“Day of the Dead” one of those concepts often misunderstood

I still remember the look of revulsion that once cropped up on an editor’s face when I tried explaining the concept of “Day of the Dead.”

What got to her was the thought that some people are likely to spend Sunday night into Monday in a cemetery as part of a holiday celebration. She wasn’t sure if it was morbid, or just trashy, to hang out in a graveyard. My maternal grandparents, Michael and Socorro Vargas, holding their newborn fraternal twins, my uncle John and my mother Jenny, in the summer of 1944. My mother is the only person in this photograph who remains with us, and I'll include the rest in my thoughts this weekend.

NOW PERSONALLY, I don’t plan to do any cemetery duty this weekend – even though I don’t remember the last time I actually went to visit the graves of my grandparents. Besides, most of the people likely to be in cemeteries this weekend will be nitwit Halloween celebrators who are more likely to do desecration than anyone involved with a “Day of the Dead”-related event.

But the “Day of the Dead” holiday that dates back to pre-European times in the Americas is less about picnicking in a graveyard than it is remembering those loved ones who are no longer with us in this existence on Planet Earth.

A day of reminiscing about that late tio or tia, or a primo, or even los abuelos, is such a family-oriented concept that I have trouble believing that anybody can be repulsed by the thought.

When one thinks of it rationally, the “Day of the Dead” is a more sensible holiday than the Halloween celebrations that will take place across the United States on Saturday.

THINK ABOUT IT!

Remembering abuelita’s home-made tamales at Christmas (although in my family’s case, it was my maternal grandfather, Michael Vargas, who did the cooking when it came to holiday tamales) sounds a lot less repulsive than a “celebration” that encourages children to beg for candy and lets them think it is somehow “cute” to throw eggs or toilet paper at houses where people won’t cough up any overly-sugared edible loot.

And the idea of adults at Halloween parties in costume just strikes me as absurd, if not outright ridiculous.

So for all those people so Anglo who look at the imagery of “Day of the Dead” celebrations in Latin America (all those skeletons and skulls) and somehow want to think it reflects negatively on non-Anglo culture, I’d have to say, “Get Real!”

THEY SHOULD THINK twice about al those witches and goblin images we’re going to see on Saturday (along with a few nitwits in costumes meant to have laughs at Latino expense) before concluding which holiday is a bit more twisted.

And I’ll try to have a pleasant memory of those relatives of mine who aren’t with us any longer.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Death is a part of life, and the thought of a museum in Mexico that studies (http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2009-10-30-mexicomuseum_N.htm) the concept makes as much sense, if not more, than museums devoted to sex (http://blog.travelpod.com/2009/06/23/8-more-quirky-museums/) or psychiatry.

Costumed clowns to roam streets on Halloween, can we pelt them with candy?

I recall once as a child being in an occasion where I needed to don a costume (I don’t think it was Halloween, but I can’t remember what it was), and I wound up using a poncho and sombrero because it was on hand.

That moment flashed back into my brain when I read a report originating in the Oakland Tribune newspaper that says Latino activists are upset with one of those Halloween-themed stores that has cropped up in the Oakland suburbs.

IT SEEMS THAT along with all the other cheap junk they’re selling to make some money off of the Halloween holiday Saturday is a costume that is meant to make one a “Mexican man.”

The costume? A colorful, striped poncho that looks like a rainbow, a straw sombrero and fake bushy mustache, as though the image of a Mexican man is that of the Frito Bandito. It has the activists upset that someone thinks Mexican people can be so simply depicted with a ridiculous image.

At least when I wore such a get-up, it was the real thing. This costume is a cheap knockoff that was probably made in China.

The smart aleck in me is inclined to say that no self-respecting Mexican would wear such a ridiculous-looking poncho, unless he was planning to march in a Gay Pride Parade – in which case his overly Catholic family would be the ones clogging up the local church, praying for his soul.

THE MORE SERIOUS-MINDED person in me thinks this image is just ridiculous on a holiday when people do ridiculous things. Seriously, what person over the age of 10 gets worked up over Halloween?

If they do, we have more serious problems than the fact that they might wear a stupid costume such as this one.

If anything, this costume doesn’t even create the most outrageous image of this Halloween season – that would go to the “illegal alien” outfit that was being sold in some mainstream stores.

This thing is turning up in holiday-themed junk shops.

IF WE REALLY wanted to get back at this particular outfit, what we Latinos ought to do is dress up on Saturday in bib overalls, have some country music playing in the background, and get overly passionate with a first cousin or two who is dressed similarly.

Of course, if we do that, then we will be the ones at the local Catholic church on Sunday, praying for forgiveness for our own souls, along with the parents who are still in church praying for the redemption of their loved one who “dresses” funny.

If it seems by reading this commentary that I’m not exactly taking it all that seriously, you’d be correct.

This strikes me as a stupid controversy because the ultimate punishment for people who actually spend their money on such a ridiculous costume is going to be paid on Saturday.

JUST THINK OF the reaction that “Mexican Man” wearing “tonto” will get if he shows up at an adult-themed Halloween party. At the very least, that woman in the French maid costume won’t be seen standing within 10 feet of him at any point in the rest of her life.

And if you get some Anglo parent who thinks it “cute” to dress up their child in a “Mexican Man” costume for the day’s trick-or-treating, they’re going to be the ones all worked up at day’s end.

Because their kid will be the one covered with welts from where everybody else pelted them with Halloween candy.

The only real tragedy is that it wasn’t the parent who got pelted with a Snickers bar or two.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Officials with the Spirit Halloween chain of stores have refused to say (http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_13662212?nclick_check=1) much of anything about why they were carrying this particularly silly getup on their shelves.

Lopez “show” seems like assimilation to me

Eva Longoria may be a Latina (a Tejana, to be specific), but most of the attention she gets these days is due to her role on the hit television show “Desperate Housewives,” where she doesn’t play the stereotypical role by any means.

When combined with Ellen Degeneres and Kobe Bryant, what we have is the roster of guests to appear on a new television talk show scheduled to begin Nov. 9.

THE GORGEOUS TELEVISION star, combined with an outspoken comedian and a star basketball player. It sounds like any other talk show, which may very well be the point.

These three are going to be the guests who appear on the George Lopez Show, which is the new program to begin next month on TBS (they’re not just about Andy Griffith reruns and Atlanta Braves baseball any longer).

There are those who are viewing the new talk show by the Mexican-American comedian as just some sort of sop to Latino viewers, or something that otherwise will have little to no appeal to anyone in this country who is not fortunate enough to have ethnic origins tying them to a Latin American country.

Atlanta-based TBS officials helped promote the show (which thus far has had those TV promo spots featuring Lopez being turned down for a U.S. ambassador post by President Barack Obama) by releasing this week the names of the guests for the first show, along with a listing of other celebs who will appear with Lopez during the first few weeks.

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT “celebs” such as Sandra Bullock, Ray Romano, Kelly Osbourne and Queen Latifah. It’s definitely not a Latino-only production.

Definitely not something that only Latinos would want to watch.

In some ways, this new talk show is about as “mainstream America” as any other talk show currently airing on either over-the-air or cable television.

Even the Latinos who are among the show’s first few guests – Andy Garcia, Marc Anthony, Eva Mendes and Charlie Sheen (whose brother uses the real family name of Estevez) – are the types of people who could easily show up on what people might consider to be more conventional (ie., Anglo-oriented) television programming.

THIS PROGRAM HAS the potential to be a big lesson for that segment of the population that looks warily upon the significant increase in the Latino population currently occurring in our society.

We are assimilating, and some of us are already there.

Just because the “face” on the front of the show is a little bit brown (but not dark enough to fit one’s definition of “black”) doesn’t mean there can’t be appeal to society as a whole.

Now I have read in past promos that Lopez plans to do comedic “bits” during his show that will reference the Latino population.

IF THEY’RE ANYTHING like his standup comedy sketches or the characters on the situation comedy he once starred in, it will be a harder-edge comedy than something that Jay Leno would have ever done.

But it could turn out that viewers will have to learn to accept that Latinos are a part of the material of standup comedy. And for those of you who think that his material will somehow be demeaning to Latinos, keep in mind that the punch line of a lot of Lopez’ material usually centers around the fact that Anglos can be just so clueless as to what is going on around them when it comes to comprehending Latinos.

So I suppose “one of our own” has finally got a talk show, putting him in a position to be the equal of David Letterman or Conan O’Brien (although being on a cable television channel means he has far few potential viewers than those long-time stars of late night commercial television).

We’re going to see that it has a lot in common with existing programs, which means Lopez ultimately will succeed or fail in this venture on whether or not he can offer quality programming.

A LATINO AUDIENCE is not going to tune in every night just because of the skin complexion on that big head of his.

Which makes him just like a whole lot of people in our society, which is all that assimilation is truly about.

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Will Rodriguez lead the Yanquis to a World Series victory?

