Hispanic Voters

This is my first time doing this but it's something that's irked me for some time. This could be much ado about nothing, but I had to get it out.

This is my open letter to the MSM and others.

Dear MSM,

I am a 1st Generation American born of Dominican immigrants.  I am what people outside your world considers "Hispanic" or "Latino"...I actually prefer Hispanic if you need to give me a label, BTW.

I would like to point out to you that I am not a Mexican or an American born of Mexican parents, but an American from Dominican parents.  Now that that's out of the way.  The Dominican Republic is a small country on the island of Hispanola which is located in the Caribbean and Mexico just South of the US of America....that's for you Laurie Dhue and Chris Matthews of the world. By the way Chris, was your groping of Ellen Degeneres really necessary?  In Corporate America that is considered Sexual Harrassment and grounds for immediate termination.

Anyways, I'm here to inform you, as shocking as it may sound that Hispanic does not mean Mexican.  Most of the MSM seems to believe or imply that Hispanic means being Mexican and it most certainly does not.  Hispanics come from many countries such as: Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, Honduras, Spain, Cuba, many other countries and yes Mexico too.

Yet, when the talking heads of the MSM talks about Hispanics they're usually talking about them in California or Texas and the right leaning Cubans in Florida. What about the predominant Dominican/Colombian/Puerto Rican/Mexican populations in NY/NJ/CT/MA? Do we just not count as part of the "Hispanic Vote"?  Is it only CA/FL/TX that has a Hispanic Vote? No it does not.  The tri-state area here on the East Coast has a pretty big Hispanic population and can swing just as easily swing a race for candidate A or candidate B.

Now, I ask you talking heads that when you speak of let's say California that you maybe use a hyphen.  For example try saying "the mostly Mexican-Hispanic vote" in California or "the heavy Cuban-Hispanic vote" in Florida.  This may also help people and Politicians understand the different and differences between a Mexican-American and say a Colombian-American or a Cuban-American.  We have many different issues and different priorities.  For example: for Mexican-Americans it's mainly immigration, for Cuban-Americans it's Foreign Policy in regards to Cuba/Castro, for Dominican-Americans it's Education and also Immigration.  

In closing I would ask again that you try to distinguish the specific sub-groups within the Hispanic demographic instead of using a one-size fits all.  Then, in no time Non-Hispanics can finally understand the unwavering, unflinching and dangerously addictive love affair with "tele-novelas" & Sabado Gigante that some of us have.  Me?  I'm kinda partial to The Shield and LOST.

Buenas Noches

Ready for Change!

•  Put up a tip jar...

  you'll get some feedback, and having a diary with zero comments is just depressing.

  by gracchus on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 02:24:20 AM PDT

  •  Gracias and yes

    you make a very important points about the stupidity of categories used like "Hispanic" or "Latino" as if that is some sort of solid block, culturally.

    Will point out however that the same type of thing is done all the time with all groups.  We hear so much discussion in the news, and by the government about "white women" or "black males" or "the youth" as if these categories are immutable.  

    Unfortunately, we are locked into a social science quantitative methodology of data collection, that simply reduces people to broad categories based on socially constructed variables of things termed "race" or "ethnicity" or "gender".  

    Wikipedia cites US Census data

    Dominican Americans are now one of the largest Hispanic groups in the United States; less numerous than the Mexican American majority and Puerto Ricans, and out numbering Cuban Americans. Currently the largest concentrations of Dominican Americans are in New York (659,962), Florida (136,891), and New Jersey (167,689) out of an estimated total Dominican American population of 1,217,225  

    and currently Dominicanos are the largest "foreign born" population in New York.  Puerto Ricans are not counted as foreign born, since it is a colony (my term) of the US and Puerto Ricans are US citizens, though only those living on the mainland can vote for the President.

    Most of my students at a state university here in NY who are classified as "Hispanic" are Dominican. We had a discussion about this issue last week in class.  They also pointed out that they were offended by assumptions made about their votes. They voted for Obama, with one exception; a republican.   We had a laugh about it, when one young woman pointed out "he looks Dominican".  
    Conidering the fact that Dominicans self-identify in survey data as white, indian and black (given the origins of the islands inhabitants from a mixture of  European, Taino (indigenous) and West and Central African cultures, this is not surprising.

    Btw, I don't think it is even possible to classify groups like "Mexican-Americans" as some type of monolith.

