Cultural “divide” when it comes to Martin outing himself?

For once, comedian George Lopez may have made a serious point about our society when he tried to get a gag Tuesday out of the fact that singer Ricky Martin outed himself this week as a gay man.

As Lopez put it during the opening monologue to his self-named talk show Tuesday night, “he came out in two languages.” The idea that while people who are celebrity-oriented may have no problem accepting the idea that yet another entertainer is not heterosexual, there also is the fact that Martin is Puerto Rican.

WHICH MEANS NOT only will it be the musical fans who will have an opinion (most of which consists of making lame gags that play off the title of his one-time hit song, “She Bangs”), there also is going to be a Latino opinion.

Which is why I must admit that when I first heard the tidbits that Martin used Twitter to send out a message describing himself as a “fortunate homosexual man,” my first thought was to wonder if a whole batch of viejas were now going to start wondering if their children were somehow being corrupted by Martin’s music.

Or, have we as Latinos assimilated enough into the society of this country that we will be inclined to shrug off the thought that Martin will never fulfill that traditional fantasy of marrying a “nice” girl and having children with her?

Even Michael Jackson gave us variations on that traditional image of what an adult’s life is supposed to be about.

PERSONALLY, I AM of the belief that a person’s sexual orientation is their own business. So unless Martin were to someday meet me and decide that he absolutely has to have me (which I will be the first to admit is a scenario that is unlikely to ever occur), I don’t care if the one-time singer from Menudo is gay.

But I am aware there are many Latinos whose beliefs on issues are influenced by their Catholicism (which is why a part of me wonders if it is accurate to call myself a Catholic, since I don’t adhere to every attitude expressed by the church even though I was baptized by a priest).

So I am sure there are some people who are now convinced that a catastrophe has taken place. One of our ethnic brethren celebrities is now tainted in a way they won’t want to accept. Some might wonder if Martin’s career is now somehow doomed.

I doubt it.

THIS MAY SOUND seem cynical on my part, because I realize that Martin has hopes of continuing to work as an entertainer and as a musician. But does anyone seriously believe that Ricky’s career has not already peaked.

He’s not a “one-hit wonder” by any means. But when the day comes that Ricky Martin’s obituary is actually published, it is going to tout the phenomenon of “Livin’ La Vida Loca” – the Spanglish hit from 11 years ago.

It almost strikes me as being the Latino version of when the actor who played that 1980s television character “Doogie Howser” outed himself. By the time he did so, the aspect of his life for which he will be remembered was clearly in the past.

Which means that for Ricky Martin, his sexual orientation ought to be such a sidelight to his professional life. He was a Spanish-language singer who managed to cross over to the pop music charts of this country to the point where many music fans of a decade ago probably gave Martin’s ethnicity little thought.

WITHOUT MARTIN, WE wouldn’t have performers like Shakira (who probably would be considered too exotic and foreign by U.S. audiences) too seriously. She’d be the 21st Century version of Charo.

Not that I’m much of a Martin fan (I once had someone try to criticize me by saying I listen to “old lady music by people like Celia Cruz,” not realizing that I enjoy listening to Celia). But I can appreciate his influence on pop culture – even if I am a soccer fan who finds “A Cup of Life/La Copa de la Vida” to be annoying after having heard it so many thousands of times throughout the years.

I’d like to think this reflects the view of a bulk of the Latino population, which is assimiliating into this society in ways that amaze me. Particularly on this issue. I think the fact that gay marriage is now accepted in Mexico City is a more significant gesture than Ricky Martin using Twitter to say he is “blessed to be who I am.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p47fEXGabaY) more significant to Ricky Martin’s legacy (http://www.desihits.com/news/view/throwback-track-livin-la-vida-loca-by-ricky-martin-20100330) than his Twitter message about his sexual orientation?

Martin got his moment of international attention (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/30/ricky-martin-gay-homosexual) by making his statement this week.

What constitutes sport in the mini-minds of a few?

I can remember as a young kid growing up in a Chicago suburb with a dinky non-Anglo population occasionally getting into fights with kids whose motivation for wanting to brawl seemed to be to repeat whatever ethnic slurs they were hearing at home.

A part of the situation always seemed so pathetic that it was difficult for me to feel any extended rage. It was just too clear back then that the few who were behaving like this had so little going for them in life that it would not take much for me to amount to more in life than they ever would.

SO THE IDEA that some people with mini-minds might feel a sense of boredom that would motivate them to single out Latinos is not an alien concept to me, although reading the reports out of suburban New York from the trial of several men for the stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero managed to stir up some old emotions.

What a batch of losers, is about all I can really think about Lucero’s alleged attackers – who are now on trial in Suffolk County, N.Y. One of the men (actually, he’s only 18) took the stand on Monday and told of how he and a group of friends happened to encounter Lucero on a Saturday night in autumn 2008 in the town of Patchogue.

According to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/nyregion/30patchogue.html?ref=nyregion) account, the 18-year-old said the night was meant to be an evening of “beaner hopping.” Which consists of looking for Latino people to harass.

Think I’m exaggerating in referring to their activities as “sport?” The 18-year-old admits he took the white cap worn by one Latino whom they beat up that night as “a trophy” of sorts.

I GUESS LIFE in some of those Long Island towns must be deadly dull if this is what passes for Saturday Night Fever-21st Century style.

But sport amounts to these people going around screaming “beaner” and “Mexican” at people (as though that in-and-of itself is supposed to be a slur), along with occasionally shooting at people with BB guns.

In the case of Lucero, one of the 18-year-old’s friends punched the man from Ecuador in theface. To which he responded by taking off his belt and trying to use it as a weapon with which to strike back at his attackers.

That was when one of the boys who likely will never be real men pulled out a knife and stabbed Lucero. Prosecutors are singling out one of the men on trial as having actually used the knife, but the 18-year-old claimed during his testimony Monday that he did not see the stabbing.

HE ONLY HEARD after the fact who pulled out a knife.

What should we really think about this incident, aside from the fact that it is sad that a man is dead?

In one sense, it is a plus for our society because there was a time when such a case likely would never have been brought to trial. Or if it had, it would have been to punish Lucero or anyone who happened to be near him for instigating an incident that provoked the youths to act as they did.

But there are still some traces of that attitude in our society, and it is clear that the attorneys defending the youths are trying to earn their money by appealing to that sentiment – hoping that there is enough of it on the jury to get an acquital, or perhaps some sort of lesser charge that would result in a shorter sentence.

FOR WHILE TESTIMONY on Monday indicated that the youths admitted they walked up to Lucero and punched him in the face, they claim that was all they meant to do with him and they were walking away.

Lucero, of course, had gone for his belt and was trying to strike back.

So they’re trying to make the Ecuadorean out to be the attacker, as though if he knew his proper place he would just accept that he is meant to be a punching bag for the bored nitwits of our society.

Excuse anyone with sense for realizing how ridiculous that thought is. Let’s only hope that enough of the jurors have enough sense.

FOR THE REASON that some of us observers are skeptical is because of the fact that this case is coming out of Suffolk County, a place where observers say a strong anti-Latino atmosphere has developed.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has gone so far as to say that Latinos living in the suburban New York county (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/02/latino.newyork/index.html) are in an environment of intolerance and fear, in large part because of an indifferent police department and some county government officials who peddle hostility toward immigrants as being the same as standing up for “real Americans.”

Which is why we are watching to see the outcome of this case. Because some of us would derive a certain satisfaction from seeing the 21st Century equivalent of those schoolyard bullies I dealt with as a kid get what they deserve.

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U.S., Mexico have more in common than either side would like to admit

I would recommend that you read a commentary published Sunday in the New York Times that offers up a (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28bellatin.html) view about how Mexican citizens can stand for all the drug-related violence taking place in spots along the U.S./Mexico border – but which the nativists of our nation would like to think is taking place across the whole country.

Author Mario Bellatin makes mention of the “art of renting,” which he describes as an off-beat Mexican practice by which people with some wealth can get out of some of the unpleasantries of life by paying someone else to do it for them.

THOSE UNPLEASANTRIES CAN even go so far as paying someone to serve a short jail sentence, if you happen to get convicted for something such as driving while under the influence.

