Hispanic Professional or Professional Hispanic?
Setting aside the debate as to whether or not there is such a thing as a Hispanic or a Latino for a minute, I wanted to present this idea for your consideration. I work in Spanish language advertising. In my profession I have met and worked with a lot of Hispanic professionals. These are people that are in business and happen to be Hispanic. But there's another breed of people, not just in my industry, that I call Professional Hispanics. Simply put, they are in the business of being Hispanic. There's a huge difference between Hispanic professionals and Professional Hispanics. Professional Hispanics have no discernable talent other than to beat their chest and play the race card. It's just sad.
Back when I was writing fiction some years ago and reading some of my works at local events, there were a few "writers" that would use their "Cubanness" only to promote their writing. professional hispanics for sure, Professional Cubans wasmore precise.
Only back then I had a different name for it. I called it the "Mango-Mamey syndrome" because all their works spoke of mangoes and mameys and papaya and palmas. Stereotypical tropical shit.
One writer in particular wrote a whole piece on a papaya beckoning her at her kitchen window and even used the term papayona. I told her after her reading that my mother would have taken great insult at that poem, speicifically the use of certain words and she looked at me blankly and said "What do you mean?"
Mango-Mamey Syndrome.
Jesus!
I know what you mean.
Forget the Hispanic crutch!
Why not just call yourself a professional?
I hate when they say "Hispanic" artist or "Latino" writer.
Like what does Hispanic or Latino have to do with being a writer, artist or professional?
Now they even have the cojones to call us "People of Color"! Have any of you been called people of color? In Cuba that was a term for black people sometimes - it wasn't meant to be rascist - un senor de color. Calling Spanish surnamed individuals people of color is very popular in New York and it is used a lot to include anyone who is Spanish surnamed, Asian, mullato...
My friend who is white and Cuban and a libarian was urged by his boss to join an association for libarians of color because he is Spanish surnamed!
This is PC madness.
I guess they do the ethnic tropical crap because the they think that the powers that be will hire them to write a book because it is in and hip to be a Latino woman who writes about German Shepards in Cuba or mangoes.
If I was a writer I would write about what I want - and not what is in at the moment like mambo kings or sucia chubby Cuban women living in New Mexico.
Right you are about these types...maybe the first thing to be asked of them is, can you trace your roots directly to Hispania, that is, ancient Spain? The "Hispanic" appellation gets old for some of us, who do not consider ourselves to be anyone's "panic." Not to worry, you find these "professional" chip-on-shoulder "aggrieved" folks across all cultures and ethnic groups...my experience is that those who whine and hide behind the race and/or ethnic card are mostly incompetent types with an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Respect is earned through positive deeds, hard work, acceptance of responsibility and by discharging duties honorably and with competence, not through tired and trite self-labeling.
Maybe we oughta follow Tiger Woods' tongue-in-cheek take about this "grievance labeling;" if not "cablinasian," as he once described himself, many of us perhaps could describe ourselves as
"Africo-Celto-Iberic-Romano-Greek-Carthaginian-Gothic-Vandal-Suebi-Anglo-Gallic-Sino-Japanese-Taino-Siboney-Finnish-Cuban-Americans" - ACIRGCGVSAGSJTSFCAs for short, perhaps? Surely, I've committed the unpardonable sin of leaving some ancestral group out. Please, do not be aggrieved! Where do we apply for a government grant, by the way?
I've been called a person of color.....funny thing, you see a picture of me and you can the lack of color.
However, I have to explain that is it different from what we call a person of color. They use that term to try to be inclusive, include all minorities mainly Hispanics and Blacks.
At my university I sit on the President's Commission of Students of Color, which looks at how to increase and retain people of color - ie. Hispanics and blacks.
Someone mentioned Hispanic artist or Latino whatever - I don't mind when they use this, in the sense that it helps show the ignorants the diversity of "hispanics" or "latinos". I hate both terms, but I use hispanic. However, I would never use it as a card, and hate it that it is used as a card or milked.
When I go to get a job once I graduate, I know that they see in me a "diverse" candidate, and I know it will play a part in me getting a job. does it bother me? yes. But I'll prove myself worthy of the job once I'm there.
Val, that the poet used the word is one thing, that you repeated it is another......
When I first moved to Connecticut, my boss asked me how I felt being the only person of color at my job. I nearly fell over. I had never heard it before. That night I called my mom to tell her, "Guess what, mom, you are 'de color!'" We had a good laugh. It's all semantics in the end. You are what you are. No single term can ever capture the essence of a person.