In a sense, every Latino ballplayer who happens to play for a ball club that makes it to the World Series is trying to live up to the image of Roberto Clemente.

The star pelotero from Puerto Rico was on two teams that made it to the series – the Pittsburgh Pirates of 1960 and 1971. The former saw his performance overshadowed by that Game 7, Bottom of the Ninth, home run by Bill Mazeroski.

BUT THE LATTER World Series saw Clemente permanently overcome the reputation he developed during the 1960s of a malcontent always griping about physical ailments (with many Anglo baseball types who looked sympathetically upon Mickey Mantle's bad knees quick to overlook Clemente's back problems) to one who overcame those problems to be a top-level ballplayer.

He wound up being named World Series “Most Valuable Player” for his performance in the seven-game series – hitting .414 (12 base hits in 29 at-bats) with two home runs (including a record-length shot in the seventh game at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium).

The big shame of it all was that it took so long in Clemente’s career (which dates back to the mid-1950s) for him to achieve public recognition.

It also hurts that the recognition came so late in his career, which lasted only one more season, as the outfielder who chartered an airplane to try to fly supplies to Nicaragua following the December 1972 earthquake disappeared off the shores of Puerto Rico, with Clemente’s body never recovered.

IT WAS A significant part of the reason we now think of Clemente as a baseball immortal of sorts. It also counts when it comes to Latino ballplayers in terms of showing that the ballplayers from Latin America were capable of leading teams to victory – not just serving as role players.

It also sets the stage for pondering whether any of the Latinos whose presence enhances the quality of Major League Baseball will become the big stars of 2009.

Alex Rodriguez, the New York-born, Miami-raised Dominican who plays third base for the New York Yankees will be the obvious focus of this type of attention. His bat helped propel the Yankees to their victories in the two rounds of American League playoffs – making some people speculate that Rodriguez is shaking off the stigma that has developed during his career.

You know, excellent in May, but mediocre in October.

OR WE COULD very well get the historic resurrection of Panamanian relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, whose presence helped preserve victories for those Yankees teams that dominated baseball in the late 1990s.

2009’s World Series, which is only “world” if one really believes the globe rotates on an axis connecting New York to Philadelphia, could be the time when Rivera adds to his already outstanding statistics.

For that matter, it would be intriguing if aging Phillies pitcher Pedro Martinez of the Dominican Republic were to resurrect the skills of his physical prime in going against New York.

Either way, we’ll find out in coming days who gets to fill the Clemente Legacy.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: From Hall of Famers like Tony Perez (a Cubaño) and potential Hall of Famers like Roberto Alomar of Puerto Rico to less descript players like Ricky Ledee (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/278887-the-top-latinos-in-mlbs-world-series) also of Puerto Rico, there have been several interesting World Series performances by Latin American ballplayers.

Perhaps he thinks it should be New Un-Mexico

It never fails to amuse me when an incident occurs in the southwest that involves someone not appreciating the fact that the continental United States’ first European colonists were Spanish – not English.

That basically is what is involved in a recent incident involving the owner of a motel in Taos, N.M. Admittedly, the place he purchased for just over $2 million had seen better days (which sounds better than calling the place a dump), and was in need of a cleanup to try to bolster its chances of attracting business.

BUT THIS PARTICULAR owner, as reported by the Associated Press, seems to think that cleaning up the motel’s image involves wiping out traces of Spanish.

Some of the Latino workers who were employed were fired. I’ll give the owner the benefit of the doubt that those particular employees were not all that supportive of him. They probably were mocking him behind his back.

But when one looks at this owner’s actions, he comes off as someone who deserves to be mocked.

For one of his “demands” intended to create a more professional image was that his employees not speak Spanish. And in the case of employees whose names were Spanish-tinged, he was insisting that they use English-equivalents.

EVEN IN CASES where the Spanish and English versions of a name aren’t all that different, I’m sure it is bound to tick people off to be suddenly told that one’s identity is not appropriate for public consumption.

And in cases where a Spanish name just doesn’t translate all that well to English, it would sound downright stupid. Take the case of Soledad O’Brien, whose documentary last week on CNN has provoked debate both pro- and con- among Latinos.

Would we take the exotic (and lovely) sounding Soledad as seriously if she had to go through life as Solitude O’Brien?

From having read the news reports that are cropping up due to this incident, I am aware that this particular motel owner has been in the business for some four decades, and has operated motels in various states across the south and southwestern United States.

HE FIGURES THAT his image cleansing is something that he can apply from site to site.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

Now I notice he once worked in Texas, a place that also was once a part of the Spanish colonies that became part of an independent Mexico for nearly two score until it became a part of the United States.

Perhaps Texans (even ones who are originally born in Virginia, like this particular owner) think they can ram an Anglo attitude down the throats of a Latino population that has been there longer.

BUT THAT KIND of arrogance is what caused the problem in New Mexico.

It seems that when one of the motel employees tried pointing out that Spanish had been spoken in the region longer than English, the motel owner took it as just more yapping from an employee who would be better off working.

And he tried justifying his actions on the grounds that people from other parts of the country wouldn’t understand, or appreciate, Spanish influence in names or language or culture.

I don’t doubt that some people are that backward. But when I travel, I accept the fact that I’m venturing into a place that might be radically different than my hometown of Chicago.

IN FACT, WHEN I travel, I’m usually looking to find a place that is different from my hometown (although one can argue that Chicago’s neighborhoods offer so many different environments that this city can resemble just about any place on Planet Earth).

If I were traveling into the southwest and had reason to stop off at this particular motel, I’d probably figure that there was going to be some Spanish influence.

After all, it is located on the Paseo de Pueblo, and is in a town located at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Or are there really people out there who think those names should be changed to Main Street and Blood of Christ Mountains to accommodate the sensibilities of people who don’t live there?

I’M INCLINED TO agree with the activist who told the Associated Press that this particular motel owner is a “racist out of ignorance.”

Now one can argue that all racism is ignorant. There’s no such thing as racism that is actually justified.

But this really comes down to someone not thinking through the fact that he might be cutting off what little charm his newly acquired business could have, all in the name of trying to pass of some generic version that might have worked in South Carolina.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I didn’t name the motel owner because I think his name is already smeared (http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212264072.shtml) all over the Internet. And I think the fact that his business interest has the potential to suffer due to this controversy is the biggest “punishment” possible.

Is a Spanish accent now a ticket-able offense?

Only in Texas could we have police officers who would think their ticket books give them the ability to hand down fines to people who won’t speak English on command.

That appears to be the case in Dallas, where Police Department officials admitted last week that 39 tickets have been issued to people during the past three years to people whose offense, in the eyes of the officers, was speaking Spanish.

SPECIFICALLY, WE’RE TALKING about motorists.

It would appear that commercial truck drivers, who have a special class of driver’s license to allow them to do their jobs, do have certain language requirements to comply with.

After all, it would be nice if the drivers of those big rigs could read the road signs they encounter while they work. Of course, one could argue that many road signs are specifically designed to be symbols rather than words, so mere recognition of a concept – whether in English or Spanish – ought to be enough.

But it came out recently in news reports out of Dallas that some officers thought the provisions allowing them to ticket a truck driver for perceived inadequate English skills applied to all drivers.

HENCE, WE HAVE had situations where a ticket (and the possibility of a $100 fine) has been issued by a police officer who may not have liked the sound of someone’s English. I guess having an accent can now be a crime, if the accent doesn’t match whatever tone the cop happens to speak with.

One such situation went public Sunday when a woman held a press conference to say she was filing a complaint with the Police Board in Dallas.

WFAA-TV reported that she says she was completely humiliated and will never recover from the fact that she was ticketed for not speaking (in a police officer’s opinion) proper-enough English. She says she was driving her child to school when she got pulled over for making a U-turn in a place where it was not permitted.

Now I know some people (the types who don’t like it when anyone is called on their ethnic-related screwups) will use the fact that she was initially pulled over for a U-turn and claim that that act somehow justifies any additional actions taken by the police officer.

ACTUALLY, IT SHOWS a lack of restraint on the part of the officer, who apparently is not in the majority. Police Chief David Kunkle told reporter-types in Dallas that the 39 tickets for improper English were issued by only six Police Officers.

So this seems to be a case more of particular cops misusing their authority to try to force-feed us the version of our society that they want to see (or, in this case, hear).

Attorneys for the woman say they’d like to see police look back in their records a little further. They’d want to know how many language-related tickets were issued during the past decade.

I’m not sure what that would really accomplish. It would give us a slightly higher number, but I think the three-year figure shows there likely are some police officers in Dallas who need a better education about what constitutes “the law” with regards this language issue.

THERE IS ONE other factor in this case – the woman in question is a U.S. citizen, albeit living in a part of the United States where the Spanish language and culture remains strong.

So even though I don’t know this woman (I have never met her or her attorney), it may very well be that she speaks English with an accent. I suspect that is such because of the reports that the woman, when pulled over by police, asked if her daughter could be allowed to leave the scene and walk the rest of the way to school.