    Some families in California, and parts of the southwest have been here since before those areas were part of the US.  Their issues are not necessarily immigration.  As an interesting sidebar piece of history, the city of Los Angeles was founded by a mixed group of about 50 settlers from Mexico - classed as black, "mulatto" "meztizo" indian and 2 Spaniards.

    I'm pleased to observe that many more Dominican-Americans are becoming engaged in local politics.  Much of the focus of the older generation was on events back in the DR.  As there are more and more first and second generation Dominican-Americans, that is shifting, and hopefully there will be more Dominican-American elected officials.  Currently there are none in Congress.

    Wikipedia lists currently:

    Rolando Acosta, judge at the New York Supreme Court
    Francisco Batista, Haverstraw Village, New York Deputy Mayor
    Marcos Devers, first Dominican American to execute the role of mayor in the United States, former Acting Mayor and Councilman of Lawrence, Massachusetts
    Grace Diaz, Rhode Island House of Representatives (first Dominican-American female to be elected to a state legislature in the United States)
    Adriano Espaillat, New York State Assemblyman (first Dominican-American to be elected to a state legislature in the United States)
    Julio Guridy, Allentown Councilman
    William Lantigua, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
    Guillermo Linares, first Dominican-American elected in the United States, former New York City Councilman
    Miguel Luna, Councilman for city of Providence, Rhode Island
    Miguel Martinez, New York City Councilman
    Joseline Pena-Melnyk, member of the Maryland General Assembly
    Juan Pichardo[1], Rhode Island State Senator (first Dominican-American to be elected State Senator in the United States)
    Diana Reyna, New York City councilwoman (first Dominican-American woman elected in New York City)
    Tilo Rivas, Union City, NJ Commissioner of Public Affairs and Hudson County Freeholder
    Rigo Rodriguez, Paterson, New Jersey Councilman
    Cris Mendoza, Bladensburg, Maryland Councilman
    Manuel Segura, Trenton, New Jersey Councilman
    Luis Leon Tejada, Councilman for city of Providence, Rhode Island
    Vivian Viloria-Fisher, Suffolk County Legislator (first Dominican-American woman elected in New York State
     

    Don't have any data about what percentage are Democrats, Republicans or Indies.  Will try to dig that up.

    by Deoliver47 on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 05:16:44 AM PDT

    •  Thanks, but not my diary.

      I put up my message as an alert to the diarist.

      by gracchus on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 07:03:47 AM PDT

    •  Hispanics vote about 2 1/2 to 1 for Democrats.

      According to Pew.

      Democrats have a solid hold on Hispanic registered voters. Some 49% identify themselves as Democrats, compared to merely 20% who say they are Republican. In contrast, whites identify as Republicans by a 37%-24% advantage.

      by immigradvocate on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 09:44:25 PM PDT

•  Awesome, thank you!

  by Hope Monger on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 05:27:21 AM PDT

•  yes, foolish to lump all 'hispanics' together

  by Zacapoet on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 07:17:49 AM PDT

•  Tip Jar

  Sorry...I was pretty nervous as I wrote this and was staring at the OK button for almost 15 Minutes.

  by DRStarks on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:36:26 AM PDT

•  Great Diary.

  And there are large communities of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Brazilians and other Latinos in the North East. And the Latino community is a big reason that the North East will vote blue in November.

  by immigradvocate on Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 09:36:03 PM PDT

  •  Are Brazilians Latinos?

    OK, sounds stupid.... but technically Latinos/Hispanics come from countries that speak Spanish, whereas Brazil, of course, has Portuguese as its main language.  And, I believe, got a lot of its European immigrants from Portugal

    by plf515 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 05:18:53 AM PDT

    •  Latinos

      technically covers Brazil - since Portuguese is a language rooted in Latin. Hispanic obviously does not.  But you raise a good point.

      Brazilians are usually pretty annoyed when referred to as "Hispanics", and more annoyed when people assume they speak Spanish.  

      Brazil has a large immigrant community from Italy - 25 million.

      Also has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.

      It is also the 2nd largest "black" (Afro-descended) country in the world.  Nigeria has the largest black population.

      by Deoliver47 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 07:41:29 AM PDT

      •  Well, then Latinos would cover

        the French, Italians, Romanians.....

        by plf515 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 08:04:06 AM PDT

        •  well it does sometimes

          we have the whole stereotype in Europe of the "latin" lover (Italians), Brits view the French in a similar way.

