The Whole Star

 

According to a 2009 Associated Press article, about 1 in 13 marriages are mixed race, with the most prevalent being white-Hispanic, white-American Indian and white-Asian.

Multiracial Latinos have the option of being a Latino — buffet style. They take those aspects of the culture they like and identify with and claim them as their own; others they disregard.

Guilt trips used by organizations or their peers to get them to join their “Latino” causes/groups don’t work very well, especially if that multiracial completely rejects the Latino side of him/herself in favor of the other “half.”

This “independence” from the main group can wreak havoc on any potential Latino voting bloc. It means that, as a community, the Latino population has to create ways to acknowledge the multiracial Latino and do a better job of including multiracials into the fold and endorse their sense of mixed identity, knowing that in the voter’s booth it’s one identity that will win out when choosing candidates.

“The significance of race as we know it in today’s legal and government categories will be obsolete in less than 20 years,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution.

“The rise of mixed-race voters will dilute the racial identity politics that have become prevalent in past elections,” he said.

And when it comes to negotiating demands for votes, that may prove to be harder and harder to deliver on.

 

Marisa Treviño is Publisher of LatinaLista and President of Treviño TodaMedia, LLC

www.latinalista.net

If anybody thinks that laws like the one recently signed in Arizona targeting undocumented immigrants is something solely born out of local citizens’ frustrations with border violence — then, think again!

These laws or bills making their way around the various state legislatures usually can be traced back to one source, and it’s a source that doesn’t even live in that state.

For example, the punitive Arizona law going after undocumented immigrants claims it’s doing so as a measure of keeping the borders safe and combating border violence. Newsflash: Violence is not up on the Arizona border.

FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line. Statewide, rates of violent crime also are down.

But that doesn’t matter to people like Kris Kobach, a Kansas attorney who helped Arizona legislators draft SB 1070 and has plans on helping other state legislators do the same.

In his “misguided” attempts to right the wrongs of 9/11, when at the time he worked with former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Kobach has exhibited tunnel vision when it comes to eradicating the presence of undocumented immigrants.

The problem with Kobach’s vision is that he can’t see the bigger picture, nor does he seem to care, of how legal Latino immigrants and citizens are caught up in the dragnet of enforcement as well.

Unfortunately, he’s not alone.

There has long been another man who has been even more determined as Korbach to reduce the presence of people of color in this country.

His name is John Tanton and his background is really pretty remarkable in that a guy who literally came out of nowhere to gain influence after creating several different organizations identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being hate groups.

The element that is not widely known is the role these groups have in influencing the kind of racially charged legislation making state rounds. Because it’s important to know this background and understand that this kind of racism doesn’t just bubble up out of frustration with nonexistent border violence, the following video gives the kind of background information most people don’t even realize.

While it’s easy to ignore or dismiss this explanation, at the least, it must be considered when seriously analyzing the plethora of anti-immigrant legislation being introduced and/or hinted at for introduction across the nation’s state capitols.

It’s a backstory that everyone needs to know and understand and then make up their own minds as to: Is it the right thing to do?

Marisa Trevino is Publisher of LatinaLista and President of Trevino TodaMedia, LLC

www.latinalista.net

EDITOR’S NOTE: These remarks were made at the Texas Observer Writers’ Festival on May 8, 2010. We hope this will be the beginning of a continued dialogue on creating a more inclusive Texas:

I wrote a pair of breezy little novels: Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz, which came out last year, and Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over which comes out in July. But I am relinquishing my book-talk time to offer this short editorial about the creation of this panel:

I want to be heard. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but being heard goes a long way toward healing long-held wounds inflicted by injustice, indifference, and silence. That is why I commend The Texas Observer and the organizers of this festival for making this last minute addition to their Texas Writers’ Festival.

When it was pointed out to them that their roster of writers was missing something—namely writers who come from that whopping portion of Texans who are Latino, African, Native, and Asian Americans—not to mention an increasingly international population—their response was to try and make things right. They asked and I agreed to help assemble this panel. Impressive, since the response could have been:

Stone cold silence—which many critics under similar circumstances have experienced from publications like Texas Monthly—

~Or~

They could have simply changed the name of this event to a “Celebration of White Texas Writers.

No. They chose to actively make good on their stated mission to be progressive and inclusive. That there was such a volatile, passionate response to the Observer’s error of omission speaks to the tenderness of old, but still fresh wounds. But make no mistake: the ground is changing beneath all of us. No one is the ultimate authority on the Texas narrative. Indeed, there are voices that have been ignored, either by design or cluelessness, but that simply cannot continue. The world is rapidly becoming more global and inter-dependent. Ready, or not.

I think this paraphrase of Henry James is useful: “The house of fiction has not one window, but a number of windows…from these apertures, writers view the world. Other writers in other windows may be looking out onto the same world, but never quite with the same perspective and definitely not with the experiences you might expect.

I’m a Mexican from Nebraska. As big and brown and loud as I am, you think I don’t have something to say!?

The pent-up anger that precipitated the creation of this panel is going to spew for a while. It’s unavoidable and necessary. The Pandora’s Box has been opened. Frankly, I have no problem using my foot to stop the box from snapping shut again. But it’s equally important to imagine: how do we make this energy transformative.

Believe it or not, The Texas Observer does not have a shingle placed outside their door that says, “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.” On the contrary, while the change in their pages has not come swiftly enough for some, they are actively seeking ways to broaden their base, the diversity of their bylines, the breadth of their content, and their subscriber base. It’s time we heard about what it means to be a “real Texan” from a Palestinian living in the Golden Triangle, an African American living in the Panhandle, an Asian American living in Laredo, an Iranian living in Dallas, and yes, a Chicana living in Austin.

In that spirit, I offer to Bob Moser and his staff: a working list of Latino, African, and Asian American writers to approach as paid contributors to the magazine, as a means to effect tangible change at The Texas Observer beyond the creation of one, 40 minute panel.

[Hand Bob Moser the list attached to a jar of jelly]

Now, you may be thinking: why is she giving him a jar of jelly? Well, this is in reference to that oft quoted father of Texana progressivism, Ralph Yarborough who said: “Let’s put the jam on the lower shelf so the little folks can get it.”

Yeah. In case you all haven’t noticed, the shelf has been knocked over, the “folks” aren’t so “folksy” or “little,” and I, for one, have never been a fan of jam. Perhaps we can symbolically bury this with the understanding that if The Observer is truly intent on “observing Texas,” and becoming a beacon of progressive, intellectual thought by and for all Texans, it must commit to change. Now. I, for one, will participate in the conversation even when it’s searingly uncomfortable. I’m done throwing rocks and ducking chingazos. Ándale, pues: Let’s get to it.

 

*The quote, verbatim is: “Put the jam on the bottom shelf so the little man can reach it.”