I

Enn

Lrf, in thellyphen

What ifyo wereyou andtiJuuas I, Mister?

Bom in 1885 in Jalisco,Mexico, the painter Martin Ramirezspent mNot
his life in a Califomiamadhouse,in a pavilion reservedfor incurablepa$nts.
Sincehis death in 1960 he has becomea syrnbolin Hispanicimm4rant
experienceand is consideredtoday a leadingpainter with a permanentplace
in Chicanovisualart. As a young man, Ramfrezworked first in the fieidland
then in a laundry; he later worked as a migrant railroadworker, reloounS
acrossthe Rio Grandein searcho[ a better life and to escapethe dang$of
the violent upheavalsweepinghis native land. He lost the power t6ulk
around I9I5, at the ageof thirry, and wanderedfor many years,until thrlos
Angelespolice picked him up and sent him to PershingSquare,a sheltirlor
the homeless.Diagnosedby doctors as a "deterioratedparanoidsclruophrenic" and sent to the Dewitt Hospital, Ramireznever recoveredhis
speech.But in 1945, some fifteenyearsbeforehis death,he beganto daw'
Ramirezwas fortunateto be discoveredby a psychiatrist,Dr. TarmoPasto,ot
the Universiryof Califomia,Sacramento,who, as the legend.lui-t, rur *iring the hospital one day with a few pupils when Ramirezapproachedhlrn'
offering a bunch of rolled-up paintings.The doctor was so impressedrlth
Ramirez'swork that he made sure the anist had plenry of drawrngmatenals
ro use.Soon PastobegancollectingRamirez'swork and showedit to a rilnber of artists,includingJim Nutt, who arrangedan exhibit of Ramirez'spiltings with an art deaierin Sacramento.Other exhibitssoon followed-in \ew
York, Chicago,Sweden,Denmark, Houston, among other places-lnd

T H EH I S P A N ICCO N D I T I O N
Ramirez,the perfectoutsider,rvasa dazzlingrevelationat the exposition
"Outsiders"in London's HaywardGallery.
an exhibit,
text written ln June I986 to commemorate
ln a conrroversial
"HispanicArt in the United States:Thirty ContemporaryPaintersand
Sculptors,"at the CorcoranGaileryin Washington,D C ' OctavioPaz,the
lgg0 winner of rhe Nobel Prizein lirerature,claimedthat Ramirez'spencitand-crayondrawingsare evocarionsof what Ramirezlived and dreamedduring and alrerthe MexicanRevolution.Pazcomparedthe artistto fuchard
painrerwho lost his mind at the end of his life.
Dadd, a ninereenth-cehrury
As CarlosFuentes,the Mexicannovelistand diplomat,claimedin his book
The BunedMiwor, the mute painrer drew his muteness,making it graphic
And RogerCardinal,the Brirish author of Figuresof Reality,argued that the
should not be minimizedas psychoticramblingand
arrisr'sachievements
him as "a nay'painter."To makesenseof Ramirez'sodyssey'Dr'
categorized
pasroconcludedthat Ramfrez's
werethe resultof
psychological
disrurbances
a difficuk processof adapurion ro a foreignculture. Ramirezhad left Mexico
at a rurbulent,riotous time and arrivedin a placewhereeverythingwas unfamiliarand strangeto him
of the entire Hispaniccuitural expenRamirez'splight is representative
Mexican10stin a no-man'sland
a
diluted
Neirher
encein the United states.
the voyageof millions of
symbolizes
Ramirez
nor a fully rounded cirizen,
bewilderedby their
immigrants
and legalmiddle-class
silenr itineranrbraceros
different
of
an
altogether
sudden mobility, furiously rrylng ro make sense
behind.
silence
environmenr.Bur Hispanicsare now leavinghis frustrated
Societyis beginningro embraceLarinos,from rejectsro fashionsetters,from
outcaststo insider traders.New generationsof Spanishspeakersare feelingat
gringo'accordingto Webster's
home in Gringolandia.(Etymologically,
Dicrionary,is derivedfrom gnego,stranger,but it may havebeen derived
greenfrom the Spanishpronunciationof a slangword meaningfast-spender,
"yo
soy"
where
meet,
white
brown
and
where
crossroad
the
Suddenly
go).
of
Many
being
transformed.
is
"l
hyphen,
Spanglish
lile
in
the
a
meets am,"
to
effort
conscious
make
a
We
either
Yankee
look:
us Latinosalreadyhavea
manners.
and
fashion
by
the
cuhure's
look gringo, or we're simply absorbed
And what is more excitingis that Anglosarebeginningto look just like usenamoredas they are o[ our bright colorsand tropical rhythms, our suffering
Frida lQhlo, our legendaryEmesto"Che" Guevara.Martin Ramfrez'ssilence
is giving way to a revaluationo[ things Hispanic.No more silence,no more
isolation.Spanishaccents,ovr mqnerspecultarde ser,have emergedas

