Being Latino is Being American: What I Learned From Julián Castro’s DNC Speech
From Latinopia September 10, 2012:
Like so may others last week, I listened to San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro’s speech to the Democratic National Convention with something of a sense of wonder. As I listened to his speech, I thought of my life, of my parents, my grandparents, of so many friends and acquaintances, of our collective experiences with trying to integrate ourselves into the fabric of this country’s culture. Sometimes these experiences can be painful, and sometimes, they can be rather joyous, and that’s what struck me about Castro’s speech.
He spoke about his family and his experiences, about menudo and abuelitas, and about how all of these experiences are what made him a proud American. I know the feeling.
As a matter of fact, it seems lots of us do. Everyone I have talked to about the speech has essentially shared the same sentiment. That, to them — to see a Latino man on a national platform talking about his culture proudly, like it was normal, and equating that culture with being American — was incredible as it was validating. So many of us have been trying to establish the same thing in our own respective fields, whether it be through media or education, that to see the same message broadcast on national television was almost a relief.
Read more here.
Texas Redistricting Decision Big Victory for Voting Rights Act
From Politic365 on September 6, 2012:
Texas’ redistricting plan was denied pre-clearance under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) last week by a U.S. District court in D.C. Essentially, the court ruled that the Texas congressional and state maps purposefully denied Latinos the ability to elect a candidate of their choice, and thus, the maps did not comply with the VRA. So while some may see this ruling as simply a victory for minority voters in Texas, the ruling also appears to be a win for section 5 of the VRA throughout the country.
Section 5 of the VRA requiresstates with a history of discriminatory voting behavior to seek pre-clearance for redistricting plans from the government. In its suit, the State of Texas argued that section 5 was an overreach by the federal government into state sovereignty, according to Dr. Henry Flores, professor of Political Science and Dean of the Graduate School at St. Mary’s University, in San Antonio, Texas.
“There’s a nationwide attack on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, to me, this decision is a great victory,” Flores said. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the court to rule this piece of legislation unconstitutional, claiming that the state no longer needed to be checked for its historic racial redistricting procedures.
“Essentially, the court said ‘You guys are crazy,’” said Flores, who was also an expert witness in a MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) lawsuit against Texas over redistricting.
Read more here.
Dream On: With No Immigration Reform Platform GOP Flirts With Minority Party Status
From Politic365 on August 28, 2012:
The Republican party is in a bit of a bind: its base cries out loudly for an enforcement immigration policy while its pathway to growth — Latino voters — practically demand an immigration reform policy. What’s a Grand Ol’ Party to do? The adopted Republican Party platform called for more border enforcement, the opposition of any kind of amnesty, requires all businesses to verify workers’ legal status through E-Verify, and halt federal funds to colleges and universities that allow undocumented students to enroll at lower in-state tuition rates.
Recently, Florida Senator Marco Rubio proposed his own version of the DREAM Act, but Michael Olivas, a professor who teaches immigration law at the University of Houston Law Center, called this proposed legislation, “a nightmare act.” The proposal wouldn’t have given students work permits, thus, it would have frozen them in place until something more substantive came along. And, based on the fact that just three Republicans in the Senate voted for the DREAM Act at the end of 2010, that policy would have been a long way off.
What’s happening instead is that the Republican party is falling into what Stephen A. Nuño, assistant professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University, calls “the California model.” To stay in power, Republicans are increasingly depending on whites to be elected to office, and in order to satiate that constituency’s desires, they have to move further and further to the right on issues like immigration.
Read more here.
McCain? Reagan? Where Have the Immigration Reform Republicans Gone?
From Politic365 on August 29, 2012:
It’s almost a political given these days that Democrats are “pro-immigration” and Republicans “anti-immigration.” Of course, this is a simplistic view, and misses the bigger picture of immigration reform efforts in recent history — most notably that one of the more powerful pushes of late was energized by Republicans. Remember pre-9/11 President George W. Bush’s making nice with then-Mexican President Vicente Fox? What about John McCain’s 2006 effort with Senator Ted Kennedy: the Kennedy-McCain Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA)?
Where have all the pro-immigration reform Republicans gone?
