TedX Miami Showcases the Best of the Magic City

You want this lanyard, trust me.

TedX Miami outdid itself from last year’s already extraordinary first attempt. Held at the New World Symphony’s new campus, the event brought together nine outstanding speakers from all walks of life who are based in or vested in Miami.

The theme was Between the Lines, which is often where so many dynamic ideas begin.

Every speaker hit a raw chord -- literally, as in the case of the musical presentations – but also figuratively, giving us opportunities to think hard about the potential we all have to come up with positive, life-changing ideas. Every talk moved, inspired and provoked. Sometimes, the audience laughed and I'm fairly certain that in a few cases, there probably wasn't a dry eye in the full house, either.

This is one of the sentences I jotted down last night in my notebook: “The only way I can describe this TedX event is ‘breathtaking’ and it leaves me without words.”

So, I’m just going to give you a brief recap of each talk. But honestly? That can't even begin to do justice to all the profound thoughts that were shared. When you’re done reading, you’ll see why this was so kick-ass awesome and why there's so much more to Miami than meets the eye.

Attendees waiting for doors to open at the Frank Gehry building, the best thing to happen to Miami Beach since Columbus discovered America.

• Bestselling novelist Brad Meltzer begged the question of writing one’s own obituary. You don’t get to write your own obituary, but you do get to have a lasting impact. Your legacy isn’t just about children but about the people you influence in your life. Meltzer brought up the example of Jumbo’s restaurant in Liberty City. Founded in 1955, the restaurant hired black employees during segregation.

• Mathematics, computer and engineering super geek Scott Rickard asked if it was mathematically possible to write music without repetition and patterns. (Repetition is "key" to enjoyment. Think about it: you enjoy music because you know what's coming next.) A short piano piece called the Perfect Ping was performed and though it had no repetition, I dare say I think it’s impossible for the human ear not to seek it out. We are so wired that way.

• The absolutely lovely former fashion designer and now jewelry maker Barbara Devries spoke of Plastic is Forever. One day, she started picking up pieces of plastic debris on Eleuthera’s beaches -- random objects washed out by the hot sun and salty sea. Out of this hobby came not only beautiful jewelry, but also an entrepreneurial program for children in the Bahamas. Ironically, the kids actually sell jewelry to cruise ship guests – the cruise industry being one of the greatest polluters of Caribbean waters. De Vries wants her idea to be copied as there is enough plastic jetsam out there in the world for many more mini-entrepreneurial empires. Something to ponder: how many times a day do you come in contact with plastic?

• Dennis Scholl, Vice President of Arts at the Knight Foundation, spoke of Random Acts of Culture. This is a hell of a fun program. Imagine sitting at a food court in a mall minding your own business when suddenly Joe Schmoe sitting next you gets up and starts belting out opera. Actually, something similar happened last night in the audience as well, catching us by surprise with a rousing performance of Toreador from Bizet's Carmen, full female chorus included.

• My friend and brilliant artist Hugh Macleod exhibited some of his work in the hallway upstairs. The drawings were from the main TED Global conference at Edinburg earlier this year, part of a Dewar's scotch whisky series. (Very smart of Dewar's to sponsor TedxMia by the way. Scotch is sexy and smart.)

• TedX is a forward thinking event and the venue was perfect; the philosophy at New World is aligned. Talk about an idea worth spreading -- it's all about technology and universal access to music and music education. Bill Williams, Dean of Musicians at the New World Symphony, spoke on the subject. I’m just going to quote him: “We are sitting at the intersection of music, architectural beauty, technology and design, connecting musicians from around the world.”

(A personal note here: I used to write art and technology grants for the symphony and I saw this idea grow from seed to its current manifestation. I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled I was to be in this hall.)

• I fell in love Felecia Hatcher from Feverish Ice Cream. She and her husband make gourmet popsicles from local fruit but it’s her kid’s entrepreneurial program (not unlike the one mentioned above) that really stood out. They have taught 20 kids in South Florida how to create and manage a popsicle truck business –- everything from picking strawberries to marketing in their own communities. That’s something very tasty -- ice cream with a cause.

• Colin Foord of Coral Morphologic discussed two hybrid corals growing, nay, thriving, at the mouth of Government Cut – two true South Beach beauties. An imminent dredging program is threatening the organisms. This is serious science stuff, folks. The corals are exceedingly rare, proving that adaptation is possible is an urban waterway and further study could help revive dead coral colonies in different bodies of water. Find a great article on the subject at Beached Miami.

• Did I say I was in love already? I was absolutely smitten with Shelly Baer, a luminous beauty who grew up with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Her condition is visible in her hands and in her limping walk, but honestly, if you see her real beauty, you can’t tell. My heart sank when she said: “I never looked into a full-length mirror until I was in my early 30s.” Baer was part of a show called Raw Beauty that exhibited in Miami a while back and featured women with disabilities. It was all about breaking stereotypes. “Beauty is in the flaws,” Baer told us with refreshing candor. In a city where plastic surgery is a lifestyle for some, hearing those words was like a breath of fresh air.

• Last but not least, Barrington Irving regaled us on how he broke a world record by flying around the world in an airplane he put together -- not just with mechanical parts -- but with some seriously gutsy grit. He's the youngest person and first black pilot ever to accomplish the amazing feat. Barrington then founded Experience Aviation in Miami, which brings math and science education to kids through a flying simulation classroom, among other programs.

WHAT IS TED?

Well, it's exactly what you just read. An evening of great ideas and inspiration and the best fifty bucks you'll ever spend in this town. But fyi: TED is a non-profit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It all started in California 25 years ago. There are global conferences but the “x” offshoots are local, self-organized events designed to get people thinking about great ideas and how they impact community. TedXMia is a high-caliber grassroots effort, requiring devotion and hard work from many curators and volunteers.

Want more? TedXYouthCushman takes place on November 20 with kids sharing their own great ideas. The next TEDxMIA event is December 16 at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Tickets go on sale next week. I suggest you nab one right away; Between the Lines event sold out a month ahead of time. Videos from last night's event will be available to view on YouTube in the coming weeks. Find details about it all at the TedxMiami website.

Seen from a distance . . . Notes on 9/11 pop

A satellite view of Manhattan on September 11, 2001.

I still remember my shock ten years ago, when I first saw on television the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center into a rising column of dust.

"Strange," I thought to myself. "That looks a lot like a controlled demolition . . ."

Of course I was reeling from several earlier shocks that day, much like the rest of the country.  I had already fled the Prudential Tower - where I worked at the time - as the news spread of the attacks in New York and D.C.  (The twin towers actually fell while I was in transit.)  And I hadn't yet recovered from the stunned sense of dislocation that had fallen over me when I heard of the second impact in Manhattan (the first had seemed like some bizarre, inexplicable accident - it was word of the second that made the full, utterly unexpected horror open up before you).

Still, out of all the sensations of that fateful day, that odd little frisson I experienced before my TV may have hung with me the longest. And seen from a distance, it seems almost like a harbinger of an emotional response that would only build over the ensuing years.  It was the first time I would feel a disturbing little ping of doubt about 9/11, a mental whisper that maybe I didn't understand what was really going on.


