September 1, 2012
A New La Griffe essay!
August 12, 2012
Spanish-surnamed U.S. medal winners: 5 out of 208
August 6, 2012
"Stuck on Stereotypes"
- "the co-owner and chief operating officer of the advertising agency Zubi Advertising,"
- the "founder of the Web site Latino Rebels,"
- a "31-year-old Mexican-American documentary filmmaker,"
- and "a senior vice president for development and production at Encanto Enterprises."
You can't get a much more statistically representative sample of the typical Hispanic than that (at least, among people who will instantly return Times' reporters calls and not tell them anything that might make them the slightest bit uncomfortable.)
Thus, they all told the NYT that the reason is because these shows like Modern Family are full of insensitive stereotypes about Hispanics and thus turn off the millions of culturally cutting edge Latino viewers who are annoyed by retrograde stereotyping of Hispanics (which by the way, I must add, could be solved just like that by hiring the people being quoted).
Stuck on Stereotypes
Networks Struggle to Appeal to Hispanics
By TANZINA VEGA and BILL CARTER
Sofia Vergara is probably the most recognizable Hispanic actress working in English-language television. She is one of the stars of “Modern Family,” the highest-rated scripted show on network television, and she has parlayed her celebrity into commercials for brands like Pepsi and Cover Girl.
Despite her popularity, “Modern Family” is not a hit with Hispanic viewers. Out of its overall viewership of 12.9 million, “Modern Family” drew an average of only about 798,000 Hispanic viewers in the season. That audience accounts for only about 6 percent of the show’s viewers — less than half of what you might expect given the 48 million Hispanic television viewers that Nielsen measures. ...
The numbers encapsulate the problem facing English-language television executives and advertisers: they desperately want to appeal to the more than 50 million Latinos in the United States (about three-quarters speak Spanish), especially those who are young, bilingual and bicultural, but those viewers seem to want very little to do with American English-language television.
They do, however, continue to watch Spanish-language networks in huge numbers.
In May, on the final night of the most recent season of “Modern Family,” far more Hispanic viewers were watching the top Spanish language show that week, the telenovela “La Que No Podía Amar,” on Univision, which attracted 5.2 million viewers.
... The list of top English-language shows watched by Hispanics is headed by the same competition shows as among the total audience, with “Dancing With the Stars,” and “American Idol” faring best this spring, while “Sunday Night Football” was the leader in the fall.
But the discrepancy between English and Spanish language shows is most acute among shows that are scripted in English. The issue, many viewers and critics argue, is that there still hasn’t been the Hispanic equivalent of “The Cosby Show,” meaning a show that deals with Latino culture in a way that doesn’t offend viewers with crude stereotypes.
This winter, CBS hoped to have a cross-cultural hit with the show “Rob” featuring the comedian Rob Schneider. The show, based loosely on Mr. Schneider’s own life, showed his experiences of marrying into a Mexican family and the culture clashes that ensued. But the chief conflict ended up being between the show and its intended viewers.
“Big family,” said Mr. Schneider’s character, when he meets his wife’s family for the first time. “Now I know what’s going on during all those siestas.” In another scene, the character Hector, played by Eugenio Derbez, tells Rob that he is visiting from Mexico. Then he gets closer to Rob and whispers, “I’m not leaving,” and after pausing for effect adds, “Ever.”
For Joe Zubizarreta, the co-owner and chief operating officer of the advertising agency Zubi Advertising, with headquarters in Miami, the comedic devices used in “Rob” were too much. “They’ve used just about every stereotype they could in the pilot,” Mr. Zubizarreta said. “I understand that the general market taste will find humor in the idiosyncrasies of Hispanics. But as Hispanics, when we watch general market television, we’d like to see some semblance of reality to our lives.”
For Julio Ricardo Varela, the founder of the Web site Latino Rebels, both the content of “Rob” and how it was marketed relied too much on stereotypes.
“ ‘Rob’ was a big running joke among our community,” Mr. Varela said. “It just felt lazy, stale and I think that mainstream television is missing the boat.” Mr. Varela noted a contest on the show’s Facebook page where viewers were invited to hit a virtual piñata to “whack and win” a trip to the show’s set. Also on the page were promotional images of Mr. Schneider and the rest of the cast in a conga line. “I thought the marketing was beyond ridiculous,” Mr. Varela said.
Nina Tassler, the president for entertainment for CBS, declined to comment on “Rob” specifically, but said that reaching out to the Hispanic community was important for the network. (The network declined to pick up “Rob” for a second season.)
“Everybody’s culture is wholly unique, so finding the storytelling language that can reach out and communicate with the biggest cross section of the Latin population is obviously what we are trying for,” said Ms. Tassler, who is the highest-ranking network television executive with a Hispanic heritage.
Here's Nina Tassler's background from Wikipedia.
Mr. Schneider declined to comment for this article.
Schneider is part Filipino. I've always found him funnier than his friend Adam Sandler, although perhaps that's not saying much.
Among the series that were in development for next season by English-language networks, one, an ABC show called “Devious Maids,” gained attention for its focus on a Latino stereotype — maids working in Beverly Hills. The show was being produced by Marc Cherry of “Desperate Housewives,” and had been based on a Spanish-language telenovela.
When Liz Colunga, a 31-year-old Mexican-American documentary filmmaker heard about “Devious Maids” she wasn’t surprised at the show’s theme. “I’m used to watching stereotypical roles for Latinas and Latinos,” Ms. Colunga said.
No character stirs more mixed emotions for Hispanic audiences that the one played by Ms. Vergara on “Modern Family.” She plays Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, a sexy Latina trophy wife whose persona has gotten mixed reviews from Latinos.
“It’s working for her, but at what expense?” said Ms. Colunga, the filmmaker. “She’s playing the clueless Latina.”
In a show where all of the characters are a bit extreme, the least stereotypical of all is Gloria’s smart-talking son Manny. Lynnette Ramirez, the senior vice president for development and production at Encanto Enterprises, a production company owned by George and Ann Lopez, said Gloria’s character works because she is tempered by her son.
“Sofia’s character is a first generation Latina,” Ms. Ramirez said. “Manny’s going to grow up to be like Sara Ramirez’s character in ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ” she added, a reference to the actress Sara Ramirez’s role as a doctor on the show.
