What do Latinos think about football?

It was a throwaway quote in a story published by the Reuters newswire about how the National Football League is trying to reach out to the growing Latino population as it tries to ensure that it does not become a sporting relic left over from the late 20th Century.

Richard Ettenson, an expert in marketing and brand strategy at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, said he thinks the nature of the game as it has developed from the “rah, rah” nature of collegiate sports to something almost like professional wrestling’s tacky showbiz qualities will not make it a natural for Latinos.

OR, AS ETTENSON told the wire service, “football is probably going to be the toughest sell for the Hispanic market.”

Now I’m not sure why he thinks that. The story didn’t let him elaborate.

But as one who has not ever thought much of the U.S.-created game that has come to be called football (unlike the real futbol, the game played with a ball kicked around by feet), it is not a radical thought.

I can’t help but think that many Latinos coming of age in 21st Century America (as opposed to those from families that have been here a few generations) will see the game played by a batch of steroid cases who wear a lot of padding to bulk up their physical frames even more as somehow competing for attention with soccer, a game that is played by actual human beings.

SERIOUSLY, ONE CAN watch a soccer match and see the physical skill and grace of people who are not all covered in helmets and shoulder pads. By comparison, so-called football often looks like a shoving- and grunting match that keeps starting and stopping, with so many breaks in the action that it is like nothing happens.

While some would say baseball suffers from the same starts and stops in the action, that is a game that also has the appearance of being played by regular people. It also is a game that is played professionally in many of the home countries of Latin America.

So a Latino coming to the United States can see something similar in baseball, especially with the huge share of Latin Americans and Latinos who play these days in the major leagues (about two of every five, to be exact).

Football is the game where the tickets usually wind up in the hands of season ticket holders, which means there are many hard-core football fans in this country who have never in their lives been to an NFL game. Football is purely a television spectacle.

WHEN IT COMES to the growing Latino population, I could see where the newcomer portion flips around the television set, stumbles across a game, and sees so many time-outs that it appears dull.

Some of us listen to that old comedy sketch by George Carlin that “argues” for the superiority of football over baseball, and we wonder, “What kind of drugs is he taking?”

What better reason to change the channel from football. Perhaps one can find a scantily clad weathergirl to tell you how sunny and warm it will be mañana (which probably means it will rain)?

The only thing that really shocks me is that an academic would think football would be the “toughest sell” of U.S. sports. I would have thought the National Hockey League would have qualified. It’s not like there are many ice rinks in Puerto Rico for young people to develop an interest in the game.

NOW AS I wrote earlier in this commentary, I’m not really a football fan.

I doubt I’ll bother to watch the Super Bowl, as I only have a slight interest in the actual game to see if the Cardinals can win their first championship since 1947 – when they literally were the football team of choice for people who identified with the South Side of Chicago. But it’s not that serious.

And I’m definitely one of those people who thinks that watching the “game” to see all the commercials is just stupid.

In fact, to the degree that I’m paying attention to sports these days, it is to see how the world of international baseball is doing.

THE CARIBBEAN SERIES, which involves the champions of professional leagues in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico competing for bragging rights as the best baseball team in Latin America, begins Monday and runs for seven days.

This year’s series takes on a special character because it is being hosted by Mexico, which has chosen to play the games in a stadium in Mexicali, which literally puts a classic sports tournament on the U.S./Mexico border.

Literally, many of the people who will converge on the tournament from across Latin America will wind up having to stay in nearby Calimex, Calif. As in, within the limits of the continental United States.

So while the NFL has compiled statistics indicating that 25 million Latinos follow football, and that about 7.5 million Latinos bothered to watch last year’s Super Bowl, it shouldn’t be too much of a shock that I won’t be the only one not watching the game.

SOME OF US may be more interested in beisbol or even basketball, while others may want to spend time with family.

And while your lazy butts may be parked in a couch in front of a television on Sunday, some Latinos may very well have to work.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: There will be Spanish-language dubs of broadcasts of the Super Bowl (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8333921) on Sunday. Meanwhile, the NFL (http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSTRE50S61220090129) has statistics meant to show Latinos are a potential audience for football in the 21st Century.

Be forewarned that looking for information about this year’s Caribbean Series will trigger (http://www.seriedelcaribe2009.net/english/index.html) a recording of “Mexicali Rose,” as performed by Gene Autry in the 1939 film of the same name.

GOP needs to figure out how to reach Latinos despite themselves

There are times when the political observer in me feels sorry for the Republican Party.

Several of its most prominent members “get it” when it comes to the growing Latino population. The GOP’s leaders admit that unless they can take a good-sized chunk of that portion of the electorate, they’re going to lose national elections.

YET WHEN IT comes to reaching out to Latinos, they’re handcuffed. Because the fact is that a portion of the Republican Party faithful are aligned with the GOP because THEY LIKE the idea of being in the party that is hostile to “those damned foreigners.”

And because that portion is among the most loyal of the overall Republican base, they can’t just be ignored.

There are times I wonder if the Republicans will ever win a national election of significance again. That is, until I look at some of the numbskulls who are among Democratic Party leadership and realize that the jackass probably has a right to be offended that it became the symbol of that particular party.

Take a couple of actions in Washington earlier this week.

THE HOUSE OF Representatives voted along partisan lines to support the stimulus package meant by President Barack Obama to give the U.S. economy a jolt from its doldrums of recent months.

Despite Obama’s efforts to gain GOP support, no Republican congressmembers voted to support the $825 billion plan.

And some of those members of Congress made it clear they see the stimulus package as part of a plot to legitimize people who are in this country without a current visa.

They literally are creating the image of those dreaded illegal aliens cashing larger government checks and pocketing just enough to live in dreadful conditions – while wiring the bulk of the bucks back to relatives in Mexico or some other Latin American country.

SUCH RHETORIC GETS praise from people such as radio nitwit Rush Limbaugh (whom Obama himself blamed earlier this week for getting the GOP members of Congress aligned against him).

But it makes people of any sense realize that the Republican Party seems determined to be irrelevant to the growing Latino population, even those whose Catholic-influenced social beliefs would appear to be a natural for the GOP.

The reason so many Latinos are willing to regard immigration activity as significant is because we realize some of these people can’t (or don’t want to) tell the difference between someone of a Latin American ethnic background who was born in the United States, and one who was born elsewhere but obtained a visa, or one who realized the visa was never going to come because of government bureaucratic messes and took advantage of their homeland’s proximity to the United States.

We see the hostile treatment given to one as a blow to all of us, and we’re more likely to side with someone who doesn’t perceive our existence as a problem for this country to overcome.

SO 88 PERCENT of Latinos consider immigration an important issue (or so says the Pew Hispanic Center)? I’m only surprised it wasn’t closer to 100 percent.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., comes off as the “voice of reason” when he told reporter-types in Washington, “it is about time the Republicans got a different piece of reading material and get off this illegal immigrant stuff. This bill has nothing to do with anything illegal as far as immigration.”

It will be curious to see if any Republicans were to listen.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is now saying he wishes he could have reached out to the Latino voters more. He got only 31 percent of that voter bloc because his presidential campaign last year was obsessed with gaining the support of the Republican base, many of whom were wary of him for previously supporting immigration reforms that did not emphasize deportation to their satisfaction.

WHEN HE SIDED with those people, many Latinos wrote him off – even though he once was the leading Republican supporter for a measure by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to impose significant reforms in the federal immigration laws.

The Hill newspaper, which covers Congress for political geeks who want to believe that nothing else matters, reported that McCain is telling Republicans privately that they have to change their attitude toward Latinos if they want to remain relevant in the 21st Century – where the Latino population is expected to reach about one-third of the United States by the year 2050.

It definitely appears as though Latino populations in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico helped sway those states from choosing Republican Electoral College members to picking Democratic ones.

That, in and of itself, is enough to get Obama the Electoral College victory over McCain. And it could be what keeps the one-time Party of Lincoln (which prefers these days to think of itself as the Party of Reagan) in the minority for some time to come.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Those people who see the economic stimulus package as a way to put (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/29/limbaughs-talk-crack-gop-whip-stimulus/) federal cash into the hands of non-citizens remind me of those people who used to think that Tinky-Winky (of the Teletubbies) was gay.

Can John McCain persuade his political colleagues to lighten up on their rhetoric that makes (http://thehill.com/leading-the-new/a-familiar-mccain-back-on-old-stomping-ground-2009-01-07_2.html) many Latinos feel uncomfortable at the thought of associating with Republicans?

