taco-flavored kisses
On the local NPR station today a reporter called this weekend’s celebrations around the Virgen de Guadalupe a “Latino holiday.” Incorrect. It’s exclusively a Mexican holiday. Likewise, praying to the Virgen de la Caridad is a Cuban tradition. La Virgen del Carmen: Guatemalan. La Virgen del Trono: Nicaraguan. Etc.
And then in an article published today by the New York Times I read: “Knowing nods and glances follow when Mama explains the Latino tradition of making tamales at Christmastime.”
Wrong, again. Making tamales are a Christmas tradition solely for Mexicans and their neighbors to the south, the Guatemalans. In Colombia, they eat buñuelos. In Peru, it’s panetón. Dominicans will make pasteles. Etc.
There are three factors at play here.
First, it’s politically correct to throw around the word Latino as it’s a term of political empowerment. Just as Black replaced Negro in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, so, too, has Latino replaced Hispanic.
Second, most Americans – Latinos included – simply don’t know the distinct traditions of the 18 Spanish-speaking nations in Latin America. Yes, Mexicans account for at least two-thirds of all Latinos in the United States. That does not make all Latinos Mexican nor Mexican traditions universal to all Latinos.
Finally, there’s a tinge of shame associated with the word “Mexican” in America. For too long, Mexicans have been a ready scapegoat. This accumulated violence is so pervasive and insidious that the term “Latino” can serve as camouflage where “Mexican” would be a target.
A side-note about the word “Hispanic.” On several occasions I’ve been told by activists – and those touched by an activist – that the term Hispanic was “made up by Nixon.”
It’s a sad, paranoid fantasy: sometime after ordering the secret bombing of Cambodia, but before his rapprochement with China, Nixon retreated to Camp David to devise a powerful linguistic weapon with which to oppress the less than five percent of the U.S. population that could be called Hispanic in 1969. He then entrusted this subtle, nefarious plot to his most clandestine foot-soldiers: the U.S. Census Bureau.
There are sufficient arguments on behalf of the term “Latino” – and against “Hispanic” – to not give Nixon more credit than he’s due. For example, here are two: 1) rather than sort out the bloody mess of the conquest, let’s pretend it never happened by avoiding even oblique references to Spain; 2) the closing “oh” in “Latino” is more fun to pronounce than the plosive “k” in “Hispanic.”