Latinos and Spanish-speaking Gringos
Hasta la vista, baby!by
Professor Rodolfo F. Acuna
Author of "OCCUPIED AMERICA: The History of Chicanos"The intensity of the wooing of the Latino vote by presidential candidates, and listening to George W. Bush and Al Gore speak Spanish, with "little brown ones" fluttering around them as if they were gods, reminds me of what Mexicans used to say in Texas: never to trust a gringo who speaks Spanish or a Mexican who smokes a cigar. (Both are likely to be politicians).
Bush has been a regular visitor to California and has included the Latino community at many of his stops, something that would have been rare four years ago, and never happened a decade ago. Just in the last couple of weeks he has visited the conventions of the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Bush also attended the annual convention of the National Association for Colored People, where the reception was not as warm.
Bush includes a smattering of Spanish in his speeches: "I like to be seen in neighborhoods sometimes where Republicans aren't seen . . . I like to fight the stereotype that somehow we don't have the corazon (heart) necessary to hear the voices of people from all political parties and from all walks of life," he drawled in his affected Texas intonation at the National Council of La Raza confab. Bush prominently displays his nephew, 24-year-old George P. Bush, son of his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and his Mexican-born sister-in-law, Columba.
The possibility of Latinos taking Bush seriously and a sizeable voting for him frightens many of my liberal friends, who ask me (as if I knew what all Mexicans thought), why Latinos were doing the unthinkable and backing a Republican for president? An unproved assumption at best. Yet I must admit as a once lifelong Democrat, who grew up with a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt prominently displayed in the pantheon of saints on my grandmother's dresser, the prospect disconcerts me.
Nevertheless, after the hundredth time asked the same inane question by liberal and leftist alike my defensiveness turns to hostility. It is as if these liberals and radicals think that Mexicans should automatically vote Democrat or even better, Ralph Nader, who has yet to articulate a coherent position on immigration. My radical friends act as if Mexicans should know their class interests in a country where very few Americans know them, and even to mention them is a cardinal sin.
As idiotic is the response of Latino pundits and cigar chomping Mexican American politicians that Latinos are not a monolithic bloc--da! With an all-knowing smirk on their faces they pompously point out that Cuban-Americans typically back Republicans by 2-to-1 margins. Texas Latinos tend to be more flexible in willing to vote Republican, while California Latinos slammed by Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative that denied many public services to illegal immigrants, vote 2 to 1 for Democrats.
The fact is that Bush may fail quizzes on foreign policy but he receives an "A" for using Spanish language commercials. One tag line in his election as governor was: "Vote for Bush-Who cares if he's not a Democrat?" in Spanish. He has also broken with nativist such as former California governor Pete Wilson and exhorted others to change their policy on immigration. Moreover, the Bush challenge has Democrats and even Greens learning Spanish and proudly flouting their cigar chomping Latinos.
The reasons for Latinos being so gullible go deep, and do not recognize their class interests is rooted in the inability of gringos of whatever political persuasion to come to grips with the race question. Latinos are not independent and are a product of the US political ambience. They are a social construct of the North American whose chauvinism and ideological bias promote a paradigm that fits all Latinos. According to that paradigm, on policy issues, from affirmative action to defense spending, Latinos and Asians are more conservative than blacks. That Latinos are rural and Catholic is always cited proof of this assumption.
Thrown in for good measure is that Latinos often fail to support black candidates for office. Forgotten is that when given a choice Latinos prefer Latino candidates, and that Blacks prefer black candidates, and not all black leaders and organizations support Latinos on issues such as immigration. The fact is that it has only been recently that Blacks and Latinos have communicated without white intermediaries. To most North Americans, from the left and the right, all Asians are Asians, no matter if they are from Japan, China, Korea, or the Philippines. Just like anyone with a Spanish surname is Mexican to them.
A reductionist logic compels Anglos to expect Mexicans, for instance, to behave like African Americans when in truth they are different. Latinos and Blacks are the product of distinct historical experiences. Despite their racism, whites have always felt guilty about Blacks who had and have for some time had a national presence. Liberals and radicals have always felt paternalistically close to Blacks. With Latinos they have been more ambivalent. Whites feeling less comfortable around them. Few recognize that the US stole half Mexico's territory or that they have suffered from racism. In isolated cases there has been contact between Latinos and white liberals, but for the most part it has been with gringos speaking Spanish.
Part of the explanation for the alienation between Latinos and liberals and even radicals is the latter two's chauvinism. Basically they do not respect Latinos. A partial explanation for this is that many Latinos are immigrants, and what the white left knows about them is in great part impressionistic, anecdotal, and subjective.