She was running late.

The officer, it is reported, apparently understood the gist of what she was asking, even if he might not have liked the way the English words sounded to him when she spoke.

THOSE OF YOU who want to claim this is an “illegal” who doesn’t belong in the United States can put a sock in that argument. It just doesn’t apply here.

Attorneys for the woman say they suspect we’d find out that many of these tickets were issued to people who were just like her – they belong in this country, even though some among us are xenophobic enough to think they don’t.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Lone Star State gives us “bigger than life” tales on so many (http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/tv/stories/wfaa091025_wz_englishticketfolo.250d4650b.html) fronts, so why shouldn’t its police gaffes be the same?

NOTICIAS de LATINO: It’s time to tick people off

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., gave people who are eager for immigration reform yet another promise that action will be taken by Congress come 2010.

He used a forum held at Chicago’s DePaul University to say it will include provision of the DREAM Act, a measure he has pursued for several years to help kids whose families are split between citizens and non-citizens, making them fully assimilated – even though they themselves were born elsewhere.

OF COURSE, EVEN this little hint is ticking people off – those nativist nitwits who are looking for any excuse they can find to deport anyone who isn’t exactly like them. For those wanting to know more, read the commentary published Saturday at this site’s sister weblog, The South Chicagoan (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/).

On other issues, I couldn’t help but notice the television ratings for Wednesday (http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_wednesday_october_21_141037.asp) and Thursday (http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_thursday_october_22_141165.asp) evenings. Some people are portraying CNN’s “Latino in America” as a ratings flop.

It does appear that twice as many people watched Fox News Channel as did CNN during the two-hour segments that the documentary premiered each night. Even MSNBC appears to have drawn more viewers, which means the only cable news type Soledad O’Brien outdrew was Nancy Grace of CNN Headline.

What I wonder is how many people who were interested in the program did not watch it at its assigned time. Personally, I didn’t see the first part, and saw the second part during its rebroadcast at 11 p.m. Thursday (that’s Central Time, which we all know is the only time zone – Chicago time – that really matters).

I’D REALLY LIKE to know how many people just blew off the cable news types altogether to watch something else, like the American and National league playoffs.

Soledad had to compete with the Philadelphia Phillies winning the National League championship Wednesday night, and the Los Angeles Angels managing to postpone their elimination Thursday from the playoff scene.

For those who happen to be in Chicago, the city’s history museum has an intriguing pair of exhibits.

The museum has for decades owned the bed upon which Abraham Lincoln lay for his final hours of life, and has always considered itself something of an authority on the life of the sixteenth U.S. president.

NOW, THEY’RE GIVING us an exhibit about the life of Mexico’s chief executive in that same era. Benito Juàrez is known by some as the “Abraham Lincoln of Mexico” for the way in which he tried to bring U.S. ideals of Democracy south of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande.

It is paired up with an exhibit on Lincoln documenting the way in which Lincoln’s views on slavery shifted through the years from apathy to abolition.

Part of my reason for offering this link is self-promotion (http://nwitimes.com/news/foreign-language/article_644038cb-0ec2-58ac-a3fd-19debdf186f4.html), but it also is intriguing to see the links between the two countries because it reinforces the idea that construction of barricades out in the southwestern desert is just stupid.

And I still get a chuckle at the thought that somebody actually bothered to save the fish hook that Juarez used during the year he lived in exile from Mexico (in New Orleans).

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What constitutes an “alien?”

Originally, I wasn’t going to touch this issue – the “controversy” about retail stores offering for sale a Halloween “costume” of an orange jumpsuit with some sort of generic space-creature mask, with the words “illegal alien” stenciled across the jumpsuit’s chest, and comes equipped with a “green card” (that in reality isn’t green).

It’s tacky, a stupid gag, and the retailers that were putting this up for sale were quick to take it off the shelves, realizing that it had the ability to hurt their overall sales if they were perceived as selling merchandise that would appeal only to xenophobes.

I WAS ENCOURAGED when I read a recent news story published by the website of KSL-TV and news radio in Salt Lake City, Utah. It appears that activists representing the Latino population that chooses to live amongst Mormons is downplaying the whole “controversy.”

“I think we’re just hyperventilating over this issue,” one activist told the radio station.

I agree. I don’t want to blow this issue out of proportion because I don’t want to give the nitwits who were ridiculous enough to actually spend their money to buy this costume any reason to think they’re making some deep, profound political statement with the Halloween holiday choice.

I’m inclined to think that the majority of people are going to take one look at this ridiculous attempt at a gag and look down at the intelligence quotient of anybody who would actually wear such a getup.

BUT THERE ARE times I wonder about the actual choice of phrase “illegal alien.”

It is a bit of government-speak, an awkward piece of jargon similar to a phrase such as “weapons of mass destruction.”

A real person never would have thought up that phrase that at one point a few years ago crept its way into so many newscasts. As in: “Of course Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We still have the receipts from the ones we sold him.”

It is pure government bureaucrat-ese (as is the word “bureaucrat-ese”).

SO IS “ILLEGAL alien.”

Anyone who is not a citizen of this nation technically is an “alien” and this bit of bureaucratic jargon allows immigration officials to distinguish between resident aliens and non-resident aliens.

The problem, however, is that the nitwits of our society have latched onto this phrase and are trying to turn it into a bit of common talk that they want to slip into everyday language.

If you have ever read a website commentary section following a piece on immigration, you are always going to find at least one person who will vehemently denounce any attempt to refer to people without a visa (and I don’t mean the credit card) as anything other than “illegal aliens.”

THEY LIKE CREATING an image that dehumanizes people.

They created this image that would regard people as less than people, and automatically criminal.

If anything, this “costume” serves one purpose – it shows just how stupid the actual image is. If there was even one person who would be inclined to reduce the use of government jargon in their everyday speech just by seeing this Halloween getup, then perhaps it would serve a worthwhile purpose.

But I don’t expect that to happen.

THERE PROBABLY WILL be somebody who proudly wears that getup next Saturday, or on whatever day they happen to attend a Halloween-themed party, and that will get groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (based in Los Angeles) to spend time protesting retailers that could have been better spent focusing on making daily life easier for those newcomers to our country.

In short, I almost feel stupid for even writing this, because it means I’m focusing way too much attention on a few petty, mindless pendejos in our society when I’d be better off giving attention to someone who’s trying to accomplish something significant.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Some Latino activists see the whole “illegal alien” Halloween costume (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8378188) as too stupid to cause true offense.

Somebody needs to try again if they’re truly trying to design a Halloween costume that (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/10/21/halloween_trick_or_stereotype/) makes a statement about the contemporary debate over immigration and reform.

Somebody’s not thinking this issue through

With Cable News Network engaged in airing its feel-good about itself documentary about the status of Latinos in our society these days, the cable television news channel engaged in a common media tactic – they released a poll they commissioned to make themselves appear even more authoritative on the issues.

Now I don’t really feel the need to give CNN any more attention than they’re already getting these days (seriously, look up “Latino” or “Hispanic” on a search engine such as Google, and most of what you will find is links to stories that promote the “Latino in America” special, in one form or another).

BUT THERE WAS one aspect to the poll (conducted last weekend by Opinion Research Corp.) that caught my attention – a pair of questions to whom the answers just don’t match up in my mind.

One question asked whether a person who saw a Latino walking down the street would automatically make assumptions about their immigration status.

Nineteen percent of those questioned admitted that their first assumption would be that the Latino in question were somehow in the United States without a valid visa or other papers. That compares to 68 percent who either would assume the person was a U.S. citizen or had the visa that allows them to live openly in this country.

But another question asked people what they thought of the proposal being touted by conservative politicos that would have Census Bureau workers next year ask everyone what their immigration status was – in theory so that people without citizenship or a visa would not be counted in the final population tally.

TO THAT QUESTION, 88 percent were in favor. Only 12 percent were opposed. No one was seriously unsure of the issue that they could not provide a definitive answer.

So let me see if I comprehend the poll results correctly.

A significant majority of the population believes that the Latino population is in this country legitimately. Yet they also want Census Bureau workers to ask a question whose only motivation is to throw out of whack the desires of those of us who want an honest count of the population – whether Latino or not – because we know it will show just how significantly our numbers in this country have grown.

To my mindset, that makes little to no sense.

IT COULD BE that we have people who want open harassment of Latinos, and have no problem with the idea that the Latino population ought to be required to justify its existence in this country (even though a significant chunk of the United States has its own roots tied to that of Latin America, specifically Mexico).

I couldn’t help but notice another question, about how much discrimination against Latinos was perceived by people. Most people said there was either “a lot” or “some” discrimination, so they perceive a problem.

In fact, only 19 percent said there was “none at all” when it comes to discrimination against Latinos. That’s the same percentage of people in this poll who said they assume Latinos they see are “illegal.”