I soon discovered I wasn't alone in that feeling.  But before you write in - this post isn't meant as a call-to-arms for some particular conspiracy theory. I don't doubt that hijackers from al-Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center (and the Pentagon) - and I certainly have no way of determining precisely what brought down the three structures that collapsed in lower Manhattan that day. I have a degree in architecture, and have taken courses in structural design - but I'm definitely no demolition expert! And I've read the many articles - and watched the NOVA programs on public TV - debunking the claims of all those 9/11 "truthers," some of them clearly madmen (but some of them clearly not).  The official story regarding the collapse of the towers - basically that their unusual structural systems made them especially vulnerable to the impacts they sustained - is entirely possible.  Even plausible.

But I would have sworn that the odds of three concrete-and-reinforced-steel buildings (with two different structural systems, no less) collapsing in precisely the same way - in a matter of seconds, nearly symmetrically, and almost entirely within their own footprints - were roughly equal to the odds of a monkey jumping on a typewriter and pounding out Hamlet.   Indeed, engineers train for years to pull off the kind of demolition that the World Trade Center towers managed spontaneously, three times in a row.

And yet what could be the alternative explanation for their collapse?  Dark conspiracies, with men in black planting nano-thermite in the towers without attracting any notice?  Cruise missiles, special forces, particle beams and holograms?  The 9-11 "truthers" have proposed them all.  And they're all crazy explanations.  Just as crazy as three skyscrapers neatly collapsing into their own footprints.

So I'm not here to join arms with the "truthers" in their struggle.  But I am here to suggest that some deep sense of uncertainty - the feeling that what we can see with our own eyes doesn't match the official story, and at the same time all the interpretive choices available to us are impossible - is the real cultural legacy of 9/11.  History in the end is always a secret, I know - and America has always been crazy; but sometimes I think 9/11 brought that secret madness to a whole new level.

For the narrative of the disaster soon became unstable in many other ways, even as a mythically sentimental retelling of that fateful day was fashioned by the administration and the media.   The President, his relatives and associates were clearly tied in all sorts of clandestine ways to the Saudi royal family (who were essentially the source of the catastrophe), and the timeline of what his administration knew about the impending attack - and when they knew it - grew ever murkier, but steadily more incriminating.  And soon wars had been launched under false pretenses, an archipelago of secret prisons had been established, deniable torture had become routine within the military and the CIA, and a huge security state had taken shape to monitor American citizens - all while the public was being frightened almost routinely by "terror alerts."  At the same time, perhaps tellingly, investigations into the actual events of 9/11 were delayed, obstructed, and only partially completed.

The word that kind of sums up America after 9/11.

The nation, in short, was transformed; probably our very identity had undergone a deep change.  Or had it?  Even that in some ways seemed unclear . . . we were in some terrible new era, we often announced, and yet at the same time everything remained pretty much the same - and we were determined to keep it that way.  Thus we resolutely refused to face the context of al-Qaeda's attacks; we assumed we had the right to prop up one regime in the Middle East, then oust another, with impunity - and with no repercussions; instead of interpreting 9-11 as a horrifying (but not unforeseeable) outcome of our interference in a volatile region, we construed it as an attack on modernity itself, on democracy, on our way of life.

Yet at the same time - despite the epic proportions of the hypothetical conflict we had conjured - the war on terror began to feel almost virtual.  We launched our various invasions on a borrowed dime - we wouldn't actually tax ourselves to pay for our own protection; and we certainly wouldn't let our own children be drafted to fight! It soon came out that we weren't even supplying proper body armor to those who did volunteer for duty - as it was likewise revealed that the first responders at the toxic Ground Zero site had to battle for medical coverage once they were struck by cancers and disabilities. Even as we thundered about our moral responsibilities, we constantly tried to evade them.  We both were and were not at war; our response to the 9/11 catastrophe became as unstable as its back story.

In the meantime, irony returned to the discourse, and Saturday Night Live came back on the air; superficially things went back to normal.  But simultaneously some sort of deep contradiction became embedded in the way we thought  about the world, and ourselves.  You could read this most clearly on television: crime investigation became a mania in prime time, with the "truth" always being shaken out of a situation with the help of the latest technology.  Doubt and uncertainty were reliably banished, often two or three times a night.  Meanwhile, on 24, Jack Bauer always stopped the ticking clock before disaster struck, even if it meant torturing somebody to do it.  The towers never fell, and nothing struck the Pentagon, over and over again, week after week.

But elsewhere there were signs the culture was ill at ease with its own modes of denial; the big hit on network TV was the bizarre Lost (a telling cultural title if ever there was one!), in which the basic conceit of the series was that the basic conceit of the series could never be determined; the truth about its premise (which revolved, of course, around a plane crash) morphed from season to season, and was basically unknowable.

A wild but meaningless ride in The Dark Knight.

Things were even bleaker at the movies, where narrators became unreliable, and plots indecipherable -  the decade's monster hit, The Dark Knight, which millions declared a masterpiece, posited a villain with no real motive for his mayhem - and a story of seeming corruption and vengeance shorn of any explanatory detail. Meanwhile torture porn became the hot new trend, with psychopaths who were unstoppable; indeed, serial killers became the heroes of their franchises (as in the Saw series at the movies, or Dexter on TV).  The Bush administration may have denied that it was involved in torture, but Hollywood answered back that it was - and that we were all the happier for it.

Compare this grotesque malaise to the sturdy optimism of the early 40's, when a united nation truly went to war.  The contrast is more than striking - it's stunning.  Indeed, the only real parallel to post-9/11 pop I can think of is the rise of film noir  - which drew its cynical power from the unspoken suspicion that the "Good War" had ended in shameful compromise, with half of Europe left behind the Iron Curtain, and former Nazis back in positions of influence and power.  (Tellingly, the same noir-ish sensibility flourished again, briefly, after Watergate.)

A victim - who becomes a killer - in the $600 million franchise Saw.

Film noir, however, was essentially about a moral fall - there's always a sense in its corrupt milieu that something valuable has been lost, something the hero would give anything to save, if only he could.  But again by way of contrast, millennial culture is smugly self-justifying, and naively utilitarian; its moral corruption is simply the new dispensation - torture is just what we have to do to save the mall! Why can't the liberals understand that?

But then again, how could things be otherwise when nothing is what it seems, and all the power plays occur in secret, and no one knows who is really pulling the strings?  How can a moral compass take its bearings without a map of reality?  Indeed, can morality even exist without some stable historical locus to anchor it?  Arguably not.

And so the country has taken a cultural turn into what I think can only be described as a collective neurosis of a very high order.  Paranoid conspiracy theories thrive on the Web - yet a kind of willful Know-Nothingism prevails above-ground, in the mainstream media.   Our low culture bluntly channels our anxious cruelty, while our high culture (especially our theatre) has become pre-occupied with prejudice, and past miscarriages of justice - except, it's worth noting, when it comes to Muslims. Indeed, while everyone has been worshipping at the altar of Martin Luther King, the federal government has practically lynched a series of Arab citizens in plain sight, locking them up for life over trumped-up terrorism charges; our theatre, ironically enough, is too busy wringing its hands over past crimes to notice the new atrocities occurring right under its nose.

I might feel differently about all this, of course, if the current coverage of the 9/11 anniversary wasn't merely one long sad sympathy card, but instead included some analysis of our involvement (then and now) with the Middle East.  Or a skeptical account of the Bush administration.  Or anything at all that actually tried to get to the bottom of this strange, eventful history.