Judging by who likes summer blockbuster movies the most, perhaps Modern Family could broaden their demographic appeal by adding a couple of fireball explosions to each episode.
May 23, 2012
Xochitl Hinojosa: DoJ's Aztec Warrior Princess / Spokesmodel
Motel pools rush to become compliant with updated ADA
"It's under review," said Xochitl Hinojosa, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice. A delay would be good news for businesses ...
Alabama Women's Prison Inmates Sexually Abused By Guards ...
Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an email that the agency is reviewing the allegations. A 2011 Huffington Post ...
Voting Law's 'Preclearance' Provision Upheld on Appeal
Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement that the agency is pleased with the decision. The Voting Rights Act is “a ...
Anastasio Hernandez Rojas Death: 16 Members Of Congress Call ...
When contacted for comment, DOJ spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa told The Huffington Post that the "department's investigation remains ...
Anastasio Hernandez Rojas Death Sparks Nationwide Call For ...
Department of Justice Spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa told The Huffington Post that the "department's investigation remains ongoing," adding, ...
Appeals court upholds key voting rights provision
... department will continue to vigorously defend it against constitutional challenges," said Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa.
Pool-lift rule confuses hotels
“An existing pool must do what is readily achievable” defined as affordable and easy, Department of Justice spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa ...
Wells Fargo Says DOJ May Seek Penalties in Fair-Lending Inquiry
Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment. Last year's lending inquiry, conducted by the Justice Department's ...
Texas Gets Last Shot for July 9 Trial on Voter Photo Law
Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, and Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman, didn't ...
Trayvon Martin: FBI Actively Pursuing Hate Crime Charge For ...
As previously reported by Newsone, U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said the department is conducting its own, ...
Let's find out what's on the web about the Obama Administration's face of civil rights enforcement:
And here's a photo feature in The Washingtonian entitled The 23 Most Stylish People at Fashion: District:
Xochitl Hinojosa and Annalies Husmann |
| Joining Judge Hinojosa on the Senate floor were his daughters Gina Hinojosa-Donisi, her son Mateo, and Xochitl Hinojosa. |
While living in Washington, DC, Hinojosa worked as a Staff Attorney for the Migrant Legal Action Program, Inc.[citation needed] He later became the Director of the Migrant Division of Colorado Rural Legal Services, Inc., in Denver, Colorado.[citation needed] Upon his return to his native Texas, Hinojosa continued practicing law as the Managing Attorney for the Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc., located in Brownsville, Texas. ...
Hinojosa was elected Cameron County Judge on November 8, 1994. During his administration, international bridges to Mexico were built ...
On August 11, 2003, Hinojosa appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in support of Senate Bill 1329, which would provide assistance in the relocation of railroads to improve access for commercial traffic passing through Cameron County to and from the international border with Mexico. ... After the bill passed, the Cameron County West Rail Relocation Project was initiated which provided for the construction of a railroad across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, with approximately $21 million in federal funds provided.[3] ...
Hinojosa was elected Chairman of the Cameron County Democratic Party on November 12, 2007.[4] One day after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Hinojosa attended the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting held in Washington, DC. On January 23, 2008, he nominated Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to head the Democratic National Committee.[1] Thereafter, a unanimous vote made Governor Kaine the new leader of the Democratic Party.
From Judge Hinojosa's announcement of his candidacy for chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, we have a clear statement of the Hinojosa Strategy:
President Barack Obama borrowed a phrase made famous by a small, humble and unassuming union leader from California by the name of Cesar Chavez: "Yes we can!" Or as Cesar Chavez called to action the once powerless farm workers of California: "Si Se Puede!" YES WE CAN be the Party that elects leaders who will build a stronger, better educated, more innovative and more caring Texas for ALL Texans. ...
These strategies must primarily focus on achieving a majority by ensuring that, before anything else, the full potential of the Democratic Base is achieved. We will not give away any part of the electorate to the Republicans, but we must recognize that we will only become the majority party in this State when we have done everything possible to turnout the Democratic base at election time.
Obviously, a key part of that base that is far from achieving its full potential are Latinos. When Latinos, who make up 40 percent of the people in this State and who vote for Democrats over Republicans by two to one margins, are turning out to vote at rates far below other demographic groups, it is difficult for our Party to a achieve a majority in this State. The only way that I believe we can ensure that Latinos are voting at or near normal rates is through a concentrated effort to register, engage, and turnout Latino voters utilizing innovative "boots on the ground" tactics which wisely and effectively use our limited resources. ...
And we don't have to reinvent the wheel. States, like Colorado, Nevada and California, with far smaller Latino populations, have been able to achieve a Democratic majority with strong Latino mobilization efforts. Yes We Can! And Yes WE Will!
And here is a picture of Gilberto M. Hinojosa, professor of history at Xochitl's alma mater, University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio:
I don't know what the relationship (if any) is between Professor Gilberto M. Hinojosa and the younger Judge Gilberto Hinojosa. (By the way, the President of Mexico's name is Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, but I don't know of any evidence that Xochitl Hinojosa is related to the Mexican President's maternal family.)
A reader comments: "In general, it takes a couple generations of success before Hispanics go all liberal"
Indeed, elderly Professor Hinojosa appears to be a bourgeois Catholic antiquarian (perhaps related to the conservative Cristero movement of Guadalajara out of which emerged Mexican President Calderon Hinojosa's parents, or, perhaps more likely, a Tejano of old family), whose CV is largely lacking in po-mo titles.
Judge Hinojosa is a Hillary Democrat.
Xochitl Hinojosa is one of the leading names of the Obamaite Diversitocracy.
Yes, I know, it sounds like I just made up the Hinojosa family to illustrate what I've been saying for years about the Hispanic activist elites who get quoted so often in the newspapers. But, I'm not making the Hinojosa family up!
I want to come back to an epistemological question raised in Jim Manzi's book Uncontrolled. As a key example in his attack on observational (i.e., non-experimental) social science, Manzi devotes about a half dozen pages to the failure of Steve Levitt's popular Freaknomics theory that abortion-cut-crime.
But I draw a different example from that controversy. Sure, experimenting, when feasible (and, of course, experimenting is not feasible regarding abortions), is good, but, as Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot just by watching. In particular, the deeper you dig into a subject, the more vivid become the examples, as with the Hinojosas.