I have been involved on the left for over forty years, and, during this period, I have found few white leftist who know the history or know much about Mexican Americans. Before 1970, very few did research on Mexican Americans, Carey McWilliams' North From Mexico, the notable exception. Substituted for historical knowledge are myths and stereotypes. This has greatly contributes to an ideological bias, and even racism.
I will not deny that there are differences between those on the left and Republicans. George W. Bush, for example, has chosen Linda Chavez as his leading adviser on immigration issues. Chavez's qualification rests on her being a Clarence Thomas clone. Chavez also boasts of her Spanish American, not her Mexican ancestry, and of being half white. In contrast, a key adviser to Vice President Al Gore is Maria Echaveste, currently a deputy White House chief of staff. While on Labor Department, she cracked down on sweatshop abuses by the garment industry.
The other differences are those of degree. Under Bush, the compassionate conservative, has continued to support the establishment of a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in Sierra Blanca-the small, poor, and predominantly Mexican American community that already receives daily trainloads of sewage sludge from New York. The Sierra Blanca dump site, although a blatant example of environmental racism, has become a George W. Bush project. Under Bush South Texas, predominately Mexican American, continues to be an environmental and economic disaster, with many living in homes with outside toilets.
Just last year George W. offered a tax plan that exempted small businesses from the franchise tax if their annual gross revenue was $250,000 or under. Part of the plan was a $2 billion property-tax cut for his rich friends. Nastier, the plan would have taken it from the schools, which according to George W., is his most important priority. The truth be told, Texas did not even have fully funded kindergarten, which disproportionately affected Latino children. Texas under Bush is in per capita government spending, which again affects the poor. Bush says he has corazon but has executed more Mexican Americans than any other governor, even when alerted by the US Supreme Court that it is a no no to admit discriminatory evidence into the process, which is common in Texas.
My concern and my thesis in this article and the one that follows is that there is no ongoing political education of Mexican Americans and Latinos. The result is that Latinos are often uncritical of the politicos like George W. Bush and Al Gore who come to them with ridiculous promises during election time, speaking Spanish as proof of their concern. The Democratic party that until recently has not even bothered to spend money on Spanish-speaking media is now scurrying to out Bush, Bush, and show that it has always had a corazon.
What I want to show in Part II of this article is that in order for the community to break out of its "pediche" mentality is for it to begin to recognize its class interests. This can only be done through the inclusion and maintenance of a social and political vocabulary that is skeptical, and critically analyzes political discourse. In the second part, I want to show how liberals and radicals have contributed to the political illiteracy of Mexican-origin people and other Latinos. Indeed, Cuban Americans and Nicaraguans as communities are almost politically lost causes because of the lack of attention of the left. Radicalization takes money and an agenda that includes Latinos.
One cannot expect more of Latinos, given the lack of engagement of the left media. They feel left out even in spaces that one would expect them to be included. The left has contributed to this alienation. It is therefore no wonder that Latinos feel grateful when paid attention by gringos speaking Spanish. Even "Hasta la vista baby!" has a welcome sound in a universe where even television has no brown faces.
For my part, I believe the failure to respect Latinos, as well as what is the relationship between civil rights and Latinos, is ripe for reexamination. No matter how one cuts it, if Mexican Americans and other Latinos seem fickle in goo-gooing when gringo politicians come courting, it is a product of the left's negligence and ignorance. As far back as the mid-1960s, I preached to anyone who would listen in the California Democratic Council that Mexican Americans were not naturally conservative just because they had strong family values or many of them were Catholics. The building of a political ideology takes education. It has to be seeded, and it takes the development and maintenance of a political language. Yet, historically, Democrats, like Republicans, have preferred to play the role of the gringo speaking Spanish, taking for granted that Latinos will vote against Republicans.
Instead of helping Latinos to develop politically, the left has simplistically told Mexican Americans --Democrats good, Republicans bad. An important factor contributing to the alienation between the various groups is the lack of ideological bonding. One of the main factors encouraging the lack of bonding has been that the groups have been spatially separated.
For example, the Jewish American community, an important player in left coalitions, around World War II in Los Angeles lived in close proximity to Mexicans. Leftist Jews lived alongside Mexicans in Boyle Heights and contributed to the ideological development of the Mexican American community. However, with the flight of Jews from places Boyle Heights to the westside, the bonding weakened as did the sharing of historical memories. In contrast, middle- class neighborhoods such as the Baldwin Hills put Blacks into much closer proximity to Jewish Americans, who sponsored the rise of black politicians such as Mayor Tom Bradley. Space and the arrival of East Coast Jews, who did not share a knowledge of Mexicans furthered the gap between the two groups. Literally, Jews and other white progressives lived on the westside and Mexicans on the eastside, with Mexicans left out of much of the mainstream civil rights coalitions formed in the 1960s.
