Latinos and Democracy

(I gave these remarks at the National Hispanic Institute’s annual conference Celebración on November 3rd, 2018)

I completely reject the Latino essentialism and individualistic exceptionalism that some US born Latinos advocate. Sharing common last names, or languages, or geographical-cultural lineage doesn’t mean we represent a common group or a common cause. The thing that unites me to Latinos as a group is solidarity with communities and our common struggles based on a shared emotional history – a journey that has led us to exist in a world that actively Others and exploits us. I further reject the idea that we obtain freedom and well being *solely* by professional or financial success within society as is (although that can be something to be proud of), or by being given special slots of representation within institutions that are not run in the best interest of those that fall outside the social mainstream. Needless to say, if we learn anything from both the recent popularity of fascism in Latin America or the leftist experiments unable to overcome the temptations of corruption and the centralization of power, it is that the legacy of past and present colonization has left us with no other option but to unite, not under superficial identities and sing-alongs but under unapologetically egalitarian democratic values and the proposition of an entirely new political future for the hemisphere as a whole. A vision that has the humility and the courage to also look within and examine our own collective issues and histories with race relations, machismo, and the destructive nature of class inequality. Everything else, to me, is bs.

—Andrés Bernal

I joined the National Hispanic Institute in 1998 as a freshman in high school. I was pulled out of class, along with several of my peers, and was lead to the cafeteria for some sort of presentation. I was excited, as getting out of class was already the best possible outcome, so nothing bad could come of this meeting. And nothing bad did. In fact, I met Gloria de Leon that day [co-founder of the National Hispanic Institute], and she sold us on the NHI dream. And me, well, I like a little competition, and I’ve always been a sucker for thinking about policy. So I participated in the Great Debate, and then in LDZ [leadership training], and then I came back as a counselor, and eventually I worked my way into a staff position at NHI.

Throughout my time in NHI and in my time as a Latina, which is to say, in my sense of self inhabiting my body, I knew there were key differences between myself and some of my peers, especially in the Valley [Rio Grande Valley, South Texas].

I speak Spanish with a Mexico City accent, I vacationed every year in either Colombia or Mexico, my parents were country club members and business owners. Whenever conversations were had about Latinos in the US, the descriptions and the demographics never seemed to apply to my experience of Latinidad.

And this isn’t a sob story about how alienated I was from everyone because of my privilege. I promise. I made wonderful friends through NHI, people I’m still friends with today. I met kids from all over the world and from different financial and socio-economic spheres. So don’t get me wrong. But I understood that we did not all come from the same circumstances.

I remember being asked at a program once if I was Chicana. I understood the Chicano struggle to be about class rights and unions, something that really existed outside my knowledge-base or experience. I said no. But the person asking me then followed up, asking what type of Latina I was. I remember saying that my mom was Colombian and my dad Mexican, that was raised mostly in the United States, and that my favorite band was Guns N Roses.

I will tell you an anecdote now that I’ve told before, in both print and person, so I apologize, but tiny cultural traumas are like this, somethings stick with you and must be retold. At a literary party in New York, a woman asked me about my status in this country, as she knew I was foreign-born. When I told her I was a naturalized US citizen, she asked for my immigration story. I told her. My father owned part of a company in the US and was able to acquire a visa that way. Oh, she said, so how did you cross? On an airplane, I answered eventually, with visas that allowed my parents and I to live and work here legally. Oh, she said, I thought you were an immigrant-immigrant.

And I knew what she meant. Most Latinos I know have stories like this. Stories about people making assumptions. And yes, some people do fulfill this white woman’s fantasy of crossing the desert in the middle of the night, and yes, some people do not.

The US Latino experience is complicated. And the statistics only confuse the issue of identity.  We make less money than any other ethnic group in the country, except for African Americans. We come from over thirty countries of origin, but ten countries account for 92% of us, and one country accounts for about 65%. But those numbers are shifting.

Some of us don’t speak Spanish. At all. Algunos de nosotoros no hablamos ingles. O preferimos hablar en espanol. And hay some que invented su propia vaina and whatever.

Our culture reflects the diversity of our experiences. Sofia Vergara is a wealthy housewife in Modern Family. Eva Longoria was a wealthy housewife in Desperate Housewives. So I think that tells you everything you need to know about us. And, um, there’s also Jane the Virgin! I’m kidding. And yes, Latino representations in media are on the rise.

But only 5.8% of speaking roles in 2016 films and television went to Latinx actors, despite that facts that Latinx consumers account for 23% of ticket sales and viewership. So where are we? Are we hiding? 