With abortion-cut-crime, for instance, Levitt's theory was based on his observation that crime was lower in 1997 than in 1985, so, he reasoned, Roe v. Wade probably had something to do with it.
But then, when Levitt's theory got a big write-up in the Chicago Tribune in the summer of 1999, Greg Cochran downloaded the total number of homicides in America by year, which showed that murder had spiked up between 1985 and 1997. Oh, yeah, the Crack Years! Then I started looking at homicide offending by age group to see the impact of abortion legalization on the not-yet-born and it turned out that the homicide offending rate for the cohort of 14-17 year olds born in the half decade after legalization was almost triple that of the cohort born in the half decade before legalization. And then when I looked at black teens, because blacks had the highest abortion rates in the 1970s, the post-legalization homicide rate for black teens quintupled! And if you looked at the big states that legalized abortion before 1973's Roe v. Wade, California (late 1969) and New York (1970), well, that's where the Crack Wars started: remember West Coast rap v. East Coast rap?
In other words, the more you drill down into Levitt's theory, the more implausible it becomes. It seems more like the dominant effect on crime rates was that the more liberal a state with a lot of blacks had been in the late 1960s and 1970s, the more likely it would have a lot of abortions early and the more likely it would be that its blacks would get into crack dealing and murdering each other on a vast scale earlier in the 1980s-1990s.
In contrast, with the theories that I harp upon -- like my idea that Hispanic ethnic activists are largely self-interested white people trying to set their children up to live expensive lifestyles of drinking wine in Napa Valley and at Washington fashion events by expanding through immigration the number of brown Hispanics whom they can claim to represent -- the more you drill down into the evidence, the more stereotypical -- and thus funnier -- the details become.
August 1, 2011
Do Hispanic leaders have followers?
In a Pew Hispanic Center survey in late summer 2010, 1,375 Hispanics were asked an unprompted question: “In your opinion, who is the most important Hispanic / Latino leader in the country today?”
The landslide winner: “Don’t know,” with 64 percent.
The runner-up: “No one,” with ten percent
In third place: recently-appointed Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, with seven percent. Then came the Congressional spokesman for amnesty, Luis Gutierrez, down at five percent; Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at three percent; and Univision news anchorman Jorge Ramos at two.
April 26, 2011
Pew Hispanic Center: Latino Electoral Tidal Wave MIA Yet Again
Latino and Asian voters mostly sat out 2010 election, report says
By Shankar Vedantam, Tuesday, April 26, 6:07 PM
A record 14.7 million Latino voters sat out the 2010 midterm elections, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center that shows the nation’s fastest-growing minorities are largely failing to exercise their right to vote.
Along with Asian voters, who appear similarly disengaged, the absence of so many Latino voters at the polls means the political influence of these minority groups will fall short of their demographic strength by years, if not decades.
About 31 percent of eligible Latino and Asian voters cast ballots in the 2010 congressional elections, compared with 49 percent of eligible white voters and 44 percent of eligible blacks, according to the Pew report. ...
So, way back in 1986, 39% of Hispanics eligible to vote bothered to show up and vote. By 2010, voting was down to 31%, and only 25% looking at the marginal change from 2006 to 2010: a crazy four million more additional eligible voters (thanks George W. Bush!), but only one million more actual voters.
The snapshot of minority voting comes on the heels of a poll showing that support for President Obama among Latinos is down by more than 25 percentage points compared with the start of his administration — cause for serious concern among Democrats.
Obama needs Latinos to show up in force for him in 2012, as they did in 2008, political analysts say. But the administration has disappointed many Latinos by failing to win immigration reforms while increasing deportations among the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Because that's the only thing Latino voters care about: immigration. That's why the Arizona immigration law led to that widely predicted landslide of angry Hispanic voters in 2010 punishing the GOP for SB1070. I read dozens of interviews in 2010 with Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Earmuffs) saying that was going to happen, so it must have happened right?
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) ... blamed Obama’s immigration stance for lackluster turnout among Latinos. ...
Several Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) were reelected last year with strong Latino support, but on the whole, GOP candidates fared better than expected among Latino voters. That was especially true of Latino GOP candidates.
“During the November 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party had historic levels of Hispanic support,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “In fact, exit polls showed that 38 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates. This is more than in 2008 and 2006. . . . All five Hispanics elected to Congress in 2010 were Republicans.”
Smith said that calls for strong border protection and enforcement had played well in Florida, Mexico and Nevada, including with Latino voters.“This is a good trend for the GOP,” he said.
So, Mexico is the 52nd state!
Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration and national campaigns at the National Council of La Raza, a pro-immigration group, said political candidates were not investing enough effort in reaching out to and mobilizing Latino voters.
I've got a great idea: they should reach out and invest more by hiring Clarissa Martinez! She probably has some relatives who would like jobs as ethnic consultants, too. Neither party should cease investing until all the Martinezes have nice Hispanic activist jobs. And Rep. Gutierrez probably has some nephews and nieces who are someday going to need jobs as well.
We must import more immigrants so all these Martinezes and Gutierrezes can be employed as their nominal leaders.
April 20, 2011
National Latino Museum Needs Creative Financing
National Latino Museum Plan Faces Fight
By KATE TAYLOR
A move to create a new Smithsonian museum is running into a crowded National Mall and lack of will to pay for it.
Seven years after opening its National Museum of the American Indian, and four years before the scheduled unveiling of its museum of African-American history, the Smithsonian Institution is being urged to create another ethnic museum on the National Mall, this one to recognize the history and contributions of Latino Americans.
A federal commission has spent two years asking Latinos what they would want in such a museum, and next month the commission will report its findings to Congress, which would have to approve a new museum.
Though the creation of such an institution has support from members of Congress, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and celebrities like Eva Longoria
What about Evan Longoria? They should get him involved, too.
Looking up the museum's official website, I see that the other celebrity on-board is Emilio Estefan, who is not Charlie Sheen's brother Emilio Estevez, who was in Repo Man. Instead, he's singer Gloria Estefan's husband. And he's Lebanese.
And the third-ranking celebrity involved, after Longoria and Estefan, is Henry Munoz III, who doesn't appear to have his own Wikipedia page.