L I F EI N T H EH Y P H E N
exotic, fashionable,and even envrabieand in{luential in mainsrream
Americanculture.
However,just as Ramirez'sart took decadesto be understoodand appreciated, it will take yearsro understandthe multifacetedand far-reaching
implicationsof this cuhural rransformarion,the move o[ Hispanicsfrom
peripheryto cenrerstage.I believerhat we are currentlywirnessinga double,
facetedphenomenon:Hispanizarion
of the United States,and Anglocizarion
of Hispanics.Adventurersin Hyphenland, explorersof El Dorado, we Hispanicshavedeliberatelyand cautiouslyinfiltrared the enemy,and now go by
the rubric of Latinosin the rerritoriesnorrh of the Rio Grande.Delaing full
adaptadon,our objectiveis ro assimilareAnglosslowly ro ourselves.
Indeed, a refreshinglymodern concepr has emergedbeforeAmerican
eyes-to live in the hyphen, to inhabir rhe borderland, ro exist inside the
Dominican-Americanexpressionentre Lucasy Juan Mejia-and nowhere is
the debatesunoundingir more candid,more historicallyenlighrening,rhan
among Hispanics.The AmericanDream has nor yer fully openedits arms ro
us; the melting por is still roc cold, too uninviring,for a total meltdown.
Aithough the coliectivecharacrerof rhose immigraringfrom the Caribbean
archipelagoand south of rhe border remainsforeignto a largesegmentof rhe
heterogeneous
nation,as "nativestrangers"within the Anglo-Saxon
soil, our
impact will prevailsooner,rarherlhan later. Alrhough srereorypes
remain
commonplace
and vicesget easilyconfusedwith habits,a numberof factors,
from population growrh to a rerardedacquisitiono[ a secondlanguageand a
passionateretenriveness
of our original cuhure, actuailysuggestthat Hispanicsin the United Statesshallnor, will nor, cannor,and ought nor fo]low
pathsopenedup by prer,rous
immigranrs.
According to various Chicano legendsrecounredby the scholar Gurierre
Tib6n, Aztlan Azrlarlan,rhe archetypalregion where Aztecs,speakersof
Nahuarl,originatedbeforetheiritinerantjoumey in the founeenrhcenturyin
searchof a iand to setrle,was somewherein the areaof New Mexico,California, Nevada,Uuh, Arizona,Colorado,Wyoming, Texas,and the Mexican
statesof Durango and Nayarir,quite far from Tenochtitldn,known roday as
MexicoCity. Once a nomadictribe,the Aztecssettledand becamepowerful,
subjugatingrhe Haustecto the north and the Mixrec and Zapotecto the
south, achievinga composirecivilizarion.Larinoswith thesemixed ances,
tries, at ieastsix in everyren in the United Stares,beiievethey havean aboriginal claim to the land north of the border.As nativeAmericans,we were in
theseareasbefore the Pilgrimsof the Mayflowerand undersrandablykeep a

