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The
Myth of a New Brown Race
(Updated Version)
By
Richard Rodriguez, Pacific News
Service, June 6, 2001
To say today that Hispanics are becoming America's largest
minority dilutes the noun "minority" until it means little more
than a population segment. In truth, Hispanics do not constitute
a racial group -- members of every race in the world can claim
to be Hispanics. PNS Editor Richard Rodriguez, author of the
forthcoming "Brown," writes regularly for the Opinion section
of the Los Angeles Times, where a longer version of this essay
just appeared.
SAN FRANCISCO -- That dark little secret -- the divide at the
heart of America's racial and ethnic politics -- has been exposed
by the contest for mayor of Los Angeles. On Tuesday, in America's
largest Hispanic city, an overwhelming number of African American
voters sided with the white candidate, defeating the Hispanic
candidate.
All is not well along the spectrum of America's rainbow, despite
the tendency of some on the political left to describe "blacks
and Latinos" in one breath. From Miami to Dallas to Compton,
blacks and Latinos are engaged in a terrible competition for
the meanest jobs; for the security of Civil Service positions;
for political office; for white noise. It is no exaggeration
to say that African Americans have paid the price of Hispanic
numerical ascendancy. In Los Angeles, for example, the famous
"black neighborhoods" have suddenly become Hispanic -- immigrant,
Spanish-speaking.
The U.S. Census Bureau is candid, but makes matters worse. Out
of malice or stupidity, federal demographers have taken to predicting
that Hispanics are destined to "replace" African Americans as
"America's largest minority." This year, the bureau estimates
Hispanic numbers to be nearly equal to those of blacks. But
Hispanics are poised to take the lead. The bureau manages both
to trivialize the significance of Hispanics in our national
life, as well as to insult African Americans by describing Hispanics
as replacing blacks. But to date, the nation's Hispanic political
leadership has remained largely silent about the Census Bureau's
grammar.
If I were an African American, I would not be so silent. What
does it mean, I would ask, that Hispanics are becoming America's
largest minority? The notion of African Americans as a minority
is one born of a distinct and terrible history of exclusion
-- the sin of slavery, decades of segregation and every conceivable
humiliation against a people, lasting through generations.
To say, today, that Hispanics are becoming America's largest
minority mocks this entire history. It dilutes the noun "minority"
until it means little more than a population segment.
This is exactly what Hispanics have become -- a population segment,
an advertiser's target audience or a market share. Not coincidentally,
it was an advertising agency that got the point of Hispanic
totals as early as the 1980s. It was then that the Coors beer
company erected billboards throughout the Southwest celebrating
"The Decade of the Hispanic." Nowadays, on television and in
newspapers, you will notice Hispanic actors, a growing Hispanic
population in the American South and Midwest, Ricky Martin's
views on God and the world and multimillion-dollar baseball
stars with Spanish surnames and unreliable swings. Nowadays,
white politicians of both parties happily mangle Spanish phrases
in their speeches, and President George W. Bush celebrates Cinco
de Mayo on the White House lawn.
If I were African American, I would tire of the cha-cha-cha,
the salsa and all those happy adjectives that cluster around
Hispanic, the noun. I would resent the blast of Latino numbers.
I would resent the politicians -- whatever their color -- who
insist on lumping blacks and Hispanics together. I would remember
how, not so many generations ago, Hispanics, particularly Mexicans
and Cubans, routinely resisted the label "minority." In a black-and-white
America, Hispanics tended to side with white, or at least tended
to keep their distance from black. But then came the success
of the black civil rights movement in the South. And when that
movement moved north, African Americans gained bureaucratic
notice and remedies from Washington.
Suddenly, all sorts of Americans who would never have thought
to compare themselves to African Americans wanted to compare
themselves to blacks. White, middle-class feminists claimed
the black analogy. And gays.
There were even sweet grandmothers who took to naming themselves
"Gray Panthers" in imitation of Huey P. Newton. And, of course,
Hispanics claimed the black analogy. The problem, all these
years after, is that we Hispanics have had to lie about ourselves
to claim the black analogy. We have had to pretend to be other
than we are. We have had to impersonate a new black race in
the world.
In truth, despite our pretense, Hispanics do not constitute
a racial group. Members of every race in the world can claim
to be Hispanics. As Hispanics -- the blond Cuban, the black
Dominican, the mestizo Mexican -- we assert a cultural tie.
The notion of Hispanicity might thus be revolutionary in a nation
that has always identified its citizens according to blood.
But, to date, Hispanics have largely failed to tell the truth
about ourselves, and thus have limited our significance to the
nation. Hispanics end up today proposing embarrassing absurdities.
The white Hispanic with blue eyes applies to college as a "minority."
Meanwhile, the Appalachian white with blue eyes cannot apply
to college as a minority, because she is "only" white.
By telling you these things, I do not mean to betray "my people,"
though I tend to think of the nation entire -- all Americans
-- as my people. Yes, I call myself Hispanic, but I also see
myself within the history of African Americans and Irish Catholics
and American Jews and the Chinese in California.
And more.
I believe there are useful purposes in having citizens who feel
excluded from the mainstream organize themselves -- to lobby,
to petition, to attract the interests of government and employers.
But when Americans organize into subgroups, it should be with
an eye at merging into the whole, not remaining separate. What
was the point of the black civic rights movement of the early
20th century if not integration? The trouble with today's ethnic
and racial and sexual identifications is that they threaten
to become evasions of more general citizenship. Soon groups
beget subgroups: Last week there was a meeting in Atlanta of
Colombian Americans, their first convention. Almost in parody
of Hispanics nationally, Colombian Americans announced themselves
to be "America's fastest growing minority."
On the other hand, if you are looking for reasons to feel optimistic
about our shared American future, you might talk with those
kids one meets in Oakland today who have outgrown the Census
Bureau's labels. I mean the kids who call themselves "Blaxicans."
These children exist in some future tense, well ahead of the
politicians and the rest of us who live in a nation that divides
and divides again, by sex or color or accent or grievance.
The Blaxican will describe our national life, long after the
politics of the moment have faded to gray. |
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