Activists to pressure Obama not to forget immigration

If one reads his books, President Barack Obama expresses an understanding of how much immigrants, particularly Latinos, enhance the culture of this country.

If one paid attention to the campaign activity, you heard Obama talk of the need to reform the nation’s immigration laws in ways not hostile to the newcomers.

AND LISTENING TO (or reading the transcript of) Obama’s Inaugural address, one picks up on a tone that is hostile to the xenophobes of this country.

But none of that has eased the concerns of some Latino activists, and those of non-Anglo people in general, that Obama is going to allow the economic troubles facing this country to be his excuse for doing nothing to help revamp the immigration laws in any meaningful way.

There are those activists who literally found his choice of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff as evidence he would do little, since Emanuel in his political past has always preferred to avoid dealing with immigration – arguing that immigrants benefit from Democrats because they squash the harmful measures touted by many conservative Republicans.

They also note the fact that Obama, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, sided with the political dream of conservatives to erect a physical barrier along several hundred miles of the U.S./Mexico border. His vote was defended as being a political maneuver to prevent those same conservatives from denouncing him publicly on the issue during future campaigns.

WITH THAT AS the situation as Obama enters his second week as U.S. president, there is at least one activist group determined to put pressure on him to ensure that he acts – and the sooner, the better.

Calling themselves “Respect/Respeto,” the group is affiliated with the Phoenix-based Golden Door Foundation has a bilingual website (English y Español) that has a running clock of how deep we are into the Obama Administration without an immigration reform proposal being proposed.

While it is not realistic to expect an immigration reform proposal to be introduced only eight days into Obama’s first term in office (which is where the clock was on Wednesday), the group says it seriously wants something to be offered up within the first 100 days – that mythical time period by which all presidencies allegedly set the tone for their entire time in office.

The group’s executive director, Lydia Guzman, said she thinks it is totally appropriate for Latinos to expect some respect from Obama, since the Latino voter bloc provided solid support for Obama during his campaign against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“THE HISPANIC VOTE was significant to President Obama’s victory,” Guzman said, in a prepared statement. “Immigration reform needs to be a priority in Obama’s first 100 days.”

The group contends that the stimulus package desired by Obama to give the economy a jolt is just as good a place as any to do something about immigration, since many of the newcomers to this country come here because of a desire to work.

Jobs and immigration are two issues that are intertwined.

The group also believes that the increases in the number of Democrats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate give Obama enough supporters (in theory) to support immigration reform.

THEY EVEN SEEM to have some belief that McCain will revert back to his old way of thinking about immigration and work to get some Republican support for immigration reform that does not focus solely on increasing the number of deportations from the United States.

Let’s not forget that during the campaign, McCain promised Republican loyalists that he would not continue to push for immigration reform favorable to the U.S. newcomers. That is what cost him any chance of getting a significant share of the Latino voter bloc.

That is the key to remember. Many Latinos voted against the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. It is going to take some concrete action on the part of Obama to convince this growing chunk of the U.S. electorate that it did not waste its vote in ’08 similar to how Latinos who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 now regret that act.

So to that end, the actions of activists such as Respect/Respeto are understandable. If it reminds Obama and his close allies that they’re going to have to take some sort of action with regards to serious immigration reform, then it is a good thing.

BUT I’M NOT going to get too hung up on watching the clock.

As long as we get some sense of direction by year’s end where an Obama administration is headed on this issue, we will be well off. Getting worked up whether it happens on Day 31 or Day 102 is letting the trivial aspects outweigh the seriousness of the issue.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out the clock, if you wish (http://www.respectrespeto.org/es/), and sign up for the Respect/Respeto cause, if you wish to be inundated with e-mails.

Are we getting conflicting images about milk?

The day we get Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz on a "Got Milk?" ad is the day I will be impressed.

On the one hand, it is encouraging to see a Latina being used as part of the “Got Milk?” advertising campaign – the one that shows so-called celebrities with “milk” mustaches painted on their upper lips, as though they are regular milk drinkers.

The dairy industry, which helps support the Milk Processors’ Education Program advertising campaign, wants to sell gallons of milk (or should I say liters of leche?) to Latinos. So their latest print ads are in Spanish, and feature Dayanara Torres – the former Miss Universe from Puerto Rico who turned her looks into parts in assorted films and television soap operas.

WHILE I WOULD normally be pleased to see a business interest realize that Latinos are a large market that can result in increased corporate profits, I have to wonder about this particular image because of the product being sold.

Because for years, there have been interests that peddle the concept that Latinos have something about our genetic makeup that makes it more likely for us to be lactose intolerant than the general population of this country.

I have seen figures ranging from 51 percent to 75 percent of Latinos having the condition that makes it difficult for us to process the sugars in milk or other dairy products properly.

Although I personally enjoy a morning breakfast of corn flakes with milk and a cup of coffee (straight, no cream or sugar), I know some Latinos who will insist that we should avoid dairy products altogether – although there are alternatives to conventional dairy products that do not cause the nausea, diarrhea, bloating or other complications that some of us can suffer.

SO HAS SOMEONE been lying to us about dairy being bad for many of our ethnic brethren? Or is this just a chance to put a hot girl in an evening gown in a full-color ad to sell us a product, regardless of what consequences it may have on our collective public health?

Like I said before, I enjoy my dairy (even though I am fully aware of the activist types who will claim I am immoral for drinking a cow’s milk, since I wouldn’t drink another human being’s natural milk). A part of me sympathizes with people who cannot have such products without creating potential health hazards.

But the new ad campaign has Dayanara tell us (or has a copywriter putting those words into her mouth) that milk is a natural beverage with nutrients, and is certainly better for people than manufactured “new-age” beverages.

“It’s only logical to think of milk as a wellness drink because it’s one of the most nutrient-packed beverages you can buy,” said SuNui Escobar, a nutritionist hired by the dairy industry types who presented Dayanara’s take on the “Got Milk?” ad campaign earlier this week.

I SHOULD NOT be too harsh on the ad campaign. After all, it is mostly a cutesy gimmick, one that has been used to give over 250 different “celebrities” their chance to appear to be “regular” people just by pretending to be regular milk drinkers.

And at least someone recognizes that Latino faces can help sell products.

I just wonder how many non-Latinos will recognize Dayanara as the original Mrs. Marc Anthony? If one listens to the latest Hollywood gossip, the second Mrs. Anthony could soon break free from him as well.

Then, perhaps we could someday get the Jennifer Lopez version of a “Got Milk?” ad. That one would probably sell dairy products beyond the Latino population.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out for yourself where your particular ethnic group falls in the likelihood of suffering (http://milk.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=661) from lactose intolerance.

Mexico to tour U.S. in exhibition matches

For those people who want to believe that soccer is some sort of “foreign” game, I can’t help but notice that something as “all-American” as McDonald’s is sponsoring the sport.

Specifically, McDonald’s is working to provide financial support for the national team of Mexico, which plans to play five matches in the United States in addition to their official match Feb. 11 against the U.S. national team.

THE U.S./MEXICO matchup to be held in Columbus, Ohio, along with a followup match to be played during the summer at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, exist as part of the qualifying matches for national teams to earn a spot in the World Cup tourney to be held next year in South Africa.

These other matches are “friendlies” (the equivalent of spring-training baseball or pre-season football) meant to help boost the sport.

They are meant to give soccer fans in this country a chance to see the sport played live at an elite level.

Hence, Mexico will take on Sweden at the McAfee Coliseum in Oakland on Wednesday.

OTHER MATCHES TO be played by Equipo Mexico in the United States include March 11 in Denver, June 24 in San Diego, July 8 in Atlanta and Sept. 23 in Dallas. It has yet to be determined exactly who team Mexico will play in those matches.

Knowing that the Mexico national team will be touring the United States kind of cracks me up, on account of the fact that the United States and Mexico national teams have developed into an athletic rivalry that matches up in intensity to the most vicious soccer rivalries of Europe or South America.

So the idea that Team Mexico will be helping to promote the sport in this country is ironic, if not quite sad.

One would think that the U.S. national team should be the one playing in matches against other elite soccer-playing countries to help promote the sport in their home country.

INSTEAD, THE GROWING Latino population of this country creates an environment where Team Mexico becomes a bigger draw than Team U.S.A. in large cities across the nation, which also is the reason why any direct match-ups between the two countries take place in cities such as Columbus (a total Latino population of less than 2 percent, according to the most recent Census Bureau report).

Yet a company such as McDonald’s is still willing to get financially involved with the sport.

I find that to be a positive because I don’t believe McDonald’s would get involved with soccer out of some altruistic concept of increased global awareness or promotion of athletics.