          But it is really a conflation of "Latin America" - read - "anything south of us", which when you examine it doesn't quite fit all of the countries in South America - nor does it fit the Caribbean - which includes former colonies of the British, French, Spanish, Dutch and Danes.

          by Deoliver47 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 08:58:39 AM PDT

        •  Latino means someone from Latin America, that

          speaks a latin based language. Not Europeans that speak latin based languages. People from Spain and Portugal are not Latinos. Brazilians are definitely Latin Americans and can be called latinos.

          by immigradvocate on Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:47:02 AM PDT

      •  Yes and No

        Brazilians are usually lumped into the Hispanic groupo but it's a "gray" area.  They are kinda considered to be "cousins" of the Hispanic group and most of us consider them to be part of the big extended family.

        But don't ever tell someone from Brazil and Portugal that they Hispanic/Latino.  Most find it pretty offensive.

        by DRStarks on Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 06:52:29 AM PDT

        •  But like DeOliveira says, Brazilians don't

          consider themselves hispanics.

          by immigradvocate on Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 11:50:04 AM PDT

•  I'm glad you wrote this

  A few of us have pointed this out here in comments in the past.  It also goes for the "european", "african", "middle eastern" and "asian" groupings as well, a lot of people just don't understand that there are very many different cultures and nationalities within those groups with varying interests.  Some of those interests in opposition to each other.  It's an ignorant way, one doomed to fail, to try and get votes.

  Mexican-American is another name that drives me nuts.  I mean, Mexico is in America, in North America even, so everyone in Mexico itself is a "Mexican-American".  I guess I am sensitive to that because I worked in Latin America training Latin Americans (or Central and South America if you prefer).  In cross-cultural communications, it is a big faux pas to refer to yourself as an American and not refer to your counterparts as American, too.

  So I just went with gringo, it made it easier with a good sense of self-depreciating humor.

  by Jeffersonian Democrat on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 01:42:14 AM PDT

  •  "Gringo"

    is definitely less of a mouthful than "Estadounidense" when in that context.

    by bythesea on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 02:22:00 AM PDT

  •  Agree

    "American" is something we "United Statesians" think we have a patent on.  

    by Deoliver47 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 07:45:47 AM PDT

•  Well, all the census' race/ethnicity categories

  are rather bogus.

  Let's see:
  White
  Black/African-American
  Asian
  Native American/Alaskan Native
  Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander

  and, then, of course, anyone can be Hispanic/Latino.

  So...."Asian" gets a category.  That covers quite a lot of ground!  I mean, Asia includes India and China and Japan...and Israel and Iran and Saudi Arabia.  One group.  About half the world lives in Asia.  

  but you write about Hispanic/Latino.  My favorite bits of nonsense there are that people from Spain are Latino...and so are people whose ancestors immigrated from Spain, including the Sephardim.

  And, of course, all these voters vote in blocs, right?  Yeah.  Sure.  

  by plf515 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 05:15:59 AM PDT

  •  ethnic and racial boxes

    shift and change over time, and reflect social constructions based on power and hierarchy.  

    I no longer play the game, and when surveyed about my "race" and "ethnicity" I check all the boxes on a form, since they never give me the option to select "human".

    by Deoliver47 on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 07:51:48 AM PDT

  •  Racial-ethnicc categories are all arbitrary

    Perhaps the best discussion about the meaning of "Latino" is at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/...
    It means mostly "from Latin-America" and not necessarily "speaker of a Latin-origin language."

    Latino in the US, I may add, was adopted by that main "categorizer" of people, the US government, after consistent usage and pressure from political groups and social scientists.  Like all social categorizations Latino is an imperfect word, but it is a reaction to the use of 'Hispanic' to lump peoples who are nowadays, not only independent from Spain,  but resent being described as "from Spain."
    As described in the wikipedia article, still some groups resent the term Latino also, because still, it lumps people into artificail categories.

    More than anything, the adoption of Latino is a political gesture.

    Finally, let me add that, in the vein of Thomas and Znaniecki (hoping I get the spelling right) even though racial-ethnic categorizations are "social constructions" (as pointed out in the comment below by Deoliver47) that is, they are labels, categories and concepts made up by people according to a given historical context (as well as in a power context), and are thus shifting and changeable, we cannot just ignore them because they are "real" in their consequences. This is especially true for the US, although categorizations of race are not exclusive to the US and are very common in Latin-American countries.

    by Mangrove Blues on Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 10:09:47 AM PDT