THE HISPANICCONDITION

LIFE IN THE HYPHEN

tellunc atachment to the land. Our retum by sequential waves of immigrarion as wetbacks and middie-income entrepreneurs to the lost Canaan, rhe
Promised Land of Milk and Honey, ought be seen as the closing of a historical cycle. lronically, the revenge of Motecuhzoma II (in modem Spanish:

Und] the early eighties,Mexicans,PuerroRicans,Cubans,Centraland

SouthAmericans,and evenspaniardswereconsideredindependentunirs rn
the United srares,neverparr o[ a unified whole. If cultureis definedas rhe
fabric of iife of a community, rhe way its membersreacrin a sociarconrexr,
then Hispanic culture in rhe United Statesis many cultures,as many as
nationalgroups from Latin Americaand rhe Caribbean,Iinguisticallyried
together-wirh Antonio de Nebrija,the first grammarianof the Spanishlanguage,asa patemalfigure.After rhe 1990 U.S.Census,whlch countedmore
rhan 22 million Hispanics-9 percenrof the overallpopulation (arthoughat
least3 million wanderingillegalimmigrans should probabrybe added to
that count)-we emergedas a soiid polirical and social force. At rhar rime
the medianincomeper Hispanicfamilywas $23,446,whereasa white, nonHispanicfamily eamedan averageof $35,975. The censusalso showedlarge
concenrationsof Hispanicsin Califomiaand Texas,where l2 million or over
half (53.8 percent)of ail U.S. Hispanicslive, followed by New york and
Florida,wherenearly4 million, or about I7 percent,live.To put thingsinro
perspective,
in 1980 Hispanicstotaled6.4 percenrof the popularion,in
l99C 9 percenrof the population,and it is esrimatedthar by rhe year2000
Hispanicswill exceed31.2 million or ll.6 percenrof the roralU.S. popuiation. Beforethe eightiesour polidcal strugglesand socialbehaviorwere ofren
associated,in rhe view of Congressand in govemmenraloffices,wirh an
imageof some monstrouscreature,inchoate,formless,inconstant,whose
metabolismwas difficult to define. Assimilationwas analyzedaccordingto
our independentnadonalities:For instance,many Cubanswho cameto the
countryafterthe 1959 communisrRevolurionand beforerhe Marielboat lifr
in 1980 wereeducatedupper-and middle-class
people;consequenrly,
rheir
adaprationacquireda differentrhyrhm from rhar of puerto Ricans,who,
mosrlyasjtbarosfrom rural areasnearsanJuan and elsewhereon their native
west Indian island, arrivedin the United staresilliterareand without a
penny. Although not all Cubanswere well-off nor all puerto Ricansmiserable, many rhought the two subgoups neededro be approachedseparately
and as autonomousuni$. Things indeed havebeen reversed.Today rhe vanous pans making rhe Hispanic whole are approachedby scholarsmore or
lessuniformly, as interdependentscrewsadding up ro a sophrsticated,serfcontainedmachinery:Latinosareseenasan assemblyof forces,rn closecontact with their Hispanicsiblingsunder rhe border.
The discussionon how Hispanicshave been assimilatedhas been greatly
influencedby, amongothers,Juan G6mez-euiflones,the dean of Chicano