Much of the black population also came from the east coast and midwest where there were no Mexicans or Central Americans. Blacks coexisted with Latinos and were numerically equal to Latinos until the dramatic growth of the Latino community in the 1970s. This growth threatened Black and Jewish interests, and tensions developed over redistricting and a feeling grew among Latinos that certain districts belonged to them.
Because the political brokers and the liberals excluded Mexican Americans during the Mayor Tom Bradley, Mexican American politicos also developed an our time has come mindset. They wanted control of institutions much the same way Blacks did during the 1970s and 1980s. Term limits opened the door of opportunity. The lack of a strong Latino political community gave rise to individual political aspirations.
The new Latino politicos created a new coalition, which begs to be critically analyzed. Along with alliances with labor, Chicano politicos often joined forces with Mayor Richard Riordan to get elected. This resulted in more Chicanos elected to the City Council, but, simultaneously, these alliances supported Riordan's corporate takeover of the city, the schools, and transportation. It was a marriage of convenience without any serious ideological bonding.
How is the left responsible for this state of affairs? A universe that trains future politicos and gives a voice to minority thinkers is the media. Especially influential is the left media because the conservative culture of the mainstream estate does not offer the developing writer to mature politically. Ironically, the left media that had loudly and frequently criticized the lack of affirmative action was and is guilty of not hiring Latinos. Because of limited space, I will only focus on three examples: the LA Weekly, The Nation and Pacifica Radio.
The Weekly covers Latinos. It has to--one of every two Angeleno is a Latino. However, English- speaking gringos write most of the stories on Latinos. At The Weekly, Harold Myerson is an important voice on the left. He frequently writes about Latinos, and is influential in developing the critique of the city politics. Given the immense Latino population one would expect a larger Latino presence within the newspaper.
The lack of a critical presence of Latinos in The Weekly's community has seriously retarded its understanding of Latinos. Its lack of bonding with that community makes its coverage and editorial content in great part impressionistic, anecdotal, and subjective. Take Myerson, who a serious scholar of LA politics. He has contributed to the myth that Latinos are conservative. According to Myerson, a new Democratic coalition of immigrant and second- and third-generation Latinos, energized by labor activists, is driving Latinos in increased numbers to the polls. He adds that the old black-led liberal coalitions has given way to a new labor and Latino-immigrant axis that is "largely positioned to the right of the older coalition on these issues but to the left of the Republicans on workplace issues such as the minimum wage and on the improvement of public education."
My problem with Myerson is the lack of skepticism in his analysis. A greater inclusion of Latinos would have sharpened his own knowledge of the infighting that took place around Proposition 187 (passed in 1994), and efforts within that community by Latino and non-Latinos to tone down the opposition to 187. Further, there was criticism of the Democratic party and labor in 1996 for sacrificing affirmative action and the anti-immigrant provisions in the 1996 federal welfare reform bill, and prioritizing the election of Bill Clinton. Some Latinos are still bitter at labor and Democratic candidates downplaying their support of Proposition 227, the anti-bilingual education measure, in 1998, in favor of Proposition 226, which would have required employers and labor unions to obtain a worker's permission each year before withholding wages or union dues for political purposes. Most some labor candidates quietly declined to carry controversial anti-227 literature. More important, Myerson ignores the failure of the Internationals, housed on the East Coast, hoarding large pension funds running into the billions of dollars, of abandoning immigrant worker projects such as the California Immigrant Workers' Association.
The Nation, an influential left magazine among policy makers, simply does not believe that the Southwest exists. Even under Carey McWilliams, who wrote the first comprehensive history of Mexicans in the United States, the Nation failed consistently to give a voice to Latino issues. When it featured a Latino writer, Gregory Rodriguez, a fellow at the conservative Pepperdine University think-tank, his views on bilingual education came from the right, something The Nation would not have done to Black Americans.
Currently civil war of the lefties is raging at KPFK in Los Angeles and at KPFA in the Bay area. Both stations belong to the Pacifica Network, and what is happening there is symptomatic of the problem. Demographers expect the Latino population from 1998 to 2010 to account for almost half of all the population growth in the U.S. and 62 percent to the year 2050. One would think that Pacifica, a giant among independent alternative media, because its five stations, in New York (WBAI), Washington (WPFW), Houston (KPFT), Los Angeles (KPFK) and Berkeley, Calif. (KPFA), are smack in the middle of this growth, would want to attract this audience.