They are getting involved because they see a chance to make money.

BY PROMOTING THEMSELVES as a supporter of the Mexican national team, they will gain visibility among all the Mexican-Americans (and other Latinos who are willing to look favorably upon any Latin American squad) of this country who might be inclined to eat a Big Mac or have one of their salads when they get hungry.

And it’s not like this is a first-time experiment. This is the fifth time McDonald’s has helped sponsor the Mexico national team’s U.S. exhibition tour, which will include pre-game youth soccer clinics and a player escort program meant to promote the individual players as celebrity athletes.

Obviously, there is a sizable number of soccer fanatics in this country who will follow the so-called archrival’s national team.

What would be interesting is if the heavy presence of Equipo Mexico were to somehow rile up the U.S. national team.

IT ALMOST STRIKES me as being the equivalent of the New York Yankees going on an exhibition tour throughout New England, where the rival Boston Red Sox reign supreme.

If the many matches of Team Mexico were to somehow get the U.S. team to think it has to do more to capture the imagination of the U.S. soccer fanatic (instead of appealing solely to suburban America, as it currently does), it might even provoke the U.S. national team to play better.

And better, more competitive play is ultimately what it will take for Team U.S.A. to seriously contend for a World Cup championship.

That, ultimately, is what I think it will take for a U.S. soccer team to capture the imagination of its homeland. As sad as it may sound, many sports fans in this country will not accept soccer until something happens that they can claim proves “U.S.A. rules, rest of world drools.”

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Nashville rejects English-only, Good Riddance

Nashville, Tenn., the so-called capital city of country music, is one of the last places in this country I would have thought would be hostile to a measure favored by those of our society who perceive immigration as a foreign-horde that threatens to take over.

Yet it was in Nashville last week that local voters rejected the chance to approve a measure that would have made them the darlings of the social conservative set – English-only.

VOTERS IN TENNESSEE’S second-most significant city (let’s be honest, it ranks behind Memphis) rejected a measure that would have forbade the city government from engaging in anything resembling bilingualism when it came to government business.

No offering of documents in any language other than English.

No interpreters on hand in the local courts.

No encouragement of any use of any language other than English (and it had better be spoken with a drawl, to appease the kind of people who usually push for such ridiculous measures).

BASICALLY, “NO” TO anything if it doesn’t try to state the superiority of the English language – even though most people on this planet speak a language other than English, and common-sense indicates that people who can handle more than one language are at an advantage over the rest of us (personally, I wish my Spanish comprehension were better than it is).

An analysis of the vote in last week’s election by the Tennessean newspaper of Nashville found that the downtown inner-city core provided the bulk of the vote against the English-only measure. The further out that voters lived from downtown Nashville, the more likely they were to prefer the thought of officially forbidding people to use any language other than English.

The newspaper also found that African-American voters were more likely to be hostile to the English-only measure than other people in the Greater Nashville area.

What it really comes down to is that people who are inclined to think of themselves as Democrats (such as all those black voters) are more likely to see how silly all the rhetoric is about requiring use of a single language, or thinking that it would take such measures to encourage people to learn to speak English.

FOR THE FACT is that a great many newcomers to this country are learning the language, even if in the first generation, there are family members who will always feel more comfortable speaking (or thinking) in their original tongue.

I still remember the figures offered up from the last Census when it came to Latinos (and let’s face it, many of the people who get bent out of shape over forcing people to speak English do so because they have this image of “all those Mexicans still speaking Spanish”) and what language they really spoke.

It was roughly four of every 10 Latinos spoke only English, while three more were totally fluent in both English and Spanish. Of the rest, only one-half of 1 person who identified themselves as “Latino” were truly in the category that the nativists think all immigrants are in – “no habla Ingles.”

Perhaps it’s also because newcomers to this country truly are settling in all parts of the United States, and not just ethnic ghettos of select East Coast or Southwest U.S. cities.

TAKE NASHVILLE.

That same Census report that showed many Latinos being capable of speaking English (9.5 out of every 10) also had 10.4 percent of Nashville’s population being “foreign-born” and 13.3 percent speaking a language other than English within their homes.

And it’s not all Spanish-speaking. Only 7.3 percent of Nashville’s population identified itself as Latino, with another 3.1 percent calling itself Asian.

So perhaps it is this growing ethnic population of Nashville, along with a sizable African-American population (28.3 percent, at the last taking of the Census) that combined with logically minded Anglos to see that living in the 21st Century is going to require a mindset that tries to understand other parts of the world.

ON A SIDE note, it’s nice to see evidence that African-American voters are not automatically going to side against other ethnicities the way that some Republican officials would like to dream they will do.

There is the argument that was made by opponents of Nashville’s English-only movement that noted the federal government already has bilingual requirements, and that changing to an English-only system for Nashville would make the city incompatible with the Washington-types – which would create more expense for the city in the long run.

Knowing that a majority of the voting public in a place that once would have taken pride in living up to an intolerant stereotype can get with the program and do the right thing provides a moment that makes me encouraged for this country’s future.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: In six electoral districts of Nashville, at least 75 percent of voters cast ballots (http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090125/NEWS0202/901250401) AGAINST an “English-only” measure.

Immigration, border culture gives us songs to go with comics

I remember how ridiculous the image was when it came out a couple of years ago that Mexico’s government published a special series of comic books about characters who tried to cross the U.S./Mexico border without a visa, using the animated form to try to warn its citizens of the dangers of trying to slip through the Arizona desert into the United States.

But in recent weeks, the U.S. government (in the form of the Border Patrol) seems determined to show it can be just as absurd.

THEY HAVE COMMISSIONED the creation of songs meant to discourage people from trying to cross the border at anywhere other than an official checkpoint with a visa. And they’re trying to create the image that these songs come from the Mexican tradition, rather than the mind of some public relations bureaucrat in Washington.

They’re calling them “migracorridos” (literally, “migration songs,” but it’s actually a play on the derisive nickname used by many Latinos for the agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency”, and they are sung in Spanish in the same sentiment as the old folk songs of the border region and the more contemporary “narcocorridos,” by which drug dealers attempt to glorify their accomplishments.

In the minds of the Border Patrol officials who came up with this wacky idea, they want Mexicans to think that some Mexican equivalent to Woody Guthrie came up with an old traditional folk song to warn people to stay out of the United States.

But let’s be honest.

IF THESE WERE really what they purport to be, the songs would probably go out of the way to provide the best route for people to evade Border Patrol agents to get into California, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas (in short, the areas of the United States that used to be a part of Mexico). No amount of music from the Border Patrol will keep people from trying to get from the right side of this photograph to the left. Photograph provided by U.S. Border Patrol.

We’d most likely have a Spanish-language version of “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” the old Negro spiritual that purportedly provides a route for black people from the slave-holding South to freedom in the North.

And yeah, I know the claims of some scholars that the lyrics of the song provide a route so vague that it offers no such path to freedom for slaves. How much can you really say in a song?

It is more about seeking freedom and encouraging the thought of a better life.

SO AS LONG as the perception among Mexicans and other residents of Latin American countries is that a better life can be found by risking their life and limb to get to the north side of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande, people will continue to try to come to this country.

No song will change that, no matter how smartly it is produced or how well it is distributed by U.S. officials to radio stations in the five northernmost states of Mexico.

If anything, I now expect there to be a trend of parody songs written and produced in Mexico that mock the Border Patrol’s “migracorridos.” Perhaps someone will try to give an overly rosy view of life along the paths that people put their lives at risk in order to have a chance to get into the United States, all because the current immigration laws do not take the reality of the situation at hand and are designed to try to keep certain types of people out.

The gist of most of these songs (I’m not offering translations because the lyrics really lose their beauty when altered into English) is that the deserts that make up much of the nearly 1,900 miles of territory comprising the U.S./Mexico border are a risky place to be.

WITH THE EXCESSIVE heat during the day that can drop to shivering cold at night and a lack of water, people can die. Gee, what a revelation.

That is the big reason I have always thought the idea of erecting a wall along the U.S./Mexico border was a waste of federal funds, and why it is totally logical not to need more than 700 miles of fence to cover 1,900 miles of land.

The region is a difficult one to be in for any length of time. If it weren’t, there would be more population in the Southwestern U.S. than just Phoenix and a few dinky towns with names such as Truth or Consequences.

In light of that reality, the idea of the No Mas Cruces en la Frontera (No more crossings in the border) campaign turning to song to scare people away from the border comes of as just a tad trivial.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The idea of Immigration officials coming up with songs to deter people (http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/37691149.html) from wanting to come to the United States almost sounds like a bad comedy sketch.

