On Being Latino: As American as a Texan

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is so proud of being Latino that he had a mariachi band compose his campaign theme song, “Adelante, Bustamante.” Yet, when he presides over official meetings, he emotionally leads the Pledge of Allegiance. Is he Latino, or is he American?

Antonio R. Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), speaker of the Assembly, is proud of his experience as a Latino student activist. Yet, he is not interested in developing an exclusively Latino political agenda. Is he Latino, or is he American?

Can one be both a Latino and an American? When a Latino says he is American, does that imply “selling out” his Latino-ness? When a Latina says she is Latina, does that imply a Quebec-style situation of divided loyalties, betrayal and separatism?

These concerns are real, often lying just below the surface. For example, an Anglo participant in a series of focus groups on perceptions of Latinos, conducted last year for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, asked, “If we went to war . . . with Cuba . . . whose side are you on?” The puzzle, for some Anglos, boils down to: How can Latinos love America and still love things Latino?

Most U.S.-born Latinos have been asked this same question. For the vast majority, it is a nonquestion. In their minds, there is no doubt: They are Americans. In a recent statewide survey of Latinos, 83% of U.S.-born Latinos, when asked to identify themselves, selected “American” from a list of nearly 60 adjectives. But that same percentage also chose “Latino” as a descriptor.

What gives?

One way to resolve the apparent conflict is to think of being Latino much as one thinks of being Texan. When they choose to do so, Texans can be quite different from other Americans: cowboy boots, Stetson hats and a nearly impenetrable drawl speaking a nearly incomprehensible vocabulary. Compared with, say, Boston Yankees, Texans can seem confident to the point of brashness. Yet, one would never think of asking Texans to choose between being Texan and being American. Indeed, it’s hard to find a more patriotic group than Texans. To be Texan, then, is simply a distinctive way of being American. The pity of the matter, as Texans are quick to point out, is that not all Americans are Texans.

To understand how Villaraigosa can be Latino and American simultaneously, one need merely apply the Texan analogy: Being Latino is not being un-American; it is like being Texan, which is a distinctive way of being American.

Accordingly, being Latino does not mean a lessening of loyalty to the United States. Over the past decade, nearly 1 million Latino immigrants in California have become U.S. citizens. In an attempt to blunt the stigma of losing their allegiance, the Mexican government has offered newly minted U.S. citizens born in Mexico the possibility of retaining their nationality, though not their Mexican citizenship. This binationality, which does not include a right to vote in Mexican elections, enables Mexican naturalized citizens to buy property in Mexico. Yet, the response to the offer of binationality has been slight. Of 4 million Latinos in Los Angeles County, fewer than 4,000 have even applied for the dual status.

This stunning statistic helps to illuminate what being Latino is: a way of life at the level of civil society. Being Latino involves pleasures of food, language, family, work, prayer and music. It is not something that happens once every Cinco de Mayo; it is lived year-round. It does not mean clinging to an exotic, monolithic, frozen and never-changing cultural heritage. Quite the contrary. It is participating in myriad small events of daily life in company with a large, dynamic, rapidly changing society. In essence, being Latino is a social experience and, like all social experiences, an experience that can be shared.

Like being Texan. The New England brahmin, George Bush, moved from the Puritan heartland to Texas and, after sharing experiences with friends and associates there, became Texan. Well, almost Texan. But his son, Gov. George W. Bush, was raised in the state and is unarguably Texan. Being Texan is not a racial identity, nor is it strictly an ethnic culture. It is, more than anything else, a regional identity, grounded in the history and experiences of the peoples who have, over the centuries, called Texas home.

Similarly, being Latino is not simply an ethnic identity, although it has been treated as such for decades. Being Latino needs to be seen as a larger, evolving regional identity, growing out of the experiences, intersections and mestizajes of a wide variety of peoples from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas in the lower half of the North American continent. These experiences provide the mother strand of cultural DNA that makes life in this state different from life in Boston or Minneapolis.

In the past, when Latinos were a relatively small minority, it was hard to share the Latino experience. One had to marry a Latino, move to East Los Angeles or spend two years in the Peace Corps in Central or South America. Now that Latinos are the comfortable majority in many Southern California cities, it is much easier to share Latino-ness. One merely has to listen to the No. 1 radio station, watch the No. 1 TV channel, eat in certain restaurants or simply converse with neighbors or co-workers to share the experience of being Latino.

Among younger Anglos in Southern California, there is a growing sense that the idea of being American can accommodate a far greater degree of cultural diversity than their parents might have imagined. As one young Anglo focus-group participant saw it, assimilating to America “doesn’t necessarily mean losing your own culture, but coming and coexisting along with the culture that already exists in a neighborhood.”

As Latinos become 40%, 50%, then 60% of Southern California’s population, it will be easier to share Latino-ness, because the experience will be so ubiquitous. Being Latino will likely cease to be perceived as an ethnic identity and instead come to be viewed as a core component of a regional identity, combining multiple experiences in the cultural DNA of the state.

Does this imply an insidious Latino takeover of California? Not at all. To share means to give, not to take. In fact, there is a good example of what can happen when the experience of being Latino is shared by non-Latinos. Some of the most recognizable symbols of being Texan were developed when early Anglo settlers shared the experiences of the larger Latino population surrounding them. The cowboy hat was adapted from the Mexican sombrero, the boots from Mexican botas, the lariat from the Mexican la reata and the quintessential Texan experience, the rodeo, from, well, the Mexican rodeo.

Historically, being Latino was a central experience in California. Being Latino will likely be central to the state’s future as well. Accordingly, being Latino needs to be seen not as a foreign identity, but as a distinctive way of being American. As distinctive as being Texan. And from the same roots.*