Latinos Assimilate on Their Own Terms

New America Media ^ | 7/27/2007 | Hiram Soto

[Altura Ct.]

The Senate’s phone system crashed last month during immigration reform debates, when thousands of people and anti-immigrant activists called their senators to protest the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants.

The massive, unprecedented telephone campaign was sparked by a range of complex motives based on social and economic issues. Among them was a theme that promises to reappear if the issue is revisited: the perception that Latinos are too different to assimilate, do not learn English, and are unraveling the fabric of the identity of a nation that was, ironically, created by immigrants.

“It is one of the ideas that anti-immigrant forces take advantage of: the notion that immigrants today do not assimilate and that other generations did. But it is not true,” says Cecilia Muñoz of the National Council of La Raza.

In fact, both sides are right.

Latinos are assimilating, but in their own way, keeping much of their identity. Tamales at Christmas. Turkey and menudo at Thanksgiving. English at work and Spanish at home. Dual loyalties to the San Diego Chargers and Guadalajara Chivas. The Fourth of July. Cinco de Mayo.

“Latinos are ending the concept of the proverbial racial salad,” wrote renowned journalist and writer Jorge Ramos in his book, “The Latino Wave: How Hispanics Are Transforming Politics in America.”

The big difference between European and Latino immigrants, according to Ramos and some sociologists, is that Hispanics live next to their countries of origin, allowing them to maintain ties with their family, culture and language.

In addition, there exists today an extensive network of Spanish-language media.

“Culturally, Latinos are never going to totally assimilate. Latinos are creating their own space in this country. And the characteristics of Hispanic culture are changing forever the face of the nation,” Ramos wrote.

This phenomenon plays out each day in the home of Cristóbal Castro, a naturalized U.S. citizen and son of a “bracero” who migrated to the United States in the middle of the last century to work.

“It is going to be very difficult to assimilate, at least for the first generation. What there is is a negotiation,” he said. “There will be things that we accept, like the manner of dress or the education here, and things that we don’t, like kicking your children out of the house when they turn 18, like ‘gringos’ do.”

Latinos’ tendency to cling onto their culture has led them to gradually redefine the American identity.

Assimilation, according to Tomás Jiménez, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego, “no longer means you have to disown your culture and adopt a new lifestyle identified with Anglo-Protestant culture.”

In an essay published in the Los Angeles Times, Jiménez said that due to Latinos, “multiculturalism and the appreciation of diversity are much more accepted than before.”

Defining assimilation is as complex as reforming immigration laws.

Can you speak Spanish and be assimilated? Do you have to like hamburgers more than grilled steak tacos? When can you say you have achieved assimilation?

“It is not easy to define,” confessed Ira Mehlman of the anti-immigrant organization FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform). Many Americans resent the fact that Hispanics insist on speaking Spanish and maintaining ties with their countries of origin, he said.

“But I would say that (assimilation) is when someone feels American,” he said. “And to me, people that march, yelling, ‘Nosotros somos América’ (We are America), waving the flags of other countries, are not assimilated.”

Richard Rodríguez, a writer who has published various books about the adaptation of Latinos to U.S. culture, said that assimilating is absorbing the individuality of the United States, and that this is precisely what Hispanics are doing.

“The reality is that the country is becoming more Mexican, and that everything is changing, our food, customs, music and religion,” Rodríguez said. “As Latinos continue incorporating themselves into society, Americans feel they have to learn fragments of Spanish. And there will be weddings, hatred, friendship, solidarity, curiosity and competition.”

What’s certain is that many Latinos live with one foot in each culture, and that they flow like water from one side to the other, something you can see each time the Mexican national soccer team faces the United States in the fiercest sporting rivalry in North America.

Ricardo Castro, brother of Cristóbal and also a naturalized U.S. citizen, said he considers himself 100 percent Mexican. But he could sit and watch the soccer game calmly, he said, because he had no fear of losing.

“I knew that my country was going to win,” he said. “And effectively it won, because for me it was either of the two.”

[Polybius]

Here's the dire state of affairs in California: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6492635

The title of your link is: “Latino baby boom changing demographics in California”.