Well, what we are is divided. Most Latinx¹ people in this country identified themselves by their national origin, in other words, my mom will say she is Colombian before she says she is a Latina. Most people will say they are Cuban, Uruguayan, Mexican, Puerto Rican. We don’t see ourselves as a united front. Issa Rae, from HBO’s Insecure, says she always roots for everybody black. That’s awesome. Why don’t we cheer or support each other the same way?²

But it’s not like we’re supporting people or culture from our country of origin either. After Guillermo del Toro won the Oscar for best director for the Shape of Water, Mexican Americans on social media expressed indifference at the win: most did not know who he was, and those that did, did not see him as an extension of Mexican American culture. “He has nothing to do with me, really. He’s not one of us. He’s Mexican.”

So we have an interesting situation here. We identify with our countries our origin, but we do not identify with those countries: which is to say, I am Mexican, but I am not Mexican-Mexican.

Ernesto Nieto [co-founder of the National Hispanic Institute] writes:

With all of the current political strife, including the wars of accusation and blame between the views of the left and right, there is one voice clearly missing — that of Latinos. Outside of [some exceptions], the political landscape of public commentary by Latinos is essentially quiet, even absent across the board.

All of this comes at a time when the legitimacy of our institutions is under attack, when the social order is being redefined, and when the tenets, virtues, and very meaning of democracy are under serious scrutiny. This is a time where we can’t afford to be timid at all, in anything. We especially can ill-afford for Latino and Latina leaders to be timid when it comes to advocating for the U.S. Latino community—this is a time for us to be fully engaged and to attempt to reshape an America that needs what we have to offer.  

But how do we advocate for a US Latinx community when we cannot define that term, outside of sharing a common history of colonization at the hands of the Spanish two hundred years ago? How do we account for the experiences of a Tejano whose family has always lived in Texas, who saw the borders change around him, with a new immigrant from El Salvador, with a third generation Dominican with a PhD living in Washington Heights with a poster of Taylor Swift’s cats on the wall?³

I think our biggest challenge as a community right now is defining ourselves and what it means to advocate for this community. Because otherwise, the rhetoric crumbles, and the rest of the sentences mean nothing. Who is the “we” that needs to be fully engaged? How can America need what “we” have to offer? Who is the U.S. Latino community? Who speaks for us?

Obviously it’s Jorge Ramos. But even he might be too Mexican-Mexican for his own good.

And maybe it’s helpful to have difficult conversations about the things that divide us: class and socio-economics. Sexuality, gender, #MeToo. Privilege. The fact that the grandchildren of the people that fought with Cesar Chavez spend way too much time on Tumblr now. And maybe their grandparent’s don’t understand what a meme is, or how it can connect you to something larger than yourself in a time when identity seems such a fractured thing and the world is falling apart—and sometimes it’s okay to be a kid who’s obsessed with the their phone as long as you can use that phone and those memes and that Tumblr to fight the good fight.

Because we’re being seen a bloc. A powerful, untapped voting bloc. One that has the potential to change elections. For both parties. Which leads to a question: does our power stem from our numbers, from our ability to act as one, or can it come from other sources?

And if we do act together, whose interests will be represented?

According to political scientist Anthony Arblaster, representative democracy isn’t a clear term—do you elect someone to represent your views (or the view of the majority of people that elected this person) or do you elect someone because you trust their own values. Is the elected official simply an extension of the group that put her in power, or is she trusted with her own opinions as an expert would be? We tend to favor the former these days, we want our politicians to be reflections of our culture.

And perhaps this is the problem of the contemporary Latinx politician: they are not entirely sure who they represent. US Latinos and African Americans make up the smallest amount of political financial donors on a nationwide level (this is also true in local elections in Texas and the southwestern US), so our politicians find themselves needing to get support from donors that expect a certain amount of loyalty as well. And if our politicians cannot represent us, both because we have no purse power and because our needs are too diverse, where does that leave us? Who is representing us?

Arblaster shows, though, that “direct” democracy—people governing themselves through participation in the process of decision making and policy making—has defined democracy historically. But in our country, we tend to elect representatives and then stop caring: our civic engagement has always been low, and without civic engagement we cannot hope for adequate represenation. And as long as we don’t actively participate, we cannot be a part of the conversation, we cannot achieve change.

And as much as the problem is in representation, I think the answer exists there too. I think it’s important that makers make: that artists create, writers write, and thinkers think. That our ideas achieve cultural representation. That space should exist for the Latino intellectual—for Latinx think tanks and policy centers. Why hasn’t someone created the Latinx version of the NAACP—who is suing on our behalf? One that includes all Latinos and has a platform in the National Discussion…⁴ How many NHI graduates are lawyers today? How many of them are connected to one another and working toward a larger Latinx Legal strategy!? One that includes us all.

And there’s a tension there too: between wanting to succeed as an individual in this country and the burden of representation—of knowing that your achievements are also seen as achievements for a community that does not necessarily support your pursuit. Except when they do. We’re complicated that way.