As I pointed out last week in my Fernandomania column for Taki's Magazine, here we are in 2011 and the most famous of the 35,000,000 Mexican-Americans appears to be Eva Longoria. That's really weird when you stop to think about it. Is Desperate Housewives even on the air anymore? That's like if the guy who played Joey on Friends was the most famous Italian-American.
building it faces significant obstacles, including budget pressures, and a feeling among some in Washington that the Smithsonian should stop spinning off new specialty museums and concentrate on improving the ones it already has.
“I don’t want a situation,” said Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, “where whites go to the original museum, African-Americans go to the African-American museum, Indians go to the Indian museum, Hispanics go to the Latino American museum. That’s not America.”
Would Hispanics go to the Latino American museum? They go to a lot of movies, but they don't go to see Latino movies much. How many Latinos are starring in Fast Five? To juice up the box office for the latest Fast and Furious movie, they didn't add a Mexican hero, they added a Samoan/black guy, The Rock. Are Hispanics really going to flood to a museum? Is anybody else?
In Washington, where politics infects all matters, there is wide acknowledgment that the 50 million Latinos who live in this country have become an increasingly important constituency. But even supporters of the museum acknowledge it faces a battle.
I suspect "boredom" is what it's really facing. The media constantly tries to prod Latinos into racial anger by telling them somebody wants to have a "fight" and a "battle" with them, but, on the whole, apathy reigns on all sides, except among Hispanic ethnic lobbyists:
“The atmosphere is not friendly at all,” said Estuardo V. Rodriguez Jr., a lobbyist with the Raben Group who has worked pro bono on the museum proposal, citing the economic pressures and what he described as anti-immigrant sentiment.
The idea for a Smithsonian Latino museum was born in the mid-1990s when a task force said the Smithsonian had largely ignored Latinos in its exhibitions and should create at least one museum to correct that imbalance.
The panel’s report, entitled “Willful Neglect,” found, for example, that only 2 of the 470 people featured in the “notable Americans” section of the National Portrait Gallery were Latino.
As opposed to 2011, when we can all instantly name countless Latino "notable Americans," like Emilio Estefan and Henry Munoz III.
There are dozens of other museums across the country that focus on the heritage or culture of Latinos, whose population in the United States grew by 43 percent over the last decade, according to 2010 Census figures. But supporters of the national museum say it is imperative that there be a similar presence in the nation’s capital.
While the commission is not expected to make specific proposals about content, the museum would probably try to cover a wide swath of history, from the role of the Spanish conquistadors to the work of Latinos in the labor and civil-rights movements. It would include culture, from popular music to visual arts, and would try to feature people and traditions from all Hispanic countries.
My heart's racing already. Where can I buy tickets?
Lisa Navarrete, a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy organization, said it was unfortunate that Latino children who now travel to the Mall cannot see “their community and history and legacy reflected.”
Think of the children!
She said that a museum that accomplishes that is particularly crucial now because discussions of immigration issues have created a “toxic” environment for Latinos. “It’s even more important to show other Americans that our roots go back centuries on this continent,” she said.
Though legislation to authorize a Latino museum commission, known formally as the National Museum of the American Latino Commission, was first introduced in 2003 by Representative Xavier Becerra, a Democrat of California, it did not pass until 2008, as part of an omnibus budget bill.
A fitting year.
The economy and the balance of power in Congress have changed much since that vote, with Republicans now holding a 49-vote majority in the House of Representatives.
Federal money for the museum would not appear to be an option, members of Congress say, as it was for the African-American and Indian museums. The National Museum of African American History and Culture has a $500 million price tag, half of which is being paid by the federal government. The government paid for two-thirds of the Indian museum.
I'm sure that Mexican-Americans would be happy to reach into their pockets and pay for it on their own, just like all the other charitable institutions Mexican-Americans have built, such as, uh, well, let me get back to you on this one. As Gregory Rodriguez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, explained:
In Los Angeles, home to more Mexicans than any other city in the U.S., there is not one ethnic Mexican hospital, college, cemetery, or broad-based charity.
When it comes to self-organizing for pro-social purposes, Mexicans are in a class by themselves.
Opposition to the Latino museum at this point is muted, and with the commission not yet having presented its report, few in Congress beyond the group of ardent supporters have focused on the issue.
Representative Jack Kingston, a Republican of Georgia, said in an interview that he supported a Latino museum as long as it was not financed with federal money, and as long as he was assured that the museum would not become “an interest group’s platform to advance political agendas.”
I guess that means he's against it, because it will cost the taxpayers a lot of money and it will promote a leftist agenda. Those are givens.
Actually, this Latino museum just need some creative financing ingenuity. The tremendous trio of Henry Gonzales, Angelo Mozilo, and George W. Bush should be appointed to devise a mortgage for the Latino Museum. With zero down and no documents required, the museum's own mortgage, along with the subsequent default notices, could then serve as educational exhibits helping explain the Latino role in the Recent Unpleasantness in the mortgage market.
April 12, 2011
Fernandomania No Mas
With the Census Bureau announcing this spring that the number of Hispanics in America has surpassed 50 million—a large majority of them of Mexican background—it’s worth remembering the “Fernandomania” that swept the country 30 years ago.
America held only 15 million Hispanics when Fernando Valenzuela, a 20-year-old rookie Los Angeles Dodgers baseball pitcher from Mexico, started the 1981 season with eight straight wins, five of them shutouts. (In contrast, the 2010 Dodgers chalked up only four shutouts over 162 games.) Whenever Fernando pitched, attendance would soar as Latinos and others rushed to the ballpark to cheer on the uniquely charismatic phenom. ...
I recount this ancient history because it illuminates the curious question of why there are so few Mexican superstars today in any branch of American popular culture other than boxing. Sure, there are stars—actress Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives, third baseman Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and others of similar wattage—but why so few superstars, especially in contrast to African-Americans?
January 17, 2011
Ronald Brownstein's "White Flight" article in National Journal
Veteran centrist reporter Ronald Brownstein’s "White Flight" article in National Journal, a trade magazine for political professionals, had begun to get a lot of attention, until the political class went berserk over that psycho shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. ...
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Brownstein’s article was left more implied than explicit:“The Hispanic vote for Democrats in House races slipped to 60 percent, compared with about two-thirds for Obama in 2008 … Meanwhile, Republicans, with their 60 percent showing, notched the party’s best congressional result among white voters in the history of modern polling.”
