I’m not a stereotypical guy in at least one respect: When I’m sick, I go to the doctor.
There’s none of this macho “I’m only coughing up blood; it will go away” kind of denial for me. I want to know what’s wrong.
This trait may be rare among males, but it’s even less common among Latinos. We know, for example, that fewer Hispanics crowd into emergency rooms than other ethnicities, despite what you may have heard about ERs going bankrupt because of undocumented Latinos overrunning them.
Recently, I wrote about the Republican Party’s attempt to kill itself.
Specifically, I talked about how the GOP stance on immigration is increasingly being viewed as intolerant to Latinos.
Now, it’s easy to dismiss the harsh rhetoric coming from the right wing as the toxicity of a few racists, many of whom have found a home in the Tea Party or other conservative organizations.
I am not just a struggling writer. I am also a wretched musician. When people come to my house, they see the guitars in the corner, and then ask me if I play.
“Play is the wrong verb,” I say. “Manhandle is the right word.”
So you can imagine my surprise when I jammed with a friend of mine. He paused to take in my fretwork for a moment and then said, “You know, your playing reminds me of Santana.”
Now, Carlos Santana, in addition to being one of the world’s greatest guitarists, is also the most famous and influential Latino rock musician of all time. I suppose one could make an argument for Jerry Garcia, but I would disagree.
I’m a big Santana fan, and I grew up with his music (my mother played “Abraxas” all the time, and I got into it). So I was understandably amazed when my friend made this comparison.
“Really,” I said. “My playing reminds you of Carlos Santana?”
“No,” he said. “Tito Santana.”
Actually, that comparison makes a lot more sense.
It was right before the drunk woman vomited on my shoes.
My wife and I were with some friends at a street festival, listening to a crazed indie-rock band. I noticed the inebriated woman, a total stranger, swaying next to me.
But I was more interested in a group of cops who were policing the event. They stood off to the side, laughing among themselves. I’m guessing they thought it was a pretty cushy assignment.
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.
Previously, I’ve written about the ironclad grasp of family in Latino culture. Once again, I’m not arguing that Scandinavians and Belgians and Koreans don’t love their families. I’m just asserting that Hispanics often prioritize family to a level that majority-culture America may find extreme.
After all, the whole idea of sending grandma to the old folks’ home when she gets to be inconvenient is not a Latino tradition. Similarly, it wasn’t Hispanic politicians who hijacked the term “family values” to justify why they hated certain groups of people (although many Latinos were only too happy to adopt that definition after the fact; but that’s another post).
Just to be clear, nobody should yell “Nazi” at people unless there are, you know, actual Nazis present.
I make this clarification not just because it’s the truth, but because so many people have had their sensibilities offended during the arduous debate over immigration.
Judging from reader comments to several of my posts, it is not illegal immigrants and their supporters who have been slandered. No, this coalition of liberals and minimum-wage workers — outnumbered by at least two to one in many opinion polls — are the aggressors.
Yes, the “Nazi” label has apparently been tossed at people who support laws such as SB 1070. Now, even if you’re in a privileged position of economic power and numerical supremacy, and the person yelling it is near society’s bottom rung, that’s got to sting (although it would be nice to acknowledge that dynamic).
For the sake of argument, let’s call it even, and forget about all the racial slurs and threatening vitriol aimed at illegal immigrants. We’ll also let it go that much of people’s defensiveness (“I am not a fascist!”) is just the attempt to counter-attack uncomfortable accusations of racism.
It’s impossible to measure how many individuals on each side are acting like lunatics and to what degree. So let’s just call it unsightly all around.
However, I would ask that if you send me hyperbolic emails detailing crazed behavior by illegal immigrants, as one person did, that you at least keep it timely.
You see, I recently received a forward about the Montebello flag-raising incident. If you don’t recall, some Latino teenagers in California got out of hand during a demonstration. They raised the Mexican flag, and hung the American flag beneath it, upside-down.
It’s certainly a striking image. Perhaps that’s why it’s still flying around the internet as proof of a Latino insurrection, despite the fact that it happened in 2006.
Now, it would seem to me that if nothing more egregious than raising a flag has happened in the last four years, then the Hispanic overthrow of our government is not quite the threat the right wing is presenting.
