From above, at a distance, we are but just one group; a loose association. Latinos, Hispanics or Chicano. Mexican Americans or 'sudacas'. This is how they see us from far away.
But if one comes closer, we change from tiny dots in the sky into individuals, and differences between us can be noticed; differences of national origin, skin color, culture, religion, political beliefs and more.
As immigrants, after we arrive, we are forged into one unified concept; we suddenly understand each other and we all become "Latinos" or "Hispanos". We are united by language and cultural characteristics and a common history and, once here, a common destiny and the similar way people view us.
A person I met worked a teacher in an elementary rural school in Mexico before he came to the United States. In his pueblo, families didn't have enough to eat. Nevertheless, the parents brought their children to him to learn the basics. But at the end of seventh grade, they would wait for their children at the school gate, he said, and send them to North to work.
Many of us came believing that as soon as we saved some money we would go back home.
A woman and her husband from Monterrey owned a lot not far away from the university where she studied. They came to Los Angeles with the idea of saving some money in order to build a house on that lot so their children could live close to this school and graduate from there. The boy was 10; the girl only six years old.
But they spent the money they saved on their needs here.
Today their children have grown up and are engaged and are staying here.
If they ever go back it will be alone. When? Probably Never.
Two parents from Uruguay came to Los Angeles during the political conflict of the 1970's, politically and ideologically militant. Here they wrapped themselves in the silence of remembrance and caution. Many years later their kids know nothing about what happened there. If they knew, they would consider it a good screenplay.
Another one arrived from Israel because he was required to spend two out of every twelve months in the military reserves. He miraculously survived two wars until his wife made him swear they would seek a better life in 'America.' Doing whatever, but alive.
An ex co-worker was a private school administrator in Guatemala. When the school went under she lost her house, her car, money and her job. She came here.
'But why to the US?'
'Where else, then?'
People come for many reasons: the economy, politics, to have an adventure. To get away from their parents. Or from a dictatorship. Some--like the one who previously was my best friend--because of the return of democracy.
I came - one said - because they offered me a job with a diplomatic visa. The visa expired but he stayed.
- And I came because my land was taken from me.
- I came because of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
- I came because I fall in love with a gringo.
- I came because I was a marielito in Cuba.
- I came because in Mexico I was assaulted and robbed four times in one year.
- I came, because I had no other choice; food was scarce.
- I came - all said - because what we had there wasn't enough.
I came because of this, for this, or to get away from that. To risk it all.
One hand forward, one hand behind, this is how we arrived.
For those who came without papers and in hiding and those who arrived openly, to immigrate to the USA wasn't a means but an end. In Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, on the other side of the border from Douglas, Arizona, I talked with a man who tried to cross ten times. Ten times he was arrested on the border and returned home. The first time he paid a coyote, a smuggler, to help him cross, with money he obtained from selling his cow in the pueblo. After that, he said, he already knew the path.
- I'll try one more time and if they stop me, I'll go back home.
Those who immigrate as adults collapse here, their sense of belonging erased; their identity confused. The images of life here are foreign to them. They don't recognize the smells. The food, the faces, the habits; everything is new and foreign. Twenty years later they are still strangers. They could be fluent in the new language but inside they still speak the old one. At times in secret. Or they lose one language without quite acquiring the new one.
To survive they must be born again. They have to decode inches, miles and degrees Fahrenheit. They make this town our own. They gather and accept a generic name: Latinos, Hispanos.
From the time they arrive they make the name theirs. It becomes part of them, what they read, their areas of interest, demands, lacks.
We are not a race. Membership to our group is totally voluntary. It is a makeshift identity.
We will never be again who we were.
The man who was Don Alejandro in Buenos Aires - known and respected by everyone - washes dishes in midnight at a restaurant and is Don Nobody.
Those who really wanted to go back already have. But some of them are strangers in their own countries. They go back but never quite arrive.
The streets of their childhood are too narrow; the buildings, too old. They are not understood. They are not happy, nor here neither there. They exist in circles.
And so, at the end, moving in circles, they continue looking for home. And they are lost, forever.
Follow Gabriel Lerner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hispanicla
Is there pride in abandoning ones home to come serve the oligarch of the north?
Well said. However, this doesn't mean that a makeshift identity can't become pollitically viable for those H or L who are already here.
I am Latin, but I am American first. My people are my fellow Americans, not Latins the world over. The only Latins that are my people are my fellow Latin-Americans, and that is because they are Americans, not because they are Latin. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, European-Americans, Native-Americans-all of these are "my people." That is they way it's supposed to be. If you are an American whose primary loyalty is to an ethnic group, then you are not much of an American in my book.
Interesting post. One I disagree with though. You say: "That's how it should be." According to whom? You, and you alone. Yours is one way of looking at this L thing, and not the only one by any stretch of the imagination. And I think that's what Lerner is trying to convey. I, for once, am not too fond of people telling me how it should be, especially when it comes to the way I define myself. Neither are you, if I'm not mistaken. You have chosen the way you want to define yourself. That's the way it should be.
First, we speak Portuguese at home and we have a perfect English comprehension and we speak better than 80% (at least) of the Americans.
But my son while studying in a Miami High School had problems with his Spanish teacher. She complain that he was supposed to speak Spanish "because we speak it at home" (!)
Our Spanish wasn't good but we had to learn to speak it because all the latinos didn't want to speak English with us and get offended when we did.
Second, our culture is different from the Spanish speaking latinos.
Third, we save for a very short time, never made our natives slaves. We have less native blood than the majority of our Spanish neighbors. Specially in the south of Brazil, were our country received a enormous flux of immigrants form Europe and, later, from Japan.
Third, I abhor the word latino. It was used for the first time by the Mexican "emperor' Maximilian, a puppet of the French "emperor" Napoleon III. It was used with the idea that the Spanish colonies and France had a common history and background and with the purpose of conquering the former Spanish colonies in America.
Are we Brazilian really latinos? I don't think so. Our language is different, our history is different and our culture is different.
But for the American people we are all the same.
Like Lerner says:
"We are not a race. Membership to our group is totally voluntary. It is a makeshift identity."
You are not if you don't want to.You shouldn't let anybody define who you are.
Your article ignores the reality of an international over-arching Latino culture. I have met many, many people who have met enough of us from many different parts of Latino America who understand, as I do, that our culture includes a value system that is shared in all its different versions. While not all people of Latin American ancestry understand this, enough of us do to know that our cultura is real, and when we truly know it, it can guide us to do anything and confront any difficulty. And whatever our difficulties are, they are not as great as what our ancestors survived so that we could continue to define life by our cultura. Saludos.
I would have added "ethnicity" to micro-bio if had space. It doesn't exist, we are all mongrels. Not to mention, I'm not an "Anglo". None of my grandparents spoke English when they came to the US. But then they learned instead of staying in their neighborhoods and speaking Polish. Latinos could learn something from that.
There are more of German descent than English (or Spanish) in the US, yet I don't see voting instruction in German. Funny thing, that.
Excellent piece! It is quite true what you wrote. I even found myself in your article!
I will add one more group, albeit almost nonexistent, but still... The ex-expats! Those who even though were US citizens all along, for one reason or another lived abroad. Those of us who longed to come home and were unable to. Those who never felt at home outside this blessed country. Those of us who have never looked back!
glad to be Latino and be able to contribute to others as well learn from people like you my friend :-)