There may very well be some people who presume that harassment against Latinos isn’t discrimination because they somehow deserve it by “not belonging” in this country to begin with.

BUT THAT’S THE overly cynical view, and to my mind it doesn’t completely explain the large gap between the percentages.

Could it be that we have a significant number of people who were just confused about the issue? Perhaps they haven’t thought the issue through fully.

That is the most sensible conclusion I can come to when thinking about these results. Why else would one want to have Census Bureau workers gum up the works with such a blatantly partisan question if the first perception one has is that the newcomers are likely here legitimately?

That may very well be the bottom line when it comes to the issues of immigration, reform and ethnicity in general in our society. It is one that many of us haven’t thought through fully.

PERHAPS PART OF that is due to a lack of exposure. If that’s the case, the passage of time will be the solution, because the Latino numbers are growing and spreading throughout the country to the point where it will soon be next to impossible to ignore it.

The day is coming when the only people who will be able to honestly say they have no contact with Latinos are the ones who are deliberately isolating themselves from society as a whole.

Maybe in that future day, we’ll be able to look back at these poll results (a majority thinks Latinos are legal, but wants everybody questioned about their immigration status) and get a good laugh at how they could be so out of whack.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Some people need to sit and think a little more carefully before responding (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/10/20/rel15d.pdf) to pollster questions.

CNN takes crack at Latino saga, will they succeed?

In one regard, the “Latino in America” documentary that will air on Cable News Network come Wednesday and Thursday already is an unmitigated success. It gained the cable news channel significant amounts of attention – more publicity than the station could have received if it paid for the advertising airtime.

Some of it has been negative – people who point out that CNN reaches out to Latinos with one hand while smacking them away with the other that contains Lou Dobbs’ nitwit rants, while others fear a demoralizing portrayal. But this is one of those cases where even negative publicity will pay off.

I REALIZE THAT some people already are inclined to dismiss this effort. They’re skeptical that a batch of Anglo television producers traveling about the country (who do much of the actual work, even though Cubana Soledad O’Brien is the face of this project) can hop into a batch of strange sights, get into the soul of what is happening there, and provide an accurate portrayal.

I’m not quite as skeptical, although the key to understanding this project is that this is going to be Latinos as viewed by corporate America. It’s not necessarily going to match up with how some of us want to view ourselves.

Now as I have written before, I actually got a chance a couple of weeks ago to view excerpts of this four-hour program – which will devote significant amounts of time to telling the life stories of people named “Garcia.”

That has become the eighth most popular surname in this country, and the fact that a Spanish-tinged name has made the most popular is yet another factual tidbit indicating that Latinos are becoming a part of the mainstream of the nation.

FROM THE EXCERPTS I saw, we’re going to see in the next couple of days the tale of a teenage girl in East Los Angeles desperately trying to finish high school, despite a lot of cultural and economic issues standing in her way, the existence of a California town with a 92 percent Latino population, and the work of a public defender in Tuscon, Ariz., who does battles with the outspoken Phoenix-area sheriff who has become the face of the nativist anti-immigration movement in this country.

The one that intrigues me the most is the story of Carlos Robles. He was from Puerto Rico, but has settled in Orlando, Fla. Back on the Caribbean island, he was in law enforcement.

He’d like to get into that same profession on the mainland, but his English comprehension is so weak that he has been unable to pass the written examinations that would allow him to get a job as a sheriff’s deputy.

To try to earn a living, he has worked in toy stores with colleagues speaking in a southern drawl who have the nerve to mock his English skills.

WHAT WE WILL see is the degree to which Robles is determined to bolster his language skills by taking courses so that he can someday work in what he views as his true profession.

So much for the theory that people coming to the United States from Latin American countries and territories are stubbornly clinging to the Spanish language and are determined to change our society’s culture, rather than try to adapt to ours.

And so much for the claims that come from some xenophobes that the quality of people coming from Latin America is one so low that picking fruit or washing dishes is somehow a step up for them.

From the excerpts I saw (CNN gave advance screenings in several cities across the nation, including my hometown of Chicago), I don’t know if Robles ever managed to pass the law enforcement exam (he says that the word “accurate” threw him off when he first took the exam, and caused him to misinterpret the point of several questions).

I’M ALSO NOT going to find out any time in the next couple of days.

For it turns out I have to work both Wednesday and Thursday nights. I doubt I’ll be able to get to a television either night, and I’m the type of person who detests the idea of trying to watch a program of any lengthy off the screen of my laptop computer or any other portable device.

But I suspect this program is going to be one that CNN is going to want to use to boast about itself. I expect it will be rerun on many occasions in upcoming months.

Plus, I’m sure there are a whole load of commentators and critics who are gearing up to trash the cable channel for their effort, regardless of what it actually reports in the next couple of nights.

THEY MAY INADVERTENTLY wind up telling me what Robles’ fate ultimately was.

Because no matter how much some people are determined to portray the Latino story in this country as one of people sneaking across the border (the same half-wits who find it funny that a Halloween costume is being sold that portrays a space “alien” in prison garb and the words “illegal alien” stenciled across its chest), Robles’ tale is one more in line with what the majority of the Latino population is going through.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: CNN will air their “Latino in America” series over and over in coming months (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/latino.in.america/) to try to bolster their image among the fastest-growing part of the U.S. population.

Latinos cooperating on health care reform

The Rayburn Building will be the scene of a program meant to try to persuade people to put aside partisan politics and approve something resembling a reform in the way medical care is paid for. Photograph provided by The Architect of the Capitol.

Latino members of Congress will be part of an effort Tuesday to try to persuade political people of the need to pass something that resembles health care reform.

Latino, black and Asian members of Congress will cooperate with various ethnic-oriented medical organizations, including the National Hispanic Medical Association. Their goal is a briefing to be held at the Rayburn House Office Building.

DURING THAT SESSION, they plan to show how ethnic and racial minority groups are in particular need of a reformed health care proposal that includes a public option for providing insurance to cover the cost of people in their time of medical treatment need.

It has been estimated that roughly one-third of the uninsured 47 million people in this country are Latino. That is far out of proportion to our share of the current population.

There are those people who are opposed to what is being asked for here, some because they have ideological beliefs that trump the fact that a serious problem exists in our society with so many people not having anything resembling health insurance.

Others are just interested in playing partisan politics with President Barack Obama. They’re interested in seeing nothing happen with this issue so that they can claim the president “failed” in what will probably be one of the biggest issues he will take on during his presidency (although the day that immigration reform crops up in Congress, that debate will top this one in terms of hostility).

IT IS THAT latter fact that also accounts for why some people are opposed to this issue – they don’t want to think about anything that impacts anyone outside of themselves.

I literally read a reader comment on a website from someone who said, point-blank, that the fact that the Congressional Black Caucus was supportive of health care reform was enough evidence to show that the idea was a scam of sorts.

It is that kind of ignoramus thought process that the minority politicos and medical people are trying to overcome.

“We have been advocating to Congress and White House staff to support prevention without penalties on premiums for the poor, to eliminate the 5-year ban on health care for legal immigrants, to include the Office of Minority Health to target health care to minority families so they suffer less from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity and HIV/AIDS,” said medical association President Elena Rios.

SHE SAID THE issue is of particular importance because of the fact that there are not sufficient numbers of minority doctors and nurses in the health care system, which leads to certain communities in the country not having sufficient access to medical care.

This isn’t strictly a Latino issue, or even an ethnic one. Many rural, white communities also have problems when it comes to access to a doctor without having to make a lengthy trip to a distant hospital.

But an increase in the number of Latinos in the medical profession would create a greater awareness of the issues – consisting of shortages of supplies and personnel – that exist in ethnic communities across the nation.

Among those who plan to partake in Tuesday’s program in Washington include Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Health task force; Dr. Lucille Perez, a former president of the National Medical Association; and Norma Martinez Rogers, president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: For those of you who happen to be in the District of Columbia Tuesday night, the congress members and medical officials interested in this issue will gather (http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=15729&cha=18) at the Rayburn House Office Building, room B-339, at 5 p.m.

Lone Star State to offer collegiate encouragement to Latinos

Texas does things on such a large scale that its gaffes are of monumental proportions.

So excuse me if I feel the need to offer a bit of praise for one initiative taking place in Texas that is a step in the right direction – the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board issued a report finding that Latinos are the group least likely to attend college.

STATE OFFICIALS VIEW that as a problem, one that needs to be rectified. In the past, it would have been accepted as the status quo.

It has officials considering a program to increase the number of counselors on staff at certain high schools with high Latino enrollments. The idea is to have people who will encourage young people to think about college as something that is relevant to their lives – not just those of other people.

Such ideas are not unique. During several programs held in recent weeks as part of the now-complete Hispanic Heritage Month, there were activists and officials who tried to deliver a message of improved education as being the key to advancing the mass of us in terms of our status in society.

It also was that idea that Latinos are not going to college in sufficient numbers.