Hell, I'd even settle for a program that took a good look at what I'll call, for the moment, 9/11 culture - or even 9/11 pop. A program, or article, or essay, that looked at Saw, for example.  Or 24.  Or Lost.  And then tried to interpret what 9/11 did to America.

Miami's Aviation History

An article about Cubana Airlines' "Tropicana Special" flight from Miami to Havana in Cabaret Magazine, 1957.

There was a time in Miami when the party wasn't in South Beach but in Havana. You certainly didn't have to wait until you landed in Cuba to get your drink on. The party started on the flight, with live music, a floor show and the appeal of the exotic when mojito wasn't a mainstream word on the U.S. mainland.

Things would change regarding flights to Cuba, of course, but Miami would continue to grow as a main airway hub for the Americas. Today, Miami International is the country's second largest airport by volume of international passengers.

Miami played an important role in aviation history as far back as 1911 when Miamians witnessed the first ever flight over its sunny skies. Future major Everest Sewell and aviator Howard Gill flew over golf courses on a Wright Brothers winged biplane, much to the amazement of those city dwellers who had never seen an aircraft. Over the decades, Miami would be home to aviation training and host to sky-bound celebrities.

The new exhibit at History Miami museum puts it all on display for you, chock full of interesting tidbits for Miami trivia fans.

Here are just a few that caught my eye:

• Burdine's flew gowns to Miami from New York on the first air mail route connecting both cities. (For you spring chickens out there, Burdine's was the original Miami department store, brought out by Macy's.)
• Amelia Earhart began one of her around-the-world flights in Miami so that Pan Am's mechanics, reputed to be some of the best in the world, could inspect her plane.
• The Pan-American Field had the first modern passenger terminal in the United States.
  
• Many female instructors took over Embry-Riddle's aviation classrooms during World War II.
• Charles Lindbergh flew several inaugural flights between Miami and Latin America.

The exhibit dig deep into more history including the rash of hijacking incidents in the 70's related to strained relationships between the U.S. and Cuba -- a far cry from that pre-revolutionary "nightclub in the sky." What with flight restrictions to the island easing up this year, it's still doubtful flying to Cuba will ever be a party.

Flying just isn't as pleasurable as it used to be, no matter what the destination. An exhibit panel on Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 terrorist who trained in a Florida flight school, offers a grim reminder.

Aviation in Miami: The First 100 Years is on display until July 22, 2012 and features lectures and films. The exhibit is free on Wine Down Wednesdays (first Wednesdays of most months). For more details, visit History Miami.

Explore Florida's Art Without Leaving Miami

Dance of the Whooping Cranes by N. C. Wyeth. Just one of many paintings on exhibit at History Miami through May 15.

I've been taking a Florida history class once a week since January with Dr. Paul George at Miami-Dade College. Only this week did we begin to get into the 19th century, when Spain sold Florida to the United States for a cool $5 million in 1819. (Compare that to today's luxury real estate prices.)

Coincidentally, History Miami launched an art exhibit about two weeks ago highlighting the periods we're going to be studying for the rest of the course.

Reflections: Paintings of Florida 1865-1965 displays 69 paintings from the collection of Cici and Hyatt Brown, collectors who are passionate about Florida art. The collection focuses on Florida's natural beauty and rural life before the post-World War II construction booms and is the largest private collection of its kind in the world today.

My favorite paintings were the one depicting natural landscapes -- the kind you might see today if you go off the beaten path into the forests, swamps, lakes and rivers of the state -- any place untouched by development. St. Augustine was also well represented with street and maritime scenes. Portraits of native Floridians and pioneering African-Americans hung among the depictions of the land.

What's important about this collection is that it captures the Florida School of Art and features many renown painters who lived in the state and were inspired by its culture and beauty. Today, it's so easy to get caught up in everything that's wrong about Florida and find no inspiration here. Exhibits like this put things into perspective, keeping track of the rich cultural history of the state.

The exhibit was organized by the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach and is on display until May 15. For more information, visit History Miami.

NOT A STUFFY MUSEUM

History Miami is one of my favorite local institutions and now they've made it even more cool and groovy with Wine Down Wednesday, which take place the first Wednesday of every month, 5 to 8 PM. So if you happen to go to Reflections on April 6 or May 4 from 5 to 8 PM, you'll get free admission, free parking, live music, $15 open wine bar with light snacks or $5 by the glass. Members and county employees get a complimentary glass. Surely, this has to be one of, if not the best, Miami cultural happy hours.

For more details and to rsvp, call 305-375-1614.

¡Ask a Nuyorican!

¡Hola! Everybody...
It’s National HisPanic Month (or something like that) and as the resident Nuyorican, I’ll be posting almost exclusively on things Latino/a over at my blog.

* * *

-=[ Ask a Nuyorican]=-

Being a Primer on How to be a Nuyorican via Cuss Words, Sex, and Everything Else

So, I was reading ¡Ask A Mexican! by Gustavo Arellano and I found it hilarious. I was thinking that since the messakins have such a reference source, then the second largest Latino/a demographic, people of Puerto Rican descent, should be similarly honored. After all, in the northeast and in places like Chicago, Puerto Ricans are most likely the majority of Latino/as you will run into. Shit, we even have a tight-knit clan in Hawaii, part of the unintended result of Operation Bootstrap. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here and I don’t want to give anyone a headache.

Notice the word in my title, Nuyorican? Well, a Nuyorican is a person of Puerto Rican descent or birth who was born or raised in New York City. Lots of Dominicans and Cubans ad assorted other Latino/as try to pass themselves off a Nuyoricans, but you can tell us apart right away: we’re the first ones to speak up.

Now, if you’re from the South or the West Coast, you might not even know what a Puerto Rican is or that Puerto Rico is a colony of the good old U.S. of A. Yup, that’s right. Puerto Rico, a small island in the Caribbean, is one of the oldest colonies on the planet (a distinction we share with our Irish brothers and sisters).

As a result of the Jones Act, we are citizens of the USA. Not that we asked for it. In fact, we had nothing to do with it, since our little islita was part of the spoils of the Spanish-American War. But in any case, we are US citizens, so all you black and white Americanos who are too stupid to know your own country’s geography and who are about to ask me for my green card -- I got yer fuckin’ green card...

::right here::

I once had to set a Southern educator straight while attempting to register my younger brother in school, dumb fuckin’ hick. A teacher should know American history/ geography, right?

Now that we got that out of the way... we can move on to the juicier stuff! Let’s start with language. This is by no means an exhaustive list and I hope to continue adding to it, but it will have to suffice for now...

¡ <-- See that upside-down exclamation point? That’s how I usually start my blogs... It’s usually used in front of an exclamatory sentence. ¡Ho sweat! Your ass is showing!

There are other important punctuation issues, such as the upside-down question mark and the tilde which transforms an n into something that sounds like enye (ñ) (like Enya, the gringa singer, except with a short e sound at the end), but I’m not getting into that today. I want to get to the important shit, like cuss words and shit. Now, some of these cuss words won’t have the same effect or meaning with other Latino/as. Bicho, for example means mosquito for a Cuban. You hear Cubans all the time talking about that bicho is bothering them, or how they want to swat a bicho away.

::blank stare::

However, for a Nuyorican bicho means penis, dick, cock.

Alguinaldo: Puerto Rican jibaro (“hillbilly”) music. Often uses the cautro, a guitar of Puerto Rican origin.