Will Chavez replace Castro as Latin America’s leading loon in print?

When Fidel Castro recently took a break from writing politically charged columns for the official Communist Party newspaper, Granma, it sparked claims that Fidel’s health is deteriorating to the point where he might soon depart this Earth.

While the Miami Cubano community prepared to celebrate, his brother, Raul, felt compelled to talk down such allegations of an ill Fidel.

BUT IN THE end, it really doesn’t matter much whether Fidel Castro (the long-time leader of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 whose very existence infuriates much of Miami) ever resumes his role as a commentator in print.

Because it turns out there is another U.S.-bashing Latin American leader willing to fill that role – Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

He plans to start writing commentaries to be called “Chavez’ Lines,” that will be published in various newspapers across Venezuela (at least if those publishers know what’s good for them, they will be printed).

So now, the people who are determined to find wacky commentary from Latin America will have another person to check out. Because that is what became of the Castro commentaries published in Granma, which have a potential readership larger that the island of Cuba.

GRANMA’S WEBSITE OFFERS the content in about a half-dozen languages, including English. Meaning that just about anybody can go look up the copy from the newspaper loaded with Communist propaganda to read Fidel’s first-hand thoughts about Yankee Imperialism and the threat to world safety posed by the United States.

Much of it is laughable, to the point of being blatantly absurd.

The idea that people tried to make a campaign issue out of Castro columns during 2008 because he admitting to having some interest in the presidential campaign of Barack Obama (while also saying that Obama himself was a product of the same Yankee imperialists who produced other recent U.S. presidents) got to be a little over the top.

Are we now going to have top-ranking people at the State Department going out of their way to clip the Venezuela newspapers to see what rant Chavez is engaging in against the United States? For the record, Chavez has said Obama suffers from the “same stench” as now-former President George W. Bush.

IF THEY’RE ANYTHING anywhere near as bad as Castro’s columns, I feel sorry for that State Department official. Because overly politicized prose is agonizing to read. That is what such a column is going to consist of – the poorly written thoughts of a world leader who wants to ram them down the throats of the public.

That is the difference between a place like the United States and other countries when it comes to a concept of freedom of the press. We’re not forced to read what our “fearless leader” thinks about anything.

Now I realize there are the weekend radio addresses done by presidents – giving the chief executive a chance to say a few words about a subject. But nobody is forced to listen to them, or pay them any mind.

In fact, most people in this country only know of the addresses if they happen to watch a Saturday newscast, where a news director was so desperate for copy that he felt compelled to acknowledge the presidential address.

THE LAST THING I would ever want is for Barack Obama to have his own newspaper column, by which his presidency would officially inform us what we are supposed to think about an issue.

It doesn’t matter that Obama himself seems to have some ability to organize his thoughts on paper. He might be capable of writing an interesting column someday. But I don’t want to have to read them now while he’s president.

As the so-called “Leader of the Free World,” he has enough other forums by which to express his thoughts.

You’d think that a Chavez would have similar opportunities that he wouldn’t feel compelled to strong-arm the press in his country to publish his columns. Perhaps he feels that insecure about his status that he now feels the need to put into print what he thinks so as to give it some validation.

THERE IS JUST one encouraging thought about the idea of Hugo Chavez as a newspaper pundit – newspapers themselves are so temporary in nature.

Somebody buys the paper, reads the couple of bits that interest them (how many Venezuelans are more interested in the latest rant of Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen than anything Chavez has to say?), then it goes into the birdcage as lining.

The thought that some bird in Venezuela will administer a proper editorial comment by pooping on Chavez’ thoughts in print somehow seems all too appropriate.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: He started by writing about baseball, but Hugo Chavez is bound to engage in anti-U.S. rants (http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2009/01/21/2009-01-21_hugo_chavez_to_start_writing_newspaper_c.html) in his new newspaper column before long.

Here’s hoping that Chavez columns rise (http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1861760_1862221,00.html) above this level.

Latinos can be a population for business growth

On a day when I read news accounts of Circuit City deciding to close off what remains of their electronics retail stores and Filene’s Basement electing to shut down a couple dozen stores across the country, it was encouraging to see at least one business that sees expansion as the way to go these days.

And when one considers that the business in question, Pizza Patrón, is one that caters to the growing Latino population of this country, it is particularly gratifying to see that they want to double the number of stores they have in this country by year’s end.

NOW MANY OF you may not be familiar with Pizza Patrón. Personally, I have never eaten their food, as they don’t exist in my home part of the United States. It is a Texas-based company whose purpose is to put pizza delivery franchises similar to Domino’s Pizza in markets and neighborhoods where the locals “habla en Español.”

Currently, the company has 90 stores scattered in six southwestern U.S. states, and has agreements to open up stores in four more states. They hope to double the number of stores by the end of 2009.

It is just a nice bit of evidence of the reality that the growing Latino population is one that can make money off of, if it is treated with respect and as a legitimate market – rather than the source of problems that confront our society.

It’s not like they even try to put a “Latino” influence on pizza (although they offer side dishes such as “QuesoStix” and “ChurroStix” – based on the long, thin Mexican pastry).

BUT IT IS just a simple acknowledgement that Latinos who have arrived in the United States truly are working toward assimilation into the greater society of this country. And that means we eat pizza just like a lot of other people in the United States.

If anything, pizza is probably more “American” than it is “Italian.”

But a lot of the major chains have their economic formulas that enable them to determine where they should locate their stores, and when they should consider moving into a particular neighborhood.

Those formulas usually demand a certain economic level among the local residents before a market is considered worthwhile. And that, all too often, means that places like Domino’s wind up heavily in Anglo-oriented neighborhoods.

NOT THAT I think it’s much of a punishment not to have a Domino’s pizza in the neighborhood. I haven’t eaten the stuff since college some two decades ago, and that particular chain’s take on a pizza pie is one of those things from my youth that I refuse to do any longer.

I know better.

But should people in some of the Latino neighborhoods have to go to great lengths to get a pizza, if by chance they don’t live in an area where a somewhat authentic restaurant with Italian food happens to be located?

In such places, Pizza Patrón serves a niche, making it possible for Latinos with a hankering for a pepperoni and mushroom pizza to get their quick fix.

THE FACT THAT the company markets itself as being Latino-friendly merely means that they appreciate the fact that cash in the hands of Latinos is just as valued as it is in anyone else’s hands.

It is also going to create a perception among some people that they’d prefer to spend their money at a friendly business.

How friendly are they?

Take into account the last time that Pizza Patrón got national attention, when the corporate management had their franchises near the U.S./Mexico border start accepting Mexican pesos as payment for pizzas.

THE THEORY WAS that people in that region of the United States might very well have small amounts of both U.S. and Mexican currency in their possession, and they were willing to go through the hassle of converting pesos to dollars, if it meant they could charge some money to sell more pizzas.

The nativists of our society got all offended at that concept, but it did generate them some more business.

It could turn out that more businesses are going to have to adopt a similar attitude, considering the rate at which the portion of the U.S. population with ethnic roots in Latin America is growing.

At 15 percent now (roughly 1 in 6 is Latino), it is expected to grow to about 1 in 3 by 2050. What will complicate the factor is that the Latino ethnic groups will intermix with other ethnicities in this country, which means that even many people who prefer to think of themselves as “white/Anglo/Caucasian/whatever” will have to concede some Latino ethnicity in them.

SO WHILE I’M not all that anxious to eat a ChurroStik, I must admit to respecting the concept of a Latino-influenced pizzeria.

After all, isn’t it more pleasing for the economy to learn of more franchise pizza joints, rather than hearing of fewer stores where the annual “Running of the Brides” bridal gown sale will take place in future years?

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Is a Mexico collapse wishful thinking by people who want to militarize the border?

Is the situation in Mexico really as far gone as the one in Pakistan?

That is the perception that supporters of a new military study want us to have. In the case of Pakistan, the “enemy” is Muslim extremists with an absurd view of what Islam is about who resent Western aid to their “neighbor” nation of India.

BUT IN THE case of Mexico, the “enemy” that could result in the collapse of the country is narcotics.

Specifically, those drug dealers who have made the towns on the Mexico side of the U.S./Mexico border a dangerous place to be, as the dealers have shown a willingness to use violence to force government officials into submission.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command issues a study every year meant to predict which international conflicts have the best chance of breaking out into war during the upcoming year, and what affect such a war would have on the United States.