NOW FOR THOSE of you who are about to say something along the lines of “Somebody has to deliver pizzas,” the simple fact is that in today’s society, something of a post-high school education is required for someone to get ahead.

And on some level, that concept is registering in the minds of young Latinos.

The Pew Hispanic Center released a study earlier this month that says 89 percent of young Latinos realize they would be better off in life if they had a college education.

The problem is that, according to the same study, only 48 percent of Latinos between 16 and 25 had any plan for attending college themselves.

ONE OF THE aspects of hiring these new counselors in Texas is that they would also try to reach out to parents to let them know how sacrifices made now can result in long-term gain.

The tendency of many people who get caught in lower-income levels is to focus their attention on today, and figure that worrying about tomorrow and next year and the rest of one’s life will have to wait until the day actually comes.

Seventy-four percent of all Latinos who ended their education prematurely said it was the perception on their part that they have to work in order to help their parents support their family (or in some cases to support children they are having at a young age) that caused them to drop out of college – or else not go at all.

In short, there’s the potential for the mid-21st Century to have a lot of bitter Latinos who had to sell themselves short in life, unless we start trying to figure out ways to get people to try to make more of their lives than they currently have.

THE POTENTIAL IS there for many great things to be accomplished by the growing Latino population. One of the figures offered up in that same Pew study was “38 percent.”

As in the number of people who think that Latino students are not willing to work as hard in school as other types of students. That is low; the study found that language incomprehension and a lack of parental leadership on the issue were more significant factors.

As I heard expressed on a few occasions during the past month, what’s the point of being such a large share of the percentage if we’re not contributing to the society and benefiting it as well?

And let’s hope that Texas can inspire education officials in other states across this nation to help motivate the growing Latino youth, rather then let us lag out of some sense that society as a whole has nothing to gain.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: This doesn’t make up for all the stupid things that have taken place (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9BDMEDG0.html) in Texas throughout the years, but it is a start.

We need to figure out how to make Latinos realize that an education is something that can be (http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=115) relevant to our lives as well.

I heard a lot of “Go to school!” messages during the past month, including one delivered (http://nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/article_67fc8955-cbbb-5127-8a09-d2ae61c262f8.html) on this occasion.

Baseball a reflection of the Latino “assimilation”

One of the reasons I have always enjoyed watching professional baseball in this country is because of the fact it includes so many of the top ballplayers from Latin American countries, who come here because the American and National league ball clubs pay so much better than the teams in the Dominican or Venezuelan leagues.

Which is why I found a recent commentary published by ESPN on their website to be refreshing (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=macgregor/091016). An Anglo kid who learned how ridiculous the image of the “Frito Bandito” was by watching guys named Aparicio and Clemente, and who couldn’t comprehend why the same people who enjoyed watching Fernando Valenzuela pitch had such ethnic hang-ups about Mexican people.

I’D LIKE TO think that some contemporary children will be learning the same lesson watching los peloteros of today, and that the views of commentator Andy Rooney (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/business/media/27rooney.html) are truly something that will wither away with the passage of time.

Personally, I was anxious to see how things would shake down Friday when former Boston Red Sox stars Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez faced off against each other, with native Dominican Martinez of the Philadelphia Phillies pitching against New York-raised Dominican Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It almost had the feel of the moment when old Negro leagues stars Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson finally faced each other in an exhibition in 1942 at Yankee Stadium (for what it’s worth, Paige struck out Gibson).

That is going to be but one of many storylines that will come out of the major league baseball playoffs taking place this month (and sadly, into the early days of November). It also will be one of many that will feature the Latino and Latin American athletes (who these days account for a combined total of roughly 40 percent of all major league ballplayers).

WILL VLADIMIR GUERRERO of the Dominican Republic lead the Mexican-American owned Los Angeles Angels to their second American League championship ever in their 48-year history?

Or will it fall upon Alex Rodriguez and crew to boost the New York Yankees to their first league championship since 2003 – which to certain Yankees fans feels like a longer pennant drought than that experienced by the Chicago Cubs (101 years, and counting).

So excuse me if I take a break from filing a full-fledged commentary for the weekend. My mind is elsewhere these days. I’ll be back on Monday.

Although those of you who feel the need to read something ought to take a look at the piece written by Jeff MacGregor for ESPN.

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An inspiring moment in its own way, TV giving Latino focus

I spent an hour Thursday night watching PBS and their broadcast of the “Fiesta Latina” that was staged on the south lawn of the White House, where Barack Obama staged a concert featuring musicians of the various genres that get lumped by Anglo America as “Latino Music.”

The concert itself was held Tuesday night, so it is already ancient history in the minds of some people. And the news reports that came from the White House had fun with comedian George Lopez’ wisecrack that Obama himself (“he lives in a house that isn’t his”) is an honorary Latino.

YET I COULDN’T help but think that it was another remark made by Lopez – one where he wasn’t trying to crack a joke – that put the night into its true perspective.

He said that seeing the assembled talent on a stage with the White House as the backdrop (and the U.S. flag fluttering atop) was an inspiring sight.

Considering how often Anglo America likes to dismiss Spanish music (when they consider it at all) as somehow something that provides the soundtrack to many a barfight in south Texas, it was encouraging to see that the different genres could hold their own in a rarified atmosphere such as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

I was just glad to see the atmosphere didn’t get too formal. No tuxedoes on those political people in attendance, although some of the women apparently tried to outshine the typical image of a political wife clad in bright red.

IT DID BECOME torturous when we saw snippets of political people trying to dance to the music. I hope White House social secretary Desiree Rogers (who I remember from her days some two decades ago with the Illinois State Lottery) doesn’t plan to give up her day job – those hips just don’t shake very much.

There was one moment of disappointment for me. Marc Anthony (known to some as Mr. Jennifer Lopez) sang his biggest hit, “Dimelo.” Only he gave us the English translation of lyrics that goes by the title “I Need to Know.”

That is one song that loses a lot of its feeling and emotion in translation.

But it was intriguing to realize that the music coming from various ethnicities that comprise Latinos has become the mainstream, just like Latinos ourselves – even though some people are desperately fighting that concept.

YES, SHEILA E. (for Escobedo) is a Latina (for those who were clueless).

In fact, that was the impression I got recently when I had a chance to see excerpts of CNN’s “Latino in America” documentary that will air next week.

After watching four hours worth of stories whose only common factor is that everybody is named “Garcia” (the eighth most popular surname in the United States these days, regardless of ethnicity), it becomes apparent that we’re fitting in at all segments of society.

Some of us Latinos are successes. Some of us are screw-ups. Just like any other ethnic or racial group. Only the most hard-core knucklehead will be able to deny that after seeing the segments (although I expect most of them will go out of their way to avoid watching the program).

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is the “Fiesta Latina” broadcast on PBS destined to be rerun many times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/arts/music/14latino.html?em) in coming years to try to inspire Latinos to cough up some cash as part of a pledge drive?

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has become a Latina celebrity in her own right (http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/10/obama_at_white_house_latin_mus.html), judging by the applause she got compared to entertainers such as Jimmy Smits, Los Lobos and Gloria Estefan.

CNN expects to get great praise for airing this two-part documentary next week. It will be interesting (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/latino.in.america/) to see how many people actually view it.

Question just a tactic, but revealing of feelings

A part of me does not want to get worked up over “the question” that a pair of Republican members of the Senate want to have put on the Census Bureau form to be sent out to people next spring as part of the national population count.

That question, which was considered by the Senate on Wednensday, would ask people to provide a “yes’ or “no” answer as to whether or not they are U.S. citizens or have a valid visa.

THE BOTTOM LINE, on the surface, is that they are trying to use the Census Bureau to get a full-fledged count of how many of that dreaded species of “illegal aliens” there are in this country.

The Census already asks people who fill out the form whether or not they are U.S. born. But it doesn’t demand any detail from those who were born in other countries as to what circumstances they are living in this country.

The measure was tacked onto an appropriations bill that includes the federal funding for the Census Bureau. If this amendment is not dealt with, it could theoretically cut off funding for the Census – which would be a problem because the once-a-decade population count is mandated by the federal government.

I think the fact that they know the Census has to be done means this measure is little more than a tactic. Give them something they really want, and this whole mess will go away.

WHAT THIS REALLY is about is symbolism. Political people who voted to support this measure want it to go on the record that they are siding with the nativist elements of our society who would just as soon keep anyone who isn’t native born out of this nation.

It is because they perceive that part of society as stronger than the immigrant part or the Latino part (which in some minds has come to be synonymous with immigrant even though a growing percentage of our numbers are U.S.-born).

As described by David Vitter of Louisiana and Bob Bennett of Utah, they would envision the Census Bureau releasing two sets of numbers when the population count is complete late next year.

One would be the number of actual people in this country, with the other being the number of citizens.

SINCE ONE OF the effects of the Census Bureau population count is that political representation is apportioned by its results, they would have it so that people who don’t fit their definition of legitimate humans would not be counted.

