|
April 3, 2004
A Skeleton in the
Closet in Our Latino Community
By Domingo Ivan
Casañas/HispanicVista.com
Sometimes as Latino’s
we must admit to our weaknesses, to our
close mind ness, as well as to admit to
our own skeleton’s in our closet.
The African Americans in the United
States have gained many rights that they
never had before, such as equal treatment
and equal rights and justice.
Unfortunately, I must say that in the
Latino community throughout South
America, Central America, and the
Caribbean as well as in Mexico &
Puerto Rico, there has not been a
coalition building in the makings toward
justice, economic and political power for
the Latinos of African descendants as
well as indigenous people.
The debate on race
relations among Latinos has intensified
in the last decade. Why have
Latinos of African decent and indigenous
people been excluded from gaining
economic and political power? Why
have their presence and their
contributions been ignored? Many of
the Latino leaders and organizations do
not want to acknowledge that racism
exists among our people, so they have
ignored the issue by subscribing to a
national origin strategy. This
strategy identifies Latinos as a group
comprising different nationalities,
thereby creating the false impression
that Latinos live in a color-blind
society. One only needs to
look at the current Novelas (soap operas)
in Spanish to see what I am talking about
or to travel to any Latin America
country.
The gains made by
African Americans in the United States to
date are way ahead of any made by the
Black Latinos in the Latin America
culture. Today, many Afro-Latinos
face the same dilemma confronted by many
in the African American community for
decades: not acknowledging the
historical and psychological dysfunction
created within their own history. Many
believe that the “dysfunction”
is created as a result of racism and
giving accreditation to the contributions
made by people of African descent. Conditioning
also played a role in this dysfunction
where people of African descendants
adopted “whiteness” and
denounced their dark skin color, i.e.
dilemma between light skin and dark
skinned Blacks.
It is ironic that
here in the United States African
American and Latino coalition have
protested the lack of minority
participation in the film and television
industry in Hollywood. Unfortunately,
Latino leaders are in no way making
similar demands on the Spanish-speaking
media. It is rare to see Latinos of
African decent on Spanish-speaking
television or in movies. It is
equally rare to see them advertising
products in national Latino magazines.
It is a fact that for a very long time,
Spanish-speaking television has portrayed
Latinos of African descent and indigenous
people as uneducated, lazy, sex drive,
violent, sloppy, untrustworthy and as
servants.
The Euro centric
model of a Latino in Spanish television
is someone like myself, white, fair skin
with blue eyes, and those that look like
Ricky Martin, Julio Iglesias and Gloria
Estefan. Most of the actors,
reporters, and talk show hosts basically
resemble those I just listed above.
So it is my opinion that this new
coalition that is putting so much
pressure on Hollywood should start in
their own home first, where they are
currently excluding Latinos of African
descendants in front of the camera, as
well as their presence behind the cameras
as producers, directors, technicians and
executives. At a time when the
Latino population is expected to become
this country’s largest minority
group, Latinos of African decent are not
considered an integral part of Latino
society. The African American
community must be aware that a racial
problem does exist within the Latino
society, and it will not disappear until
the Latino leaders and organizations
establish a serious and sincere dialogue
to examine the skeleton that is still in
their closet and being swept under the
rug in their own backyard.
_____________________________________________
Domingo Ivan
Casañas is a Cuban born columnist for
the Ledger Dispatch newspaper, which is
the East Contra Costa edition of the
Contra Costa Times in California. Email
address: LatinoAchievers@aol.com
or write to: P.O. Box 8427, Pittsburg, CA
94565
|