Let me spell this out more clearly than Brownstein does. In 2010, whites voted slightly more as a bloc for Republican House candidates (60-37) than Hispanics did for Democrats (60-38).
...Still, it’s fascinating that after endless pronouncements in the MSM about how Republicans were dooming themselves in November by supporting the Arizona immigration law, it turns out that the GOP did fair to middling among Hispanic voters.
The unspoken reality: immigration is not that important an issue to Hispanic voters—certainly not anything like as important as it is to would-be Hispanic leaders.
October 5, 2010
Hispanic Electoral Tsunami Delayed Once Again by Apathy
Disillusioned Hispanics May Skip Midterms, Poll Suggests
By MARC LACEY
PHOENIX — Arizona’s controversial immigration law has prompted denunciations, demonstrations, boycotts and a federal lawsuit. But it may not bring the protest vote many Democrats had hoped would stem a Republican onslaught in races across the country.
That’s because although many voters are disillusioned with the political process, Latino voters are particularly dejected, and many may sit these elections out, according to voters, Latino organizations, and political consultants and candidates. A poll released Tuesday found that though Latinos strongly back Democrats over Republicans, 65 percent to 22 percent, in the Congressional elections just four weeks away, only 51 percent of Latino registered voters say they will absolutely go to the polls, compared to 70 percent of all registered voters.
The other side in the immigration debate is suffering no such lack of enthusiasm. One measure of its high spirits is the dance card of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. He conducts raids in Latino neighborhoods that have led critics to label him a racist and the Justice Department to start a racial profiling investigation. But he is a pariah who is also in demand.
As conservatives across the country seek to burnish their tough-on-immigration credentials, Mr. Arpaio’s endorsement is much sought after.
The Arizona law seems to be rewriting not just the rules on immigration, but the rules on how it is talked about on the campaign trail, too.
Even in New Mexico, a state with a large Hispanic population and traditional tolerance for illegal immigration, the issue is seen as a vote-getter for Republicans.
... The results of the poll released Tuesday, by the Pew Hispanic Center, suggest that the raging debate over Arizona’s law and the lack of Congressional action on immigration reform may have turned off many Latinos.
Just 32 percent of all Latino registered voters say they have given this year’s election “quite a lot” of thought, compared with 50 percent of all registered voters in the country, the poll found. The poll is based on a survey of 1,375 Latinos conducted from Aug. 17 to Sept. 19.
(The Pew poll also found that for Latinos, education, jobs and health care trump immigration as major issues, which could be bad news for Democrats hoping to capitalize from anger over the Arizona law.)
That's what practically every poll of Hispanic voters has more or less found in the decade I've been following this issue. Hispanic voters have sensibly ambivalent feelings about illegal immigration. The press routinely ignores this because they talk to professional Hispanic activists who are all in favor of increasing the population of Hispanics in the U.S. to boost their personal careers by giving them more putative followers to claim to be the leaders of.
July 30, 2010
A triumph of assimilation
More than 10 years have passed since she gave up her pursuit of a degree in computer science, but Yajahira Deaza still has regrets.
"I feel incomplete," says the 33-year-old, a customer service representative for a major New York bank. Her experience reflects the findings of an Associated Press-Univision poll that examined the attitudes of Latino adults toward higher education.
Despite strong belief in the value of a college diploma, Hispanics more often than not fall short of that goal.
The poll's findings have broad implications not only for educators and parents, but also for the U.S. economy.
In the next decade, U.S. companies will have to fill millions of jobs to replace well-trained baby boomers going into retirement. As the nation's largest minority group, Latinos account for a growing share of the pool of workers, yet their skills may not be up to par. ...
"Aspirations for higher education are very strong among Hispanics, but there is a yawning discrepancy between aspirations and actual attainment," said Richard Fry, an education researcher at the Pew Hispanic Center.
Indeed, the poll, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, found that Hispanics value higher education more than do Americans as a whole. Eighty-seven percent said a college education is extremely or very important, compared with 78% of the overall U.S. population.
Ninety-four percent of Latinos say they expect their own children to go to college, a desire that's slightly stronger for girls. Seventy-four percent said the most important goal for a girl right after high school is to attend a four-year college, compared with 71% for boys.
Enthusiasm about higher education hasn't been matched by results.
Census figures show that only 13% of Hispanics have a college degree or higher, compared with 30% among Americans overall.
The poll revealed some of the roadblocks: Latinos do not have enough money, yet many are reluctant to borrow.
Buying an expensive California house with a zero-down subprime mortgage isn't really "borrowing." It's investing in the American Dream!
In the poll, just 29% cited poor grades in high school as an extremely or very important reason for not going to college.
... Deaza, the New York bank employee, said that is why she had to leave her computer studies back in the late 1990s. A single mom-to-be, she was expecting her first child, a daughter who's now 11.
April 25, 2010
The War over History
The Texas Board of Education has voted to include in the state’s history textbooks facts more favorable to conservatives. Needless to say, this has provoked condemnations from the national Main Stream Media. That’s because any challenge to the Left’s post-1960s dominion over the past is going to arouse real passion.
OK, I know it’s not clear how many students actually read their history textbooks. But the Texans are showing more enterprise than is common among conservatives. These have fecklessly permitted their ideological enemies to define what gets called history.
Theoretically, history is about learning how the world works so you don't repeat old mistakes. What most people want to know, however, is: Who does society laud? Who is respectable and who is not? Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? ...
Why have the Sixties People proven so enduring in molding young people’s minds? My theory: The Sixties mindset—aggrieved, resentful, and unrealistic—is perfectly attuned to appeal permanently to the worst instincts of adolescents.
And yet, young people do have a finer side—their hunger for heroes—that history books once tried to fulfill rather than exploit. For example, I was galvanized in 1975 when I read Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s tribute in his Oxford History of the American People to Orville and Wilbur Wright:
"Few things in our history are more admirable than the skill, the pluck, the quiet self-confidence, the alertness to reject fixed ideas and to work out new ones, and the absence of pose and publicity, with which these Wright brothers made the dream of ages—man’s conquest of the air—come true."
But the Wright brothers aren’t the kind of heroes we like anymore. In our Age of Oprah, rather than Heroes of Accomplishment, we are addicted to Heroes of Suffering. ...
This Heroes of Suffering fetish is exacerbated in modern history textbooks by the “diversity” imperative.