At the risk of becoming defensive myself, I’d like to bring up an image from a demonstration that resonated with me. Granted, the protest was about healthcare, not immigration, but it at least occurred within the last year or so.
You may have seen this gentleman, and others like him. They believed it was a good idea to carry assault rifles to venues where President Obama was speaking.
The response from conservatives was praise and the usual pontificating about Second Amendment rights.
So if we’re keeping track: A bunch of unruly teenagers come up with a tacky way to protest, and it becomes a horrifying sign of revolution. However, grown men show up with firearms in a clear attempt to terrify their political foes, and it is a sign of patriotism.
The kids were disciplined for their idiotic prank. The guys with guns, however, went about their lives just fine, with the biggest burden probably the hassle of digging through the fan mail they received.
I could also point out that many of those teens have been told, sometimes overtly, that they are subhumans who have no rights. This is contrast to the adults with guns, who tend to be at the top of the American pecking order. They should also be – and let me phrase this delicately – old enough to know better.
So by all means, if the emotional response of teenagers is more of a threat to you than the aggressive tactics of adults, make your case. The odds are, however, that you will lose that competition.
When I was a kid, my mom volunteered to get the ERA passed. She was disappointed (actually, quite pissed) when the Equal Rights Amendment ran out of gas near the finish line.
The ERA was fairly popular, but it couldn’t get past the high hurdle that proposed Constitutional amendments face: Two-thirds of both chambers of Congress must pass it, and then three-fourths of the states have to approve it. There’s an alternative method of approving amendments that involves a Constitutional convention, but that route is less common.
In recent months, we’ve heard that another change to the Constitution is imminent. Yes, conservatives have their hearts set on revoking Amendment 14. This pesky amendment, among other things, establishes that people born in the United States are full citizens.
I recently became engrossed in a writer’s account of the search for his ethnic roots. Joe Mozingo, a white man, chronicled the reverse “Roots” saga of discovering that his original ancestor in America was black.
Mozingo tracked down several extended relatives, few of whom he had ever met or had anything in common with, and noted their often torturous explanations of the family name and history. Most had no clue what their ethnicity was, and simply guessed “Italian” if the subject ever came up (which was rare).
Of course, it’s funny to read about the contemporary Southern redneck who, far from being an emblem of racial purity, is actually the descendent of a Bantu immigrant. Wait, it’s not just funny – it’s fucking hilarious.
Baseball season is winding down, and my hometown team continues to flounder (no, I don’t want to talk about it, thank you).
But one bright spot in this dismal year is the perpetually colorful Ozzie Guillen. The manager of the Chicago White Sox often makes comments that range from bizarre to offensive, and one never knows if he’s going to let loose with a maniacal observation, incoherent insight, or slanderous attack. Not many people can go from egotistical rant to self-loathing diatribe in the same interview, but Guillen manages it.
Recently, Guillen made news by claiming that Major League Baseball treats Asian players better than it does Latin American players. He pointed out that, among other things, Asian players are assigned translators, while Latin American players are left to fend for themselves.
Guillen added that “We bring a Japanese player and they are very good and they bring all these privileges to them. We bring a Dominican kid … go to the minor leagues, good luck.”
OK, his syntax is garbled (it’s part of his charm). But Guillen’s point — that Latin American players are treated as less important and more disposable — is a valid one.
One could argue that it’s simple economics. MLB probably assumes that the many players from the Dominican Republic and Cuba and so on will look out for each other. Maybe they feel that they have to coddle a kid from Taiwan. I don’t know.
But I appreciate that Guillen, in his own undeniably idiosyncratic way, has once again gotten people to think about an issue bigger than baseball.
The other outrageous comment that caught my attention recently came from an unlikely source.
Yes, Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Fox News himself, recently called for immigration reform that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents. This is the infamous “amnesty” provision.
Murdoch said that we’re missing a chance for reform because we’re bashing illegal immigrants too much. He added that Americans need to deal with the fact that more residents are speaking Spanish, saying that such changes have “been going on in this country for hundreds of years. You’ve got to adjust.”
Coming from a guy who signs Bill O’Reilly’s paychecks, his comments are clearly more shocking than anything Ozzie Guillen could say.
