In the days before every good show was on cable, the February Sweeps were a big deal. This month is traditionally one of the times when television ratings are set, and it still makes the broadcast networks feel like they’re relevant.
However, the declining audience for the so-called Big Four (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) won’t be improving anytime soon. This is because they continue to ignore the fastest-growing demographic in America, which as I’m sure you know, is Latinos.
All residents of Los Angeles spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for our cars. This is because the gods who devised our car culture decreed that, throughout the land, valet parking shall be the law. It’s not a question of choice.
One of my favorite restaurants makes you hand over your keys, and then watch as the valet moves your car about six feet from where you pulled into the lot. The IHOP in West Hollywood has valet parking (think about that; an IHOP…). And the parking garage where I waited for my car just yesterday had mandatory valet service, even though I could have easily parked it myself.
In any case, I was standing at the counter, claim ticket in hand, when I heard a voice behind me.
“Excuse me.”
In the pantheon of current American villains, Jose Padilla holds a prominent spot. The New York native, who is serving time in federal prison for conspiring with al-Qaida, was among the first of the so-called homegrown terrorists to emerge after the September 11 attacks.
Padilla scared Americans not just because he planned to incinerate many of us with a dirty bomb, but because he is a citizen. The guy isn’t one of those crazy foreigners who apparently hate us for our freedoms.
Within the Latino community, Padilla was another black eye, one more Hispanic thug who made us all look horrible. However, even the most ardent of Latinophobes didn’t claim that Padilla was representative of the Hispanic population in general. The guy was just one bad apple.
I grew up in a state that was overwhelming white, in a city that was somewhat white, in a neighborhood that was barely white. The de facto segregation in my hometown meant that whole sections of the city could easily be identified as the barrio or the black neighborhood or the fledgling Asian district. It was geographically convenient to pinpoint where the white people weren’t, because they were so plentiful everywhere else.
But in the United States of 2011, it’s not so simple. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “America’s neighborhoods became more integrated last year than during any time in at least a century.” This of course means we’ve achieved the mythical color-blind society where racism and ethnic conflict have been banished forever… well, not really.
I’ve written before about the Republican Party’s image problem with Hispanics. For the most part, conservatives are content to appear as unappetizing as possible to Latino voters. It’s almost as if the GOP is saying, “We’re not really a bunch of redneck nativists who despise your culture, but you’ll just have to take our word on that. Now, who’s up for some stereotyping and deportations?
Perhaps many Republicans are afraid of offending their hardcore base, which is, let’s face it, not the most open-minded group. Or maybe conservatives were heartened by their “shellacking” of the Democrats in the midterms. Or possibly they’re feeling no pressure because U.S. Census figures indicate that red states are growing much faster than blue ones.
But wait — upon closer inspection, maybe that last one isn’t so uplifting to conservatives after all. As Fox News Latino points out, “the irony is that many of these growth centers … are the beneficiaries of population growth due in large part of immigration and brisk Latino birthrates.” In other words, one reason that the red states are bursting is because Hispanics are moving in. As such, these states have “a strong Republican Party presence, and an increasingly unsympathetic Latino electorate to counter that party’s influence.”
So if anything, conservatives should be bending over backwards to attract Latino support. At least a few Republicans know this.
Among them is our old friend Newt Gingrich (!), who recently admitted the truth about immigration reform when he said, “We are not going to deport 11 million people. There has to be some zone between deportation and amnesty.”
Gingrich’s surprising statement got the Washington Post’s attention. The newspaper opined that “making nice with Hispanics has become an incipient Republican cottage industry” and expressed “hope it grows enough to shut down the hateful rhetoric and demonizing of Latinos by too many Republicans in recent years.”
Well, let’s not get carried away. As the Post makes clear, nativists “have cowed the Republican Party with a message of rejection and hate that most Latinos take personally.”
And here is where the GOP fails to understand a basic truth: Slamming immigrants doesn’t just offend undocumented people. It also pisses off Latino citizens, many of whom are naturalized immigrants, have family members who recently arrived here, or just don’t like to see people who look like them get blamed for everything.
Indeed, as the National Council of La Raza states, the recent elections brought to power “some of the most extreme members of the House who are going to be the calling card of the Republican Party to Latinos.” This doesn’t really help conservatives, who “need to rebuild their relationships with Latinos.”