This year’s report (which actually was published in the final days of 2008) suggests that Pakistan and Mexico could both face a “rapid and sudden collapse.”

IN PAKISTAN, THERE already is the sense that they could break out into a war with India that could wind up dragging other nations of the world into a massive conflict. The idea that things could get significantly worse in the two nations that both have nuclear weapons is totally believable.

But Mexico?

Has it really gotten so bad that the border problems could take down the entire country?

Or is this just wishful thinking on the part of people with a thought process that is ideologically inclined to think of Mexico and the rest of Latin America as some sort of enemy that needs to be ‘dealt with.’

NEWS ACCOUNTS INDICATE the report provides fewer than 150 words to the Mexican situation. But it manages to pack a punch in those few sentences.

“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels,” the report reads.

“How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state,” the report reads. “Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”

Now I know some people want to believe such rhetoric, fearing that problems in Ciudad Juarez will spill over into El Paso, then go further up into Texas and into the United States.

BUT I GET skeptical when military people want to start talking about homeland security and the border. Because it always comes off as sounding like someone wants to militarize the region, which was never really meant to be split into two parts by the presence of the Rio Grande.

And I’m sure such thoughts are popular with a segment of the locals. I noticed an El Paso Times newspaper survey on their website where 63 percent of those questioned said they expect Mexico to collapse in 2009 because, “the drug lords are taking over.”

But trying to treat criminal acts (which is what narcotics sales are) as though they are acts of war in and of themselves reeks of an over exaggeration to a problem, and could be an act that blows the problem completely out of control.

This is a problem for Mexico to solve, and one that U.S. officials need to back out of unless Mexico were to ask for help. There might even be legitimate reasons for Mexico to seek U.S. assistance in controlling those border gangs that see themselves as a law in their own right.

BUT THIS IS one issue where I wonder if some people are too eager to get involved in a fight that, if it were to escalate beyond the United States’ worst expectations, could drag us into a fight for which we’d be stuck in for years.

Just like the situation in Afghanistan, when you think about it.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Could the U.S. wind up in a defensive military action against drug cartels (http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_11444354?source=most_viewed) that operate (http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/published_93806___article.html/mexico_homeland.html) openly in the Mexican towns along the U.S. border?

For what they’re worth, the Central Intelligence Agency’s “world factbook” offers this assessment (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html) of Mexico these days.

Loss of Latinos part of “Dubya” Bush legacy

After noon Tuesday, Vladimir Putin will no longer be George W. Bush's problem. Photograph provided by the White House.

Think back some four years ago.

“Dubya” was taking the oath of office for a second term as President of the United States after having received what was perceived as a significant chunk of the vote cast by the growing Latino population in the November 2004 elections.

ALL TOO MANY people were willing to believe that the Catholic traits of the Latino population were going to result in the Republican Party forevermore taking the bulk of the Latino voter bloc. Our growing numbers in this country were going to make us the people who put the nails in the coffin (to use a hoary cliché) of the Democrats.

I bring this fairy tale up because things are not working out the way they were perceived back in that era when people who labeled Bush an “incompetent” were dismissed as “sore losers,” rather than the only people in the room with common sense.

The fact that many Latino voters are either turning back to the Democratic Party (or going straight there if they’ve never voted in this country before) is due to actions taken by Republican officials in Congress, many of whom believe they were operating in the best interests of President Bush the younger.

And in the same way that President Bush the elder gets credit for the demise of the Soviet Union because it happened on his watch, the loss of Latinos is going to have to be a point that comes up whenever anyone seriously discusses the “legacy” of George W. Bush’s eight years of work in the Oval Office.

HOW BAD IS the situation when it comes to Republicans and Bush the younger?

The Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center released the results recently of a poll of just over 1,000 Latinos to try to get a sense of where our growing numbers stand on the issues confronting our political people these days in Washington.

Most of those who read the survey noted the fact that “the economy” rather than “immigration” is the biggest issue for many Latinos. But I noted the portion that found 72 percent of us are looking for Barack Obama to have a successful first term as U.S. president.

When we Latinos think of Bush the younger these days, 54 percent think that his failures will overcome his successes.

WHEN IT COMES to any long-lasting perception, 74 percent of Latinos surveyed said they were more interested in the 2008 election of Obama, compared to the ’04 re-election of George Bush.

In short, we Latinos are just like much of the rest of the U.S. population (who says we don’t assimilate) in thinking that the Bush the younger years were a failure, or the cause of many problems that confront our society.

And while some of us are unsure just how much Obama appreciates our potential contributions to this nation’s society, we are hopeful that Obama can help resolve some of the problems now facing this nation.

That “74 percent” figure is the one that most astounds me. It means that just about any goodwill ever created among Latinos by George W. Bush is gone.

AND THAT IS sad. Because George W. Bush had the potential to be the person who led his fellow conservatives (who are rarely compassionate) in the direction they must eventually go in terms of accepting the growing Latino population as a full-fledged part of this country.

Bush was the Ivy Leaguer who was actually raised in Texas and exposed to significant Mexican-American populations. Unlike many other conservative Republicans, he had an exposure and could see Latinos as people – even when he was making himself sound foolish with his third-rate attempts at speaking Spanish.

But to his credit, at least Bush would try, and that did catch the spirit of some Latinos back on ’04.

That was the election that Bush allegedly took 44 percent of the Latino vote (although there are indications that the figure was incorrectly elevated by overcounting the Miami Cubano contribution to Latino estimates).

IT WAS EVIDENCE that a Republican could gain support if he was willing to concede a humanity to the Latino population, rather than view it as a problem to be overcome.

The problem for Bush is that he was never able to convince his alleged allies among Republicans in Congress of this perception. When Bush tried to push for an immigration reform proposal that included “guest worker” programs to allow some people now in the country without visas to remain temporarily, much of his conservative support turned on him.

They insisted on pushing for their own measures, most of which were put together by people who fantasize about mass deportations. Bush was never able to do anything to persuade those people how flawed their thoughts were.

And it is the loss of those supporters, along with all the people who never really thought much of Bush because they didn’t trust him to oversee a war in the Middle East that wouldn’t make the United States look like a tyrannical nation, that have driven Bush’s popularity rating down to the roughly 26 percent level of approval that it sits at these days.

SO AS GEORGE W. Bush packs the last of his belongings and prepares for his final flight Tuesday on board the plane formerly known as Air Force One, back home to Midland, Texas, we will have to take his Latino dealings along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the declining economy as a part of his legacy.

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Some of his loyal followers will keep in mind that the next generation's George Bush (middle initial P.) has Latino ethnic roots himself (on his mother's side of the family). But his critics will remember that one of his final actions as president was to give clemency to two former Border Patrol agents who tried to cover up their killing of a man along the U.S./Mexico border - a case that was taken up as a crucial cause by those people who oppose immigration to this country.

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But in the end, Bush is the guy who failed to make his alleged allies among Republicans realize the benefits to having the growing Latino population on their side. In the process, many went to the Democrats – thereby revitalizing that political party in a way some would not have thought possible just eight years earlier.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Just over 1,000 Latinos are speaking for all of us as a whole when they say (http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=101) that most of us think more highly of Barack Obama than we ever did about George W. Bush.

I was always skeptical of the reports that Bush’s Latino support was as high as his backers (http://www.wcvi.org/press_room/press_clippings/2004/upi_hb_111604.html) claimed it was. And yes, this note is largely self-promotional.

Irony abounds in Cuba fugitive concerns

Remember back a couple of months ago when the social conservatives who wanted Anybody But Obama for president were trying to sell us the notion that Barack Obama was a man who befriended terrorists and other enemies of this country?

The results of the 2008 general election indicate a majority of this country’s electorate rejected that idea. And I couldn’t help but note a sense of irony when reading a recent Associated Press news account about criminal fugitives hiding from the United States in Cuba.

IT TURNS OUT many of those U.S. citizens who are not returning to this country so as to evade criminal prosecution (and whom the Castro brothers have been willing to harbor as a defiant gesture to the “Yankee Imperialist” government of the United States) are concerned about Obama.

These “fugitives” (some of whom literally did hijack a jet to Havana many years ago) fear that Obama’s desire to achieve a normalized state of relations between the United States and Cuba will result in their Cuban benefactors no longer willing to cover for them.

That could result in their sudden deportation back to the U.S., where they would have to face prosecution for (in some cases) decades-old crimes.

These “fugitives harbored by an enemy government” (that is the official designation for these people hiding openly in Cuba) are a significant part of the reason that the U.S. government justifies calling Cuba a “terrorism sponsor.”