Ame-Rican: Another way of saying Nuyorican.

Americano: an Americano is anyone from the US regardless of skin color. Nuyoricans use this term instead of the Mexican preferred gringo. Most Nuyoricans wouldn’t be caught saying something as corny as gringo (or “esai” for that matter!). If you ain’t Latino/a then you’re an Americano.

Ay Clean: A Spanglish word meaning “ice cream.” The correct word is mantecado.

Barrio: Neighborhood, community -- analogous to da 'hood in ebonics.

Bellaco/a: A lustful or horny individual. That Eddie es un bellaco malo. Or, that girl has the eyes of a bellaca!

Bicho: A term used to denote a penis (also called a pinga).

Bolas: Literally “balls” but used to refer to a man’s testicles (also called huevos)

Bomba: An African-derived rhythm indigenous to Puerto Rico.

Borinquen/ Boricua: Borinquen is the original name of the island christened Puerto Rico by Christopher Columbus. A Boricua is someone from the island Borinquen. However, the terms have a more important psychological function for Nuyoricans. It’s the psycho-spiritual birthplace of all Puerto Ricans, whether they were born there or not. Some Nuyoricans use Borinquen to describe parts of the Bronx. Nuyoricans like to say, “I wasn’t born in Puerto rico, but Puerto Rico was born in me.”

The word Borinquen translates to “the great land of the valiant and noble Lord.” Boricua has been popularized in the island and abroad by descendents of Puerto Rican heritage, commonly using the phrase, Yo soy Boricua (“I am Boricua,” or, “I am Puerto Rican”) to identify themselves as Puerto Ricans. Another variation which is also widely used is Borincano which translated means “from Borinquen.”

Cabron: A cabron is literally a castrated goat, but if a Nuyorican calls you a cabron you should take umbrage because it means that your wife is fuckin' another man, you know it, and put up with it.

Callejero: A street person. Someone who hangs out in the streets of el barrio. Often an individual who lives on the margins of society.

Cano: A light-skinned Puerto Rican. A PR with European features.

Cachapera: A lesbian. I forget the etymology but I think its origin has to do with a word meaning to rub, because the homophobic stereotype of two women rubbing their chochas together. Don’t ask...

Cariño: love, affection.

Chancleta: a house slipper, but also a Nuyorican mother’s preferred tool for corporal punishment.

Chancletazo: Getting hit by a chancleta.

Chichar: To fornicate.

Chiclet: A Spanglish word of Nuyorican origin meaning bubble gum. Taken from the company of the same name that produces bubble gum.

Chingar: Same as chichar. Nuyoricans do not use chinga in the same way messakins do -- as in chinga tu madre (motherfucker). You would never hear a Nuyorican say something like that, we consider it provincial. More likely, a Nuyorican would say, Vamos a chingar, negrita linda (“Let’s fuck, you sweet thing you.”)

Chino/a: Literally “Chinese,” but chino/a is a phrase Nuyoricans use to denote all Asians regardless of their country of origin, and even Latino/as who look Asian. It’s also used as a term of endearment.

Chocha: A term used to denote a vagina (also called a toto).

Chulo/a: A term of affection -- someone who is sweet and attractive.

Cocolo: In the USA, this is a pejorative term for African-Americans. In PR, it’s a term for PRs who embrace their African roots (or like salsa). So, you can be light-skinned and still be considered a cocolo.

Come Mierda: Literally “shit eater.” Denoting a person who’s full of shit and kisses excessive ass. Often used by Nuyoricans in reasoned debate. Also used by Nuyoricans as a pejorative for Cubans and other conservatives of color.

Conflei: Spanglish for morning cereal (“corn flakes”)

Coño: The Spanish vernacular for “damn.” Nuyoricans use this as often as messakins use the word chinga. It’s an all-purpose curse word. It can be used when you experience pain: Coño, that shit hurt! or when something fascinating or superlative happens: Coño! That shawtie has a big culo!

Creeka: I’m not sure if the spelling’s correct (it’s slang, so who knows), but it means vagina. Of all the words meaning vagina, this one is probably considered the most coarse. It’s often used to describe someone in a bad way, as in cara 'e creeka (creeka face).

Cuero: Literally meaning the cured skin of an animal, like a leather. Used as a descriptor for a woman considered loose -- a woman of low morals. Esa mujer es un cuero.

Culeca/o: A horny or overly flirtatious person.

Culo: Every Nuyorican man’s obsession.

De Cachete: Literally “of the cheek,” but meaning getting something for free.

Dumb-in-a-cans: A messed up way of referring to our Dominican brothers and sisters. A play on the word “Dominicans.” Three ethnic enclaves that are closely related culturally speaking are: Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans. As with all groups, there are intra-cultural tensions. The stereotype being that Dominicans are the stupid ones, the Cubans are the shit-eaters (come mierdas), and Puerto Ricans are the lazy.

Grifa: A term used to describe people who are light-skinned but have wiry/ wooly hair. Like some Jewish people would be called grifos as well as hinchos.

Hincho: Someone who’s so white, they’re pink.

Hola: A form of greeting, as in “hello.” No, it doesn’t mean, “holla” and it’s pronounced with the h silent: oh-la

Huevos: Literally eggs, but often used to denote testciles (also called bolas).

India/o: A term denoting Puerto Ricans who resemble the original inhabitants of Borinquen -- the Taino Indians. Also used as a term of endearment (PRs use almost anything as a term of endearment).

Jibaro: Literally “hillbilly.” At one time, Nuyoricans were ashamed of their roots and jibaro was used as a pejorative. Later, jibaro became an icon for young Puerto Rican people who were embracing their roots as part of a mass identity movement.

La Jara: Spanglish for the police. The word came about because so many NYC police officers were called “O'Hara.” the J in Spanish has the H sound, so Nuyoricans would exclaim “la Jara, la Jara!” when the police were coming.

Mami: An affectionate form of madre (mother). Nuyoricans also use to refer to their loved ones Mami Chula or women they find attractive, Oye Mami! Oftentimes it’s diminutive mamita is used in this context.

Maricón: Literally an insult questioning a man’s sexual preference, a homoesexual, but often used as a substitute for the Anglo motherfucker.

Maricón sin Tetas: A vile insult literally meaning faggot without teats.

Me cago en... : Literally, “I shit on... ” It’s used most often in the blasphemous context, as in, ¡Me cago en dios! (“I shit on God”), or to let a misbehaving child know what one thinks of his/ her father, ¡Me cago en tu padre! (“I shit on your father!”) Me cago en... is all all-around cuss phrase popular among Nuyorican mothers.

Messakins: A fucked up way of referring to our Mexican brothers and sisters (also called wetbacks).

Mira!: Literally “Look!” but used as an all-around greeting phrase as in ¡Oye mira! (“Hey! Look!” “Yo!”)

Morena/o: Originally used as a term for PRs who looked like Moors (mora/o) darker-skinned folk. In the US, a term also used to describe African-Americans.

Mulata: Black Americanos often find this term offensive, but for Puerto Ricans a mulata is not a bad thing. In fact, there are songs and poems dedicated to mulatas. It denotes a person of mixed race -- which is just about every Puerto Rican you’ll ever meet.

Nalgas: Ass cheeks.