His point is that Mexican society has developed almost into two types of people – the ones who rent other human beings and the others who allow themselves to be rented, even though it means putting up with the indignities that certain others are using their money to avoid.

The end result, Bellatin writes, is that while all people in Mexico are aware of how the drug-related violence in places like Ciudad Juarez has become in a theoretical sense, “ordinary citizens feel that this situation barely affects them. Bad things happen to other people … over there.”

Sound inhuman?

ANYBODY IN OUR nation who says “yes” is turning a blind eye to the realities of life.

Because we have some inner-city neighborhoods where the same drug trafficking that causes violence in Mexico creates living environments that only people who feel that life has given them no alternative would possibly endure.

Any of us with money can usually afford to isolate ourselves in communities where we just don’t come into contact with such violence.

Heck, it’s not even a matter of avoiding urban areas – since those great cities in our country usually have elite neighborhoods where a single homicide in any given year is considered a significant act. That is true even if just a few blocks away, you can find neighborhoods where a single murder in a month would be considered “slow” by the local cops.

THOSE OF YOU who deliberately live in rural communities, I’d say your very choice puts you so far out of the loop on this issue that I’m not interested in hearing your criticisms of anything relating to Latin American nations.

As for those of you who want to mock Mexicans for thinking they can “rent” other human beings, is it any different than the old practices of our nation in which people who were drafted into the military could get out of such service if they could find a replacement willing to go in their place? It sounds to me like the exact same concept. It’s not alien to our nation. Perhaps the day will come about when it will be a thing of Mexico’s past as well.

But for now, Bellatin writes that Mexicans feel the need to “distance” themselves so they can “function in a country” where the drug dealers use their wealth generated from the demand for their product in the United States.

In many ways, we distance ourselves just as much so we can function in our society where the consumer demand for those deadly narcotics creates unstable places. Anybody who thinks that the drug problem is a Mexican one, or that Mexicans are too different from those of us in the United States is showing just how isolated their mindset truly is.

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Peloteros no more outspoken than their Anglo brethren

The number of athletes playing Major League Baseball these days who come from Latin American nations is at an all-time high (about 1 of every 4) these days, yet there are times when I wonder if this is merely evidence that the essential character of professional baseball remains the same.

That was a conclusion I came to after receiving an e-mail message recently, one that asked me if I was aware of any of the Dominicans or Venezuelans or other Latin Americans in the major leagues who had taken public stands on issues such as immigration reform or the census.

THIS PARTICULAR PERSON seems to think that ballplayers who come from impoverished economic backgrounds (which is the case for many of the Dominicans who put up with culture shock and the struggles of the minor leagues in order to have a shot at making the “big money” of a real-life major leaguer) ought to have a personal perspective that makes them want to speak out on issues of concern to the Latino as a whole.

For the record, I’m not aware of any Latin American major leaguers whom I would describe as politically active, even though they theoretically could offer a unique perspective on the issues of our society. In fact, about the only time I can recall these ballplayers making statements that could be construed as political is from those athletes who come from Venezuela.

Even then, it is usually because of the outspoken character that defines Hugo Chavez. He is not the type of person who can be ignored by his nation’s citizens.

Magglio Ordoñez, the Detroit Tigers outfielder, once got in trouble with ethnic Venezuelans in this country for not criticizing Chavez vehemently enough. Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen (who shortly after managing a team to a World Series victory became a U.S. citizen) has not made that same mistake.

THAT IS IT.

By and large, they keep their mouths shut when it comes to political or social issues. Much of it may be their own unawareness of “the issues,” which would make them just like many other professional athletes – who by and large spend their time trying to perfect or maintain their physical skills.

Putting much thought into anything else just doesn’t seem to cross their minds – and I write that sentence as an observation derived from my years as a reporter-type person, who on occasion has covered ballgames and had contact with the men who earn their living by playing them.

I often wonder why we don’t get more athletes who develop “Manny being Manny” reputations. Many of them probably saw the outcry from some fans to Los Angeles Angels outfielder Torii Hunter talking about the decline of black ballplayers, and took the lesson that it was better to keep quiet.

IT SEEMS THAT the few ballplayers who do think about politics enough to talk about running for electoral office someday (such as one-time Boston Red Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling) are usually establishment-types – which makes sense since that establishment usually treats its athletes as though they are princes worthy of our worship.

I can easily envision the locker room environment creating Latin American athletes who feel either a need to “go along” with the program, or who think this country (in the end) is not their country. Which means they’re not going to get too absorbed in looking for issues to take a stance on.

Which alludes back to my thought that ballplayer culture hasn’t changed much. I recall “Ball Four,” the diary that former major league pitcher Jim Bouton co-wrote about his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and the Houston Astros. Bouton portrayed himself as something of an outsider to ballplayer culture in part because of his interest and concern with the issues of the era – which was the late-1960s.

He recalls that ball clubs didn’t have to say anything to get their athletes to stay in line. He wrote that ballplayers were allowed to talk about whatever issues they wanted to, provided they said the “right” things (which usually were meant to appeal to the Hawks in society back then).

SAYING THE “WRONG” thing (what we now call “progressive” but which people back then – and even a few now – try to label as “commie pinko rabble-rousing”) is what would get a ball player “in trouble.” So most athletes back then just focused on whether the “beaver shooting” opportunities at their hotels were any good, and observers of the era were more than willing to dismiss Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente as a crank. It was his death in a plane crash while on a relief mission that turned him into a legend.

It sounds to me a lot like the conditions today. Only instead of a batch of Anglo athletes who barely finished high school before heading for the ranks of professional baseball, we now have batches of Latin American athletes who in some cases didn’t even finish high school before they reached out to the world of the Dominican baseball academies, in hopes that they would beat the odds and become among the few whose baseball careers would take them to New York, Chicago or Los Angeles – rather than fizzling out in Helena, Mont., or the Quad Cities.

That means I will have to settle for timely hitting or skilled pitching from peloteros such as Vladimir Guerrero or Mariano Rivera – using the ballpark as a place where I can escape the problems confronting our society for a few hours at a time.

Which may be baseball’s bottom-line beauty.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I finally got a chance recently to see this interesting cinematic take (http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/sugar/site.html) about the saga of a struggling ballplayer from the Dominican Republic.

Do we all make tacos? Or is this ‘gaffe’ a stupid controversy?

Illinois state Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, who is a black woman, got herself into one of those so-called controversies for her rhetoric during debate over a bill she despises.

The bill in question calls for the state to expand the types of businesses it licenses to include those women who braid hair for a living.

ON A SERIOUS side, Davis thinks such a requirement would impose serious roadblocks to black women looking to earn a living by doing hairbraiding. Davis thinks requiring them to be licensed is an imposition, and that the state should butt out.

“This is a deterrent to business, this is not an acceptance to business,” Davis said, claiming that the city licenses for such businesses are sufficient regulation.

Regardless of what you think of her logic, what managed to tick people off was the way in which she criticized the bill when it was debated earlier this week by the Illinois House of Represen tatives.

For Davis took her belief that hair-braiding is a black woman’s business and tried to apply it to other ethnicities – which is always a mistake.

“YOU CANNOT LICENSE Chinese people to make Chinese food. They have to have a license to have a restaurant,” Davis said. “You cannot license Latino people to make tacos. You can license them to have a restaurant.

“You should not, should not, should not have to license African-American women to braid someone’s hair,” Davis said.

Huh?

I didn’t know that only black women braided hair. Although as far as the need for someone to be providing some sort of oversight considering that handling hair can involve public health issues, it strikes me as being mere common sense.

IF HER OBJECTION is that someone who does this type of work out of their home will now have to explain how they conduct their business, I’m not all that concerned. People who think that running a home business ought to be an excuse to operate completely unsupervised have always struck me as living their lives outside of the realm of reality.

But that is my thought about the bill itself, which the Illinois House proceeded to approve by an overwhelming margin (95-20) of support.

The reason this incident is gaining any attention is because Davis – who during her decades of service in the Illinois Legislature has a history of making borderline crackpot comments – managed to drag ethnicity into the picture.