I never did like that term "person of color" - I mean, what am I, invisible?
I think that if we're going to perpetually make reference to the wavelength of sunlight that reflects off our skin, let's hold spectrometers up to our skin, analyze the color, and assign ourselves internet colors. Then, on college applications and such, an applicant can put "320E0E". At least that would be accurate, if skin tone is actually the issue.
"The suspect, an E1ADAD male, was last seen fleeing a liquor store at 117th and Riverside..."
Or we could use RGB or hexadecimal.
That's an interesting take, Henry. Hmmmm, a variation of Jessie Jackson. Clever.
When I was young I was once called to the human resources office at a job I had and the black inner city Puerto Rican woman said that I had to to change my racial description from my application form to Hispanic from White. She said people from the Carib islands who had Spanish names where non white. I told her that I wasn't even born in Cuba, but that my parents where from Cuba with ancestors from Spain. She said it didn't matter and that rules were rules. It happened also at another job when I was in high school and an African American administrator did the same thing. This made me angry inside and it made me see things differently especially regarding other "Latinos" - Because of this I have hardedned and I am not so keen on associating with others who think this way - I consider them my enemies for trying to tell me who I am without giving me the choice to decide for myself. if that is rascist on my part - then so be it!
I have a friend who's a very talented Cuban American writer, and I've discussed this topic of "professional hispanics" with him.
He says, part of the problem is that the major publishing houses want to label anyone of Spanish or Latin American background as a "Hispanic writer" and limit them to writing what he calls, "ghetto literature." He told me that he was once contacted by a publisher to write a story about discriminated Hispanic children [it's always about discriminated poor Hispanics in the ghetto, hispanics can't possibily be well-to-do and integrated] and he flat out refused. He explained to me that as a Cuban writer, they never want him to write about oppressed Cuban children in Cuba, it's always about oppressed Hispanic children in the USA. He said that he told them, "why should I be limited to writing about Hispanics??" Why can't I write about Chinese or Polish children if I want too??
Of cause, not everyone has the intellectual integrity that my friend has, many writers will happily fall into the confines of a hispanic writer and spend their entire career writing about how "down and brown" and oppressed they are.
It's sickening. It's this entire leftist mindset promoted by academia, publishing houses and radical "viva la raza" types with their fists up in the air!
Scott, man you made me laugh, REALLY laugh.
Mandingo you bring up a very interesting point, that damn little box that says: WHITE (not of Hispanic origin)....WTF?
Can't a Hispanic be white? Asian? heck even Native American? Ever notice how the Black box does not have that disclaimer?
Food for thought
Ventanita,
According to the powers that be, Hispanics cannot be white. Part of the problem is that during the 1960's, groups like MALDEF and National Council of La Raza in an effort to jump on the bandwagon of the Black Civil Rights Movement, started demonstrating in the streets with "Brown Power" posters and their fists up in the air demanding affirmative action for Lateeeenos and screaming "Viva La Raza!" Then the Nixon Administration in order to neatly account for all Spanish speaking people created that little "Hispanic box" in the census. In the 1970s, Norman Lear started producing his liberal junk on TV where Hispanics were always "down and brown" and from then on, Hispanics have become unquestionably non-white. And now with cartoons like "Dora the Explorer" and "Maya and Miguel" this notion has been ireversibly hammered into the collective consciousness of the American people!
To show you how ridiculous this notion has become, about a year ago there was a controversy because Will Smith claimed that Hollywood would not allow him to kiss Cameron Diaz on the mouth because Cameron Diaz is white, so instead he had to kiss Eva Mendes. Now the problem with this equation is that both Eva Mendes and Cameron Diaz are Cuban and white. Just because Eva Mendes is mediterranian looking and Cameron Diaz is nordic looking doesn't mean that they are of different races. We Cuban know that both phenotypes exist in Cuba. There are plenty of Andalusian looking Cubans and blond, blue-eyed Cubans. BUT, because the mainstream media can't argue that Diaz is not white [if Diaz is not white, then no one is, she has got to be the whitest woman on earth!]
they simply deny that she is Cuban/or Hispanic and that way keep up the notion that no Hispanic is white. Sick, warped and racist, ain't it? Read below:
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/29662004.htm
Racism stops Will Smith from kissing Cameron Diaz
Will Smith claims he was forbidden from kissing Cameron Diaz on screen because of American racism.