SO WOULDN’T IT make sense if Obama truly were the “friend to terrorists” that his conservative partisan enemies tried to claim he was that he would want to maintain a status quo with Cuba?

Instead, his desire for normalized relations (which will have to come in stages spread out over years, with true “normalization” likely would not be achieved until a future president came along) could wind up being the starting point by which the United States deals with Cuba the same way it deals with other Latin American and Caribbean nations.

The people who want normalization in part are the pure capitalists. They see a market on the island nation for U.S. produced goods, and they resent being told they cannot sell their products to someone just because of a five-decade policy that has failed spectacularly in its goal of driving the Castro government from control of the island nation.

With regard to the fugitives, there would no longer be a political point to be scored by Cuba in keeping people such as former Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver. There would be sudden mass extradictions.

YOU’D THINK THAT would be something the social conservatives who like to rant and rage about supporting “law and order” would be in strong support of.

Who’s to say what will become of the U.S./Cuba situation as a result of an Obama administration?

In the weeks and months following Tuesday, I am going to be watching for signs of how serious Obama is about keeping his promises to seek negotiations with Fidel Castro’s younger brother, Raul, to see if there’s any common ground for easing the various restrictions that have been thrown up throughout the years against Cuba.

Many Cuban government officials are suspicious, as are many U.S. officials. There’s always the possibility that an attempt at normalizing U.S./Cuba ties would be undermined by the government officials who would have to do the actual legwork of trying to implement new policies.

IT CERTAINLY DOESN’T help that Obama’s secretary of state is Hillary R. Clinton, who during the 2008 Democratic primary mocked Obama’s talk of meeting with Cuban officials unless Cuba first made significant strides in showing improvements in its human rights record.

This could easily turn into a case where the secretary of state only half-heartedly tried to implement a change in policy, out of a belief that the gap between the two countries is too great.

But I will say again what I have long thought – if Obama were to truly pull off some form of activity that resulted in the beginning of a process that restored political and business ties between the United States and Cuba, that alone would be enough to make him one of the great presidents of the past few decades.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Some of the “fugitives harbored by an enemy government” in Cuba are now trying to seek pardons for their past activities, so as to make any future prosecution (http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2009/01/18/2009-01-18_cuba_thaw_good_or_bad_us_fugitives_unsur-3.html) against them a moot point. Others are afraid to do anything that draws attention to their current existence in Cuba.

How aggressive should Barack Obama be (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45415) in trying to restore good relations between the two countries?

Obama intends to quit using the U.S. military base on Cuba (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ijI-RM_Kz-HmrjkDbSmpGIp-QDuA) as a prison, of sorts, for non-U.S. citizens suspected of terrorist activities. Will he go farther?

Is FALN “terrorist” question a legitimate issue?

It’s the season for political confirmations – all of those dreamers chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to serve in his Cabinet have to go before the Senate. And there are always a few people who view it as their goal to “take down” a cabinet choice or two.

It is in that context that I tend to view the questioning of Eric Holder for Attorney General as partisan sport, rather than any serious kind of interrogation.

HOLDER, OF COURSE, was the aide to former President Bill Clinton who advised him on his final round of clemency. He was the one who recommended a pardon for fundraiser Marc Rich.

And he’s also the guy who suggested that 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN en Español, an activist group that thought Puerto Rico ought to be an independent country and the United States should butt out of Caribbean affairs) ought to receive clemency.

All had been serving lengthy prison terms for a series of bombings on the U.S. mainland, and all had done just under two full decades in prison. They did serious amounts of time in prison, and lost significant portions of their lives. Their criminal records remain intact. They’re just no longer rotting in federal prison at taxpayer expense.

It is hard to rationally say that those people got off lightly, or got away with criminal acts without being punished.

BUT CONFIRMATIONS ARE politically partisan, not rational thought. That is why Holder is getting his share of grief from senators who are determined to portray the would-be attorney general as the man who showed sympathy to a batch of foreigners who double as terrorists.

Probably the most encouraging thing is that Holder is not backing down from his decision back then. He insists the 16 suffered a lengthy punishment in prison.

Will this make much of a difference in terms of his ultimate confirmation? If anything, it is largely a batch of senators (many of the GOP) who are using these proceedings to try to show Holder (and by extension, Obama) who “the boss” really is.

So I can’t say I get too worked up over the constant use of the word “terrorist.” These social conservative senators throw it about so much that it almost loses its meaning. Their partisan games become mind numbing to me (or perhaps it’s just this cold I’m trying to shake off), and make me wish they’d give up and confirm him already.

FOR THOSE OF you who have had actual lives and haven’t sat through confirmation hearings for Holder, one of the most interesting items I found on the Internet Friday was this transcript (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/more-on-holder.html) of the portions of Holder’s testimony that related to his thoughts on the FALN (whose aging members I tend to view similar to those old-timers who were once in the Black Panthers) and his actions of 2001.

While we should never want to forget the past (or else we risk reliving our mistakes), we also need to keep in mind that there comes a time when we as a nation need to move on toward the future.

Continuing to let the people who want lifelong misery for FALN members dominate our policy puts us at risk of never being able to progress as a nation.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: There are those who believe the FALN pardons were done solely to bolster (http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120277819085260827.html) the amount of support Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary, would have from the Puerto Rican community in New York in her then-future role as U.S. senator.

Illinois’ delegation on Capitol Hill is unique in that it has both a former member (Rep. Bobby Rush) of the Black Panthers AND a former supporter (Rep. Luis Gutierrez) of the FALN (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/keyraces2000/stories/hillary090699.htm), who also urged Bill Clinton to issue those pardons back in ’01.

Abortion likely to pick up as an issue throughout Latin America

The same activist forces that have turned the question of abortion being legal into a political blood sport are trying to spread their efforts into Latin America, with hope by anti-abortion forces that the Catholic nature of those nations will create conditions more sympathetic to their cause.

It helps those who want to view a doctor who terminates a pregnancy as committing a criminal act in that many Latin American nations literally do view it as criminal.

THE CONCEPT OF “Roe vs. Wade” that set a national standard of letting a woman decide in the first trimester of a pregnancy whether to proceed is clearly a U.S.-based idea that has yet to spread to other parts of the Americas.

And those same people who like to hold intimidation protests and show off gory pictures of bloodied fetuses want to stop the spread.

One website that publishes stories about activists on abortion issues, lifenews.com, reported this week about the support being given by three U.S.-based groups in favor of a new constitution being proposed by the Dominican Republic.

The constitution being proposed by President Leonel Antonio Fernandez includes a provision that protects human life, and specifies that life begins at conception.

PERSONHOOD USA, FAITHFUL Soldier School of Evangelism and Live Action Films are offering up staffing to help with lobbying efforts pushing to approve the new constitution with the “conception” standard of life remaining.

Activists who favor putting the physical status of the mother up front are trying to work to amend the proposed constitution before it ever gets approved.

I couldn’t help but notice that lifenews.com took a certain amount of glee in reporting that a legislative committee helping to craft a new constitution will meet again on Thursday – which it describes as the day people in this country “mourn the anniversary” of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling in 1973.

It doesn’t surprise me to find that these activists are worked up enough to want to push their view (favoring a fetus’ potential for life more than the actual life of a mother that stands before us) onto other parts of the world.

PERHAPS THEY BELIEVE/dream/fantasize that someday, every nation on Planet Earth will be prepared to put doctors in prison for performing a medical procedure. Under that circumstance, perhaps they think a “pariah” United States would feel compelled to go back to the days when women in need of ending a pregnancy (and let’s be honest, there are some situations where it is medically preferable for the woman’s health or life to terminate) would have to go to excessively secretive measures to obtain treatment.

I think it would get this ridiculous (as it once was in certain, often rural, parts of the United States) because I notice these activists who want to meddle in Dominican politics also want to ensure there are no provisions for allowing a rape or incest victim to terminate the pregnancy that results from a criminal act.

Even many of the political people of the United States who like to use the deceptive term “pro-life” to describe their abortion attitude (if they really oppose it, they’re anti-abortion, Why is that too complex to understand?) usually couch their support by noting they back exemptions for rape or incest victims.

So now the activists who can’t accept the reality that most people in this country support the concept that there are occasions when a woman is justified in ending a pregnancy want to go to another country.

PERHAPS THEY THINK they can create some sort of Caribbean paradise. Personally, I’d be inclined to say, let them all go to the Dominican Republic.

Except then I wonder to myself; What have Dominicans ever done that is so bad that they deserve to have to put up with these people face to face?