How many of us are actively supporting US-made Latinx music, television shows, films, books, authors? Or are we consuming culture imported from abroad? Because as much as Latin America distances itself from the US Latino, we are inevitably linked through culture and language, if not by blood. But in maintaining that connection, are we eschewing a new US Latino/a experience?

Why does that matter? Well, I would argue that understanding the diversity of our stories, and getting to tell those stories matters greatly. Because we can begin to create a common culture, and through that culture, we can create empathy for one another’s experiences. We can begin to share reference points and begin to forge bridges where none existed before.

It’s me, watching Real Women Have Curves with my mom and afterward having a tough conversation about body-shaming, about how values have changed and what was acceptable and tough love in her time is more toxic now.

And it’s my mom not completely understanding, but doing her best, and me teaching her to find videos that explain the concept better than I can on YouTube. And there’s something there—something that we’ve made: an understanding.

It’s not hard to see how these types of exchanges can lead to greater unity and to a discussion of platform, of shared values, of the places where culture topples political party affiliation. My dad likes to joke that he can change his vote, but he cannot change the z in his last name. What unites us should be greater than what divides us.

Because ultimately, no matter how we see ourselves, we are treated as a bloc. In resources allotted to our communities. In scholarships. In quotas. There’s a fight right now regarding the US Census—adding a question about citizenship will discourage the undocumented from being counted, which means less services, which means less resources for an already beleaguered community.

We are also treated like a bloc in the casual racism of others.

When a white man in Pittsburgh told me to “go back to my country,” he didn’t assume that my country was also his. And the assumptions framing that man’s point of view, regardless of whether or not it was true, unite us: let me be clear, that racist man would have shouted that to most Latinx people he met that day, regardless of accent, income, or country of origin.

We need to have tough discussions. About power. Privilege. Colorism. Racism. Our blackness, our Asianness, our indigenousness, our globalism. Sexism. Masculinity. Queerness. Trans issues. Ableism. Prison reform. And about the importance of embracing ourselves, Conservative and Liberal alike, because our battle is the same in many regards. Because as much as I want to say, “let’s cast off the net of identity politics, I also know that there is power in demographics and self-identification.” That checking “Hispanic” allows organizations I care about to get funding, allows social services to exist, allows communities to thrive. But I also want to complicate what “Hispanic” can mean, while weaponizing everything the monolith has to offer.

How can we create a common culture, if not through the kind of leadership fostered at NHI. Which is great, and the experiment is slowly working: Latinos are in more leadership positions than ever before. But maybe our focus should shift slightly, maybe we should be talking about the Latinx agenda, the things that help foster community as well as leadership. It’s fine to create leaders, but leadership without an agenda can lead to fracture. Democracy has always been about the acropolis, the citadel where thinking happens—thus I propose we find a space, our zocalo, and begin to talk.

And so, my giant speech about demographics and democracy comes down to opening our arms to one another. To connecting the Bracero experience with the punk rock Ivy Leaguer and finding common ground. Jorge Ramos will only be around so long. And when we find those connections, those values that define us and bring us together, we need to define our platform, we need to think about how to use the power that comes from our numbers for good. Right now, we’re just a bloc of potential, one that has yet to be fulfilled. Just raw possibility.

And to quote the highly quotable and extremely awesome Judith Butler, possibility is everything.

I close with this: who is dreaming up the US Latinx version of BET? Seriously. Not Univision, which is in Spanish, or Telemundo or whatever. What is the channel for that fifth generation Peruvian-Jewish-Mexican-Cuban kid who just wants to hear Selena Gomez and Cardi B songs? Who is rooting for everyone Latino?

And maybe the answer is in digital space. The internet acropolis. Or maybe it’s slowly invading every aspect of pop culture until we’re so ubiquitous that Modelo doesn’t have to make a commercial about the three NFL players with “z”s in their last name. And we’ll write books and make art, we’ll lawyer and doctor, and slowly, over time, one of two things will happen:  assimilation will do its thing, and we’ll come together once a year to celebrate the Battle of Puebla, like all white people do. Or we will craft a new culture, one for our children and their children, one that establishes a global Latinidad, one that creates a dangerous bloc with dangerous power.

That’s what’s at stake. That we lose the intangible Latinx part of US Latinx and instead of creating a beautiful new culture, we simply get absorbed by, or ignored by, or forgotten by our country.

Or we become something new, something that’s part old, part revolution, part movement, and focused on our future.

While we still can, we should come together and speak with one voice… it would be something, wouldn’t it? We’d just have to figure out what to say.

 

—

[image of Jorge Ramos brazenly stolen from NY Mag]

1. In fact, there is great contention over this term, with most folks preferring Latino/a. Even those that prefer Latinx disagree on how to pronounce it
2. See the lack of Mexican-American support for victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
3. I obviously know this person.
4. I’m looking at you Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. And PRLDEF.