Take, for example, one US history textbook widely used in high school Advanced Placement courses and in college courses: Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic (McGraw-Hill, Fourth Edition). ...
The need to include a huge amount of material celebrating each politically organized diversity group has bloated the textbook to 1277 oversized pages. It costs $108.78 on Amazon, and weighs in at a vertebrae-compressing 5.4 pounds. ...
Celebrating diversity just takes a lot of space, so there isn’t room in all 1277 pages to mention…the Wright brothers. ...
This kind of feminized, multiculturalized social history is boring to young people—especially to boys.
... Of course, leaving out so many annoying white male Heroes of Accomplishment from the textbook doesn’t mean that the historians have managed to dig up comparable diverse Heroes of Accomplishment.
Instead, the space mostly gets filled with Heroes of Suffering.
And who made them suffer?
You get one guess.
At one point, I went looking in this textbook’s index for the Civil War hero, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, colonel of the XXth Maine Volunteers. By repelling repeated assaults on the crucial Little Round Top hill on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Chamberlain may have saved the Union. (He’s played by Jeff Daniels in Ron Maxwell’s movies Gettysburg and Gods and Generals.)
I suspect teenage boys might find him, you know, interesting. Maybe?
Well, needless to say, "Chamberlain, Joshua" isn’t in the Nation of Nations’ index. When looking for him, I did find, however:Chanax, Juan, 1096—1098, 1103, 1124, 1125
Who, exactly, is Chanax and why does he appear on six pages when Chamberlain can’t be squeezed in anywhere?
It turns out Chanax is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who works in a supermarket in Houston. This hero’s accomplishment is that he brought in 1,000 other illegal aliens from his home village.
The thinking, apparently: featuring an illegal alien so disproportionately will boost the self-esteem of the illegal alien students reading the book—which will then raise their test scores!
But how many are going to read all the way to p. 1096? And how many won’t find it patronizing and depressing that the biggest hero these industrious historians could dig up for their edification and emulation was Chanax?
But the truth is that the Left pays no real attention to illegal immigrants. Their value is primarily in their colossal numbers—e.g., the 1000 neighbors recruited by Chanax—making them the notional Reserve Army of the Left, justifying whatever changes in America life more elite members of the Left want.
Want a sinecure as a diversity consultant for a textbook company? Nominate yourself as the ethnic representative of Juan Chanax and friends.
They won’t notice.
Maybe you just don’t much like American history: all those Wrights and Chamberlains accomplishing great things get on your nerves. Then rewrite it, in the name of Juan Chanax and company!
It’s not like Juan and his pals down at the supermarket are paying close attention or have a strong, informed opinion on what should go into American history textbooks. You can get away with anything by claiming to be on their side, the side of goodness and the future—the winning side.
Read the whole thing here.
November 12, 2008
Hasta la vista
This Slate article "So When Will a Muslim Be President: A guide to which minority group has the best chance to win the White House" by Mark Oppenheimer is a classic example of how a certain minority group that numbers almost 50,000,000 residents of America barely features in the mental universe of the NYC-DC punditry. It begins:
At long last, my people have an answer to the question "When will we have a Jewish president?" The answer, it turns out, is "Not before we have a black president." I imagine that all ethnic groups play this game of "when will one of ours get there?" (The question is especially common among Jews, since we're sort of white and used to success at other jobs—law, medicine, swimming.) But now that a half-African man with Muslim ancestors has defeated, for the presidency, an Episcopalian with a Roman numeral after his name, the bookmakers have to move the odds for all of us.
Which historically oppressed group will see one of its own take the oath of the presidency on a Bible/Quran/Analects/etc. next? We must admit that some groups are too small to have much of a chance—met any Zoroastrians lately?—and others seem too exotic. But plenty of others are in the running. Here, then, is a guide to which minority group will next see one of its own in the White House, in descending order of probability, and with possible candidates included:
The Slate article goes on to consider the chances of the following groups from which Presidents have never been elected:
Women
Latter-day Saints
Jews
Muslims
Hindus
Gays and lesbians
Atheists
Do you notice a rather large minority group who is missing?
Last week, we heard everywhere that the Hispanic tidal wave of votes means that the GOP has to publicly expel every single immigration skeptic if it ever wants to win again. (But, of course, Hispanics couldn't possible have anything to do with the mortgage meltdown because there are so few of them.) This week, Hispanics have dropped off the mental radar screen so far that nobody at Slate bothered to ask the writer to drop in a paragraph about them.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
October 27, 2008
Defaulting Latinos are voting for Obama
The LA Times walks around a Latino neighborhood in Las Vegas and finds growing support for Obama among the multitudinous "homeowners" who have defaulted on their mortgages and are awaiting foreclosure.
This helps explain a minor puzzle of recent history. As you'll recall, the 2004 exit poll initially reported that Bush had won 44% of the Hispanic vote. I pointed out how implausible this was from real world voting totals, and the exit poll people eventually admitted they'd messed up their methodology and the real number was around 40%.
But even 40% is pretty high for a Republican Presidential candidates. So, how did Bush and Rove get up around 40%?
Bush and Rove bought Latino votes in 2004 with Other People's Money. Bush's Housing Bubble was, more than anything else, a Hispanic Housing Bubble, with total mortgage dollars for Hispanic homebuyers going up an incredible 691% from 1999 to 2006. And all that cash flowing for home loans and home equity loans, whether to Hispanics or others, paid for a lot of Hispanic construction and home improvement workers.
Now, the firehose of money has been turned off because the reserves have been pumped dry, and Hispanics are flooding back to their natural home in the Democratic Party.
July 17, 2008
LA Times: "Why do Asian students generally get higher marks than Latinos?"
Hector Becerra of the LA Times visits a high school near downtown LA that has basically no whites or blacks, and asks students and teachers "Why do Asian students generally get higher marks than Latinos?"
Lincoln Heights is mostly a working-class Mexican American area, but it's also a first stop for Asian immigrants, many of them ethnic Chinese who fled Vietnam.
With about 2,500 students, Lincoln High draws from parts of Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Chinatown.
Both the neighborhood and student body are about 15% Asian. And yet Asians make up 50% of students taking Advanced Placement classes. Staffers can't remember the last time a Latino was valedictorian.
"A lot of my friends say the achievement gap is directly attributable to the socioeconomic status of students, and that is not completely accurate," O'Connell said. "It is more than that."