Negro/a: Literally meaning black, but used as a term of endearment by Nuyoricans. Don’t ask me why, I once knew the origins of its use, but have since forgotten. I think it began as an homage to a person’s African roots, a way of calling to it and honoring it, not sure. Whatever the case, you can be white as a fish belly, but if you’re in a relationship with a Nuyorican, he or she will eventually call you negra or negro as a term of endearment. Feel good about it. Other Latino/as (outside the Caribbean) do not use it.

Nena/e: Literally meaning boy/ girl, but also often used as a term of endearment: Ay nene, you suck my chocha so well.

Nuyorican: Originally a pejorative used by Puerto Ricans from the island and other come mierda Latino/as. It was used to denote the poorer, supposedly stupider, more radical cousins of “true” Puerto Ricans. However, many persons of Puerto Rican descent use the term proudly today to self-identify. Nuyorican is part of an identity movement. Studies of Nuyoricans show that we share many cultural traits with African-Americans (which is probably the reason why other latino/as use it as a pejorative).

Papi: An affectionate form of Padre (father) most often used to refer to your object of affection Ay Papi! or Ay Papi Chulo! Who says Freud is irrelevant these days? LOL

Pasteles: A Puerto Rican staple meat dish, made of mashed plantains and root vegetables, and meat, wrapped in plantain leaves.

Pato: Literally a duck, but also used to denote a male homosexual. (As an aside, I found a recent conversation interesting, though I don’t know how accurate it is. It’s said that a maricón is a homosexual who’s a top and a pato is a homosexual who’s a bottom.)

Pendejo/a: Literally a “pubic hair.” It is used as an insult. Leave it to PRs to compare someone to something as insignificant as a pubic hair.

Pinga: A term used to denote a penis (also called a bicho)

Plena: An indigenous Puerto Rican song form.

Puñeta: Normally, it means to masturbate, but like coño, it’s also an all-purpose Nuyorican cuss word. Most often used in anger, as in ¡Puñeta! I told you not to go shopping, cabrona!

Puta: Whore, prostitute, ho'.

Rockero: Assimilated Puerto Ricans (on the island) who’re into rock/ pop.

Roofo: Another Spanglish word meaning, yup, the roof. The correct word is techo.

Rumba/ Rumbero: An Afro-Cuban dance form, but also used by Nuyoricans to denote a party or partier. Vamos a rumbiar! (Let’s go party!), or Esa Nina es una rumbera! (that Nina loves to party!).

Sabroso/a: Very tasty, delicious, as in Your chocha es muy sabrosa!

Salsa: an urban folklore incubated in the barrios of New York city that influenced Nuyorican literature, art, and music. Also a genre of Latino/a music.

Sangana/o: This word also has different meanings among different Latino/as, but for Nuyoricans, it means a person who is girlish. A dolt, an idiot, a fool. One who is easily taken advantage of. A naive individual. I often use it to mean the same as “silly.”

Spanglish: A merging of Spanish/ English -- or a form of code-switching -- having its roots mostly in Nuyorican and Chicano communities. Spanglish, at one time considered the parlance of the ignorant, has emerged as an influence in Latino/a literature, influencing many poets and writers of note. There is at least one college course I know of teaching the idiom.

Spanish: Spanish is a fuckin’ language ma’fuccas. It’s also used to denote people who come from Spain. I’m not from Spain, so don’t call me Spanish unless you like being called a cracker or a muthafucka!

Toto: Denoting a vagina (also called a chocha). This is more a kiddie word -- what an adult would instruct a child to call her vagina.

Trigueña/o: Someone with light brown skin coloring -- something like cinnamon or lighter with pelo lasio (wavy-to-straight hair).

Well, I have to run along to work, so this will be it for now. I will continue adding more, so come back and check it out. If you have a question about Nuyoricans, please feel free to ask. The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.

Con Cariño,

Eddie

Resources

Sofrito For Your Soul Online Magazine

Nuyorican cinema

"Nuyorican Power," Current TV program on Nuyorican culture, featuring portraits of Pedro Pietri, Fat Boy, Rita Moreno, J-Lo, Rita Moreno, Macho Camacho and Giannina Braschi;Produced By: Evan B. Stone & Carrie Pyle for CURRENT TV.

The R Word

Did you hear about the Jennifer Aniston controversy? She was recently pushing her new movie Switch over at Regis and Kelly and the following took place:


Regis was looking at photos of her in Harper's Bazaar (she was copying Barbra Streisand looks) and chatting.

"It was just fun," said Aniston of the shoot.

Regis replied: "You're playing dress up!"

And Aniston said, "Yes, I play dress up! I do it for a living, like a retard!" The crowd laughed.

The fallout from this slip if you want to call it that is outrageous. Offended people all over the planet are saying she should know better. I think it was meant innocently and you can watch the clip at the bottom of the post to see for yourself. We are living in such a politically correct world that even the most benign comments can be taken to mean hatred. Dana has an excellent post on her blog about comments Dr. Laura made recently.

I made the same slip this week, although not on national television. I was working out with a friend and I told her I'd met a man who I didn't know in a farmer's field to get in his car and then told her I was a retard As I opened my mouth and then shut it I realized I'm talking to a woman who cares for her mentally disabled sister-in-law. I felt terrible. I meant it innocently much like Jennifer had, it was meant to be kind of funny in fact.

Does the use of the word mean we are making fun of or demeaning the mentally challenged? I don't think so. Kids today still say, "that's gay" and I don't think they're homophobic. In fact kids today have a far greater acceptance of sexual preference than ever. It's just a saying. Am I allowed to say I'm stupid? Of course. Mentally disabled people have been called stupid and they have been called retarded - why is it okay for me to call myself stupid but not retarded?

Would it have been better for Jennifer to say, "Yes, I play dress up! I do it for a living, like I'm intellectually delayed!"??

Or what about subtituting the word dumb? No can do, there would be people lining up to protect those who can't speak. Argghhh.

We live in a PC world - I guess that's why I find Roissy refreshing. (Did I say that out loud?)

All things said I need to watch my p's and q's and hope that those who know me best know I'm kind enough not to slander a group of people based on ability...or sexual preference...or betaness (oooops). *wink

Watch around the 2:00 min mark.

The TGIF Sex Blog [Sex and Culture]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Yesterday was a bad day for democracy... Soon, our legislators will be wearing the logos of their corporate masters, much like athletes do.

However, today is Friday and that means we talk about sex...

* * *

-=[ Cross-Cultural Sex Practices]=-

Until recently, you lived your whole life culturally isolated. Today, the world is a lot smaller -- technology allowing us access to information about different cultural practices. I am passionate about cultural studies and I’ve always been fascinated by the vast range cultural expression. Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of human sexuality. While many people in the West still think sex in something you do in the dark and only in one sexual position, even a cursory glance at the history of sex gives us a different picture.

We often mistake our cultural as the norm or of a higher moral standing when, in fact, they aren't. Moreover, those who are most rigid in their thinking are those who would be most rigid in any cultural upbringing. So it follows that if homophobic American men were raised in a culture in which engaging in recipient anal sex was considered manly, these very same men would be competing about who could take it up the ass best. LOL! I’m not joking. Think about it: if you’re narrow-minded and intolerant in one cultural context, why wouldn’t you behave in the same way in another cultural context?

Whatever muthafuckas...