Still, it’s not all bad news for the GOP when it comes to Hispanics. There is one group of Latinos who are positively giddy about a significant part of the Republican platform. Unfortunately, these Hispanics are not citizens, or even residents.
It seems that the GOP insistence on making guns readily available is a big hit with Mexican drug cartels. Yes, although the right to carry a firearm is supposed to deter crime, the truth is that “Mexico’s most violent drug cartels are exploiting U.S. guns laws to acquire massive quantities of assault rifles and other firearms for use in their war.”
Ouch — somehow I doubt this fact will help win over Latinos in 2012.
About a year ago, I wrote about the bizarre attempt by some Latino organizations to boycott the U.S. Census. As far as I know, this baffling protest never took off.
As a result, Census numbers continue to trickle in, and they offer the occasionally intriguing, often disturbing look at the state of Hispanics in America. Yes, we have fresh proof that Latinos are the fastest growing demographic, but come on; you know that one already.
But were you aware that Latinos are the most likely group to not have any health insurance (32.4 percent of all Hispanics)? Well, in that case, it’s a damn good thing I’m here to pass along these Census statistics to you, isn’t it?
Now, some of the numbers are more official than others. A few offer only a snapshot of 2010 or even 2009. But all of them are as accurate and precise as government bureaucracies can get.
The most alarming of these figures is the fact that more than a quarter of Latinos (25.4 percent) live in poverty. This compares to an overall poverty rate of 14.5 percent, and is more than double the rate for whites and Asians. But it’s still less than blacks and Native Americans (who “win” this category with a rate of 27.7 percent).
Put another way — and Census numbers are all about putting things another way — the median household income for Latinos was just 70 percent of that for whites. The lack of take-home pay is no doubt because Latinos have an unemployment rate of 12.9 percent, far higher than whites (8.7 percent) and Asian Americans (7.3 percent).
Those grotesque figures would be even more dismal if Puerto Rico, hit hard by the recession, was included in the analysis. Because it’s not a state, the island gets its own set of numbers — including the wacky stat that “massive emigration to the United States and the reduction in birth rate have caused a drop of 2.2% in the population of Puerto Rico.” Apparently, there’s a stampede of Puerto Ricans into the mainland, but that’s a whole other post.
Of course, numbers don’t tell the whole story. The Center for American Progress breaks down these figures by saying, “racial and ethnic differences have worsened or stayed the same during the recession and recovery.” These killjoys point out that unemployment and poverty rates rose for Hispanics, while health insurance coverage, retirement savings, and homeownership rates all fell.
In fact, the Center says that “Latino homeownership rates in 2010 … were again close to their levels in 2001 even though Latino homeownership rates had risen from 2000 to 2007.” But I’m going to call my bad on that one. I contributed to the statistics by buying a house in 2004 and selling it in 2009 (no, the bank didn’t foreclose on us).
In sum, the Census numbers “show widening gaps by race and ethnicity throughout the recession and recovery.” The best we can hope for is that the 2020 Census reveals more uplifting news — unless we boycott that one.
A nine-year-old girl in Arizona is brutally shot down by a psychopath who may also be a right-wing nut.
No, this is not the story of Christina Green, the little girl born on 9/11 who was killed in the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson. As heartbreaking and appalling as her death was, it has not lacked for media attention.
This is the story of Brisenia Flores, whose murder has simply not touched America in the same way that Green’s death has. In fact, her killing has received surprisingly little attention.
I recently completed the final profile of my family’s members. The anecdotes will keep coming, of course, but I won’t be focusing on a single member at this point.
I’ve written before of how Latino families tend to be close, and indeed, my cousins and I were raised more like siblings than distant relatives.
Still, I don’t know if it’s ironic, coincidental, or completely logical that people who grew up in a tight bunch are now so scattered around the Western Hemisphere.
Perhaps it’s the confidence that we will always remain in touch that has allowed us to branch out. Or maybe it’s just our immigrant roots that propel us onward.
I spoke to many of them last month, on various long-distance phone calls and/or email exchanges around Christmas. I’ve written before about how Hispanics tend to treat Christmas as a true fiesta and not a somber obligation.