But what is it? O'Connell called a summit in Sacramento that drew 4,000 educators, policymakers and experts to tackle the issue. Some teachers stomped out in frustration and anger.
No Lincoln students stomped out of their discussion. Neither did any teachers in a similar Lincoln meeting. But the observations were frank, and they clearly made some uncomfortable.
To begin with, the eight students agreed on a few generalities: Latino and Asian students came mostly from poor and working-class families.
According to a study of census data, 84% of the Asian and Latino families in the neighborhoods around Lincoln High have median annual household incomes below $50,000. And yet the Science Bowl team is 90% Asian, as is the Academic Decathlon team. ...Asian parents are more likely to pressure their children to excel academically, the students agreed. ...
The journalist winds up with the usual George W. Bush-style postmodernist explanation -- the soft bigotry of low expectations. If only everybody would just assume the two groups are equal, then they would be.
Try and falsify that proposition!
Of course, the long article doesn't mention the two dread letters, but, on the other hand, there is a lot of evidence that Chinese tend to overachieve and Mexican-Americans tend to underachieve relative to their IQs. Family expectations and pressure are certainly a plausible explanation for over vs. underachievement.
The subtler question that I want to focus on, though, is whether it's better, all else being equal, for Hispanics to be in a school that's 85% Hispanic and 15% Chinese or in a school that is 100% Hispanic?
That's a tough problem for social science to crack since all else is never equal. If the school was really bad, it wouldn't be 15% Asian -- the Chinese parents would get their kids out. So you can assume that Lincoln isn't a really awful, dangerous school like, say, Jefferson, where there were brown vs. black race riots a few years ago. Not a lot of Chinese at Jefferson. (Here's Roger D. McGrath's 2005 American Conservative article on Jefferson High. By the way, I don't think there are many high schools that are perpetually 85% black and 15% Asian -- it sounds unstable -- but I could be wrong.)
I don't have much of a hunch what a good study would find. I could see it going either way. Having 15% Asians around might help the smart, nerdy Hispanics find friends, and might keep better teachers around the school. (Good teachers like to teach -- i.e., to impart learning -- so good teachers gravitate toward schools with good students -- i.e., those more able and willing to be taught.) Being 15% Asian means there are enough advanced students around to justify advanced classes.
On the other hand, having an "academic-dominant minority" of Asians in a high school may well further racialize attitudes toward studying. If your name ends in Z and you are a student at Lincoln, what's the point of setting out in 9th grade to be valedictorian? No Hispanic has been valedictorian at Lincoln H.S. since the mind of man runs not to the contrary. To study hard is to act Asian, to betray La Raza. If Mexican students tried to beat the Chinese at their own game, and failed, well, that would just prove the Chinese are smarter. So it's better for Mexican racial self-esteem to make sure nobody even tries, to proclaim that studying is just something Asians high school students do because they're, uh, no good at tagging and getting pregnant.
That's basically what the most respected institutions in our society -- the LA Times, the State Superintendent of Schools, etc. -- tell them to think, right? That there can't possibly be an innate intelligence gap between the Mexicans and the Chinese, because if there were, it would be the worst thing in the history of the world. It would mean that Hitler was right, that Nazis should rule America. So, to prevent a Nazi takeover, the Hispanic students will do their part by screwing off instead of studying. (It's not hard to persuade teens not to study.)
In contrast, at a 100% Hispanic school like Garfield or Roosevelt (nearby East LA schools that don't include Chinatown -- Jaime Escalante taught AP Calculus at Garfield), well, somebody Hispanic has to be valedictorian each year. So, trying to be valedictorian there, while nerdy and uncool, is likely to be less racially fraught than at an integrated school.
As I said, I don't really know which way it would go. People have similarly argued over this type of question concerning Historically Black Colleges for a long time -- is a black kid with an 1100 SAT score better off at Howard where he'd quite competitive academically or at Georgetown, where he'd feel like Michelle Obama did at Princeton and Harvard Law School?My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
July 13, 2008
Spanish language radio stations hit hard by drying up of zero down mortgages
The same days as the news of proposed government bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Washington Post runs a revealing article on how the drying up of subprime mortgages has badly hurt the advertising revenue of Spanish language radio stations in the DC area:
But these days the subprime mortgage meltdown has hit many Spanish-language radio stations hard. Real estate companies that targeted the Hispanic community have closed their doors or cut back on advertising and sponsorships. Aragon has lost most of the real estate agents who once advertised with him…
As the housing market took off, Spanish-language radio and real estate companies -- two businesses that are highly locally focused -- became increasingly intertwined. Jose Luis Semidey, a real estate agent who catered to the Hispanic community, ran Radio Latina at 950 AM in Potomac and 810 AM in Annapolis. He's no longer an agent, and he ceased operating the stations in 2006. The realty firm Vilchez & Associates was a principal sponsor of Radio Universal in Manassas at 1460 AM, which no longer exists. It was shut down last year to be reopened this year as La Kaliente, with a new format and a new owner.
Peruvian native Ronald Gordon, whose Arlington-based ZGS Communications operates 11 Telemundo television station affiliates and three radio stations, including VIVA 900 AM in Laurel, said the housing bust has hit Spanish-language radio in the area, much like it has hit the whole Hispanic community.
"I think in terms of the mortgage and real estate industry, we were over-indexed in terms of advertising," Gordon said.
With a pair of headphones over his brushed-back black hair, his lips never far from a suspended microphone, Aragon can be found weekday mornings in his studio, pumping out a steady diet of Spanish-language news, talk, and Mexican and Central American tunes on his show "Buenos Dias Washington."
Aragon began renting his station's signal from JMK Communications of Los Angeles in 2002, changing its format from country to Mexican regional. Those days, the housing boom was just getting underway and an influx of Hispanics that would change the county's demographic mix had begun.
The station began throwing an annual Fiesta Hispana in its parking lot. It promoted Mexican and Central American bands. And when the latest immigration debate heated up, the station served as a place for information about demonstrations and meetings.
At the height of the housing boom, Aragon had as many as 15 real estate agents advertising with him, he said. He got his own Realtor's license three years ago and began advertising his services on his show -- which he still does today. Only one other real estate agent remains as an advertiser.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Why doesn't Univision put English subtitles on American movies?