Moctezuma; in its English misspelling: Montezuma) is understood differently

in Spanish and English. For Anglos, it refers to the diarrhea a tourist gets
afrer drinking unpurified water or eating chile and arroz con pollo in Latin
America and the West Indies; for Hispanics, it describes the unhurried
process o[ the penetration of and exertion of influence on the United
States-la reconquista,the oppressor's final defeat. Yesterday's vrctim and
tomorrow's conquistadors, we Hispanics, tired of a history full of traumas
and undemocratic intemrptions, have decided to regain what was uken away
from us.
There is no doubt that the attempt to ponray Latinos as a homogenous
minority and,/or ethnic group is rather recent. Within the various minorities,
forces have always pulled unionists apart. As Bemardo Vega, a Puerto Rican
social activist ln New York Cirv. wrote in his Memoirs in the 1940s:
When l came to [NewYork] in I916 therewas little interestin Hispanic
culture. For the averagecitizen, Spain was a country ofbullfighten and flamenco dancers.As for Latin America, no one could care less.And Cuba
and Puerto Rico were just two islands inhabited by savageswhom the
Americans had beneficially saved from the clutches of the lberian lion.
Once in a while a Spanish theater company would make an appearancein
New York. Their audiencesneveramounted to more than the small cluster
of Spaniards and Latin Americans, along with some universiry professors
who had been crary enough to leam Spanish. That was it!
,
fhe constant growth of the Puerto Rican communiry gavense to riots,
I
j contro,rersy,hatred. But there is one fact that stands out: a! a time when
I there -ere no more than half a million of us, our impact on cultural life in
I the United Stateswas far stronger than that of the 4 million MexicanAmericans. And the reason is clear: though they shared with us the same
cultural origins, people of Mexican extraction, involved as they were in
agricultural labor, found themselvesscatteredthroughout the American
-Sourhwest.The Puerto Ricans, on lhe other hand, settled in the large
urban centers, especialiy New York, where in spite of everything the circumsunces were more conducive to cultural interaction and enrichment,
whether we wanted it that way or not.
l0

II

THE HISPANICCONDITION

history; he wrote the groundbreaking1977 essayon ethniciryand resistance

entitled "On Culture," as well as studiesof Chicanopolitics and the radical
politicsof the Mexicananarchistand anticlericalistRicardoFloresMag6n.This
discussionhas been centeredlor decadeson what theoreticianscalled"negacountries-anthrotive assimilation."Immigrantsfrom Spanish-speaking
pologists, sociologists,and historiansbelieved-were ready to retain their
ancestralheritageagainstall odds and costs;their daily existencein an alien,
milieu provoked a painful chain of beiligerentacts againstAngloaggressive
Saxondomination.Accordingto this view, Mexicansin EastLos Angeles,
Puerto Ricansin Upper Manhattan'sEl Barrio, or Cubansin Key West and
Miami's Little Havanasilently yet forcefullyengagedin a battle againstthe
environment'simposing values.The Anglo, alwaysthe enemy,was seenas
colonizing and enslaving,a view sharedby many south of the Rro Grande
War. In a tantaiizingpoem, Loma
since the time o[ the Spanish-American
Dee Cervantes,a Chicanain Califomia, author of Emplumada,wrote about
the pilgrimageto a paradisewithout completefreedom:"l seein the minor /
my reflection:bronzedskin, black hair. /I feel I am a captiveaboardthe
refugeeship./ The ship that will neverdock."
bold, politicallychargedera
At the end of the 1960s,a confronmtional,
and the intellectually
C6sar
ChAvez
movement,
led
by
emerged.The Chicano
"Corlcy"
was
intimatelylinked to
which
Gonz6lez,*
sophisdcatedRodolfo
the VietnamWar and the civii rights era,was,accordingto many, the apexof
such socialstrife. The term chicanoembodied the effort to overtum the dire
conditions existingwithin the Chicano communitiesduring the postwar
period. And in their activism,Chicanoswerejoined by Puerto Ricanrevolutionary nationaliststo form such organizationsas the Young Lords, who
fought for the independenceand self-determinationof Puerto Rico, equality
for women, an end to racism, and better education in Afro-lndian and
Spanishcultures.To oppose,to affirm one's own coliectivetradition, to
remain loyal to the immigrant'sculture, was consideredessentialand coherent with the Hispanic nature north of the Rio Grande.Such an attitude
would often incorporate apocalypticovertones.On the aestheticsof resistance,G6mez-Quiflonesonce wrote: "The forms and ethos of one art must
be broken-the art of domination;anotherart must be rescuedand fash*Unfortunately, when Anglicized, Spanish appellations and words often drop their accents
The explanation may be technological:Typewritersand word processorsthat are used in the
United Stateseitherexcludethem or havecomplex,labonouscommandsto bring them forth.