Not so! Neither side talks about mentoring young Latino and Latina voices and getting more Latinos to listen. Other than supporting the dismissed Latino volunteers, not much has been heard from the Chicano community, which sees it as a war of the vanguards who want to control the message and the messenger, and their right to speak for their little brown brothers and sisters.
Would it matter if there was a critical mass of Latinos at these alternative newspapers, magazines and radio stations? Most certainly, this mass would challenge today's mainstream thought and its preoccupation with a positivist objectivity that supports established interests.
In order to fully understand the hypocrisy of the left in its failure to promote affirmative action from within one must understand their political culture. White radicals and liberals have never thought of Mexicans as equal partners largely because of a historical ignorance of them. Latinos until recently lacked a national presence, partly due to the heavy immigrant Latino population. Their presence is limited. For example, in 1991 five states accounted for seven out of eight applicants for citizenship; over 54 percent resided in a single state, California, and half the top ten Metropolitan areas of residence were in California. Applicants from Los Angeles-Long Beach, overwhelmingly Mexican, accounted for over 34 percent of the nation's total.
Immigration has magnified racial diversity and intragroup differences. Immigration therefore was peripheral to civil rights politics until Chicanos thrust it into the mix. In the last three decades immigration has demanded the inclusion of new issues more often unfamiliar to the left. Further, immigration has contributed to a fragmentation, i.e., a 1986 opinion poll showed 52 percent of black Americans favored immigration at current or increased levels, while 39 percent wanted the levels decreased. This has accounted for the fact that both African Americans and liberals have belatedly formed progressive stances on immigration.
Further, the dramatic growth of the Latino middle-class, which some Latino scholars and writers have celebrated as an example of Latino ingenuity. This lack of a sense of their own civil rights history has taken attention away from the fact that, according to the 1990 census, five Southern California counties housed more than a fifth of the nation's Latino population. Although they developed a substantial middle class, Latinos are "the largest group of poor people in the United States [that] is not . . . on welfare. They are the working poor, whose earnings are so meager that despite their best efforts, they cannot afford decent housing, diets, health care, or child care." Add to this that radicals in particular are obsessed by revolution--transformation--to them reform is a dirty word. They are romantics who supported Central Americans during their civil war. However, when the wars ended, most went on to other beehives. I remember appearing on a program at KPFK, hosted by the then head of the local Lawyers Guild. One guest was a 15-year- old Mexican kid, who was a leader of a walkout of Latino students (a walkout of some 30,000 middle and high school students), protesting Proposition 187. The attorney literally had a mental orgasm, asking the student, vulnerable because of his immigration status, if this was the beginning of a militant movement.
If the Latino community does vote for Bush, it will not be because we are genetically or culturally conservative. It is because of a lack of political education, which the vanguard left's elitism has failed to contribute to. One of the purposes of affirmative action was to integrate minorities at all levels of society. Evidently, the left does not believe that affirmative action applies to it.
No doubt, some may accuse me of pessimism. They will claim that we have made tremendous gains and that both political parties are now accepting us speaking Spanish. Still, as of 1997, only 54.7 percent of U.S. Latinos had graduated from high school and only 7.4 percent from college. We had the largest number of school dropouts, and consequently more Latino youth found their way into gangs and ran afoul of the law. In 1990, we made up about 11.5 percent of the U.S. population, and accounted for 13.3 percent of all prisoners. This stat rose to 15.8 percent by 1996.
Despite all this, I am not ready to say Hasta la vista baby! to the left. A radical critique is vital and we must fight for control not only of mainstream institutions but also alternative media and organizations that have made a living of critiquing our poverty. It is time that we spoke for ourselves and not through Spanish-speaking gringos or cigar smoking Mexicans.
Other articles by Porfessor Rodolfo F. Acuņa:
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: How Else Can We Teach Them a Lesson?
Murder in Arizona . . . Its Only the Third World
The Making of the Political Pocho
Rodolfo Acuņa is a Professor of Chicano Studies at California State University at Northridge. He is the author of many seminal books on Chicanos. Among these books are: 1. "Occupied America : A History of Chicanos", 2. "Sometimes There Is No Other Side : Chicanos and the Myth of Equality" and 3. "A Community Under Siege: A Chronicle of Chicanos East of the Los Angeles River, 1945-1975."