They want to create a class of un-person.

That idea bothers me, in large part because it strikes me as the descendants of past generations’ un-people now seem to think it is their turn to dump on someone else. Which means our society propagates its mistakes of the past, rather than learns from them.

There’s also the fact that it is a bit late in the process to be changing the format. If this were seriously about adding an additional question to the Census Bureau form to gather some information (even a stupid tidbit like this), it should have been done years ago.

WAITING UNTIL THE months before the Census is to be conducted exposes this affair for the cheap political tactic that it is.

Oddly, I’m not bothered by the fact that it would screw up the ballot, which this time is using the “short version,” which means there will be only 10 questions.

If the collegiate athletic conference known as the Big Ten can consist of 11 schools and still keep its historic name, I don’t see why a “Take 10” advertising campaign (it supposedly takes 10 minutes to answer 10 questions) couldn’t still be used for an 11-question ballot.

The problem is that the question itself is so loaded, and meant to draw up a fact to enhance the ridiculous views some people in our society still have.

SUCH A QUESTION just doesn’t fit when matched up against the ones that will be on the form. Those include (1) number of people living in a residence, (2) others who occasionally stay, (3) type of residence, (4) telephone number, (5) name, (6) gender, (7) age, (8) are you Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin, (9) race and (10) do you sometimes live somewhere else?

That information, which will remain confidential until the years just before the turn of the 21st Century into the 22nd, helps gain a basic understanding of the population’s composition.

Other “details” accomplish little more than playing partisan politics – which when they finally become public knowledge in 2082 will serve little purpose other than showing just how backward some of our politicians were back in the early days of the 21st Century.

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Farmers’ Latino lawsuit wends way through courts

On the same day that Latino activists gathered at Capitol Hill to express outrage with the federal government’s current lack of action, attorneys representing Latino farmers were in the D.C. courts complaining about the federal government’s past actions.

It was Tuesday that attorneys argued in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that there are Latino farmers who are entitled to financial compensation for the way in which they were treated by the federal government in the past.

IN SHORT, THE farmers are suing the Department of Agriculture, claiming the federal agency denied them much of the aid they routinely provided to farmers, solely because of their ethnic background.

It has come to be known as the Garcia case, and attorneys fighting on behalf of the Latino farmers wanted a federal judge to grant the case “class action” status, which would give it more legitimacy as it works its way through the court system and could result in a bigger payday someday.

That status was denied, and attorneys met in the courtroom of Judge James Robertson to try to figure out a financial settlement. Not that any was achieved.

Attorneys for the federal government are taking a hard-line for now, telling CNN that there’s no reason to settle the lawsuit. Attorneys for the farmers say they have the acts of discrimination documented so well that it would be best for the federal government to settle now.

WHO’S TO SAY who is right and wrong in this case?

A good part of this case feeds off a similar lawsuit that ended in 1997 with the federal government having to pay $1 billion to some 15,000 farmers and their attorneys. What those farmers had in common was that they were black.

And there was a time when the federal government was not as eager to pay out the same benefits to black people trying to do the equivalent of white people.

Could it be that the desire to keep African-American people in check wound up resulting in some Latinos also being denied benefits? It’s totally believable, particularly in light of the comments of former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, who testified at the time of the settlement of the African-American farmer lawsuit that the Agriculture Department had a history of discrimination.

BUT IT ALSO doesn’t surprise me to learn that the federal government doesn’t want to have to acknowledge further problems.

After all, if the feds have to settle with both black and Latino farmers, how long will it be until the Asian farmers wind up filing their claim? Will there someday be lawsuits from interests representing Arabs living in this country claiming they are being denied benefits due to their ethnic background (and the mistaken belief that they’re all Muslim)?

This is actually the big problem when it comes to continuing tensions on ethnic and racial issues in this country. There are those people who want to claim it is somehow racist for the ethnics to claim they are being singled out for abuse.

But all too often, what prevents the “ethnics” from being able to get over the belief that they are being treated differently from the mainstream is the perception that it is the mainstream not wanting to be called into account for their past misdeeds.

THAT IS WHAT the opposition to this Latino farmer lawsuit reeks of.

Could it be that there are federal government officials who figure that the government has suffered enough embarrassment with the last payout, and that everybody else who didn’t qualify somehow has to just suffer their mistreatment in silence?

It is similar, in my mind, to those people who want to argue that reform of the nation’s immigration laws is too complex and will anger too many people to be worth doing. It’s little more than double-talk from people who don’t want to have to acknowledge what is the right thing to do to benefit our society.

Ultimately, it is only going to be when all sides are fully willing to admit their past misdeeds and take responsibility for them (rather than try to ignore them in the hope that the passage of time will bury them from the public’s memory) that we’re going to be able to move forward.

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Activists converge on Capitol, push for immigration reform

They spent the overnight hours between Monday and Tuesday sleeping on a bus that was making the 12-hour drive from Chicago to Washington.

Similar groups were making the same trip from their home cities to the District of Columbia, all with the intent of being on Capitol Hill come Tuesday.

THAT IS THE place to be for activists who are determined to give Congress a boot in its collective buttocks to get it to take some action with regards to reform of the nation’s immigration laws.

Congress has done nothing on that issue this year, and some political operatives are fearful of how much of a hit they will take when the issue does eventually come up – although the man those operatives work for, President Barack Obama, has hinted that action will come up in 2010.

The problem is that while these operatives agree that the status quo of immigration laws are grossly out-of-date, they fear the backlash that will come from the nativist element of our society.

They may talk about wanting to offer help to newcomers to this country, but they are too willing to cater to the demands of people whose hang-ups cause them to want more restrictions (rather than fewer, which is what is actually needed).

THEY WANT TO go along with the kind of people who think immigration reform consists of erecting barricades along the U.S./Mexico border and who also wouldn’t mind some sort of militarization in that region.

That is the mentality that the activists are hoping to confront.

They plan to rally on the west lawn of Capitol Hill, timing their visit with a measure being introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., that could be the basis of an immigration reform proposal that could someday come before the entire Congress.

In short, they want the members of Congress to see that there is a sizable number of people in this nation who will look down upon them if they continue to cater to the nativist element of our society.

THAT MAY VERY well be what our federal lawmakers need to see. Because they all too often think of that nativist element as being the one that actually bothers to vote on Election Day, which is why it gains their support.

Our political people need to see that there will be future Election Day consequences if they do not start taking seriously the concept that what needs to be reformed are the overbearing rules that make it next to impossible for some people on Planet Earth to ever get a valid visa that would let them have a chance to enter this nation and live here openly.

It is because of that stacked deck that it is ridiculous when people claim that some immigrants come to this country “the right way” while the roughly 12 million people living here without a visa are little more than criminals who ought to think of themselves as lucky that they would be merely deported, instead of incarcerated.

The reality is that we’re talking about millions of people (that 12 million figure is really a semi-educated guess, nobody truly knows how many are living in the U.S. without a visa) who are making a valid contribution to our society with their labor.

THE SOONER OUR political people realize that they should be able to exist in this country openly, the better off we all are.

I’ll be curious to see just what kind of reaction these activists get. Will they be taken seriously on this issue?

Or are we going to get condescending remarks about all the lawns that didn’t get mowed across the nation because the “gardeners” were “playing politics” in Washington?

I also couldn’t help but notice this week that the Washington Times (the conservative-based newspaper published by the company controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon) published its own story telling us of the attempt by certain activists to get Latinos to refuse to cooperate from the Census Bureau’s count next year of the population.

COULD IT BE that the conservatives realize the truth of what I (and people of sense) have been saying for months – that the Census is important to acknowledging the size and influence of the growing Latino population?

If that’s the case, then this report is a case of the conservatives trying to undermine the Latino population by trying to get it to undermine itself by not being counted.

I’d take this as the ultimate evidence of the need to be counted – we need to show our strength in numbers when the federal government does its count of how many people are living in the United States on April 1, 2010.

It also is the reason why I wonder about those people who try to make arguments that non-citizens without visas should somehow be overlooked.

I CAN’T AGREE with that statement, because I always thought the point of the Census was to find out how many people are actually within the U.S. borders. That should be the case regardless of citizenship status.

If anything, I’d think the conservatives would be anxious to have the most detailed count of non-citizens possible so they could know exactly how many people we’re truly talking about – instead of having to rely on guesses of 12 million not having valid visas.

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Illinois becomes a new front in ethnic culture wars

My home state is about to become yet the latest place where the xenophobes will contend that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, all because some of us would like a more accurate recounting of history.

All too often, the history courses taught to our schoolchildren are pure propaganda. The only thing that prevents our young people from being totally brain-washed is that the teachers often are dull and pedantic in their recitation of facts and dates, which means that most of the material is quickly forgotten (that is, if it ever registers in the minds of the people).

BUT WHAT HAS happened in Illinois that will tick certain people off?

