By Linda J. P. Mahdesian
For marketing executives, "Hispanic" means 24.5 million potential consumers for their products and services. To politicians, Hispanic is a block of voters they can count on to vote a certain way on certain issues. When some social workers see the word "Hispanic," they see problems - teen pregnancies, school dropouts, drug users and gang members. To young Hispanics, the label is a no-man's land of myths and questions.
"For many Latinos, they grow up between two myths and a question," says Suzanne Oboler, assistant professor of American civilization and author of Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United States (University of Minnesota Press). "They must deal with the myth of homogeneity - that a Hispanic is X, Y and Z; and the myth of their homeland as their parents tell them about growing up in Peru or Cuba or Argentina," she says. "The question is always their U.S. citizenship."
Released in May, Oboler's book traces the racial formation of the Latino population and its homogenization - by the government, industry and society at large - into a monolithic ethnic group. She explores some of the effects of these labels in shaping one's personal and group identity in America, specifically among Chicanos and Puerto Ricans.
"What's complicated for this generation," says the author, "is the assumption that `if you're Hispanic, you're supposed to think and behave this way.' What happens when you don't match those definitions? Do you think `I'm not really Hispanic?' But society says you're not really American, either."
The generation that grew up with the term "Hispanic" has been counted on the U.S. Census that way and has gone to schools which have identified them that way, with a different set of experiences from people who have their identities attached to a territory, such as the Dominican Republic or Cuba, explains Oboler. Still, many Latinos are caught in a no-win situation. "This generation is presumably American, but if they're Puerto Rican and they go to Puerto Rico, they're looked upon as `American.' In America, they're seen as Hispanic. They're not allowed to be American citizens who belong in this country."
Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States is ambiguous, notes Oboler, pointing to the fact that Puerto Ricans can't vote in presidential elections, but the President can send them to war as U.S. citizens. Yet many people view and treat them as "foreigners."
Cubans come to this country under very different circumstances because of the particular relationship between America and Cuba. They come as a group, with the financial assistance of the U.S. government, and re-create Cuban society in America. Many Argentineans, who came in large numbers in the 1970s fleeing the dictatorship there, came not as poor refugees but as middle-class professionals seeking high-level jobs as well as safety. People fleeing El Salvador in the 1980s during the U.S.-backed war there were mostly poor villagers who received little or no governmental support, according to Oboler.
Yet slapped on top of all of these divergent groups of people with divergent histories and relationships with the U.S. government is the generic label "Hispanic." Oboler asks, "What do these people have in common? Language? More or less. A history of U.S.-Latin American relations? Not really. Cultural symbols? Some. Yet all these differences get put aside."
Added to this kaleidoscopic mix are the different views of race which Latinos bring with them from their respective homelands. The American racial "rule" of "one drop of black blood makes you black" is reversed in many Latin American countries to "one drop of white blood makes you white," says Oboler. That view carries into mixed-race marriage practices. "Miscegenation in Latin America is encouraged among blacks," she says, "as a way to improve yourself." She points out that the hierarchy of skin color is tied to one's socioeconomic status. "A person `whitens' as they go up the economic ladder along this racial continuum," she explains. That belief is widespread in Spanish-speaking Latin America and the Caribbean.
For immigrants from the Dominican Republic, many with African ancestry, life in America is a lesson in label confusion. This society sees their dark skin and African features and labels them as blacks. But they don't see themselves that way at all. "They're identity is with their nationality - being a Dominican," says Oboler. "Being black for Dominicans is not part of their national identity. They believe Haitians are black, even though they come from the same island." She notes that being black and Colombian or Venezuelan, however, is not seen as a contradiction in terms.
Which brings Oboler to the issue of black Latinos. "Black Latinos have it worse than anyone," she says, noting the collision of race and nationality. "The idea of race as one's ethnic identity is foreign among Latinos. But blackness is the determining factor in the United States; that's not the case in the Latino community. The meaning of `blackness' in the Americas is an important issue that hasn't been adequately explored."
Still, with all her criticism of labels, Oboler rejects the idea of throwing them away. "If you take away the labels, nothing would change. It's too late, the damage has been done. ... What we need to do is find our shared citizenship, ways of existing in society together. We need to explore the meaning of collectivity and the role of difference in that collectivity."
She is also worried about the current backlash against affirmative action policies: "I don't think the world is color-blind - that's not the reality and it never will be. ... Just look at the trouble we're having with affirmative action in achieving equity. I can't imagine what will happen without it."