaboration thing is pretty cool. With hope, I’ll be working more with Louis and/or other writers soon.
Of course, that destroys my whole sullen-loner vibe, but we all have to make sacrifices.
Well, that was close.
A couple of years ago, it looked like the United States was in real economic trouble. But now everything is great… yeah, just great… yup.
As of right now, America still has a functioning economy. We’re not sure if we can pay all our bills, of course, and maybe China will just take ownership soon and have a fire sale on things we never use, like national parks and the state of North Dakota.
But for now, we’re still standing. That fact means different things to different people, however.
For example, the gap between Hispanics and prosperity has rarely been so vast.
So my old friends at the Huffington Post have started a new section — one that I will probably be contributing to on a regular basis.
It’s called LatinoVoices, and it debuted today. My first article for it can be found here.
When I started this website, just a few years ago, it seemed that the only outlets for writing about Hispanic culture were my blog, the sites of a few other Latino writers, and stray manifestos that angry Latinos would hurl onto your lawn.
But now we have our own section and everything. Latino voices are indeed getting louder every day.
So go ahead and check out HuffPo’s new section. And be sure to comment early and often.
You’ve heard of the luck of the Irish. So what is the luck of the Hispanic?
Personally, I think the Latino propensity for serendipity is symbolized by Hugo Reyes, also known as Hurley, from the show Lost.
Despite being a fun-loving, friendly Latino, Hurley kept seeing everybody around him get killed in some random or grisly manner. He constantly bemoaned the fact that he was cursed.
Certainly, many Americans relate to Hurley. For the last decade or so, we’ve all felt jinxed. It’s been a nonstop joyride of economic turmoil, endless war, terrorist threats, and political chaos.