Two of Davis’ legislative colleagues, Reps. Edward Acevedo and Susana Mendoza, both D-Chicago, immediately got up to denounce her, with Acevedo offering us the incredibly “bold” comment that Latinos make foods other than tacos.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T think Davis meant to insult anyone. I do believe she is wrapped up enough in this issue to perceive it as one affecting black women, so her mind tried to make quickie analogies to other ethnicities in hopes of gaining some support.

She failed. In fact, all she did was trivialized the issue.

Which is why I can’t get too offended by the insinuation that Latinos do nothing more than make tacos. Anybody with sense knows better, and people without sense don’t want to know better – so they’re best ignored.

Which is why I wonder about the fact that some people are quick to pile on Davis, including some people who usually try to downplay any attempt to make an “issue” out of a political person saying something stupid.

COULD IT BE that Davis is just an easy target, while a truly offensive politico would bite back? Like I wrote earlier, Davis isn’t exactly the most highly-regarded member of the Illlinois Legislature.

She is the woman who just recently got caught up in a controversy when a statue belonging to Chicago State University (one meant to pay tribute to the dignity of black women who were enslaved at an earlier point in our nation’s history) wound up decorating her office instead, and also managed to fall behind on her rent payments for that same office (the building is owned by the Chicago Board of Education – for whom Davis works when she’s not serving as a legislator).

Could it be that political people who don’t like having to criticize people for expressing themselves are more than willing to pile on Davis?

I don’t doubt the sincerity of Acevedo or Mendoza when they spoke out against Davis. But I am reluctant to jump on board, and not just because the so-called insult is trivial. For I wonder if I’d be giving some comfort to people whose own agendas would be advanced by reveling in Davis having the taste of shoe leather lingering in her mouth these days.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: For what it’s worth, Monique Davis did apologize for her legislative debate, saying she (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/2122031,CST-NWS-leg25.article) respects the “multi-cultural” makeup (http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Legislator-Apologize-For-Offensive--Tacos-Talk--89104292.html) of the Illinois Legislature.

The veteran legislator (http://www.ilga.gov/house/Rep.asp?GA=95&MemberID=1148) added to the colorful nature of Illinois’ Statehouse Scene.

Are we learning (finally) that drugs are not just a “war?”

The phrase “War on Drugs” has always struck me as being a bit ridiculous, because it somehow implies to me that if we can somehow shoot and kill the right person, we will put a stop to the flow of narcotics that do threaten the lives of many people on this planet.

Which is why I found it encouraging to read the reports coming out of Mexico City this week, where Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton went with other U.S. officials to talk with Mexican authorities about what the two countries need to do to try to ease the flow of such deadly substances into our nation.

IN THOSE REPORTS, Clinton talks of wanting to do more to build up the communities that comprise Mexican society so as to make them more willing to stand up to all the “big money” that can be made through the production, transportation and sale of illicit narcotics.

As one Mexican professor told the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, Mexican authorities are realizing they would have to keep the army in Ciudad Juarez permanently, and it still wouldn’t stop the flow of drugs that has raised so much money that the drug dealers have become all-powerful over the government authorities.

Of course, we in this country were all too willing to ignore that situation until recently when two U.S. citizens – with ties to the U.S. consulate office in that border town – were killed in drug-related gunfire.

Clinton, of course, got herself in trouble with the conservative ideologues (who want to think this problem does not involve the United States in any way) about one year ago when she openly said U.S. officials have a “co-responsibility” to address the flow of drugs, which also results in a flow of firearms across the border in both directions.

TOO MUCH OF that violence in the streets of Juarez is committed with U.S.-made weapons.

This time, Clinton and her allies (including the secretaries of defense and homeland security) are talking about wanting to get involved, and they’re trying to prove that the old adage of “money talks, b.s. walks” is true.

We’re talking about $1.4 billion to cover the cost of a plan to try to bolster the cultural aspects of Mexico and other Latin American nations that make them susceptible to drugs. Which actually are the same aspects of U.S. culture that make some segments of our society so willing to engage in illicit activity.

Cash!

AS JAMES CAAN’S “Sonny Corleone” character once told us on screen, “There’s a lot of money in that white powder.”

Which makes it irresistible to some people who otherwise would be in poverty to take a pass. Which also makes them more willing to look at the “legitimate” society that condemns their activity as being a batch of blowhards who are upset that they’re striving for a piece of the dream.

I’m not condoning such activity. But what I will oppose is the thought that this is somehow a Mexican or Latin American phenomenon.

If it means that I think the dangers of certain parts of the border region are just as bad as some of the inner-city neighborhoods of our nation in terms of the lack of hope among the people, that is simply fact.

WHICH IS WHY the idea of treating this as a “war” where we can simply send in “troops” of some sort to kill off the “enemy” is overly simplistic.

Which is why we should be encouraged that people are now addressing the issue as one of needing to bolster not only the physical security of the region, but also the economic and health security.

Ultimately, this is a problem that will wither away when we take away the financial incentive for people with few other options in life to make a success for themselves with the drug trade.

“It’s all of the ways that individuals have a chance to lead a productive and successful life,” Clinton said to reporters, while in Mexico this week.

THAT IS WHY I have to disagree with those Mexican pundits who, these days, are upset that Clinton is taking such a strong role. They fear this could turn into another case of U.S. imperialism – those Damned Yankees (not the Broadway play) imposing their way upon the Americas.

This is a problem that is bigger than any one nation. It would be the most reckless and irresponsible form of nativism on Clinton’s part if she tried to claim that the United States did not have some role in trying to resolve it.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The presence of 45,000 troops in Ciudad Juarez in the past year has slowed the body count somewhat. But the problems caused by drugs (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0324/Hillary-Clinton-Mexico-visit-US-and-Mexico-shift-drug-war-approach) won’t go away until the cultural causes are addressed.

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/2009/03/clinton-acknowledges-reality-of.html) illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians. I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility.” Or so said Hillary Clinton just over a year ago.

It’s déjà vu all over again

The growing Latino population complained in 2000 that the Census did not accurately give us a chance to define ourselves – instead trying to put us into racial and ethnic categories that made little sense.

The only difference 10 years later is that we’re not alone in complaining. I understand that Arabs living in this country think they are completely ignored by the Census Bureau categories to be used by people to classify themselves.

FOR THE RECORD, I answered to Question 8 that “yes,” the label “Hispanic” can be accurately used to describe me. I then further elaborated that I am of “Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano” background (three of my four grandparents were born in Mexico about 100 years ago, and came to this country while they were technically still teenagers).

For Question 9, I chose “other,” but did not do anything to further elaborate what I meant by my such a choice. I believe that the “other,” combined with the details provided in Question 8, provide sufficient detail about my ethnic background. I don’t see the need to try to make some political statement with further commentary on the Census Bureau form.

Actually, in the name of accuracy, I suppose I should make one point clear. I didn’t actually fill out the Census Bureau form that we received in the mail last week (along with a postcard from the Census Bureau on Tuesday reminding us not to ignore the form).

My brother, Chris, got to the form and filled it out for the two of us. So we are accounted for.

I WRITE THIS after reading several reports published in recent days saying that many of my ethnic brethren are confused how to respond to those two questions (out of 10 overall) that are on the Census Bureau form.

Question 8 is the one that asks all people if they are Hispanic/Latino, while Question 9 asks all people what their race is. But it does not provide an option for people who want to view their Latin American (or Spanish) ethnic background as their race.

Some people don’t know what to mark. If my example helps them, that would be nice. But the fact is that racially, Latinos are a mixed batch. My answers wouldn’t necessarily be applicable to all people.

Which is why it will be interesting to me to see the results of the Census count when they are made public next year (theactual data on individual Census forms won’t be made public for about eight decades).

HOW DO WE view ourselves?

I still recall the 2000 Census totals – 48 percent of people who identified themselves as Hispanic said they were “white,” while 42 percent said they were “other.” And many used the Census form to try to denounce the federal government for not making “Hispanic” a race in and of itself.

That confusion isn’t the most ridiculous concept, when one thinks about it objectively.

There are generations of people who grew up thinking that “Hispanic” or any ethnicity out of Latin America, was just another type of white, even if they only make that acknowledgement begrudgingly.