Nonetheless, it won’t surprise me if the Dominican Republic winds up including some sort of anti-abortion rhetoric in its new constitution.

It is part of the legacy of having those conquistadors impose their Spanish language and Catholic church on much of the Americas some 4-5 centuries ago that Catholicism has a stronger influence over Latin American countries than it ever will in the United States.

TAKE MEXICO, WHERE abortion is a criminal act, except in Mexico City. Under certain circumstances and with money, it can be obtained in the federal district, a fact that has many of the church officials upset.

But the fact that it is available in Mexico City is evidence that Mexico is entering the 21st Century on this issue. It is the local will of people in the largest city in North America that abortion be available under certain circumstances.

And that attitude is common throughout other Latin American nations. If anything, the fact that the president of the Dominican Republic is pushing for language to further restrict abortion is evidence that he is trying to keep his country from advancing into the modern age. That may be his right as a government official. That may even be acceptable to a majority of people who vote for him.

But I’d be wary if I were a part of one of those anti-abortion activist groups determined to meddle in Dominican politics. Because the end result could wind up being that they show their ignorance of many issues, and not just ones of when a fetus becomes a legitimate life.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I never realized that anti-abortion activists had some inherent knowledge (http://www.lifenews.com/int1050.html) of Dominican politics that they should get involved.

Society attitudes put Montalban’s peak after his prime

I can remember an era (a sad one for the culture of the United States) when Saturday night television could give us back-to-back images of Latinos at work.

First, we’d get “The Love Boat,” that weekly saga about life on board a luxury cruise ship that routinely took its celebrity cameo-filled passengers to Puerto Vallarta. And it wasn’t all that uncommon for Charo to be one of those passengers.

THEN, AFTER SEEING Charo “cuchi, cuchi” her way through the cruise ship, we’d go to “Fantasy Island,” where Mr. Roarke and his assistant Tattoo would grant people their fantasies – only for them to learn valuable life lessons.

It’s too bad that this late 1970s television show is going to be what most people thought of when they learned that actor Ricardo Montalban died earlier this week.

At age 88, it’s not like Montalban did not live a lengthy life (of which his work as an actor consumed about six full decades). But it’s actually too bad that the parts for which Montalban will be most remembered are the ones that came at the end of his career.

When Montalban was in his physical prime, it was an era of Hollywood where an actor who was so blatantly Mexican (he refused in his youth an offer to change his name to become the original “Ricky Martin”) was easily typecast, and limited in the types of roles he could get.

MONTALBAN WASN’T FAT with a bushy mustache, so playing banditos was not an obvious choice. But that silky voice that many people of a certain age remember saying week after week after week “Welcome to Fantasy Island” could be turned into the stereotypical “Latin lover.”

You know, the character who woos the women and winds up having to tangle with an Anglo hero for trying to steal his wife away? He literally played a character named “Roberto Santos” in the 1953 film, “Latin Lovers.”

A look at the filmography that comprises Montalban’s career includes dozens of films that even the most hard-core of film buffs would have trouble remembering. What may be most interesting of those films made in his youth was his willingness (and ability) to portray Asian characters (he was “Nakamura” in the 1957 film “Sayonara).

In fact, only his appearance in one of the “Planet of the Apes” sequels of the 1970s stands out. Fortunately for Montalban, he didn’t have to succumb to ape makeup. He got to portray a “human” character.

SO IT WAS in that context of a career that Montalban took on a job on a weekly television series that portrayed his accented English as evidence of some mystical powers (which is more dignified than that of Herve Villachaize, who played Tattoo and is mostly remembered for being the dwarf who tangled with a monkey).

“Fantasy Island” is not quality television by any means. It is one of those programs that makes me shudder at the thought I ever expended any brain power to try to watch. I certainly don’t understand people who buy the DVD sets now available of its episodes.

But at least it kept Montalban working until an era when producers were more inclined to take the idea of a Latino playing a character (or more radical a thought, make a character an actual Latino) somewhat seriously.

There are those who will remember his performance in 1982’s Star Trek II, playing the arch villain Khan to William Shatner’s Captain Kirk.

SUCH PARTS CONTINUED until his final big-screen roles in the sequels to the film “Spy Kids.”

That film about a Latino family engaged in espionage needed a grandfather character, so Montalban at his age became the perfect choice.

For an actor, work is work. I don’t begrudge him taking such parts (or doing the voice of characters in episodes of the children’s cartoon program “Dora the Explorer”). But it makes me wonder how much of a waste the old attitudes of Hollywood were that he was kept in menial roles until he was an age when all he could accept were lesser roles.

How much better of a cinematic world would we have today if Montalban had been able to use his skills in roles that would make his performance in “Fantasy Island” a mere afterthought?

OF COURSE, SUCH an attitude should not be considered universal for all Latino would-be actors. Take the aforementioned Charo.

Aside from being the final of aging bandleader Xavier Cugat’s wives, I never understood her appeal. The best I can say for her “career” is that she’s the Latina answer to Paris Hilton.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Ricardo Montalban Theater in Hollywood tries to promote the quality (http://ricardomontalbantheatre.info/) theatrical productions that Montalban himself rarely acted in during his career.

Montalban worked in later years to try to upgrade the quality of roles for which Latino actors (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-montalban15-2009jan15,0,3732229.story) could receive in Hollywood.

A certain generation of “Trekkies” will always include Montalban as a part of their favorite (http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/01/ricardo-montalb.html) show’s legacy.

Latin America ought to be a high priority for Obama

President-elect Barack Obama met earlier this week with the president of Mexico that some are trying to dismiss as a mere formality.

Some television news pundits have dismissed the gathering as having no significance, since Latin America in general is not perceived by them as a high priority for an Obama administration.

THEY MAY BE right in thinking that Obama these days is more preoccupied with the Middle East and with economic troubles. But to dismiss the significance of the countries that comprise the rest of the Americas is a mistake.

If Obama truly viewed his meeting Monday with Felipe Calderón Hinojosa as a mere formality that he had to endure (it is typical for a president-elect to have a brief get-together with Mexico’s chief executive) before moving on to “important” business, then that is a mistake on his part.

Anyone with sense realizes that the two most important countries on this planet to the interest of the United States are Mexico and Canada. Our nation shares significant stretches of borders, and it is best if those countries feel a kinship with the United States in terms of helping to protect our frontlines.

And considering that this country’s relationship with Mexico has an impact on the way the rest of the Americas (North and South, much of it is Spanish-speaking territory) perceive the United States, attention ought to be put there.

SO WHAT CAME out of Monday’s 90-minute meeting (according to the El Paso Times newspaper) was promises by Obama to have the U.S. government provide assistance to Mexico with regards to the narcotics-related violence breaking out in the northernmost states (also the ones that border the United States).

What is questionable is whether the Obama administration has plans for dealing with the situation that differ significantly with the desires of the outgoing Bush administration, which recently let it be known that it was developing its own plan for use of force along the border, should violent outbursts hitting places like Ciudad Juarez spill over into places like El Paso or Brownsville.

Those plans literally include military force, and guidelines for when law enforcement officials can fire shots across the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte into Mexico.

The Brownsville Herald reported Tuesday that local law enforcement officials are upset, saying they were not consulted about any of this. They also claim to know the border region better than any federal bureaucrat – even one whose political loyalties are to former Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

FEDERAL OFFICIALS DEFEND their actions by saying their plans for force would only go into effect if local law enforcement officials find themselves overwhelmed by violent activity.

But it is typical of the mentality of parts of the outgoing administration to view Latin America as a potential war-zone, rather than a region in need of aid.

So it is with this Bush-era mentality in mind that we should think about what thoughts, if any, Obama has on the region and its issues.

Even if people out there do not want to think of Latin America as being all that significant to the United States (there are some people who are that small-minded in their thought process), one ought to accept there are political realities at stake.

THE PERCEPTION EXISTS that Obama won in large part because of a significant percentage of the Latino voter bloc that chose to stick with the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, even though that candidate in the primary season last year did not particularly enthuse them.

If Obama were to truly dismiss Latin American issues as being of less significance than other parts of the world, he would run the risk of offending the growing share of the Latino population in this country – which may very well want to assimilate to life in the U.S. culture, but tends to observe these issues of foreign policy for clues as to how much a candidate respects us and how highly he thinks of us.

Wanting to set up arms along the U.S./Mexico border in the name of law enforcement and drug trafficking creates an image that this is war.

