Author Archives: jesse

Let HispanicLatinos be HispanicLatinos: Nation-Builders

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That HispanicLatinos are unlike any other group in the history of the country is hard to dispute.  No other group lives so close – and in many cases within – its original culture. Whether HispanicLatinos understand the potential power of their presence is not clear even though the old reality – that their root culture never disappears – is poised to gain traction in ways never envisioned by the nation’s founders.

In their Constitution, the founders asserted the right of individuals to freedom of personal expression and self-determination in the pursuit of their personal happiness.  The success of HispanicLatinos developing a new, productive way forward – in a way thought of as possibly “un-American” by some – would be testament to the ingenious creators of the country.  They understood that the personal freedoms enshrined and protected in their extraordinary document would allow its citizens always to work on America’s behalf and vouchsafe her future.

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Alone at the Top: HispanicLatinos with the Responsibility to Lead

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In the immediate years ahead, HispanicLatinos who are the most accomplished will have the most to lose if the rest of their community does not accelerate its progress and if America falters.  These HispanicLatinos bear the looming responsibility of managing the interplay of three powerful forces already changing their personal lives and the larger trajectory of the country:  A new demography, mass communications and a seemingly willful geography.  It is a difficult but worthwhile task.

Geography often is taken as fixed.  In fact, it moves history.  Geography projects, maintains and grows culture, however unevenly.  At times, an army can use the lay of the land to scurry a foe into defeat.  But geography is far more powerful over the long term, shaping and influencing events permanently in positive and negative ways not apparent until much later.

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On HispanicLatino and not ‘Hispanic’ nor ‘Latino’

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Standing in a conference room atop a bank building in Miami last week, I had been looking out at the spectacular vista.  From the city’s mammoth airport to the west, my gaze spanned eastward, marveling at the jewel-islands linked by the necklace of causeways that connects all to the island of Miami Beach, itself ensconced by the emerald beauty of the Atlantic.  I forced myself to return my head to business and stepped into the hallway to snatch a cup of coffee.  Upon my return, a man who had spoken earlier to the meeting I was attending introduced himself.

The usual banter ensued, and soon enough the inevitable question that has plagued humanity since it invented small talk came my way from the Anglo marketing consultant: What do you do for a living?

I write a blog on HispanicLatinos at HispanicLatino.com.

Oh. He paused.  You are combining the terms.  He paused again, then: Thank you!  Before I could smile in return, he continued in spurts of sentences.  We never know what to say…at my company…which term to use…we go back and forth…in reports and stuff…we do not want to offend anybody….

My response was a bit more organized:

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Forced to Lead: The Most Acculturated and Assimilated HispanicLatinos

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HispanicLatinos can remake America through the remaking of their identity, and, ironically, it will fall on the more assimilated or acculturated HispanicLatinos to communicate how important their community’s development will be to the country’s survival.  Above all, more integrated HispanicLatinos must understand clearly the core characteristic of the population they will be forced to lead:  It is still a people in the making.

America itself is a country always in the making and reinventing itself.  Constant change grew it into a world power. If the country is always being remade, so, too, must the HispanicLatino community experience ongoing change.

At the core of any human being succeeding in life and maximizing his or her potential is a sense of confidence that emanates from a complete self usually derived from a secure home, environment and family.  Knowing who one is, growing to understand one’s purpose in life and feeling comfortable within one’s own skin is critical to individual achievement.

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From a New Understanding, a New Purpose and a New Identity

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Whether the rest of the nation understands the unique nature of the present circumstances and importance of its HispanicLatino population to the future of the country is not as important as HispanicLatinos themselves understanding it – and understanding themselves in the process.

Within a growing number of HispanicLatinos, the perception of the fact that they will be decisive to America’s future has taken root.  If HispanicLatinos think they are going to get the kind of leadership they and the country need from somewhere else, they are fooling themselves.  In many cities and states, then, many HispanicLatinos are having conversations – publicly, privately and individually – about what happens next.

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Tejano Monument: Much More — So Much More — than a Statue

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It is more powerful than first imagined.  Where its creators placed it is impressive.  The idea it projects excites the mind, for it is the beginning point of a new future.  It is the new Tejano Monument on the grounds of the state capitol in Austin that will be dedicated tomorrow.  So poignant a commemoration of the past denotes the beginning of a new day.

Standing in front of the monument, one can hear a soft wind that evokes the past but simultaneously whispers the inauguration of a new time formed centuries ago but interrupted by the vagaries of demography that can make and unmake nations.  Though motionless, the statue of a Spanish explorer oversees the future: A Tejano rancher — the original, authentic cowboy — surrounded by a longhorn and another steer and other animals alongside a family that predestines much of the modern HispanicLatino population.

Upon a swath of granite that masterfully captures the sweeping expanse of Texas at its very beginning, its Tejano past is cast in bronze and the future emblazoned on a tableau of larger expectation.

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HispanicLatinos: A New Way of Thinking to Secure Their Voice

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In the throes of anxious times made so by lingering economic fears, Americans are not united on how to approach the future.  Only the most uninformed or those who revel in some sort of heavenly-ordained exceptionalism can deny the growing evidence of America’s worrisome position.  HispanicLatinos cannot afford to not be involved in thinking about the future.  But they certainly should not get wrapped up in passionate, patriotic bromides about their country.  At the other extreme, they cannot squander their energy on recriminations regarding a now-past history.

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The Pope in Mexico: A Warning to HispanicLatinos

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Regular readers of this blog might think I am on some sort of anti-Catholic crusade.  Quite the contrary.  I am very Catholic.  But upon the Pope’s arrival today in Mexico before going on to Cuba, I am more concerned with what the Church does to hurt the development of the HispanicLatino community – and the country – than worrying about thoughts on paper that some might take as anti-Catholic.

This Pope’s Papacy has been such a disaster that his arrival in one of the most Catholic countries in the world is almost a non-event.  The media will cover it, of course, but so uninspired are Catholics today by this Pope and by the crop of bishops that he and his predecessor appointed that the planners of this papal trip would not dare take the Pope on a tour that would require large crowds to demonstrate the Church’s standing in Mexico – a once-effective tool in this age when image and impression are easy to manipulate.  The Church is so damaged and weaker now than at anytime in modern history that the Pope will hardly venture outside Guanajuato, the cradle of Mexican conservatism.

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Needed: A New People with a New Plan — Now

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Regarding their common – and to many, worrisome – future, neither the country nor HispanicLatinos have a plan.  The much ballyhooed “bridge to the 21st Century” that Bill Clinton talked about in his re-election campaign is no more than a plank walk at the moment.

America – until now – never needed a plan.  In its earliest years, the nation fought great political battles over a national banking system and government involvement in the development of a young country’s infrastructure that included canals, national roads and bridges.  Once settled, these initial disputes opened up a continent to the economic energy thrown off by the Industrial Revolution that ultimately hurled America into the forefront of nations in the 20th century.

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Marco Rubio, the 33-percent Solution and The New York Times

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Years ago, a city editor in the newsroom taped a piece of paper on the monitor on my desk with the proper spelling of the city’s mayor.  I consistently misspelled it.  The New York Times should do the electronic equivalent for whichever of its writers report on the HispanicLatino vote this year.

Individuals across the land who put out a daily newspaper 365 times a year make as many mistakes.  One of those 365 mistakes is when a newspaper gets wrong the share of the HispanicLatino vote that George W. Bush received in 2004.  It was not, as the Times said in a story last week, 44 percent but 40 percent. Aside from the editorial integrity involved, the difference is of interest in this year’s election.

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