IT REMINDS ME of the many police reports I used to read through as a crime reporter-type that acknowledged Latinos racially as “white-Hispanic,” except for the few who were so dark-skinned that they were labelled “black-Hispanic.”

Some things have changed. Some things still need to change.

Will we get a radical shift from 10 years ago in terms of how we view ourselves? Or are we still quibbling over that very question?

This is just one of the details that I will enjoy being able to look up next year. Because I always viewed the Census figures as being an interesting picture of our society as a whole – which I think is more interesting than any talk from political people about how their communities will get more federal funding if they can get a higher population count for their home towns.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: From Walla Walla, Wash. (http://union-bulletin.com/stories/2010/03/22/hispanic-not-race-choice-on-census), to Albany, Ga. (http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=12187178), Latinos living across the United States don’t know what to think of the Census Bureau’s take on race (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/03/some-hispanics-stumped-by-us-census-forms-box-on-race/1) in this country.

“What do we do now?”

A part of me is envious of those Democrats who have their hangups with abortion to the point that they don’t agree with the mainstream of their own political party.

They were able to get promises of an Executive Order to be issued that would place restrictions on federal funding for abortion-related activities – an order that will offend the bulk of the party. But that was the price for health care reform that President Barack Obama was willing to pay.

WHAT CONCESSIONS DID Latino congressmen with an interest in immigration reform manage to get from Obama in exchange for their support for the health care reform measure that the president will count on to be a major part of his legacy?

We got some weak promises that immigration reform will be considered. We also got some vague rhetoric about an immigration reform measure that many proponents of the issue feel is inferior to the rhetoric that has been tossed about by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., for the past few months.

So there will be some talk. But we don’t have anything even close to concrete action. We don’t have anything in writing, or even any promises that there will be something in writing.

We got a whole lotta nothin’.

SO I FEEL like Robert Redford’s “Bill McKay” character in wondering, “What do we do now?,” even though I realize his question came in the moment of electoral “victory” while ours comes at a time of political confusion.

Because the big thing we’re going to have to do is sit back and wait, and hope that no one out of some sense of impatience does something garish that causes the populace to want this issue to wither away unattended to.

Gutierrez has said his proposal that is meant to create measures by which people without valid visas cam remain openly in the United States will be introduced in coming weeks, and he will start pushing to get his bill moving through the legislative process.

In short, Gutierrez does not merely want to be someone whose name is attached to a bill that goes nowhere.

WHICH IS NOT the sense that I get from Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., who are the senators who plan to introduce an immigration reform bill later this year based on four principles they espoused in a recent Washington Post commentary. Only one of those principles involved those people without visas – and the Schumer/Graham measure uses such rhetoric as “community service” and “fines.”

Somebody seems determined to perceive a problem so as to feed the stereotypes of the nativist element of our society – stereotypes that ought to be shot down instead of being fed.

Obama has said he likes Schumer/Graham because, with lead sponsors from each major political party, it has the appearance of bipartisanship.

But there are those Latino activists who are convinced the way a reform proposal for this issue will become law is if Obama is prepared to use the same hard-ball tactics that got Democrats to overwhelmingly impose health care reform despite unanimous Republican objections.

BECAUSE IT IS likely that this will remain a partisan-charged issue.

Even Graham has since said he’s skeptical anything will get approved on immigration reform, because Republicans are now seriously upset that all their huffing, puffing and threats to blow the house down failed to stop health care reform from becoming an actual law – once Obama puts his signature to the required paperwork later Tuesday.

In short, Republicans who wanted the “achievement” of stopping Obama on health care reform will now take it out on immigration – which provides them with a double-boost because (they think) the only people who support the issue are all those “foreigners.”

Actually, it’s not.

FOR THE REALITY is that immigration reform helps us all by encouraging people who are making worthwhile contributions to the economy through their labor to remain in this country. It makes us a stronger country.

Whenever we have people engage in cheap rhetoric about qualifications and wanting to take only certain types of people from other countries, all too often it comes across as borderline racist rants meant to exclude.

Think about it.

They say we should only take people of certain education levels or skills, as though that is what ought to be required to be a United States resident. There are people born in this country who go around screeching that they are “real Americans” who can’t fufill those qualifications.

SHOULD WE NOW deport the bulk of the population of Mississippi as not being good enough to live in this country? That would be ridiculous, almost as much as much of the anti-immigration rhetoric that gets spewed these days.

So, what DO we do now?

We’re going to have to keep attention on the issue, because I’m sure there are those political people who would breathe a collective sigh of relief if those 100,000 or so people who showed up in Washington on Sunday were to go back home and do nothing.

Activists are going to have to work to keep the issue alive in the public mindset (and to give it a jumpstart in the minds of certain apathetic people).

FOR THOSE PEOPLE who claim that immigration reform canNOT happen this year because it is an Election year, all I have to say is that there are many activists who would be a lot happier these days if this issue had been dealt with already.

We would have loved to have action in ’09, but Obama allies made the call to put it off until now. It can’t wait much longer.

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News judgment deems Sunday rally to secondary status

It has been a couple of decades since I had a conversation with a fellow reporter-type that offered up a key concept in figuring out which potential “stories” will get big coverage, and which will be demeaned.

That conversation came to the conclusion that stories whose focus fit the stereotype of the particular editor were the ones that got lots of space or airtime. On that particular day, the top national news stories were the indictment of a Chicago alderman with Outfit ties and the filing of charges against men who beat and raped a woman in New York’s Central Park.

CREEPS HANG OUT in New York and in Central Park, while all Chicago politicians are corrupt and tied to organized crime. Or so says the mentality of the typical broadcast news producer or editor.

Watching the coverage this weekend of the groups that took to Washington to protest on behalf of their pet cause offers up more evidence of the truth of the “stereotype” theory.

The Tea Party activists were in Washington on Saturday to express their opposition to any attempt to provide for serious reform of access to health care for all (they object to the cost, and likely have hangups over the fact that people who are unlike themselves would be among its beneficiaries).

Those protests got mentioned throughout the day’s news broadcasts on Saturday, although the anecdote that got the most attention was the group of Tea Party types who encountered members of Congress who were Democrats – and persisted with rude behavior that included hurling epithets at those political people based on their race or sexual orientation.

YES, BLACK MEMBERS of Congress were called “n----rs” while Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is openly gay, was called a “f----t.”

Which means that the Tea Party protesters got coverage because they fit the stereotype that is developing of this particular brand of activists – a batch of angry white people with racial hangups who have problems that they can no longer think of themselves as being the focal point of our society.

Admittedly, their behavior was so bad that even the Republican leadership of Congress felt compelled to issue an apology and claim that this type of boorish activity was not considered acceptable by conservatives.

I’d argue these conservatives are more than willing to rely on these boors for political muscle when it serves their purpose. But I will give the Republican caucus the benefit of the doubt that they’re ashamed of what was said.

IF ANYTHING, IT was Sunday’s protesters who were more interesting.

That was the day that the busloads of people from several states with signficant Latino populations showed up at R.F.K. Stadium, where they then took the subway system (the Metro, as it is known to locals) to the National Mall for a march and protest related to immigration reform that was all but ignored.

It got some coverage that will generate newspaper stories that will appear in Monday newspapers, buried behind all the political maneuvering that took place on Capitol Hill to get a health care reform measure approved.

On television, it might as well have not occurred. The cable news operations that set so much of the news agenda these days by telling us which newspaper stories ought to be paid attention to focused on health care.

THEY DIDN’T WANT to be bothered with anything else.

What little coverage was given to the immigration-related march seemed to be given grudgingly – almost as though someone thought we would have been better off ignoring everything except the “historic, historic vote on health care” (that’s how Wolf Blitzer described it at one point).

The stereotype here was the belief that most people just don’t want to be bothered thinking about immigration, or anything that might bring up the image of “foreigners,” or anything that might force the topic to change on Sunday from health care reform.

If anything, that is why the protesters for immigration reform were inWashington. They were hoping to break through that impression and force some attention to be paid to the second issue.

FOR THE FEAR among many Latino activists is that the immigration issue will get pushed aside if they do not act. The fact that President Barack Obama recently gave us some rhetoric expressing a willingness to back a bill in line with the proposals put forth by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., seems to make some people think that Latinos ought to be satisfied.