When I first started seriously studying sex, I was fascinated by the broad range of sexual expression. I came across many different accounts from many different cultures. For example, in one Papuan tribe, young men are made into “boy brides” as part of a coming of age ritual. When boys reach their pre-teen years, they are taken away from the general population to live separately with older men. During that time, the boys are made to play passive roles, sometimes even performing homosexual acts with their “husbands.” When the boys are deemed ready (i.e., to become men), they are reintegrated with their tribe and married to the daughters of their “husbands.” The homosexuality has no bearing on the boys’ sexual orientation, nor is there any stigma associated with it.

Ever since the first reports of lush tropical paradises of the flesh inhabited by beautiful people, the South Seas have stirred the sexual imagination of the West. While the fantasy distorts the genuine sexual practices of that part of the world, it is true that many of the sexual practices found in the Pacific and the Americas differed greatly from the Christian/ Judeo sexual mindset.

Sexual promiscuity, for example, was tolerated. Native women would swim out to the boats naked delighting early explorers. However, further study shows that this sort of uninhibited sexuality was part of a strategy to keep the white foreigners peaceful. Only women who had a reputation for sexual looseness were allowed to participate in this particular form of sexual diplomacy.

A Tahitian society traveled about the Polynesian islands as singers, dancers, athletes, and sexual exhibitionists. They were permitted promiscuous relationships wherever they went. Early Westerners failed to grasp that this group represented a religious institution and much of their sexual behavior had a religious justification; after all, the society was based on a Goddess of fertility.

The Polynesian Islands is the area par excellence of public copulation, erotic festivals, and sex expeditions. While sex practices unfortunately disappeared with the onslaught of Western colonialization, ceremonies involving sexual license had been commonplace. Naked dances occurred on Easter Island and the Marquesas, for example. At the close of feasts, Marquesans would hold public group-sex displays. The women taking part would take pride in the number of men they serviced. One anthropologist recalls a nice old lady who boasted about having made the entire crew of a whaling boat happy.

Most of Asia had their unique sexual customs. In a previous post on cunnilingus, I wrote about a tradition reportedly started by the Tang Dynasty empress Wu Hu. It is said that she required, by royal decree, that all government officials and visiting dignitaries publicly perform cunnilingus on her. In Mongolia, among the Mongour, certain “fake” marriages occur. If a daughter is offered to a guest (as ritual hospitality sex) and she gets pregnant, she is married to a belt, which must be left behind by the guest. The belt is simply symbolic of the man, who may never return. Similarly, in Mongolia, if a woman becomes pregnant outside of sex hospitality, she is formally married to a prayer rug.

I guess what I’m trying to convey in what is a short (and inadequate) piece, is that sexual expression varies greatly across the human condition. And before you start giggling, or wagging the morality stick, please remember that someone from another culture would deem your own sexual practices just as funny and just as immoral.

Love,

Eddie

PS: Sex is good for you. Try it...

Latino/as in the USA, pt. IV

¡Hola! Everybody...
It’s been difficult to write lately -- been very busy with work...

* * *

-=[ Black and White and Spic and Span ]=-

-Naaaahhh... You ain't no Porta Reecan.

-I keep telling you: The boy is a Black man with an accent.

-- Wille Perdomo (for Piri Thomas), Nigger-Reecan Blues

Growing up, I had a friend who we nicknamed, “Shadow.” Shadow was a Golden Gloves winner, a Puerto Rican whose dark skin earned him the moniker. He was dark, but not as black as another childhood friend we used to call “Blue.” LOL. Blue was an African American, a cocolo as Puerto Ricans used to sometimes refer to African Americans (yes, it was a pejorative).

The thing with Shadow was that, though he was dark-skinned, he had a sister who was very light-skinned -- light-skinned as in “white” not “Creole,” or “high yellow.” In fact, they looked as if they came from different families. I have blue eyes and I am light-skinned. I was often mistaken for being white. Shadow and I used to hang out and we would watch each other’s backs because we identified as Puerto Ricans.

Blacks and whites used to get very confused around Puerto Ricans because we would refuse to identify as either black or white. I am not white, in the sense that I identify with whiteness as it is defined in the U.S. Shadow didn’t identify as black as it is defined in the US. We were first Puerto Ricans.

These issues caused many problems for Puerto Ricans. At home, we were treated equally: there was no “white Puerto Rican” vs. a “black Puerto Rican,” we were brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles.

We were familia, and skin color wasn’t a determining factor for accessing love or whatever benefits our families could provide. The same, however, wasn’t true when we were exposed to the social institutions in the USA. At school, we were often separated though my cousin at home was just as smart as I was. Though I don’t identify as a white, I learned quickly that I was given preferential treatment because of my Eurocentric features. We all learned this early on in our lives. In some cases, it served to makes us cling more closely together, in other instances it was a source of much pain and grief.

We were also pressured by our peers to identify according to the dominant racial paradigm. The worst insult you could pay me was to call me white. Not because I had anything against whites, but because by identifying me solely by the color of my skin, you were robbing me of my autonomy, my choice to define myself, and to maintain my cultural heritage.

It was the same for the darker-skinned Puerto Ricans, they also would come under a lot of pressure to identify as black. So, if there was some sort of conflict, and Shadow chose to stick with me (and I with him) we were ostracized for being “sellouts” or “nigger lovers.” Truth be told, most of the time, we didn’t really give a fuck, but it bothered all of us at some deeper level. Or perhaps we were all experiencing what some sociologists call perceptual dissonance. Whatever the case, it wasn't until we all read Piri Thomas' semi-biographical account of growing up Puerto Rican in New York, Down These Mean Streets, that we found an outlet to discuss and internalize these issues.

I still hear complaints from my African American brothers and sisters, who become frustrated when Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean Latino/as insist they are not black. For African Americans, this insistence on cultural identification amounts to a denial of their blackness, and to a degree,k it is, but I don’t think that’s the full story. When Shadow (who would eventually identify as an African American) used to say he wasn’t black, he wasn’t denying his blackness, he was attempting to assert his own identity, his culture, his Latinidad, his Puerto Ricanness. It’s the same with me when I correct people about assumed “whiteness.” We were saying we were Puerto Rican.

To be sure, there is racism in the Caribbean; to say otherwise is, in my estimation, a racist statement. However, how Puerto Ricans and other Latino/a define, talk about, and conceptualize race is very different from the way it is discussed in the United States. I believe Latino/as have something to offer to the profoundly dysfunctional racial dialog (or lack thereof) in the U.S.

Let me start with a rather controversial issue. In the 2000 census, the residents of the island of Puerto Rico (effectively a colony of the USA), claimed itself to be 81% percent white. This is in stark contrast to Mainland Puerto Ricans in the United States, where only 46% identified as white. This finding caused a shitload of controversy with people from all over the ideological map making claims ranging from Puerto Ricans' denial of their African heritage, to countless other assumptions. What also wasn't lost was the fact that Puerto Rico was whiter than the U.S., where 75% identified as white. LOL! I think we need to contextualize these numbers properly.

Culture and context, my friends, is everything.

First, let’s take note that there is a racial ambivalence in Puerto Rico that doesn’t exist in America. In Puerto Rico, racial identification is less important than cultural identification. In the U.S., the opposite is true: racial identification largely, determines cultural identification. Therefore, as I have demonstrated earlier, when asked the all-too divisive question, “What are you?” Puerto Ricans of all colors and ancestry usually answer, “Puerto Rican.” In contrast, most New Yorkers will likely answer, black or white (or maybe even Jewish or “of Italian descent”). I am not saying that Puerto Ricans feel no racial identification, but rather that cultural identification is more important.

