In its storied history, America has had to rely on specific generations to make enormous personal sacrifices for the country’s sake. One generation fought to create the country; another generation struggled to keep it whole and not let it disappear into disunion; another generation beat back fascism; others outlasted communism; and another now fights international terrorism. HispanicLatinos are no different. They are a new generation of Americans being asked to save and to hold their country for a far greater purpose than the vast majority of HispanicLatinos might have ever considered – except that many of them start behind the social, economic and political curve. And the dimensions of the responsibility they bear are daunting. How to help save a country that seems in decline internally is no small task.
Category Archives: Economy
HispanicLatino: More Human Drama than New Market
Markets is a word easily thrown about, especially in the changing landscape of television. One definition of market is the old trying to catch up to the new – and to the news, perhaps. In the roiled television industry, ‘market’ could also be defined as networks discovering they stood in the way of history. Certainly, television has scrambled to catch up with the social media, and it has begun finally to move away from an old demography on which it has been stuck that each day applies less and less to the only definition of markets that ultimately matters – a way to make money.
Reworking the Networks at Last: Breaking the News
There are many tough executive-level jobs in corporate America today. The nation’s economy is being buffeted on all sides by foreign competition, skilled workers are at a premium and the nation’s infrastructure each day falls behind the rest of the world — among other issues. Few of those jobs are more challenging than leading a television network today (or a film production or advertising company for that matter).
Whether heading up an English-language or a Spanish-language operation – all are caught in some way by changing demographics; the evident and growing power of social media and new platforms; and an audience comprised of submarkets and subgroups hard to unify into a national market. It is nothing short of mayhem – and confused mayhem at that – exacerbated by business models that probably need to be revamped or scratched. Not surprisingly, rumors abound about the future of the current Spanish-language networks, the advent of news ones and the creation of new hybrids for English-dominant HispanicLatinos. ABC and Univision this week affirmed their intention to bring to life next year a new cable news channel that appeals to English-dominant HispanicLatinos.
Alone at the Top: HispanicLatinos with the Responsibility to Lead
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.
On HispanicLatino and not ‘Hispanic’ nor ‘Latino’
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:
Forced to Lead: The Most Acculturated and Assimilated HispanicLatinos
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.
From a New Understanding, a New Purpose and a New Identity
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.
Needed: A New People with a New Plan — Now
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.
HispanicLatinos and the Need to Rethink Themselves
Without HispanicLatinos, America would be hollowed out demographically at a time when the country is fundamental to the security of the world – an essential truth that HispanicLatinos must inculcate in the marrow of their bones. HispanicLatinos must now think of themselves in a profoundly historic way. They must view themselves for the strategic assets that they have become and think about how they accelerate the development of their inner potential and innate talents. They are essential to the future of the country in the most basic of ways: They have become a national security concern.
The New America: A New Creation
To an already over-populated world undoubtedly harming its environment and contributing to climate change, the thought of adding more people to a global population of seven billion is not a subject easily dismissed nor left blithely unconsidered. Yet, the arms race of the previous century has been displaced by an undeclared demographic war among nations, and America cannot but continue to grow its own population.