Decades ago, shortly after my cousins from El Salvador came to America, we had our first mongo-huge event. What I remember most was Cousins #4 and #5, speaking to each other in fast overlapping English and Spanish. Half of their communication consisted of attempts to get their points across. The barrier would frustrate most adults, but to the girls, it was a hilarious game that never got old. Their pantomime and mangled words amused them so much that they often forgot what they were trying to say and just laughed in harmony. Their medium truly was their message.
At one of our last get-togethers, some of the cousins were holed up in a bedroom, talking about the pressures and stresses of the holidays. Of course, one by one, we all wandered into the room, until we had to stop bitching about the burdens of family because we were all pretty much crowded in there, which negated our insistence that we spent too much time together.
We see each less these days, of course. New bonds have formed over the years. For example, one of Cousin #2’s children shares my name. I presume that this connects us, although he is a toddler and doesn’t seem to recognize the significance.
When I was introduced to him, his mother referred to me as his uncle. Someone else in the family said that we were cousins, twice removed or something like that. I honestly don’t know what our precise connection is, and like him, I won’t give it a lot of thought.
It’s enough that we’re family.
Congratulations to Jules, who won the latest Hispanic Fanatic contest. She won copies of Raul Ramos y Sanchez’s latest novel, House Divided, as well as his earlier book, America Libre.
And all Jules had to do was comment on one of my many long-winded posts. What a deal…
Thanks to everybody who entered. We had a much better turnout to this contest than to the initial giveaway. This implies either that most of you are high-falutin’ literary types, or you just really don’t care for Nicolas Cage that much.
But now that we’re on a roll — two contests in one month — maybe I’ll throw another giveaway in there soon.
Until then, stay tuned for more rants.
And by the way, now you can catch some of my posts on the Being Latino site.
Click here to check out some of the other writers for this great project.
Many thanks to everyone who has recently commented on my posts. You’re all in the running for copies of Raul Ramos y Sanchez’s novels as part of my latest giveaway.
I have to admit, however, that Emmasota’s comment about the Dream Act’s demise conjured up an unpleasant memory for me.
You see, last year I worked with a nonprofit to advocate for the passage of the Dream Act. I knew the odds were long, and of course, the legislation ultimately didn’t pass.
But I would feel better today about fighting the good fight if I hadn’t known, at the time, that our approach was doomed. I had a queasy sensation early on, when I saw one of the video packages that the nonprofit put together (I wasn’t involved with that stage of the campaign).
The video featured kids who would directly benefit from the Dream Act’s passage. Much of it was good, with heart-tugging stories from all-American, clean-cut teens.
But then the bottom fell out. The voiceover threw around terms like “fairness” and “justice.” And one of the teens stated that he “deserved” the rights that the Dream Act would confer.
I knew it was over as soon as the kid said that word.
Americans don’t want to hear that anybody deserves anything. Hell, many citizens will lose their minds if one implies that they deserve basic healthcare (and that’s in their own self-interest!). They certainly don’t want to hear that some whiny kid who wasn’t even born in this country “deserves” his rights.
Sending a video to media outlets and political leaders that featured this tone-deaf tactic just stunned me. Clearly, many advocates of immigration reform haven’t learned the importance of basic marketing.
They continue to push the compassion angle, or back up their assertions with facts that impress no one.
But if the Bush years taught us anything, it’s that sympathy is for suckers. More important, we learned that the truth is irrelevant. Or it’s at least a distant second to proper messaging.
How else do you think conservatives got an overwhelming majority of Americans to embrace a war that made absolutely no sense?
Other progressive movements have learned this tactic.
For example, gay rights are also issue of fairness and basic justice. Yet, advocates of repealing the DADT Policy went easy on this essential truth. Instead, they successfully presented the issue as one that was necessary to America’s well-being.
The message was, basically, “We need all the help we can get establishing a strong military and intelligence network. This will keep America safe, so drop your prejudice in favor of simple self-preservation.”
It worked. DADT is history.
Immigration-reform advocates need to adopt this strategy. Instead of pointing out about how unfair or irrational our policies are — which is true but a loser’s lament — hit people in the wallet by making it clear that a massive-deportation philosophy will cost them money. Or hammer home the idea that policies such as the Dream Act will improve the economy and strengthen the military.
In other words, let’s see more about how immigration reform will benefit current citizens, instead of pleading that civil rights be extended to strangers.
It may not be pretty, or even that principled. But it has to be more effective than what we’ve accomplished so far.