L I F EI N T H EH Y P H E N
ioned-the art of resistance.. . . It is arr that is not afraid ro love or play due
to its senseof history and future. It negatesrhe exploitarionof the many by
the few, art as the expressionof the degenerationof valuesfor the few, the
corruptiono[ human life, rhe destrucrionof the world. At that poinr art is at
the thresholdof enreringthe dimensionof politics "
Led by feministssuch as Gloria Anzaldfa and CherrieMoraga,whose
work is devoted ro analyzing"the mestizo world view" (rhe term mestizo,
from the Latin misctre,to mix, refersto people of combtned Europeanand
American Indian ancestry),interprererstoday are engagedin an altogerher
different frame of discussion.They suggestrhat l-atinos,living in a universe
of cultural contradictionsand fragmentaryrealities,haveceasedto be belligerentin the way they rypicallywere during the antiestablishmenr
decade.
It is not that combarhasdisappeared
or ceasedto be compelling;ir hassimply acquireda diiferentslant.The fight is no longerfrom the outsidein, but
from the insideour. We Latinosin the United Stateshavedecidedro consciouslyembracean ambiguous,labyrinrhineidentityas a culturalsignature,
and what is ironic is thar,in the needro reinvenrour self-image,
we seemro
be thoroughly enjoy'rngour culrural rransacrionswith the Anglo environment, elhnicallyhererogeneous
as rheyare.Resisrance
ro rhe English-speaking environmenthas beenreplacedby the notions of transcreationand transculturation,to exist in constantconfusion,to be a hybrid, in constant
change,etemallydivided,much like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: a bit like rhe
Anglos and a bit not. Such a charaa.eizarion,ir is not surprising, firs the
way in which Hispanicsare porrrayedby intellectualsin Larin America.
Octavio Paz andJulio Corriizaronce offered the axolotl-a rype oi Mexican
salamander,
a lizardlikeamphibianwith porousskin and four legs rhar are
often weak or rudimentary-as the ad hoc spnbol of rhe Hispanic psyche,
alwaysin profound mutarion, not the myrhical crearurecapableof with,
standingfire,but an etemalmuranr.And this metaphor,needlessto say,fits
perfectlywhat can be called "the New Latino": a collecriveimagewhose
reflectionis built as the sum of its partsin unrestrainedand dynamicmetamorphosis,a splrir of acculturationand perperualtranslarion,linguisticand
spiritual,a densepopularidentiryshapedlike one of thoseperfectspheres
imaginedby BlaisePascal:with its diametereverywhereand irs center
nowhere.We are all to become Latinosagingadosand/or gnngoshispanizados;we will neverbe the ownersof a pure, crystallinecollectiveindividualityJ
becausewe are the product of a five-hundred-year-old
fiestao[ miscegenarion that beganwith our 6rst encounrerwith the gnngo in i49)mls
t3