By and large, we’re not.

For we’re listening to the rhetoric being spewed by Republican politicians (Rep. Mary
Bono Mack, R-Calif., was particularly vehement) that claims Obama is engaging in strongarm political tactics to force this bill into law.

We can’t help but laugh at the thought, because we think he’s being downright wimpy. He is too willing to cater to the nativists who want punitive measures against immigrants, even in the health care reform proposal.

YET WE LOOK at the political maneuvering being done for health care reform and wonder why Obama isn’t willing to do something similar for immigration reform. Why is it on this issue that he’s insisting on bipartisan cooperation, while on health care he was willing to have Democrats go it alone?

Of course, none of that fit into the stereotype of the television news director, who wants to think that nobody really cares. So this is the message that you didn’t hear too much about (although you got to hear countless blondes speculate on the electoral outcome that will result in November due to health care reform) on Sunday.

One other point you didn’t hear, unless you went looking for it. Anywhere from “tens of thousands” to “500,000” immigration activists, many of them Latino, converged on Washington Sunday and did NOT engage in behavior anywhere near as boorish as those Tea Party types.

For that alone, we ought to be praised.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: How (http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/21/1827731/gop-tea-party-try-to-distance.html) rude!

The most accurate figures I have heard (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-immigration-march22-2010mar22,0,2577801.story) indicate that about 100,000 people met on the National Mall on Sunday.

Now, we have two

As in “proposals,” or actually, promises from politicians that there will be proposals to be considered by Congress when it comes to the issue of immigration reform.

For the Washington Post newspaper on Friday published a commentary by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., that says they agree it is time for Congress to do something about the flaws that exist in the nation’s immigration laws.

NOW, THOSE PEOPLE who have concerns about the issue (which ought to be anybody with a touch of common sense) will be able to debate whether they prefer the Schumer/Graham measure or the one put forth last year by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. - although if Schumer/Graham have any sense, they'll include a little taste of Gutierrez in their final bill.

President Barack Obama tossed out the rhetoric this week that he likes the Schumer/Graham measure, quite possibly because it has the perception of being politically bipartisan (and a Southern Republican who was in good standing with the conservative community, at least until they found out he was cooperating with Schumer on this issue).

Yet political watchers had better be aware of the fact that many people are going to be ticked off that two white guys are being put in the lead on this issue, rather than Gutierrez, the one-time Chicago alderman who is of Puerto Rican ethnic origins.

If Obama isn’t careful, he’s going to get tagged with the perception as someone who is willing to undermine this issue on behalf of the people who have their hangups about immigration.

FOR THE GUTIERREZ measure, even though it only included “half” of the issue as perceived by many non-Latinos, did have support among the growing Latino population, in large part because it was perceived that Luis was looking out for Latinos.

It is hard to be critical about the Schumer/Graham measure because as of now, it is not yet a bill. It is an op-ed piece published in the Post that offers goals for an immigration reform bill. It sort of tells us the direction that Schumer/Graham take the issue.

What I found most interesting about their suggestions is that we all get new Social Security cards with greater security features to make it more difficult for people to counterfeit them in order to gain employment.

That has the potential to tick off the far right, some of whom might see this as a way of issuing “national ID papers” of a sort to the public – a concept that usually gets applied in totalitarian societies that think they have a right to monitor their public at all times.

IS THAT SUPPOSED to be the major concession – that all of us will be impacted to a degree?

Because I could see the other suggestions ticking off immigrants, particularly the Latino population, which has seen the Gutierrez plan’s focus on making citizens or legal immigrants of those people without valid visas as its primary focus.

Under Schumer/Graham, that becomes one of four goals – and clearly is laid out as Number Four in priority.

The two suggest that community service and fines ought to be paid by those already in this country without proper papers, along with an accounting of back taxes owed. That latter point makes me laugh rather sarcastically.

BECAUSE THE REALITY in many cases is that these non-citizens working here have been having taxes deducted from their pay – even though in many cases it goes into funds where those workers will never be able to gain the benefits of it.

Does this mean we’re finally going to get an honest accounting of what contributions to our economy and our society these undocumented workers have been making to the United States?

Anybody who thinks there is going to be a sudden flow of cash into the system from these workers may be very well shocked to learn that we now owe them significant benefits – including Social Security (or whatever system winds up being in place in this country when those workers do reach retirement age).

Now I realize the point of this measure is to give certain people a sense that their concerns (some of which are irrational) are somehow being paid attention to. I was never under the impression that the Gutierrez measure would be the one enacted into law, because it focused on one aspect of the issue.

BUT WHEN SCHUMER and Graham craft their actual bill, they had better be aware that there will be a mass of people with an interest on the issue who are going to be comparing their plan to the rhetoric thus far of Gutierrez.

If they miss that mark by too much, they’re going to wind up stirring up significant resentment and are going to become part of the problem as much as they think they’re offering us the solution.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Not everybody with an interest in immigration reform is going to want the joint Schumer/Graham (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031703115.html) plan to take precedence over the measure put forth previously by Luis Gutierrez.

In the past year, Lindsay Graham has been censured by Republicans in his own home state for being willing (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/2010/01/immigrants-are-here-dreaming-of-world.html) to discuss immigration reform, rather than bloviate about it. He also was one of the few Republican political people (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/2009/08/sotomayor-confirmation-process-to.html) who didn’t give a knee-jerk partisan reaction to the idea of Sonia Sotomayor being on the Supreme Court.

Latino Congress members realize that health care, immigration are intertwined

When I learned Thursday that the Latino members of Congress were now in support of the health care reform proposal likely to be considered by the House of Representatives in coming days, it struck me as being the ultimate “no-brainer” outcome.

For I thought those people ridiculous last week when they tried to claim that the fact Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., was saying he’d vote “no” on the measure was some sort of evidence that President Barack Obama is destined for failure and that he had “lost” the political support of Latinos.

THAT RHETORIC FROM Gutierrez came across to me as the mere political posturing of Latino congressmen who have their own issue of concern, and want to make sure that Obama takes them seriously.

Now that Obama has given them the rhetoric they want to hear, they are willing to make the public statement saying they will back the health care reform measure now pending – even though it includes measures considered blatantly hostile by many Latinos.

Gutierrez himself says he was promised by Obama (whom he vigorously endorsed during the ’08 presidential campaign at a time when most Latinos preferred Hillary R. Clinton) that immigration reform (his pet issue) will get serious consideration this year.

Meanwhile, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., said she’s taking solace in the fact that Latinos who already are U.S. citizens who are uninsured (about 8.8 million of the roughly 47 million uninsured overall) will now get some assistance.

THAT, TO ME, means that Latino political people are being extremely practical these days when it comes to this issue. If only the other politicos who comprise Congress could be as level-headed as we’re being, perhaps we’d have a much more rational political body – one that would have a higher approval rating than the 16 percent offered by a new Gallup Organization poll.

By comparison, Obama has a 46 percent approval rating.

Some people might try to stir up dissent among Latinos by claiming that the politicos are somehow overlooking a part of our numbers. Of course, these same people usually complain that our political people are guilty of not making the distinction between Latinos and Latin-Americans born elsewhere.

So my guess is these people really just want to complain about Latinos regardless of the issue, and probably shouldn’t have anything they say taken all that seriously.

FOR THE REALITY of this issue is that getting the U.S. citizen portion of the uninsured will be a priority. Insofar as the roughly one-third of uninsured who are in such a state because of their lack of a valid visa, their situation will clear up significantly once we get serious immigration reform approved by Congress.

By that, I mean that most of the problems confronted by these non-citizens is because they are forced to live their lives in the shadows of our society, even though their work means they are making a worthwhile contribution to that same society.

Once we accept the fact that there is no legitimate reason for keeping most of these people already in the United States out of the country, we can clarify the status to the point where they become full-fledged members.

Let’s be honest.

THE PARTICULAR PROVISION that has Latinos upset (the one that forbids non-citizens from purchasing insurance benefits through newly-created exchanges, even if they’re using their own money) is about nativists wishing to be mean-spirited. It has nothing to do with legitimate financial concerns.

If we can make these people full-fledged parts of our society, they will then have their way of obtaining such health care benefits.

If it seems like I’m writing that a lot of our society’s troubles would be clarified and would wither away once we get serious and have our political people pass serious immigration reform, you’d be correct.

A part of me thinks that Obama should have made immigration a higher priority than health care. But then again, I didn’t go through the two-year-long process of running for president.

HE DID, AND he won. So I suppose he gets to set some priorities during his administration.

So now, I’m curious to see how this turns out. Although nothing is definite, I have heard some speculation that the FINAL vote on health care reform by Congress could come on Sunday. That would be ironic.

For that is the same day that all the immigration-oriented activists plan to descend on Washington for the day to use the National Mall as a backdrop for their statement – immigration reform needs to be addressed now. They’re right, although health care reform also is a priority, as is the economy and the environment and a myriad of other issues.

Life isn’t simple, and neither are our electoral politics. There are times when I think the people who try to simplify it (by focusing purely on themselves and ignoring everybody else) are the real problem confronting our society.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Did Luis Gutierrez cave in? Or were his objections about health care bound to result (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/congressional-hispanics-announ.html?wprss=44) in this week’s (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-goes-through-gutierrez-mind.html) outcome.

Adults in this country who are uninsured when it comes to health care (http://www.gallup.com/poll/126791/Percentage-Uninsured-Adults-Remains-Elevated.aspx) remain at high levels.

Wal-mart rumor mill evidence of immigration tension

It depends upon whom one listens to, but there are people these days who are determined to believe that the Wal-mart chain of retail outlets is taking its “all-American” image to the ridiculous extreme of climbing into bed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I have heard various Latino activists talk of how they are hearing stories from people who are convinced that Immigration is going to “raid” Wal-mart.

NOW LIKE MOST urban legends, the details of the story change.

But it usually comes down to Wal-mart cooperating with Immigration to allow workplace raids – with the idea that any Latino employees are going to face additional harassment from people who are inclined to think that all Latinos ought to be illegal when it comes to immigration status.

Others tell the stories from the perspective of Wal-mart setting up its Latino employees for harassment from Immigration.

Occasionally, the stories claim that Immigration is doing raids of the actual stores, which would mean that Latino customers run the risk of being picked up by the federal agency and having to justify their existence.

THE U.S. HISPANIC Chamber of Commerce has heard all these stories, and has felt the need to issue a statement this week that says they’re all false. The group that tries to encourage business and economic growth among the nation’s growing Latino population says they don’t have any evidence that Wal-mart has done anything out of the ordinary, or that Immigration is planning anything unusual in conjunction with the retailer.

“False rumors of raids are all too common in our community,” said chamber President Javier Palomarez, in a prepared statement. “The victims are often children that are kept home from school, businesses that shut their doors as customers hide in their homes in fear, and deeper mistrust of our local law enforcement officials.”

But I know there are activists across the country who have heard this talk get taken so seriously by some Latinos that they feel they’re spending a disproportionate share of their time advising people how to handle themselves if – by chance, they encounter Immigration officials while either working or shopping at Wal-mart.

It may not be fair, but then again, life isn’t fair.

OR AT LEAST that’s what many of the social conservatives who often turn out to be the most hostile parts of the opposition to the growing Latino population like to say whenever bad things happen to Latinos.

So excuse me if I feel it is partly an example of bad karma that Latinos would be somewhat distrustful of a place like Wal-mart, which likes to lay on the All-American rhetoric and encourage those elements of our society who want to think such rhetoric only applies to themselves, and not all of us.

Perhaps a more open attitude on their part would make many Latinos more inclined to be trustful of the Arkansas-based retailer.

Then again, perhaps this whole Wal-mart urban legend is just an example of how distrustful we all have become of each other when it comes to immigration reform.

WE’RE GOING TO hear a lot of that distrust spewed by many people come Sunday when the immigration rights activists, many of whom are also the Latino-oriented activists, do their march and rally in Washington.

In fact, I have heard one version of the Wal-mart conspiracy theories that claims the whole purpose of these Wal-mart-oriented Immigration raids is to discourage Latinos from wanting to make such a public spectacle this weekend in the District of Columbia.

We live these days in a society where none of us is all that trustful of our counterparts, and much of that distrust stems from people who seem to view the United States as some sort of closed society.

I’m talking about all those people who keep saying that allowing more immigration will turn the United States into a “third world nation” – even though I honestly believe a lack of immigration that isolates this nation is going to be what truly turns the United States into a third world nation.

THAT TENSION IS going to continue until the day we get serious about moving forward with immigration reform. Which is why I’m hoping that President Barack Obama is serious when he hints that we will get some sort of proposal on immigration reform by Sunday, and that he would like for the Senate to take some initial step toward approval in April.

The longer we wait to take action on this issue, or the longer we allow the nativist elements to have their ridiculous rhetoric taken seriously, means the longer we will continue to have urban legends like the Wal-mart tales be taken seriously.

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Washington to see "anti Tea Party" on Sunday

It has been my running gag in recent days – President Barack Obama will get a victory this week on health care, only to have his weekend celebration squashed by the sight of 100,000 Latinos and other activists telling him he needs to get off his duff and do something about immigration reform.

Now I don’t know exactly when the health care reform measure that has dominated attention for the past year will come up for its final vote in the House of Representatives. But it literally is true that there are people who are prepared to show their disgust over the lack of similar activity with regards to immigration reform.

AS ANYONE WHO has been paying attention already knows, this Sunday is the date of an immigration reform rally to be held in Washington.

The National Mall, the same place where slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech, will be the site of more than 100,000 (some say it could come closer to 200,000) people taking what normally is a 20-minute stroll around the White House and Capitol Hill and winding up near the Lincoln Monument.

The intent, of course, is to remind political people who think that the key political movement is all those Tea Party people and their socially conservative rhetoric that there is an equally angry group of people in complete opposition on many issues – but in particular on immigration.

Political people will be told that if they think they’re going to cater their actions this year to pacifying the Tea Party types, what they will be doing in reality is ticking off a group that has as a major part of its membership that rapidly growing Latino population.

OF COURSE, IMMIGRATION reform is not merely a Latino issue – no matter how much its opponents want to portray it as one. Our nation’s immigration laws don’t make a lot of sense, regardless of what ethnic background one comes from.

There are too many cases where the strict letter of the law causes families to be split apart.

As for those people who want to insensitively say that the whole family should just leave this country, that just doesn’t work out from a practical standpoint. We’re talking about some members of those families who are spiritually and legally U.S. citizens – but some people don’t want their particular ethnic group to be able to achieve U.S. citizenship.

So that is going to be the purpose of all those people who spend this weekend riding buses (although organizers of the March for America say they have heard of some groups from Alaska that plan to fly to Washington on private airplanes) so they can be on hand in the nation’s capital to express their thought that the ideals of Democracy ought to apply to everyone – and not just be administered on a selective basis.

PART OF WHAT complicates this issue is the fact that political people wish it would go away for some future, unspecified time period.

But also, there is the fact that the proponents of immigration reform don’t exactly have a solid plan in place to rally around. There’s no “bill” in place that people can say politicians ought to vote for. Until there is such a bill, too many politicos will use that as an excuse to ignore the issue.

Now for those who cite the measure introduced last year by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., as a bill, I have always realized that the measure was merely a starting point, and that it was likely that someone else would wind up crafting an alternative that politicians would eagerly latch onto.

For the Gutierrez measure addressed only part of the issue, although I always viewed it as an ideal of sorts. When the issue is over this year, we will see how close the final “act” comes to fulfilling the goals of the Gutierrez bill before determining if the act was successful or not.

IT IS WITH this in mind that Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is putting together a measure that may be made public just before Sunday’s rally. There is going to be a lot of last-minute “cramming” by Washington rally speakers to comprehend the details of what Schumer has in mind.

Personally, I find it to be a sign that the activists planning to march in Washington are having some positive affect.

Schumer and other pols who don’t want to be hit with tags of doing nothing for the growing Latino population feel some pressure to have something in place. If the Tea Party types truly were as all-powerful as they want to believe they will be this year, there would be no sense that anything would have to be in place prior to Sunday.

The real trick is going to see how intense the lobbying efforts become both for and against serious immigration reform (building barricades along the U.S./Mexico border is NOT reform), for I remain convinced that this issue will create an uglier debate than what has occurred during the past year on health care reform.

PERHAPS THIS IS a necessary part of purging our society of the venom some people feel toward those who are ethnically different from themselves. Maybe some people will hear themselves speak and realize how ridiculous they sound?

But I wonder how quickly the real lesson for political people is going to be that the way to fight back against the Tea Party types who push their own agenda for our society that is intended to exclude many people is to accept that the growing Latino population is a part of our society.

If anything, we’re the anti-Tea Party. That actually makes me rather proud these days to be a Latino.

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¡The new phone books are here!

My form for the Census Bureau’s once-a-decade national population count arrived in the mail Monday (along with a batch of coupons and a catalog for my brother from the Ebbets Field Flannel company).

No, I didn’t do my “Navin Johnson” impersonation at the sight of the big envelope with the “Census 2010” logo printed on it. The form got put aside, and likely will be filled out sometime this week.

CONSIDERING THAT THE form comes with a return envelope that does not require me to add postage, the whole affair should cost me just a few minutes of time – since all I got was the 10-question form that really gets at nothing more than basic information about the U.S. population.

Some eight decades from now when the information I provide now does become public, all people are going to learn about me is that in the year 2010, I lived with my brother in an apartment; that we were both of Mexican-American ethnicity; and they will be able to see my telephone number.

By then, that number will be pointless. For all I know, some technological development likely will make the whole concept of “land lines” and 10-digit phone numbers will be considered downright quaint.

That is why I don’t “get” the people who want to make this whole process into something more insidious, or some sort of grand conspiracy by the federal government to get into our heads.

DO PEOPLE WHO live in mobile homes really think the federal government is “out to get them” because the Census form asks a basic question about whether one owns or rents their place of residence as of April 1, 2010?

Now I know there are some people of certain ethnic interests, particularly those in the growing Latino population, who think they’re making some sort of grand statement by ignoring the form (ignoring the note on the outer envelope that says a response “is required by law”).

Aside from the fact that I wonder if most people will take that “threat” as being as meaningful as that tag that is not supposed to be removed from the mattress, I don’t get how not filling out the form is much of a statement.

There are those who claim that since political people don’t do much for Latinos, we should not be all that concerned about filling out the form upon whose data many government decisions will be made for the upcoming decade.

BUT I’D ARGUE that those political people are apathetic because they somehow are not convinced that the talk of a growing Latino population is real. If anything, I’d argue that a strong and accurate count of all the people in this country with ethnic origins in Latin American nations would be the statement that we could make that would make these delusional politicos realize that we are a presence, and that we’re here in this society to stay.

I’d say the same goes for the growing Arab population (where I also have heard some people argue that the Census count means little) developing in the United States, or any other group that thinks they’re being overlooked.

The Census is our chance to put ourselves on the record in a way that can’t truly be overlooked. Too many political people overlook us because they think we don’t exist.

In fact, one of the few “protesting” groups concerns gay people, some of whom say they wish there were categories on the Census form that would allow them to acknowledge sexual orientation (the form does ask people to specify their relationship, which allows for heterosexual married couples to confirm their relationship).

SO SOME OF those forms are going to be returned with assorted pink stickers affixed to them as a gesture of acknowledgement.

It sounds cute.

But at least those are forms that are being returned.

So I plan to fill out my form and send it in, in large part because I have my own statement to make with regards to the growing Latino population.

WE NEED TO have as many Latinos as possible fill out their forms to confirm what ought to be obvious to people who are truly paying attention. We’re in this country, and we’re in just about every community. The point in time has been reached by which we’re not going to be ignored any longer.

Unless, by chance, too many of us decide to get lazy and ignore the form that should be arriving this week.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re going to learn soon whether all that money spent on marketing efforts to promote the Census Bureau population count (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/census-reaches-hispanics-illegal-immigrants/story?id=9761158) was money well-spent.

Texas schoolbook controversy ought not be a surprise

When I first heard that state education board officials in Texas were squabbling over the content of the textbooks to be used in history classes in that state, I could already foresee the outcome.

One member of that board said that one of his basic criteria for determining whether or not a proposed textbook ought to even be considered was in how it addressed the 1980s. More specifically, how it addressed the memory of Ronald Reagan, who may not have been as good an actor as Bonzo but was our nation’s president from 1981-89.

REAGAN’S LEGACY DEPENDS greatly upon who one is speaking to, as some people (including this so-called Texas educator) are determined that he be thought of as one of this nation’s most pre-eminent historical figures. Any textbook that tries to reflect the reality that the Reagan years were a divisive period in our society and that the bad taste of those years still lingers to many people is going to be deemed inappropriate to this official.

With that in mind, it didn’t surprise me to learn that the Texas State Board of Education last week cast its votes on textbooks and how certain areas of our nation’s history (along with those bits of Texas history that have national importance) in ways that were meant to appease the far right of our society.

For this is going to have an impact upon all of us. The sheer size of the school system in Texas gives that state a disproportionate influence, since many bottom-line oriented textbook publishers are going to be more than willing to cater their volumes to the whims of the Texas State Board of Education.

A whole lot of people elsewhere are going to have to deal with Texas-style whims in terms of what their children are taught.
This 1912 image by artist Percy Moran that depicts the 1836 battle at The Alamo as valiant warriors shooting at a batch of guys wearing sombreros is the image that Texas Education Board officials desperately want to keep, and that real people will find irrelevant to their lives. Image provided by the Library of Congress collection.

NOW PERSONALLY, I can get my laugh out of the fact that the Texas educators took the time to determine that hip hop music is not a cultural movement of enough significance to warrant mention in a study of what U.S. culture is about.

For that ultimately is what history is, the learning of what we as a society have accomplished.

Now, many of us are going to get the same skewed sense of ourselves that I remember getting when I was back in elementary school taking history courses. I have written before about how I didn’t get a true sense of this nation’s history until I got to college, and even then only because I was a history student who took an aggressive interest in finding out things that always manage to get overlooked by the type of people who view history as a subject as being something that “takes away” time from other subjects.

Learning of the direction that the Texas education officials want to take with history courses makes it so clear that what they’re doing is pushing for a return to the past – when the version of this nation’s history went out of its way to ignore the rest of the world, except as some sort of pest that occasionally had to be swatted away by an all-powerful United States of America!!!

THE PROBLEM WITH that take of history is that it is so ridiculous when compared to reality, and not just because it is so overly jingoistic.

It is the type of educational program that becomes so irrelevant to the lives of anyone living in the 21st Century that all Texas officials have done is ensured that the next generation of students will find their history course to be a boring and pointless as their predecessors did.

So that is why I can’t get too offended at the thought that these Texans didn’t want to have to acknowledge the growing Latino population, and the accomplishments to this country of people whose ethnic origins lie in Latin America or Spain.

As for the fact that many Tejanos died in the battle against Mexico’s army at the Alamo but they only want to focus on the Anglo fighters (most of whom were opportunists who had failed in life elsewhere, compared to the Tejanos who were trying to defend their home state of Tejas against what they perceived as a dictatorial government in Mexico City), that image today is so laughable.

NO KID THESE days wears the coonskin cap of a Davy Crockett (although if by chance they come across their grandfather’s vintage cap from the 1950s and it isn’t too moth-ridden, they may auction it off on e-Bay).

My point is that for those people who go looking, they will be able to find the alternate sources of information that will give them a more true picture than the propagandistic take that some Texas education officials want imposed upon them.

And as for those people who don’t care enough to find out more, their self-inflicted ignorance of history is going to result in them repeating its mistakes – which ultimately will be what takes down their agenda.

It’s kind of ironic in that by trying to rig the telling of our society’s story, they’re planting the seeds of a portion of our society’s ignorance. When combined with the raw numbers of who we as a nation are going to be by 2050, I can’t help but feel that our (those of us with a sense of decency and justice) ultimate cultural victory is assurred.

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NOTICIAS de LATINO: ¡We’re closed!

I suppose it shouldn’t be a shock that we don’t agree with our neighboring nation to the south about when Daylight Savings Time begins.

There are parts of this country that refuse to accept the concept, and think it is somehow a badge of honor that their local time never changes, regardless of which time zone they are in.

SO WHY SHOULD we manage to agree with Mexico, which did not make the same change in implementing Daylight Savings Time that was imposed in the United States back in 2005. That is why we in the United States will re-set our clocks one hour forward before going to bed tonight.

But in Mexico, they don’t make that same adjustment until April 4 – which is when we’d be making the adjustment if the U.S. hadn’t made the change a few years ago.

Not that we have any kind of open revolt by Mexico officials claiming that their version of Daylight Savings Time is somehow true and pure, while ours is false.

Mexico’s customs agency has said they will adjust their hours of operation in South Texas for the next three weeks at commercial cargo processing facilities so that they are open at the same time that U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities are open.

SO WE’RE NOT going to get the confusion of someone not being able to ship their goods from one country to another because the United States is “closed” and Mexico is “open.”

This might not be the biggest of issues, but it strikes me as being humorous that although we all exist on the same Planet Earth that rotates around its axis and revolves around the same sun, we can’t even agree on something that ought to be as basic as, “What time is it?”

Perhaps it would be something worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit to see trucks filled with foodstuffs or other items stuck at the border, waiting for one country to officially Open for Business each morning.

What other items of interest to the growing Latino population managed to crop up into the news on Friday?

FIRST LADY TO VISIT MEXICO: President Barack Obama made Mexico the destination of one of his administration’s first international trips. Now, the first lady plans to do the same.

Michelle Obama will be in Mexico City from April 13-15. She’s going alone, and it will be her first official trip out of the country. She plans to meet with Margarita Zavala de Calderòn, the spouse of Mexico’s president, for a discussion about education and economic advancement.

It will be a nice cultural outing for her, although I wonder what the impresion among the Mexican people will be toward Obama. Will they be wowed by her aura, or will they just yawn.

At the very least, let’s hope that her timing is better than her husband’s. For it was around the time that Obama (as in the president) was in Mexico that we started learning about the viral outbreak now known as H1N1, but which some people back then were determined to think of as the “Mexican flu” and even had some people fearing the president might have been exposed. He wasn’t.

WILL WE SOON HAVE GAY COUPLES RUSHING FOR MEXICO?: It’s too bad that gay marriages couldn’t take place in Cancun or Acapulco.

Not that I think there’s anything wrong with Mexico City – the largest city on the North American continent. But if it were in one of those resort place, I could picture gay people from around the world converging on Mexico to make their pairings legal.

It was just this week that gay couples legally became capable of getting married – but only in Mexico City, although officials are admitting that couples married in the heavily Catholic country’s capital will be legitimate all throughout the nation.

Not that this move doesn’t have its controversy. The Catholic Archdiocese for Mexico City issued a statement attacking the capital’s mayor, who made a point of attending four weddings that took place Thursday. That statement said his actions were a “perversion” of the church’s “respected and cherished values.”

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What goes through Gutierrez’ mind?

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is drawing negative national attention for making threats to vote "no" on the health care reform measure that President Barack Obama has made clear is his political priority.

There are those who want to believe this is either a political spat between Chicago politicos, or Gutierrez being somehow traitorous to his Democratic colleagues. Anybody with sense realizes this is merely the usual partisan negotiating that takes place as Gutierrez tries to draw attention to what he has always considered to be his priority -- immigration reform.

Those of you who want to know more about the issue can turn to this site's sister weblog, the Chicago Argus (http://www.chicagoargus.blogspot.com/) for more details.

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Irish/Mexican history a moment too many want to forget

Considering the mood of the country where there is a segment that seems determined to demonize anything Latino, particularly if it is Mexican, I have to wonder about the commercial sensibility of the newest recording released by The Chieftains.

The Irish group that takes pride in their gaelic origins released a new compact disc this week along with rocker Ry Cooder that is meant to tell the story of the San Patricios. There’s a good chance many of you have no clue who they are.

THERE IS ALSO a chance that some of you, upon learning who they are, will get angry.

Yet that doesn’t seem to sway the Chieftains, who worked with such Latin American and Latino musical artists as Los Tigres del Norte, Linda Ronstadt, Chavela Vargas and Lila Downs – just to name a few – to tell the story of a military unit consisting of Irish immigrants who (the story goes) took up arms in defense of Mexico because both their homeland and their adopted nation had Catholic traditions.

The San Patricio Battallion (St. Patrick, for those who can’t translate basic Español) is regarded among Mexicans as a group of heroes who had no legal obligation to defend the nation, but chose to do so.

Unfortunately, the story isn’t that simple.

FOR THOSE IRISHMEN left their homeland to come to the Americas, and settled in the United States. When they joined the Army as a way of furthering their assimilation to their new country, it was the United States they were pledging their loyalty to.

So when they decided to take up arms in defense of a Catholic-influenced nation, it was one that was fighting against the United States. So strictly speaking, they were deserters who committed acts that could be construed as treason.

When the Mexican/American War ended in 1847 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the U.S./Mexico border that we know today, the surviving soldiers were treated by the United States as criminals. Some were executed, while others were dishonorably discharged AFTER receiving severe beatings or brandings (“D” for “deserter”) as punishment.

I’m sure there are going to be those people who will be grossly offended to learn that deserters are being treated as subjects of a work of art, while others will be grossly offended at such an attitude not only prevailing 160 years after the fact, but also enhanced by the passage of time.

TO THE BEST of my knowledge, the last time someone tried to make “art” out of the story of the St. Patrick’s brigade was in 1999 with the release of the film “One Man’s Hero” (which I recently saw a DVD of for sale at a going-out-of-business Hollywood Video for $3.33). I saw that film starring Tom Berrenger as the leader of the San Patricios brigade, and thought it was a bit overdone.

Now, we get a collection of 19 songs that purport to tell the story of a melding of Irish and Mexican culture.

Now I’m not going to dispute the fact that these men deserted. They did pledge an allegiance to one army, then wound up fighting for the other side.

But there is a reason why I think this particular saga is worth remembering today, and why all those people who will be quick to dismiss this story as one of traitors best ignored ought to take their heads out of the sand and watch what is happening today.

SOME PEOPLE TRY to downplay the soldiers of the San Patricios battallion as mere opportunists, if not outright drunkards.

But by most accounts, what caused these Irish immigrants to the United States to turn on the nation they thought would give them a second chance on life was the treatment they received.

For they encountered a Protestant establishment that was determined to demonize them for their religious beliefs – even though that Constitution that we think gives us the moral high ground on this Earth had then, and still has, that First Amendment that also includes freedom of religion.

It created a situation where these soldiers ultimately felt they were unwelcome, and saw they might very well fit in better on “the other side.” It is said those soldiers ultimately could not bring themselves to continue fighting their religious brethren. So they jumped.

IT JUST SEEMS too similar to the way the nativist elements of our society are determined to demonize the growing Latino population of this country for their ethnic origins – all because they want to believe that “real Americans” are just like them.

I’m not saying the Latino population, particularly those of Mexican ethnicity, are on the verge of pulling a “San Patricios” move and jumping to another side against the United States. But those people who are determined to keep the Latino population separate from the rest of society had better realize they are creating a resentment. The fact that too many political people seem determined to cater to those nativists (tip-toeing around to avoid upseting them) is the factor that truly keeps us from uniting as a society.

Too many of us or our immigrant ancestors came to this country wanting a piece of this society, which means we ultimately just wanted to “fit in.” It is those who oppose that goal who are the problem.

Perhaps a gesture as simple as the new compact disc (which hopefully will get a bit of attention) will give people a quickie history lesson that might have them re-think their approach to the issue.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: There are times I wonder if Ry Cooder, who worked on the Buena Vista Social Club recordings with aging Cuban musicians (http://www.kentucky.com/2010/03/07/1172036/critics-pick-the-chieftains-featuring.html) then later made a record telling the story of the Mexican-American community of Los Angeles that was wiped out to make room for Dodger Stadium, ought to be considered an Honorary Latino.

A quickie history lesson (http://vivasancarlos.com/patrick.html) about the San Patricios, who fought valiently for Mexico before being court-martialed by the United States.