It does not deal with crime or social pathology. It just deals with “changing demographics” and also goes on to say that 40% of Latinos in California go on to intermarry with other ethnic groups.

Yep, the same “crisis” happened to the Old Knickerbockers of New York City in the late 1800’s when all those Eastern European Jews started moving into New York City by the thousands and drastically changed the demographics of New York City.

New York City is home to more Jews than any other city in the world. New York City became the immigration Mecca for the Jewish people

These Eastern European Jews were not seen in the same light as the well educated Sephardic Jews that Americans were used to:

Eastern European Jews: Many of the Eastern European Jews that arrived in New York during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came from small, poor, and enclosed communities, also known as shtetls. Within these communities there was no aspiration for a high degree of education, because from a religious standpoint it was not encouraged and from an economic standpoint it was not feasible. In the eyes of a shtetl Jew, a high degree of education meant continued religious studies throughout a lifetime. The highest position that a man could strive for was to become a Rabbi, while a woman was destined for the role of a housewife. Neither obtained skills that would be useful in a world so different than the shtetl.

Read the magazines of the day and you will find articles warning about the dangers to American society of allowing in immigrants from such a poor and alien culture so unlike the “civilized” Sephardic Jews that could function well in American society.

And look what they were doing to the old New York City neighborhoods that used to have signs in English.

Yep, it’s the same old story.

In the end, the Eastern European Jews did just fine. New York City was never the same but, that’s the way it is in America.

In the end, the new Latinos will also do just fine and, with a 40% intermarriage rate, will melt into the Heinz 57 mix that is America a lot faster than the Eastern European Jews did.

Instead of lashing out at all Latinos for being Latinos, maybe we should be lashing out at illegal aliens because they are illegals.

[kcvl]

Hiram Soto writes for Enlace, the Union-Tribune’s Spanish-language weekly.

Hiram Soto, vice president of the San Diego chapter of the
California Chicano News Media Association

[Polybius]

You should ask yourself why regulator writes the way he does. He and his people have been practically driven out of the Los Angeles area. I’d say he’s entitled to be enraged at the people who have done this. .... dennisw

Let us assume that, back in the 1950's, my family in Cuba was devastated by the actions of the Jewish gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. Let us further assume that I am "entitled to be enraged" as a result. Should I vent my rage at "gangsters" and "crimminals" and "thugs"? Or Should I vent my rage at "the Joooos" which would also include you and all other Jewish people? ..... Polybius

LOL are you sure you got through medical school? Your line of argument fails to make any sense. There are no Jews standing in the way of any Hispanic nations becoming successful. ...... dennisw

Non sequitur.

Go ahead and defend such expressions of bigotry against an entire ethnic group.

I was wrong to assume that the history of the first half of the 20th Century had taught you something.

Go ahead and apply for membership in the Ku Klux Klan if it floats your boat. Just make sure they don't find out you are Jewish because hatred for you is one thing that the Ku Klux Klan bigots and the MECHA bigots both share.

When you are attacked for simply being Jewish, I will still defend you, regardless of your utter lack of common sense.

[humblegunner]

wearing bandannas

You got a problem with bandannas?

[NRA2BFree]

You got a problem with bandannas?

Only when they're worn over the face to hide someone's identity.

[Regulator]

Pray for us, Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Woo hoo. Now there's an American expression!

If you feel more connected to the wonderful Tierra de Mexico then Gringolandia, please, by all means, pack the Cheby and head on back!

You're free to go, and forever escape this evil veil of Anglo bigotry!

Your adobe hut awaits you. Don't forget to take a little spare cash for The Bite!

Hasta La Tacos!

[Regulator]

LOL are you sure you got through medical school?

Hey, DW, he's an Affirmative Action dude! Cut him some slack!

Isn't it hilarious that the big, proud, strutting Conquistadors come to America and demand special treatment and government favors?

Pobrecitos!

[TypeZoNegative]

I celebrate my Caribbean birth and my American loyalties by drinking rum during the 4th while watching the fireworks and waving the AMERICAN flag, instead of drinking whiskey and waving the AMERICAN flag.

