TITLE: The Emergence of The Conservative Hispanic

AUTHOR: Robert Miranda

PUB:

DATE: February 13, 2001

The so-called emergence of the Hispanic community, as a formidable political power in this nation, has given rise to a pro-corporate voice that has willingly assimilated itself into a culture designed to strip Latinos of their identity, much the same way African-Americans have been stripped from his/her native language and homeland. In this new era of Tex-Mex fanaticism, with the arrival of George and Laura Bush into the White House, a renewed effort to promote Hispanic culture and pride has given rise to the conservative forces of the Hispanic community. The Hispanic, who more often than not, is more assimilated into the American mainstream; they are conservative and corporate. The Hispanic, as Dr. David Abalos of Seton Hall University describes, is a person who considers himself or herself to be of European extraction. They consider the coming of the Conquistadors of Spain, as the “beginning of the destruction of their cultures.” Indeed, they see the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock as the dawning of civilization, despite the fact that civilization existed tens of thousands of years before Columbus accidentally landed upon the shores of the land he thought was the West Indies. They praise and celebrate the “heroics” of the Conquistadors, and ignore the horrors of their conquest, which led to the near extinction of the original peoples of Latin America. Hispanics tend to take on the mindset of the rich and powerful in Latin America, wedding themselves to the notion that they are more Spaniard, than decedents of the indigenous and mestizo people who are by far the majority of Latin America’s population. While Hispanics, such as Linda Chavez, rise from obscurity, championing the cause of the conservative movement in America, those of us who choose to call ourselves Latino/a or Chicano/a, tend to be, by and large, politically savvy, progressive and liberal, anti-corporate and pro-indigenismo. We come from all backgrounds and we have different shades of skin color, and sometimes we are radical and militant. They see the Conquistadors in much the same light as the Jews see the German Third Reich. Latinos/Chicanos remember the glory of our ancestors in Tenochtitlan and Borinquen, we marvel at the proud history of the Aztecs and humble ourselves to the peaceful life style of the Tainos. We are the proud people of Aztlan, we are the faces of Mayan culture, we are supporters and defenders of the cause of the Zapatistas, and we are the voices of support of those brave Boricuas demanding the removal of the U.S. Navy from the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, island of our Taino ancestors. And as the culture of America continues to turn corporate, the need for us as a people to resist assimilation has grown more intense than ever before. The growing conservatism of our youth and the ever-increasing encroachment of our culture by corporate-minded-people is changing the cultural importance and historical meaning of our corridos and music, from that of awareness and preservation to that of reservation. The historical and cultural meaning of our history is being replaced by deregulated commercialism, which does not respect our women and our struggle. It mimics our style but betrays our roots. As Chicana author and poet Sandra Cisneros, stated in her interview with “HISPANIC Magazine,” "The term Hispanic makes my skin crawl," Cisneros, said. "It's a very colonistic term, a disrespectful term, a term imposed on us without asking what we wanted to call ourselves." Hispanic is a term that belittles the importance of our peoples’ identity. What is most disturbing about the Cisneros interview is how she points out the fact that most of our youth have decided to use the term without questioning where the term Hispanic came from. She places most of the blame, for the use of the term, squarely on the shoulders of former president Roland Reagan, who imposed the use of the term as the “final solution” to identifying the Latino population. Cisneros ended the interview by stating, "How would Reagan feel if we said we're going to call your people "los gueros"? We're just going to group you all together-the Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, English-and we're going to call you 'pinkies' without asking." The dominant culture came up with the generic Hispanic term, and without so much as a whimper, the conservative element of the Latino community freely accepts the label because it’s the American thing to do. Hispanic leaders who prefer the term use it as a means of separating themselves from Latinos, who would stand against hot button political issues such as English Only and Affirmative Action. The term Hispanic was created out of the word España, or Spain, the nation that funded the first expedition that led to the conquest of what is today known as Latin America. Dr. Abalos states that there is a false belief that Spaniards “are the descendants of the Romans, the Visigoths, the Franks, the Gauls or other European groups.” When in reality the Spaniard is a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim, says Abalos. When Spaniards arrived 500 years ago to the “New World,” they took women from the indigenous villages and cities and enriched Latin America with a new population of mestizo people. Dr. Abalos explains that, the African, who later arrived against his/her will because of the profitable slave trade in the “New World,” eventually intermarried with the mestizo, which enriched the population with what we have come to call the mestizaje people. And it is this richness of creative indigenous, mestizo and mestizaje backgrounds that has drawn people to call themselves Latinos, Chicanos and other more ancestral rooted names, other than Hispanic. Nonetheless, because Hispanic is the preferred method of identification for conservatives, the term has gained a rebirth as current political trends continue to move to the right. As the move to the right increases, so does the action of assimilation and corporatization of the conservative Hispanic community. In the final analysis, the political and economic agenda, which has literally caused the nation to move into the hands of the pro-corporate Republican Party, has also swayed the pro-corporate Hispanic to bring within the Latino community a culture based on the corporate model. To be sure, a corporate paradigm that feeds off of predatory competition, worker exploitation and greed, as it pretends to be a good corporate citizen by stressing its concern for the community. On the contrary, the corporate citizen’s true commitment to the community rests solely on the notion that as long as the corporation profits, its interaction with the community will continue. The corporation’s loyalty to the community is never assured, it is at best there. A corporation’s loyalty exists only for its self-interest, and once that self-interest can profit elsewhere, the corporate citizen will leave the community, creating in its wake despair and disenfranchisement. Simply being Hispanic and pro-corporate does not necessarily mean that one is loyal to the Latino community. If you are a person who operates under the notion of self-interest, then you are a predator looking for safe issues, and an easy way to be accepted and assimilated into the conservative movement of America. Para la gente, simpre fiel&ldots; END top