Read more here.
Why The Internet Hates My Name (It’s The Accent Marks)
From TechCrunch on August 24, 2012:
The Internet doesn’t like me — or, at least, it doesn’t care much for my name. My first name consists of two words and I have accent marks in both my first and last names, which seems to complicate my online life considerably. When trying to purchase an airline ticket or sign up for an email newsletter, I’m never completely certain whether it will go through, or how my name will come out of the transaction, but I’m usually pretty sure it won’t be right.
Turns out it’s not me. Rather it’s the archaic remnants of how computers came to be programmed in the U.S. during the mid-twentieth century. When standards for exchanging data between computers such as ASCII were created, the workforce consisted mostly of white males. They created programs still widely used today recognizing certain symbols and names — accent marks are not typically among them.
“There is no good standard for representing names on the Internet. It’s almost a vestigial remnant of our programatic past; programs were highly limited to things that were in use in America on typewriters,” said Dan Lynn, CTO of FullContact, a cloud address book and contact management provider.
In other words, Lynn said, there were no accents because the creators of these systems didn’t see a need for them. Nowadays, programs that don’t recognize accents or two-word names are in use by choice. Supporting multiple character sets may be more costly, because you have to support that input with databases, but ultimately Lynn said the internationalization of characters is on the rise.
Read more here.
Why I Don’t Want To “Pass” As White
From MiSoulLatino in August 2012:
I am a Latina, and I’m white. Well, I’m light-skinned and have green eyes, so people often assume I am not Mexican American, but white. I wouldn’t bring it up except for that fact that it seems like an interesting topic of conversation to many people I have encountered. I’ve heard the “What are you?” question lots of times. I’ve also developed a pretty standard response to the incredulous statement, “You don’t look Mexican” (usually I just laugh it off and say, “That’s what people tell me” to avoid confrontation).
It seems that I don’t jibe with whatever preconceived notions people have about what Mexicans are “supposed” to look like. This causes them distress, which then provokes the aforementioned conversations. It’s the “What’s your race” game.
So, I’ve been asked by other Latinos, if it’s so much trouble to “prove” to people that I’m Latina, why not just say I’m white? Other Latinos have expressed to me that the idea of passing is appealing to them, but it holds no mystique for me. It certainly would be a lot easier, and we all know that we live in a society where being white bestows you with privilege — all I would have to do is to pretend to be somebody else, and mispronounce my own name.
Read more here.
Fatigue: Why do I always have to explain why race matters?
From Latinopia August 26, 2012:
Lately, I’ve grown tired of trying talking about race to people who don’t think it’s important. It’s not that I’ve changed my mind, that I no longer think race is an important topic of conversation, but I’m kind of wary of being categorized as crazy or extreme because I keep emphasizing that race factors into a lot of important aspects of our society.
I always get the “Why do you always have to talk about race?” question. Or the “Whoa, no one said anything about race” admonition.
The fact of the matter is that, even in a country with an historic presidency where race is at the forefront of our daily conversation about who we are, race is still not a comfortable topic in this country. As a matter of fact, I wager that in most places you can’t even get to the point where you even have conversation about race before getting shut down — and even if you do, it’s bound to become either a shouting match or a blame game. And I’m certainly not interested in either.
Read more here.
Abuela, Change of Plans
From MiSoulLatino on August 6, 2012:
“¿M’ija, no tienes novio?”
This is usually the first, or the second question that my grandmother asks me every time I see her. However, when my grandfather was still alive (qué en paz descanse), he would dally a bit longer before he asked me the question. Usually he would tell me a story or two, and try to wind his own experiences into a good reason why I should think about settling down. The moral of the story was that I would be safer and happier if I could find a man to take care of me.
I am now flirting with 30, and I’m neither married nor have I borne children. I do, however, have a small collection of plants.
As I get older, the values and expectations of my grandparents increasingly weigh on me. I love and respect them and want them to be proud of me, but I don’t feel like I can make the sacrifices to fulfill their expectations. Yet, the idea that I should be married with children — that I should be someone’s wife, that my life should revolve around the needs of others — pop up in my thoughts more often then ever before.
Read more here.