Obama is going to have to do better in creating a federal government image toward Latinos, unless he wants to ensure that we someday view our support for him as a mistake – similar to how some Latinos who backed George Bush in 2004 now think of that as a wasted vote.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Barack Obama engaged in some sympathetic rhetoric on Monday when meeting (http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_11440052) with Mexico’s president, yet many Latinos are going to be watching his actions as president to see if they match up with his talk.

Military aircraft and armored vehicles along the Rio Grande Valley is typical of how (http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/plan_93594___article.html/border_local.html) some people in the outgoing federal administration perceive the relationship between the United States and Mexico. Will Obama do differently?

Richardson/Blagojevich “tie” not yet clear enough

Those people with an interest in Latino political empowerment who also have a knack for concocting wild conspiracy theories have speculated that people are out “to get” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Whether it’s because they don’t want anyone with an ethnic background tracing back to Latin America holding significant office in the United States, or whether it’s Hillary Clinton engaging in “payback” for Richardson’s endorsement of Barack Obama that took her primary campaign down a notch, some people are willing to believe anything.

BUT AFTER READING the latest report about Richardson, one that appeared last week in the New Mexican newspaper out of Santa Fe and is now working its way around the Internet and to sites read by people with an interest in Latino affairs, I have to wonder.

The “report” tries to show a link between the New Mexico governor and his counterpart in Illinois.

That would be the now-infamous Rod Blagojevich, who has federal prosecutors in Chicago eager to punish him for allegedly soliciting paybacks from people interested in replacing Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

In Illinois, legislators who could never stand Blagojevich are using that as an excuse to dredge up every single complaint they ever had, and impeach the guy. There’s a good chance that in coming weeks, a “trial” of sorts by the Illinois Senate will result in his removal from political office.

AND NOW, SOME people would like for us to think that Blagojevich and Richardson are somehow aligned spiritually, and possibly financially.

The report in the New Mexican notes that Richardson provided $20,000 in campaign donations to Blagojevich’s bid for re-election in 2006. Of course, that was when the former Cabinet member, member of Congress and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was trying to keep alive a national profile by serving as head of the Democratic Governors Association.

He was in charge of a group that was trying to promote the idea that all the states ought to have a candidate of the Democratic Party as the chief executive of their respective governments.

That means Richardson was giving money to just about every incumbent Democrat who was a governor, along with any gubernatorial challengers who actually looked like they had a chance to win.

IT MUST ALSO be noted that the contributions were reported back in 2006 to the proper authorities. There was nothing secretive about the donations.

When put in that context, it is not the least bit mysterious that Blagojevich got some campaign cash at Richardson’s direction. The real “story” would have been if Richardson had somehow decided to snub Blagojevich and give him nothing.

Is it really a scandal that Richardson is not clairvoyant? He didn’t foresee the eventual criminal complaint sought by the U.S. attorney for Chicago.

And even if you want to believe that with the federal investigation against Blagojevich having taken place for several years that Richardson SHOULD have known something would eventually happen, all Richardson can definitively be found “guilty” of at this point is treating an unindicted (for the moment) governor as though he were not guilty of any criminal wrong-doing.

A CHEAP STORY like this (which is also an old story, since the donations and their reporting to state authorities took place just over two years ago) is about little more than trying to find an excuse to write the names “Blagojevich” and “Richardson” in the same paragraph.

That has been the desire of some ever since Richardson was pressured to back down from seeking a place in an Obama administration (he was in line to be Commerce secretary) on the grounds that federal prosecutors for New Mexico were looking into state government deals to see if any illegal activity took place.

At issue is a 2004 contract that was to pay California-based CDR Financial Products just over $1 billion for work on state transportation bonds. Prosecutors in Albuquerque note that the company and its CEO provided a total of just over $100,000 to Richardson’s political committees.

Was there a specific promise that the company would get the contract in exchange for the campaign donations? Richardson insists there wasn’t a specific deal (which could be construed as a bribe) in place, and he says publicly that any investigation will result in him being cleared.

RICHARDSON INSISTS THAT his only reason for stepping back from the campaign post is that there was no way he could be cleared of any wrongdoing before the newly elected Senate began its review of Cabinet appointees this week.

Some people are just overly skeptical of government officials. And that, in and of itself, is not a bad attitude to have.

The problem becomes when one wants to apply skepticism to only select officials for politically partisan reasons. Because that ultimately causes a distrust in the system and the officials who engage in “the people’s business” if the perception is that prosecutors are only going after someone’s political enemies.

Because if that happens, then it isn’t such a far-fetched concept that Hillary “dropped a dime” on Richardson as political payback for that Obama endorsement.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: This story reeks too much of trying to find a “New Mexico” angle (http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Richardson-gave-money-to-Blagojevich-s-re-election-campaign) to the national political phenomenon otherwise known as Rod Blagojevich.

Richardson may have a record as an international negotiator, yet even he couldn’t get Illinois Democrats to “play nice” with (http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/08/13/news/doc48a3b2a34846c231952479.txt) Blagojevich. It’s hard to say that there’s any stronger tie between the two men.

For those (http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/) who want to remember when Richardson was delusional enough to think he could be President of the United States.

Is Colorado typical of Latino political empowerment?

As Latino activists who pay any attention to Colorado government see it, there were three chances in recent weeks to put a Latino in a position of authority, and all three chances were passed upon.

It’s like three strikes. Colorado officials are out, in the political game of electoral influence for the growing Latino population.

ON THE ONE hand, the state’s Latino population got a boost when their incumbent senator, Ken Salazar, was chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to be Secretary of the Interior. So Colorado political people will be able to see “one of their own” Latinos rise to a position of national influence.

And he is one of two Latinos to get a post in an Obama cabinet (Secretary of Labor-designate Hilda Solis is the other).

But Latino activists in Colorado were kind of hoping that Latino Salazar (his family has been in what is now the state of Colorado back to the days when the land was part of the Arizona territory controlled by Mexico) would be replaced by another Latino.

He wasn’t.

THE HEAD OF Denver’s public school system, an Anglo guy, got the Senate appointment.

Well, what about replacing the school boss with a Latino. Activists point out to the Denver Post newspaper that the public schools in Colorado’s largest city have an enrollment of 55 percent Latino.

Yet city officials went ahead and picked another Anglo guy for that post.

Then, there was the post of Colorado secretary of state, which a member of the Denver city council who is Latina was pushing for. Instead, three Anglo guys were chosen as finalists, with Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter getting the final say on who gets the post – one of whose duties is to oversee elections in that state.

ALL THOSE ANGLO guys being chosen over Latinos (or a Latina) have the potential to outrage the growing Latino population, which is generally credited in Colorado for shifting that state from the GOP to the Dem column in presidential elections.

Colorado was solidly behind the 2000 and 2004 election bids of George W. Bush, but gave its Electoral College support to Obama in last year’s general elections.

Evidence is solid that the trend is continuing. Colorado will be yet another one of those southwestern states that were once a part of Mexico (and New Spain, before that) where the Latino population will hold influence – despite the attempts of conservative Anglos in the past century to turn the land into something it never truly was.

An extension of Dixie.

THAT IS WHAT former legislator Paul Sandoval meant when he told the Denver Post, “this will have legs down the road. I swear to God it will.”

The continued slights and attempts to prevent the change in Colorado’s demographics from being reflected in the state’s political representation will result in the future electoral backlash.

How far down the road will it be? Who’s to say? But it could very well take place within a decade. It will be curious to see how the U.S. Census Bureau study for 2010 shows Latino growth in Colorado.

The most recent figures for Latino population (which are nine years old) showed 19.6 percent for the state and 34.2 percent for its largest city in Denver. It can only go up.

DESPITE THIS DIATRIBE, note that I’m not claiming Latinos should have received all three positions. I have no doubt that the people who were picked have some qualifications for the appointments they received.

They may even do a competent job.

But managing to pass up a Latino on every opportunity in a place where the Latino population is on the rise (it’s not like this is Mississippi or Maine) gives the perception that someone in a position of authority just doesn’t recognize Latinos when it comes to rooting out government talent.

And in the process, they are passing up on officials who could make a worthy contribution toward doing “the people’s business.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: For the time being, Latino activists and low-level public officials (http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_11420966?source=commented-news) are resorting (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/09/hispanic-leaders-protest-choice-boasbarg-dps-chief/?partner=RSS) to signing letters of protest to show their displeasure with recent political appointments.

It’s difficult to say with a straight face that the lack of Latinos in positions of political power (http://www.coloradostatesman.com/content/colorados-hispanic-voters-flex-their-muscles) is due to a lack of Latinos turning out at the polling place on Election Day.