It seems my home state’s governor, Patrick Quinn, signed into law a change in the School Code that requires U.S. history to be taught in the high schools, and even specifies to a degree what must be in such a course.

The changes are to the portions related to the contributions to our society of various ethnic groups that have settled here. It seems that the school code is now going to have to require that Latinos be acknowledged, and there will even have to be mention of the misguided U.S. policies of the Great Depression that resulted in the deportation of U.S. citizens of Mexican ethnic background.

Not only are history courses going to have to let people know about how Japanese ethnics were held in internment camps during a wartime, we’re also going to have to see how stupid nativist-leaning thought led our government to make a stupid mistake some 70 years ago.

IN SHORT, WE might actually learn a lesson from our history, as the same thought patterns that led some officials to figure there was nothing wrong with deporting U.S.-born people because of their ethnic background are too often behind the misguided attempts to impose restrictive federal policies today.

But then again, there are those in our society who’d rather not learn that lesson.

I really don’t think they’re ashamed of the fact that they support an absurd thought process. That, in and of itself, is something our society ought to be ashamed of – that we actually have such people.

Now I can already hear the arguments that will be put forth to this new Illinois law that will take effect Jan. 1, 2010, and which Quinn tried to promote by issuing a statement (http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=2&RecNum=7920) this past weekend.

THERE’S ALREADY TOO much material to realistically be included in the course of a single year for a history course.

The emphasis ought to be on issues and people who made lasting contributions to our society, rather than trying to put some sort of “balance” to get everyone.

We need to focus on material that is of interest to the broad spectrum, rather than waste time on moments that might only be of interest to a few.

All of those arguments reek of the stench of a hog barn, because they’re put forth by people who are interested in promoting their own interests in an attempt to spin the thought that those are the only ones of significance.

ALL TOO OFTEN, they want to ignore the fact that any ethnicity (other than their own) had anything to do with the development of this nation.

Personally, my memories of history courses I took in school prior to college (where I studied history, particularly the foreign policy of the United States) were of material that I thought could have been interesting, and often found truly was intriguing once I did my own additional reading into the subject matter.

But how many elementary and high school children are going to bother to try to do additional reading? I will be the first to admit I was the exception in this particular instance.

So if it reads like I’m writing that most of my historical knowledge was self-taught, there’d be an element of truth to that.

SPECIFICALLY WITH REGARDS to Latinos, I can remember a quick acknowledgment that the Spanish conquistadors were here first in what is now known as the continental United States. But then we quickly moved on to Jamestown and the Pilgrims.

About the only other time anything even close to “Latino” got mentioned was with regards to Texas and 1836. I’m sure the bumbling incompetence of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna is the extent to which some people want to have to acknowledge anything Spanish that occurred in this nation.

The problem with such a view is that it is so limited that the lack of knowledge threatens to hold us back as a society.

Changes such as what will have to develop in Illinois (I’m curious to see how many squabbles develop, particularly in rural parts of the state where the locals might think that such “ethnic” knowledge is irrelevant to their daily lives) are necessary if our society is going to keep up with the rest of the world.

IF ANYTHING, I wonder if it is this narrow approach that was partially at work with the failure earlier this month of Chicago to gain the summer Olympic games for 2016.

Too many of the Olympics proponents are trying to downplay the rejection as somehow being the rest of the world taking out its petty jealousies against the United States of America.

That may very well be true.

But when you figure the narrow view of the rest of the world that some people would have taught to our schoolchildren, you have to wonder if their petty view is just as ignorant as our petty view?

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What does D.C. tell us about Latino/black relations?

It is with anxious eyes that I watch the situation in the District of Columbia to see if we pick up any clues about the often-misunderstood relationship between Latinos and African-American people – the ones whom some Anglos would prefer to think of as just one faceless “minority.”

There are times when I think the people who are most eager to push the concept of Latinos and black people being unable to get along with each other are the white people with their own ethnic and racial hang-ups who would prefer to keep their “opposition” split.

UNITED, THEY COULD stand and do things. Divided, it creates ruckus.

And that definitely describes the situation concerning the local government that oversees Washington – which by its very definition is a federal district that answers to federal laws.

Or, as the local officials like to say, they’re the only local government that also has the responsibilities of state and federal government as well.

The latest outburst occurred Friday when Latino activists protested in the nation’s capital city concerning the dismissal of the parks and recreation director.

XIMENA HARTSOCK IS a Latina. She says her treatment by the District Council had elements of racism and sexism.

District officials are trying to downplay such talk. They’d like to make some general statements implying that Hartsock was not qualified for the job (as though any political appointee ever has truly legitimate credentials).

But they’re having to deal with the rant of Marion Barry, the one-time D.C. mayor whom much of the nation thinks of as a political joke but whom many D.C. black people view as someone who will stick up for their rights.

The Washington Post reported that Barry previously said of Hartsock that her lack of understanding of African-American culture was what made her unqualified for the parks post.

HARTSOCK TOLD THE Post that any white politician who made such a statement would be pilloried. But then again, we’re talking about the District of Columbia, which has vast areas that most tourists never set foot in.

It is because of those portions of the city that the nation’s capital is a majority-African American population. The last official Census Bureau count of the city in 2000 have the capital city with a 55 percent African-American population, compared to only 8 percent Latino.

When one has a majority and has some officials who are inclined to think that they are put in place politically to represent nothing more than that majority (rather than all people), it creates a situation where we could very well have a local government that will turn into a Latino versus African-American, with the white political populace standing silent on the sidelines – either enjoying the chaos or figuring that anything they say will get them into deep trouble.

So what should we think?

COULD THIS BE a political grudge match with racial and/or ethnic overtones? Could this literally be evidence of a split that exists in many forms in many places across the United States?

Or is this just a whole lot of hot air coming from a political person of Latina background who can’t handle the fact that she was a political appointee who worked at the pleasure of her superiors – some of whom were not of her own ethnic background?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: What constitutes qualifications when it comes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100903933.html) to political positions?

Hispanic Heritage Month too often low key

I’m giving myself a bit of a break. For those wishing to read fresh commentary and analysis about the thoughts of Latinos in this country and the issues that affect us, come back tomorrow.

But I will leave you with this commentary (http://www.theorion.com/opinion/hispanic-heritage-often-ignored-1.629623) published in the student newspaper at Chico State University in California.

WHILE I’M NOT quite sure I agree with this youthful commentator about how irrelevant Spanish-language music is to the modern day cultural scene, he does have some legitimate points about how overlooked the whole concept of Hispanic Heritage Month is by the mainstream of society.

I particularly got a kick out of reading how a university website refers to the spectacle as “Hispanic Awareness Month,” which to my mindset makes the whole concept sound like a disease (as though being “Latino” is something for which you take a pill or two to overcome).

Of course, part of the blame is on the celebrations themselves, which can range from serious cultural aspects to the digestion of mushy tamales. While this particular story (http://nwitimes.com/news/foreign-language/article_aa295cc2-b622-54c8-aa6e-d47851c17557.html) details Chicago-area celebrations, I can’t help but think the same phenomenon is taking place all across the United States.

There is also the thought of the wisecracking columnist Gustavo Arellano, who uses his syndicated “Ask A Mexican” column to let us know why he thinks the whole concept of Hispanic Heritage Month (http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-10-06/columns/ask-a-mexican-why-a-special-month-for-hispanics-is-so-tiring) is kind of lame.

SO WHAT DO I truly think about the concept of Hispanic Heritage Month (which doesn’t even get its own month)?

I’d say most of these events are about as worthwhile as the people who organize them. If the events turn out to be “lame,” then perhaps we’re not doing an adequate job of showing off our own culture.

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What should Latinos think of H1N1?

I’m not sure what to think of speculation that people in positions of authority are eager to downplay the effect that the influenza virus known as H1N1 is having on non-Anglo people, particularly Latino.

I do remember the way some people got their glee from noting its initial outbreak among people of Mexican citizenship, and the way that some people went so far as to say that what was initially thought to be the “swine flu” ought to be called the “Mexican flu.”

SO PERHAPS THERE are those among us who would prefer to think of this as something started by Latinos (whom they probably think are all Mexican), and who aren’t going to get too worked up over the potential that this virus could have a bigger impact on people of ethnicity in our society.

But coming out and saying there’s some sort of conspiracy – that seems to go a bit far. I’m not one of those people who is convinced that Neil Armstrong landed on a soundstage in the Arizona desert after dark, rather than the Moon.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with an analysis of the early deaths among children from the virus (the ones that occurred during the first outbreak, not any that are occurring from the aftermath likely to occur this fall).

That initial study found that one-third of the youthful deaths were Latino kids.

BET, THAT CABLE television channel giving us black-oriented programming, used its website to compile the results of various regional health departments, all of which found that black or Latino people were more likely than white to be hospitalized due to the virus.

Yet there are those among us who think we’re not hearing enough about this situation, although the Centers for Disease Control told BET it will come up with more current information about this very situation possibly by week’s end.