The actor said Hollywood panders to the nation's problem of seeing a black man and white woman getting intimate and stopped the co-stars kissing in new movie 'Hitch'.
To avoid controversy, Smith says he smooched Latin beauty Eva Mendes instead. The 36-year-old 'Men in Black' star said: "How are you not going to consider Cameron Diaz?
But Hollywood is nervous about a black man kissing a white woman on screen. "That becomes massive news in the US. Outside America, it's no big deal. But in the US, it's still a racial issue.
Ironically, Hollywood is happy to do it if the film is about racism. But they won't simply do it and ignore it." Meanwhile, Will has confessed he and wife Jada Pinkett Smith have marriage counselling to keep their relationship on track.
The star says one of their first dates was an appointment with a psychoanalyst after being inspired by the self-help book 'Women Who Run
Eva Mendes doesn't look Mediterranean at all. Don't kid yourself.
Beebee,
Eva Mendes does look Mediterranean. There are many Greeks, Spaniards and Italians especially from Sicily and Naples who are darker than Eva Mendes. Case in point, have you ever seen pictures of the late Spanish dancer and singer Lola Flores and her daughters Lolita and Rosario? They are darker than Eva Mendes. Have you ever seen pictures of John Gotti's family?
http://www.iballer.com/wallpaper/celebs/d_g/gottis/images/gotti1_1024x768_jpg.jpg
Check out how funky looking they are. They make Eva Mendes look practically Nordic!
In any case, you're missing the point, the mainstream media often denys [as in the aforementioned article] that Cameron Diaz is Hispanic because she is white and if they admit that she is Hispanic, they will have to admit that Hispanic can be white.
Wonder what box my friend's relative, of Cuban-German origin should check? Surnamed Helbig, he went to visit his father's family in Germany accompanied by his Spanish (born in Spain, that is) mother - in 1938. As he related to me once, he "spent a fun summer there, even was talked into joining the local Hitlerjugend, which was like being in Boy Scouts." When it came time to leave, the local authorities proclaimed him an "ethnic German" or "Volkdeutsch" and told his mother he could not leave the Reich. "Her Spanish temper flared up," related Mr. Helbig, "and she stormed into the Cuban consulate in Hamburg, where she proceeded to describe this outrage to the Cuban consul, who assured her the matter would be dealt with expeditiously." The Cuban consul is supposed to have said, "Que aleman ni aleman!" Something like: "German, my ass!" Phone calls were made...and soon Mr. Helbig and his don't-mess-with-me mom were headed back to Cuba.
Again, what ethno-racial box should the gentleman check? Tell you one thing - anybody who tries tellin me what box to check, would be tempting me to kick their ass hard enough to make them land in a PINE box...
Alberto,
It's not so much that they tell you on an individual basis what box to check, it's that they do it on a collective basis. Everytime that you watch TV and the news anchor man says, "blacks, whites and hispanics" they are putting you in that little box, every time that you read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune or any other national newspaper and they say, "blacks, whites and hispanics" they are putting you in that little box. And every time that you watch one of those movies where they create these generic "down and brown" hispanics to represent ALL OF US, they are putting you in that little box.
It's acceptable nowadays to interchange the word "hispanic" in lieu of the Spanish speaking nationality they are referring to, so that you will often hear the newscaster talk about "Miami Hispanics" instead of "Miami Cubans" which is what he really means.
"Hispanic" has become a cue world for non-white, brown. Next time that you are called a "Hispanic" that is what they really mean.
What a sticky dilemma! I hate being categorized into a "box" that doesn't really describe who I am. I am not Hispanic. I am not Latino. I definitely ain't brown either. I think of myself as an American Made With Cuban Parts.
A lot of people are ignorant about Cuban culture and the racial diversity we have. We are light-skinned, dark-skinned, and all in-between. We are a mix of Arab, African, Spanish, Jewish, Chinese, and many other cultures.
I have a very white complexion, so much, that it stunned an ex girlfriend's parents. They thought I was going to be a "darker" looking Mexican person. My colleagues at work laugh when others call me a "person of color". They say I have no "color", while I say that the only "color" I have is peach! And my African-American friends call me Cuban Whitey. What gives?
I was hired partly because of my "diversity". I agree that I am very "diverse" in my perspectives and attitudes, compared to other people where I live. However, that's not the "diversity" that my employers were looking for. Too bad for them for being extremely limited in their views. I guess I must frustrate them every day. ;o)