THE HISPANICCONDITION

applaudedin today'smulticulturalage is a life happily lost and found in

Spangiish,which the southem writer and scholarRolandoHinojosa,the
Chicano author of the Klail City saga,callsel cal6pachuco:a round trip from
one linguistic territory and cultural dimension to another, a perpetualbargaining. Bilingual education,which began in the 1960s in Florida in
responseto a request from Cubanswho wished to allow their children to
use Spanishin public schools,has reinforcedthe importanceof our first languageamong Latinos.The tongue of Spain'sGold Age poets Luis de
G6ngoraand Franciscode Quevedo,rather than fading away, is alive and
changing,a crucial playerin our bifocal idendry. The hyphen as an acceptpeoplein the barriosof
ablein-betweenis now in fashion;monolingualism,
the Southwestenjoy sayrng,is curable.One of the best portrayalsof Ladno
assimilationinto the meltingpot that I know of is found in Tom Shlamme's
1991 televisionfilm MamboMouth, in which the performanceartistJohn
Leguizamo(who wrote the original play as well) impersonatesa Japanese
executivetrying to teach Latinosthe art of "ethnic crossover."He claims
a
that in corporateAmericathere'sno room for "Spiks,"and thus elaborates
Latinos
and
In
the
uadition
of
methodby which
can look
becomeOriental.
satiricalcomedy, Leguizamoridicules Hispanic features:dietary and dressing manners,ways of speakingand walking, etc. As the monologue develops, we leam that the Japaneseexecutivehimseif was once a Latino and
that, occasionally,he longs for the saborhispanoof his past. Slowly, as in
Chekhov's dramatic digressions-indeed, Leguizamo'spiece is remarkably
similarto Chekhov'stragicomicmonologue"On Smokingand Its Dangers"the characterloseshis integnry; while speaklng,his feet suddenly run wild,
dancinga fast-pacedsalsarhythm. Obviously,the method for "ethnic
crossover"has failed: Whereverwe go, as Latinos we will alwayscarry our
idiosyncraticselfwith us.
Evenbeforethe publication of OscarHijuelos's dazzlingnovel TheMambo
KingsPlaysSongsoJLovern 1989 and its subsequentreceipt of the Puliver
Prize,an explosiono[ Latino arts was overwhelmingthe country. Young and
old, dead and alive-from William Carlos Williams to Joan Baezand Tito
Rodriguez,from Gloria Estefan,Piri Thomas,Diego Rivera,Anthony Quinn,
and OscarLewis to Maria ConchitaAlonso, Celia Cruz, and Cortijo-novelists, poes, filmmakers,painters,and salsa,merengue,plena,rumba, mambo,
and cumbia musiciansare being reevaluated,and a differentapproachto the
Latino metabolismhas been happily promoted. The concept of negative
assimilationhas been replacedby the idea of a cuitural war in which Larinos
I4

LIFE IN THE HYPHEN

are soldiersin rhe battie to changeAmericafrom wirhin, ro reinvenri$ inner

core. Take the fever surroundingLadn America'smagicalrealism,what the
Cubanmusicologistand novelistAlejo Carpenrierfirst calledlo real marayilloso
aftera trip to Hairi in 1943, and what has been used to describe,obtusely,
GabrielGarciaMdrquez'sficrionalcoastaltown Macondo,with irs rain of
buuer{liesand epidemicof insomnia.Incredibly markemble,magicalrearism
exploitedthe tropics-largely forgotrenin the inremationalarristicscene,
asidefrom the surrealistcuriosiryabourprimidvism,unril afterworld war IIas an exrrinsicgeography,full of picturesquelandscapes,a bananarepublic
o[ magisterialproporrions where rreacherousarrny officials tortured heroic
rebels. Foreigners'obsessionwith such imagesquickly transformed
rhe
region into a huge picture postcard,a kimch stagewhere everybodywas
eithera dreamer,a harlor,or a corruprofficial.Afrer intense,bur" ani o,ursive commercialization,where Evita per6n was patti Lupone singing an
Andrew Lloyd webber meiody, rhe image has finaily rosr its .ugi.,L-,
eclipsedby a focuson anorherscene:barrionightclubsand alienurba.,
urf.
You don't need to travel to BuenosAires or Bogotiianymoreto feel
the
Latino beat. Miami, once a retreatfor retirees,is now a laboratorywhere
L-arinizarion,
asJoan Didion and David Rieff have borh argued,is aireadya
fact, and where, as the xenophobicmedia claims, "foreigners,"especially
Cubansand Brazilians,
havetakenover.It is the fronrierciry par."..11.r,..,
It has incorporated300,000 refugeesflromLarin Americawho seem
ro have
come wirh a vengeance;bilingualismis rhe rule, rhere'slittle pressure
ro
becomea citizenof the unired srates;rouristsare besiegedand rhrearened
and unhappy Anglos havefled; and huge invesrmens pour in from weahhy
enrrepreneurs
in Venezuela
andArgentina,amongotherplaces.
Akhough some srubbomly persistin thinking thar the so-cailedThird
world begins and ends in Ciudad Juarezand,Maramoros,rhe neighboring
citiessouth of the Rio Grande,the fact is that Los Angeles,first visited
by
spaniardsin 1769 and floundedas a rown a few yearslarer,is Mexico,s
second capiral,a ciry with more Mexicansthan GuadalajaraandMonterrey
com,
bined.And New York City, originallya Dutch settlemenrcalledNew Amsrerdam, has tumed inro a huge fryingpan, where,sincethe 1970s,the puerto
Rican idenrity has been acrivelyrevampedinro Nuyoricanness,a
unique
blend of Puerto Ricannessand New yorkese,and where .u,n".o*
orh..
Latino groups have proliferaredsince rhe l9g0s. welcome home, gringo!
Claude Ldvi-strauss'stistes tropique.s
havejust been relocared:Hispanicsare
now ln the background,while Ladnos,with their
JeromeRobbins-choreoI5