Another important factor is that Puerto Ricans’ perceptions of race are based more on phenotypic and social definitions of what is a person than on genotypic knowledge about an individual. Put simply, physical and social appearance is used to classify instead of biological classification. In the U.S., the legal definition of white meant that the biological offspring of a mixed race union would be considered black (i.e., the “one drop” rule). In that way, the children of a white master and a black slave would still be considered slaves.

For Puerto Ricans, a white appearing offspring of an interracial couple would be considered white. On the other hand, an obviously dark-skinned person may not be considered as dark, especially if there are other mitigating factors, class being an example.

Another aspect of racial classification for Puerto Ricans is that racial categories are based on color, class, facial features, and the texture of hair. This is quite different to the mostly color-based, white, black, yellow, and brown classifications of the U.S. This makes for a fuller spectrum of racial perspectives for Puerto Ricans. For us, there are blanco/as , the equivalent of U.S. whites; indio/as are the equivalent to the U.S. conception of East Indians (dark-skinned and straight-haired); moreno/as are dark-skinned with a variety of features -- black and Caucasian; negro/as are black as conceptualized in the U.S. Interestingly, this latter term is also used as a term of endearment, equivalent to the English “honey” or “sweetie” and having no racial connotation. Finally, there is the term I have used previously, trigueño/a, which can be applied to what is considered brunettes in the U.S. or to negro/as who have high social status. For me, trigueño/a is like a racial catch-all term. It can be applied to both white-looking and black-looking Puerto Ricans.

I will finish this already too-long post by emphasizing the importance of the contrast between a multiracial, multiethnic society versus a homogenous society. While in the U.S., racial/ ethnic minorities have been segregated, the same doesn’t hold true for Puerto Rico. In this way, blacks in Puerto Rico were not a distinguishable ethnic group. This is not to say that blacks are evenly distributed throughout the social structure. Race and class still intersect, but they intersect in ways vastly different from the way they intersect in the U.S. But in terms of housing, institutional treatment, political rights, government policy, and cultural identification, black, white, and tan Puerto Ricans are not different. In addition, Puerto Ricans of any skin color do not perceive race, on the Island, as an issue. In contrast to mainland Puerto Ricans, who identified deeply with black power politics, Island Puerto Ricans did not respond as much.

In a very real sense, Latino/as in general, and Puerto Ricans in particular, have approximated the largely unrealized ideal of the Melting Pot. One manifestation of Puerto Ricans’ racial perspectives is that there isn’t the same taboo on racial intermarriage that exists in the U.S. Puerto Ricans have intermarried and continue to intermarry at a higher rate than the U.S. In addition, the emphasis on strong extended family ties makes the world of most Puerto Rican children one that is inhabited by people of many different colors and these colors are not associated with different ranks. This intermingled rainbow of colors taken for granted by Puerto Ricans is foreign to most children in the U.S.

I leave it here for now...

Love,

Eddie

Latino/as in The USA, pt. II

¡Hola! Everybody...
I usually don't cut-and-paste, but this Latina is such a valuable resource when it comes to Latino/a cultural identity that I thought it was worthwhile. I got it from the official website of the PBS drama, American Family, the only dramatic series totally created and controlled by Latino/as. The writing was by Latino/as, as was the direction -- everything.

Get this: none of the major networks (not even HBO and Showtime) wanted to air this! Check out their website.

I will be offering a series of blogs elaborating on some of the issues raised by Doña Rodriguez... I will be gone all day. Today, as usual, is my longest day of the week.

* * *

-=[ What It Means to be Latino ]=-

by Dr. Clara E. Rodríguez

To be a Latino means that in the 2000 U.S. census, you were counted as one of 35.3 million people, of any race, classified as “Hispanic,” and that you were part of a group that comprised 12.5% of the total U.S. population. It means you are part of a group that now equals, or has surpassed, African Americans in number. It also means that you are part of a group that is growing faster than all other groups (50% since 1990) and is expected to continue to grow rapidly because of high immigration, high fertility rates, and the youthfulness of the current population. Only Asian Americans, who represented 3.6% of the U.S. population in 2000, had greater rates of growth. Finally, it means that you are a member of a very diverse group, in terms of socioeconomic positions, religions, racial classifications, and national origins.

If we look at the Hispanic/Latino population pie in 2000, we see that Mexicans comprised the majority of all Latinos (58.5% or 20.6 million). Puerto Ricans were the second largest Latino group, constituting 9.6% of all Latinos or 3.4 million. However, if we include the 3.8 million Puerto Ricans who resided in Puerto Rico, then this figure more than doubles. Cubans were the next largest single national origin group and constitute 3.5% of the total Latino population, followed by Dominicans with 2.2%. Collectively, the Central American countries accounted for 4.8% of the total Latino pie, with Salvadorans (1.9%) and Guatemalans (1.1%) being the two largest groups among Central Americans. South Americans comprised another 3.8% of the total U.S. Latino population with Colombians (1.3%) the largest group here. All of the other countries in Central and South America constituted less than 1% each of the total Hispanic population. Interestingly, in view of the extensive diversity of national origins, there was a surprising 17.3% that reported they were Hispanic or Latino but did not indicate a national origin. Analyses have yet to be done on this group, but it may be that this fast-growing group represents either those who have parents from more than one country, or, those who consider themselves “Hispanic/Latino,” but do not identify with a particular country.

Although historically there are important regional concentrations of each of these groups, e.g., Cubans in Florida, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast, and Mexicans in California and the Southwest, there is increasing Latino heterogeneity in all of these areas. All states now have Latino populations, many of which are increasing rapidly, and almost all cities are experiencing substantial changes in their Latino mix. For example, Miami now has an increasingly diverse Latin American population, with Colombians, Puerto Ricans, and diverse Central and South Americans increasing their presence. New York City now has substantial and growing Dominican, Colombian, Ecuadorian and Mexican populations. The same is true of Los Angeles and other large cities and many suburban areas.

Being Latino also means that you lay claim to one (or more) of the rich and unique histories that each of these groups brings to the United States. Likewise, each of these groups has had a unique narrative in the United States, involving different times of arrival, areas of settlement, and types of migration and reception experiences. Like so many other groups coming to the United States, some groups came mainly as political refugees, or, political exiles without the benefit of refugee status. Others came as free or contracted laborers, and still others simply as immigrants looking to improve the opportunities in their lives. Unlike most other groups, Latinos have come from this hemisphere. Therefore, they have been consistently impacted by U.S. hemispheric policy and they have had more “va y ven” (coming and going) between their countries and the United States. This has contributed to the sustenance of the Spanish language and multiculturalism within Latino communities while adding new infusions of Latinos to the United States.

Since Latinos have been part of the U.S. landscape for centuries, the nature of the migrations has also varied over time. For example, political immigrants or exiles were more characteristic of the migration from Puerto Rico in the late 19th century, while those who came in search of work characterized the exodus in the mid 20th century. There were also varying methods of migration, where some groups arrived mainly by boat, others by plane, and still others over land in cars, trains, or buses. Some have arrived legally as immigrants, others were undocumented. Some became naturalized citizens, others became citizens because they were born in the United States and still others arrived as citizens or became citizens because their lands had become subject to United States rule. Different groups have also had different receptions in the U.S. at different times.