Different ways of celebrating the same thing, but I have a feeling these guys wave both flags or the flag that’s red, white and green on the 4th.

[tarheelswamprat]

Latinos are assimilating, but in their own way,...

Yep, like the Borg...

[TypeZoNegative]

I’m living proof that you’re wrong.

[Regulator]

Seems that some here want to acquiesce to the invasion and think we should kowtow to the the invaders

Yup. Because we're Guilty, DonchaKnow, Guilty! of...of...of something, they'll think of it in justa minute or so, while they're checking the mail for that free money we pass out here, and filling out that employment application with the "check here if Hispanic" box, so they can step to the front of the line.

[Regulator]

If we can just get rid of us gringos and import more mexicans then what a hard working moral country wed be

Heh. Yeah.

Wanted to make sure that I congratulate you for the "Short and to the Point" award.

Me and PB are alike. Brevity isn't one of our virtues.

Hey, here's the pix Polybius won't post:

Hard working and Moral, right? Mexico: Where we Don't Wanna Be.

[Teacher317]

when thousands of people and anti-immigrant activists called their senators

So... we're anti-immigrant, not anti-law-breaking...
and we're up against "people", because we certainly don't qualify for that title.

[SaintDismas]

It’s not American, it’s Catholic. Catholic, as in Universal Church, and you just proved my point.

I pray to our Mother, the Mother of God, somethimes referred to as “Our Lady of Guadalupe” because of the miracle that happened there, that your heart will be relieved of the hate that infects it. The hate you are spouting may somehow make you feel better now, but don’t forget there is a border which none may cross after we die. I, for one, do not plan to be on the wrong side of that border when my time comes, and I pray to God and to the whole communion of saints that you aren’t either.

To sum it up if you are still so blinded and can’t understand what I’m saying: I never said I was in favor of illegal immigration. But I just can’t and won’t hate the way you do

[Regulator]

Catholic, as in Universal Church

Right. Got it. The Universal Roman Church, bow down to the mortal Pope and pay him his indulgences or he sends Cortez (um, Polybius?) to pull off your fingernails.

And Convert or we'll throw you off a cliff, as they said to the Cochimi in California. Note what happened to them at the hands of the Wondrous Spanish Missionaries.

Yeah. Universal Church. Right.

Martin Luther forever, hon. Tell it to Saint Tork-E-Mada.

By the way...criticising Spain, what they did in the Americas, criticising Spaniard culture which was and is responsible for those ongoing disasters, criticising Mexico for its vicious, ugly and predatory culture and actions in trying to destroy the United States and enslave its people to its parasite upper class, criticising Fellow Travelers here who defend those actions because they came from there, is not "hate". It is, in fact, the bitter truth.

But people like you, and the Left in general, use words like that to try to silence that truth because it might end your campaign of intimidation. A campaign that has as its ultimate goal the social and political subjugation of the once free people of the United States, which you seek to shackle once again in history to a vile and undeserving self selected elite, who do things like use the name of God and church authority to assert that they "deserve" to rule everyone else.

That is the reality of Feudalism, and that is what Mexico and the rest of Latin America is still about. Communism is an attempt to bring back Feudalism in a new package, but with the same result....enslavement to the state.

And who is the state? Same as the Old Boss, as Pete Townshend once said.

[dennisw]

You’re on a roll!!!!
Get those doggies rolling! Out of the United States of America!

Keep movin’, movin’, movin’,
Though they’re disapprovin’,
Keep them doggies movin’ Rawhide!
Don’t try to understand ‘em,
Just rope and throw and grab ‘em,
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
Boy my heart’s calculatin’
My true love will be waitin’, be waiting at the end of my ride.

Move ‘em on, head ‘em up,
Head ‘em up, move ‘em out,
Move ‘em on, head ‘em out Rawhide!
Set ‘em out, ride ‘em in
Ride ‘em in, let ‘em out,
Cut ‘em out, ride ‘em in Rawhide.

Full Lyrics

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rawhide!

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin’
Rawhide!

[dfwgator]

Hard working and Moral, right? Mexico: Where we Don't Wanna Be.

MS-13 is from El Salvador, but don't let facts get in the way of a good rant.