Univision is the giant of Spanish-language broadcasting in the U.S. In 2006 it was sold by Republican Italian-American billionaire Jerry Perenchio to a consortium headed by Democratic Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban for $13.7 billion. Perenchio was the chief donor in 1998 to the campaign against Ron Unz's Proposition 227 restricting bilingual education in California schools. The more Mexican immigrants who learn English, the worse it is for business. (Unz won easily, nonetheless).
Not surprisingly, according to Wikipedia, "Univision's major programming is closed-captioned in Spanish, but unlike main competitor Telemundo, it almost never provides English subtitles." This refusal to run subtitles in English costs Univision a slight amount of ratings -- I recall stumbling upon "Repo Man" dubbed into Spanish on Univision and watching about 40 minutes because I know much of the dialogue by heart. But, to Univision, the principle of keeping Spanish-only residents of America Spanish-only comes ahead of short-term profits. If they started putting "Repo man is always intense" in English under Harry Dean Stanton's mug while some guy says it in Spanish, who knows, somebody somewhere might someday learn enough English to watch a different station.
There are numerous campaigns against corporations for anti-social practices, but I've never heard any criticism of Univision for refusing to subtitle English-language movies in English. Criticizing Perenchio and/or Saban for holding back the spread of English in the interests of higher profits would be racist, so it's just not done.
Speaking of Univision's lack of subtitles and learning another language, Bert Limbec explains "I Bet I Can Speak Spanish:"
Hello, amigos! El soy quando agunto! Ella balloona balunga espanyo!
Did that sound Spanish to you? I bet that means something. And guess what? I've never had one lesson. It's just that I have a natural gift for Spanish. I was able to pick it up all by myself, "outside the system," if you will.
When I was a kid, I thought a foreign language would take a long time to learn. That's what society tells you, probably because of the anti-foreign attitude in America. They're trying to discourage people from going foreign, I guess...
I remember how, in high school, Spanish was taught by Mr. Gomez, and you could spend years learning every single word. Forget that! I'm sure I've got the gist of it. I don't need any classes or books, because I can speak Spanish without all that. I mean, ¡Balunga el baguayo con blinko! Don't tell me that didn't sound Spanish! And it sure didn't take three years of high school to learn. Forget that, I've got a life! ...
But another important link in the chain of me speaking Spanish is that I've been watching tons of Univision lately, and I completely understand what's going on. Just yesterday, there was this soap opera on, called Ellabungo Juanita or something Spanish like that, and I was completely following it! This girl and this guy were in bed together, and this guy came in and was mad. Just from listening, I could tell that the girl in the bed was cheating on the guy who just walked in. There were no subtitles, I just figured it out! You folks reading this might have needed Spanish lessons to understand what was going on, but I'm on the fast track, Charlie!
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Competitive States in 2008 Electoral College
When McCain and Obama were Hispandering recently, Audacious Epigone got sick of hearing from the innumerate media about how important immigrant ethnic groups are in key swing states in the Presidential election. So, he sat down and crunched the numbers from the Obama v. McCain polls summarized at the CNN election center website. It turns out that 2008 is shaping up just like 2004 and 2000: the battleground states are white and black, while Hispanics and Asians are concentrated in uncompetitive states like California and Texas.
| White | Hispanic | Black | Asian | Other | |
| Competitive | 73.7 | 8.8 | 13.2 | 2.8 | 1.5 |
| Uncompetitive | 59.6 | 20.2 | 12.6 | 5.9 | 1.7 |
Keep in mind that these percentages are for residents, not voters. Hispanic and Asian residents vote at much lower rates than white and black residents. The actual percentages of voters by ethnicity will be significantly skewed more toward whites and blacks. So, the Electoral College results will be determined overwhelmingly by whites and blacks.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
June 6, 2008
Guess who's leading among Hispanic voters?
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
March 18, 2008
"Is Brown the New Black?"
My full length article comparing Hispanics to blacks is now up at American Conservative:
Is Brown the New Black:
Assimilating Hispanics into the Politics of Victimhood
One reason the black-Hispanic relationship is poorly understood is that class intersects with ethnicity in complex ways. At the bottom of society, among prison and street gangs, race rules. In the Los Angeles County jail, which is 60 percent Hispanic and 30 percent black, the two groups fought murderous battles in 2006. Last October, federal prosecutors accused the Florencia 13 street gang of trying to ethnically cleanse blacks from its unincorporated neighborhood in LA County. (The political impact of this violence shouldn’t be exaggerated, though. The respectable folk who do most of the voting don’t approve of gangbangers feuding.)
In poorer neighborhoods, black residents feel uneasy about men speaking Spanish around them. Not being able to understand what is being said robs them of their street smarts. Are the two men next to you at the bus stop talking in Spanish about soccer or are they plotting to mug you? Who knows?
At the top of the power structure, in the House of Representatives and state legislatures, blacks and Latinos get along quite well, united by party (92 percent of elected Hispanics are Democrats) and a mutual desire to keep the affirmative action gravy train chugging along. Ward Connerly, a black opponent of ethnic quotas, has noted that when he was a regent of the University of California, the heaviest pressure on the regents to cheat on the anti-preference language written into the state constitution by Prop. 209 came not from the Black Caucus in the legislature but from the larger Latino Caucus. They threatened to cut UC’s budget unless more Hispanic applicants were admitted.
Black politicians tend to view Hispanics today much as Irish politicos once saw their fellow Catholic Poles: silent partners in their coalition who should be grateful for their natural leaders’ experience and charm. Not surprisingly, Hispanics don’t agree. In some of the formerly all-black slum municipalities just south of Los Angeles, where Hispanics now make up the great majority of residents but only half of voters, ethnic politics has gotten nasty. But overall, Hispanic politicians know that time is on their side, so they can be patient about the arrogance of black colleagues.
In the middle levels of society, blacks and Latinos do compete. Relations aren’t warm, but African-American men have tended to cede blue-collar jobs to immigrants without putting up massive resistance. Moreover, the swelling numbers and various dysfunctions of illegal immigrants generate numerous jobs for civil servants (who are typically required to be citizens). Therefore, many blacks are paid by taxpayers to teach, police, guard, administer, and otherwise deal with illegal aliens. It doesn’t make for trans-ethnic amity, but it’s a living. [More]
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer