Weekend notes to keep you busy through Monday

Hispanic residents up 161 % in Birmingham area. 

                                         

It’s a headline from the Birmingham News newspaper, and it really isn’t unique. The Census Bureau’s 2010 population count is showing more Latinos living everywhere. If anything, it means that a place that previously had few Latinos now has a significant number. News outlets across the country are forced to run similar stories -- unless they're more interested in burying the truth about their populations/readers.

BUT I LIKE the idea of that “161 percent” figure, because I’m sure at least a few nativist nitwits read that newspaper headline and choked on their coffee – or read it on a computer screen and began swearing up a storm.

Then, there is the report on a Fox News’ website (admittedly, the Latino-oriented one), one headlined that being bilingual is a “workplace advantage” for Latinos.

I’d argue that many Latinos in this country are working to bolster their English, no matter how much the nativist element of our society wants to spin stories to the contrary. What we don’t accept is the idea that somehow a complete repudiation of the ethnic ways of the past is essential to becoming a part of this society.

Like it or not, some of the Latin American ways are going to become a part of the U.S. culture. Assimiliation means us picking up on the ways of society, which also accepts some of our mores.

ALSO, WE REALIZE that the way to increase our status in this society is through education. It makes me wonder that when political fools spew out rhetoric about how “illegals” shouldn’t be entitled to be in the public schools, what they’re really dreaming about is a day when they think they can keep my ethnic brethren ignorant.

Perhaps they think they can make us as clueless as themselves?

And while it happened a few days ago, it remains interesting that Los Angeles County Sheriff’s police has to deal with a report released this week related to the death of one-time Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar in 1970 at a Vietnam War protest.

The report provides more a picture of a law enforcement agency that was incompetent and over-reacting, rather than the Chicano conspiracies of police who plotted to kill Salazar because he was exposing their wrongdoing against Latinos (a label that admittedly, Salazar himself wouldn’t have used).

IT’S NICE TO see that some people haven’t forgotten Salazar and his contribution to boosting Chicano consciousness – which has led to our current status of feeling we don’t have to take the abuse of xenophobes with irrational hang-ups.

I just can’t help but wonder, though, how many people of today heard the name “Salazar” and immediately dismissed it as something they never heard of. Maybe if they made a movie of Salazar’s life (and work), it would capture the public’s attention.

Perhaps actor Esai Morales as Salazar (just a suggestion) could revive him in the collective consciousness the way actor Tom Hanks resurrected the name “Jim Lovell” – the leader of the Apollo 13 crew that never made it to the moon, but came off as so heroic in that 1995 film.

And now, I take my weekend rest. Go off, and learn something.

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