Being Latino means a connection to the Spanish language, although, in Latin America there are also a multiplicity of other languages spoken by various groups, e.g., the indigenous peoples. Each Latino group coming to the U.S. spoke Spanish, but each country has its particular way of speaking Spanish. Spanish speakers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean understand one another. However, the way the language is spoken varies according to class, regional, ethnic and racial differences within each country. If we think about how English is spoken in Australia, Britain, Brooklyn, New York, as well as the southern, eastern, and midwestern parts of the United States, we have some idea of how the same language can vary with regard to accent, intonation patterns, and vocabulary. Curiously, however, you can be called a Latino, or classified a Hispanic, and yet not speak Spanish very well or at all.

Finally, being Latino means you are a part of one or more groups that have their own unique cuisine, music, and cultural and artistic traditions. For example, spicy, hot food is common in some diets and relatively absent in others. But there are also some commonalties. For example, in the same way that meat and potatoes can be considered a staple of the U.S. American diet -though not everyone eats this – rice and beans are a staple throughout much of Latin America. Pink beans are preferred in some countries, black beans in others, and pinto beans in still yet others and so on. Most members of each group are proud of their own uniqueness and history – both in this country and in their country of origin. However, as Celia Cruz, the great Cuban Salsa singer, has said, “we are all brothers in a different country” and the level of bonding and common identification often goes beyond speaking Spanish.

On Terminology: Hispanic or Latino?

The term “Hispanic” is often used interchangeably with the term “Latino.” The term “Hispanic” was introduced into the English language and into the 1970 census by government officials who were searching for a generic term that would include all who came from, or who had parents who came from, Spanish-speaking countries. It is, therefore, an English-language term that is not generally used in Spanish-speaking countries. The term “Latino,” on the other hand, is a Spanish-language term that has increased in usage since the introduction of the term Hispanic. Some Latinos/Hispanics feel strongly about which term they prefer. Some reject both terms, and insist they should be known by their national origin; still others use all terms and vary their usage depending on context.

Those who prefer “Latino” argue that the term preserves the flavor of national origin and the political relationship between the U.S. and Latin America. Also, they say that it is more culturally neutral and racially inclusive of all groups in Latin America. For example, those of indigenous, African, European and mixed origins are assumed to be Latinos, as are Brazilians, whose main language is Portuguese. In addition, they argue that it is less associated with Eurocentric Hispanistas, who were largely conservative wealthy landowning groups; and lastly, they maintain that it is the term most used in numerous editorials that are written in both Spanish and English.

Those who prefer the term “Hispanic” maintain that it should be used because the data on this population is gathered using this term, and the data should not be re-labeled. It is seen to be preferable for scientific publications because it is seen to be more rigorous and consistent with the data. It is argued that Hispanic is a more universal term because this is the term used by most agencies and other data gathers, while Latino is a regional term more often used in areas where there are large numbers of native Spanish-speakers. In essence, the argument is that this is the term that most people - particularly those living far from Spanish-speaking populations will use. The term includes those from Spain, although it does not cover those from Brazil. It is also argued that the term “Latino” might be legally problematic, for others of “Latin” descent whose families have never lived in Latin America, e.g., the French, Italians, and others might conceivably argue that they are “Latinos” and therefore should be considered minorities.

Dr. Clara E. Rodríguez is a Professor at Fordham University, Lincoln Center campus. Her last two books are Changing Race: Latinos, the Census and the History of Ethnicity in the United States, New York University Press, 2000, and Latin Looks: Latina and Latino Images in the U.S. Media, Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1997.

Love,

Eddie

Latino/as in America, pt. I

¡Hola! Everybody...
If you haven’t caught the PBS special, Latin Music USA, then you’re missing a real treat. I’m not always too happy about the way Latino/as are portrayed and/ or studied, but this offering is one helluva treat. It’s well done, authentic, and the people responsible for bringing this together obviously did their homework. What we have here is a look into the very essence of Latino/a culture as told by the people themselves. In fact, Latin Music USA isn’t just about Latin Music, it is the story of America -- of all the Americas.

I was asked to briefly describe “Latin music,” and here’s my totally ad-libbed response:

Latin music is more than a musical genre, it is an urban folklore, a way of life; the receptacle of all that is Latino/a. It is Latinidad itself, the sway of a Latina's hips as she revels in rhythms older than time itself. It is el grito del pueblo set to a clave beat, a fatback backbeat, a dembo pulse. Latin music is at once all things and one thing. It is the exuberance of a joyful of people expressed through the poetry of feet, hands, and heart.

It’s Latino/a Month and I’ll be writing on things Latino/a for most of the rest of what’s left of this month...

* * *

-=[ Latinidad ]=-

I am not African. Africa is in me, but I cannot return.
I am not Taína. Taíno is in me, but there is no way back.
I am not European. Europe lives in me, but I have no home there.

I am new. History made me. My first language was Spanglish.
I was born at the crossroads. History made me.
-- Aurora Levins Morales, Child of the Americas

I’ve been lax this month, ignoring my Latinidad. So today, I have to start from somewhere and I wonder if I can even do it. I mean, to explore the essence of all that is Latino/a -- Latinidad -- is like trying to explore the ocean.

So, I’ll start here, in the good ole U.S. of A. A little about me: I was born in New York City of Puerto Rican parents and so my experience of Latinidad is filtered through those complications. I am light-skinned with blue-eyes, but I am not white. I was born in America, but I identify as a Nuyorican, or as the Nuyorican poet, Tato Laviera, likes to say, an Ame-Rican. I am an old-school Puerto Rican whose beach haunts were Brighton and Orchard, the tar-papered roof tops of Manhattan, and not Luquillo, nor the world-famous surf of Rincon. I don’t speak Spanish... only. I speak it fluently, it rolls off my tongue in quick, New York-paced staccato bursts, and sometimes I season it with English, or a hybrid language all its own: Spanglish. My culture is profoundly African, the ancient Orishas surely looking over my tormented soul, but I am not black. Nor am I Indian, though my spiritual birthplace is Borinquen, the land of the brave and peaceful Taino warriors. I may not have been born in Puerto Rico, but surely, Puerto Rico was born in me. I am none of these things and all of them...

See? I told you it was complicated. But, actually, I’m not. I am, to paraphrase the lovely Aurora, a Stepchild of the Americas.

I hope to give you a glimpse into me and in that way offer you a glimpse of things Latino/a, for, as you might already sense, Latino/as will eventually take over. Don’t worry, we come in all colors, the blood of humankind flows through us. We come in all political orientations too! It is said that the Chicanos in California gave Gore the 2000 presidential election and the Miami Cubans took it away. To be sure, without Latino/as, Obama’s historic campaign would have fallen short.

We have arrived, some pundits say, but I have news for you: we were always here, long before the Daughter of the American Revolution lost her cherry, long before even the first slave ships infiltrated the Caribbean. And I’m sorry Lou Dobbs, but “Spanish is Spoken Here” happened long before your hungry ancestors even thought of immigrating.

There is much to cover here, for while we have indeed arrived, and continue to do so, we are also being targeted as scapegoats for every conceivable social ill. We are at once desired and despised, but I’m here to set the record straight... stay tuned.

WEPA!

Eddie