I’d like to think this is a situation where people are trying to cope with the virus, and are worrying about the actual accounting of who got it for later. I’d hate to think that at a time when a potentially fatal virus was taking place, there was someone whose top priority was to count people and calculate their exact place on the ethnic spectrum.

In fact, I got my kick out of the fact that Mexico’s health secretary, Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, was in Washington earlier this week to discuss the H1N1 situation with officials of the Health and Human Services Department and the National Institutes of Health.

“THE CENTERS FOR Disease Control was supportive in diagnosing this new virus in April,” said Cordova, in a prepared statement. “We are working together on preparedness plans against a new wave of H1N1 in Mexico, Canada and the United States.

“Cooperation is essential to face this new threat that we have,” he said.

So what should we think about this situation?

I’d like to think that this particular strain of the flu is one that is a threat to everybody in our society – and that it doesn’t single people out because of ethnic backgrounds.

IT OUGHT TO be something that all of us try to work together to find a solution that will help us cope with this health threat to all.

If there really are people who are trying to downplay the fact that Latinos are more vulnerable (although I’d wonder if it is just more a situation where people who are lower on society’s socio-economic scale are more at risk of this virus in the same way that they are likely to suffer from anything negative that hits us as a whole), then they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

But I’m not particularly interested in finding the vaccine that will protect Latinos only. This is one of those “crisis type” situations where we are better off if we think as one.

It is only as one that we will achieve anything resembling a solution to this health threat.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is it a conspiracy to downplay the effect of the new strain of (http://www.bet.com/News/Health_Swine_Flu_Impact_On_Blacks_Latinos.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished&Referrer=%7B0471DDF0-D0D8-48A8-9E30-ADD40CBE0269%7D) influenza on Latinos?

Mexico’s health officials are trying to be a part of the solution (http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=15647&cha=10) when it comes to H1N1.

The Census in song? Somebody’s trying too hard

I appreciate the seriousness of the 2010 Census and the legitimate need to have as accurate a population count as possible.

I even find it pleasing to know that the U.S. Census Bureau is taking the official position that it needs to make an extra effort to reach out to the growing Latino population to ensure that as many people are counted when trying to answer the “eternal” question, “How many people lived in the United States on April 1, 2010?”

YET I CAN’T help but view some of the acts being committed by Census Bureau officials around the nation as somehow being a bit cheap and tacky – kind of like the over-eager kid who goes too far in trying to achieve some noble task.

I thought that working with a Telenovela on Telemundo to create a storyline by which a character tries to become a Census worker would result in stilted storylines that might actually turn some people off of wanting to think about population counts.

Yet now I comprehend that the Census Bureau has people writing songs about the need to be counted, and is even having them written and sung in the Mexican-folk style of the “corridos,” those tales in music that try to teach us lessons or pass along bits and pieces of our history.

These songs were presented recently by Census Bureau officials out of the Albuquerque office, and were written by individuals in Arizona and New Mexico. It seems they strove to recreate the feel of the actual long-lasting corridos that get passed down from generation to generation.

DOES THIS MEAN someone with the Census Bureau wants us to think that many generations ago, someone foresaw the need for us all to be counted in the year 2010 and put that premonition to song?

It makes me wonder if someone is trying to create the image that there was a Mexican version of Nostradamus, writing in corridos instead of quatrains.

What is more likely to be produced is some sort of corny jingle that will be dismissed by anyone with more than half-a-mind.

From an account published in the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper, it isn’t clear to me whether these corrido parodies will ever be heard outside of the Southwestern United States. I’m hoping they aren’t.

NOT JUST BECAUSE they have the potential to be lame musically, but it’s not like the tradition of the corrido is universal. It might reach out to the Mexican-American population that clung to the Soutwestern U.S. in an attempt to remain as physically close to Mexico as is possible.

But it might flop with the rest of us, along with Latinos of other ethnicities. I just can’t see the Nuyorican community or the aging Cubano exiles of Miami being swayed by something that is little more than Mexican parody.

It has the potential to sound like something being forced on us, rather than something that truly caught the imagination of the public.

Ultimately, that is going to be the key to determining whether the Census Bureau succeeds or fails in its marketing campaign to make Latinos participate.

IT CAN’T BE forced. You can’t make Latinos be counted. You have to make us want to be counted. You have to create an atmosphere by which the growing Latino population realizes that this Census Bureau count is a chance to show our true strength in the overall society – and it is an opportunity that will be paid attention to by all those Anglo-inspired politicians whose future actions will impact us and our place in this society.

And it probably is something that will have to be done with a series of regional campaigns, rather than one national effort. The simple fact is that we’re not all alike, even though the nativist element cannot (and does not want to) comprehend that.

So there is one encouraging fact.

The Commerce Department (which oversees the Census Bureau) plans to spend $325 million during the first three months of 2010 on marketing efforts to get people interested in participating when the actual Census form arrives in the mail at their homes in mid-to-late March.

IT MAY SEEM a bit too much like the Navin R. Johnson character in “The Jerk,” getting all worked up about the arrival of new telephone books.

But it is a significant moment, letting the society as a whole know just how large the Latino segment is and how it can’t be ignored.

Let’s just hope that not too much of that money (some 51 percent is meant to be spent on local advertising initiatives) is used to come up with corrido parodies or other efforts that could wind being the basis of a parody of the Census Bureau itself.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Census Bureau may be trying too hard to get the Latino (http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2009/10/05/news/local/doc4ac97814d1543694963201.txt) population interested in participating in the 2010 Census.

Double the language, or saying half as much

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has come out with a book (or should I say, a book was written under his name) that purports to be a philosophical discussion of the future of the growing Latino population.

From what I can tell from excerpts, reviews and interviews, the opinions expressed are largely a stating of the incredibly obvious – although I’m sure to the portion of the U.S. population that has a hang-up about Latinos or ethnicity in general, it will all come across as controversial.

BUT IN READING an account published about a recent book-signing event by Menendez (http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-15/12547101055970.xml&coll=1), there was one aspect that caught my attention.

Because it is a phenomenon I have experienced myself in recent times.

This “phenomenon” is the fact that during his public appearance, Menendez insisted on addressing those people in attendance in both Spanish and English.

As a reporter-type person who has taken to occasionally covering cultural and political events with a Latino ethnic tinge to them, it is very often that a person speaking to these gatherings (which almost always turn out to be entirely Latino in crowd) uses a cadence I am becoming accustomed to.

SOMEONE SPEAKING TO these crowds blurts out a sentence or two in one language, then repeats it in the other language.

For somebody trying to follow a train of thought, it can become annoying, because just when one hears something that intrigues them mentally, it gets repeated.

I often wonder to myself if the end result is that these events last twice as long as they should because everything gets repeated, or if half as much is being said to ensure that people in attendance don’t get bored.

Purely as a reporter, it has one benefit. It means that the actual statements are being said at a slow pace, which makes it very easy to pick out exact quotations.

I ALSO MUST admit that as someone who admittedly is far from fluent in Spanish, it is nice to be able to hear everything repeated – even if it primarily gives me a crash-course in the language whenever I’m supposed to be working.

What always amazes me about these events is that I often cannot figure out which language is predominant.

In other words, if it sounds like I’m saying these speakers should do away with one language – I’d have a hard time deciding which language should be dropped.

Because for every group where one might want to think that it is the Spanish language that dominates, I can honestly say there are always some faces that don’t light up with recognition until the English translation comes along.

IF IT SEEMS like I’m implying that it is a mistake to think of Latinos as somehow linguistically isolated from the rest of U.S. culture, you’d be correct.

The reality is that Latinos, because we’re a younger population with increasing percentages of us born in the United States, it is that English language that is the native tongue – although the fact that many of us are exposed to Spanish on the home front merely means we’re becoming bilingual.

In today’s global workplace, that likely is a plus – which makes me wonder if part of the reason some people have such intense hang-ups about Latinos is that they see the potential for us to leave their monolingual behinds lying in the dust in coming decades?

Of course, now they’ll claim that I’m the one stirring up resentment by somehow claiming that Latinos are superior to them – the same way they tried to make such a charge against the new Supreme Court Justice.

NOTE I SAID new. She got the nomination. She got the job. Sonia Sotomayor began her duties on the high court.

Personally, I don’t expect this bilingual public appearance trend to last.

Because the day will come when the bulk of the Latino population is fluent in English. A majority of it already is, but by bulk I’m talking about supermajorities.

That’s just the trend with new groups to this nation. There always is that first generation to whom some members never truly pick up the English language, but the future generations take to it with ease.

WHEN THAT DAY comes, we’ll go about having these types of cultural events, and they’ll be purely in one language.

Which makes me wonder if someday, I’ll long for the day when I could cover a cultural event and hear it given the bilingual approach, not only for the beauty of the sound of the Spanish language, but also because by then my hands may very well be arthritic and need the extra time to write down every word.

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