THE HISPANICCONDITION

graphed, Stephen Sondheim-lyncized Wesc Side stories, have come forth as

protagoniss in vogue.
Tonight, tonight,
The world is full of light,
With suns and moons all over the place.
Tonight, tonight,
The world is wild and bright,
Going mad, shooting sparksinto space.
Today the world was just an address,
A place for me to live in,
No better than all right,
But here you are,
And what wasjust a world is a star
Tonight!
ln qualiry and quantity, a different collective spint is emerging, seasoned
with south-of-the border flavors. The new Latino's ideological agenda is personifred in the breathtaking prose of Sandra Cisneros and made commercial
in the Madonna-like mercandle curiosiry, in the Anglo arena, toward veteran
musicians Tito Puente and Ddmaso P6rez Prado. Again, the objective !s to
use the mass media, the enemy's tools, to infiltrate the system and to promote a revaluation of things Hispanic. For Hispanics Anglo-Saxon culture is,
no doubt, sdll very much the villain, but the attitude is more condescending,
even apologetic. As the poet Tato Laviera wrote in AmeRican,a poem from
which I quote rwo segments:
We gavebirth to a new generation,
AmeRican, broader than lost gold
nevertouched, hidden inside the
puerto rican mountains.
we gavebirth to a new generation,
AmeRican, it includes everything
imaginable you-name-it-we-got-it
sociery.
we gavebirth to a new generation,
AmeRican salutesall folkiores,

L I F EI N T H E H Y P H E N
european,indlan, black, spanish,
and anyrhing else compatible:

AmeRican,defining rhe new America,humane

america, admired america, loved
america, harmonious america, the
world in peace,our energres
collectively invested to find other
civilizations, to rouch God, furrher
and further, ro dwell in the soirit of
divinity!
AmeRican, yes, for now, for i love this, my
second land, and i dream to rake
the accenrfrom the altercadon,and
be proud to call myself american,
in the u.s. senseof the word,
AmeRican,Americar
our understanding of the evasive concept of borderland-a never-never
Iand near rhe rim and ragged edge we call fronder, an uncerrain, indeterminate, adjacent area that everybody can recognize and thar, more rhan ever
before, many call our horne-has been adapred, reformulated, and reconsidered. Hyphenated identities become naural in a muldethnic sociery. After all,
democracy, what Felipe Alfau called the
ryranny of the many, asks for a constant revaiuadon of rhe narion's hisrory and convivialiry. And yet, a border rs
no ionger only a globally accepted, intemationally defined edge, the legal
boundary dividing rwo or more narions; it is first and foremosr a mental stat.,
an abyss, a cuhural hallucination, a fabrication. Larinos, as frontier dwellers,
immersed in the multicultural banquet, can no ronger afford ro iive quietly on
the margins, parasites of a bygone pasr. For roday's newly arrived immigrant,
la patia, one's home narion, whar yiddish-speaking immigrans once called
der aker heim, is, as Tato Laviera claimed, wharever one makes of today's
United srares. Animosiry and resenrmenr are pur on hold, the semiburied
past is left behind while the presenr is seized. our generation is triumphantly
ready ro reflecr on is immediate and far-reaching assimiladon proceis, and
this inevitably leads to a parh of divided loyalry. Indeed, divided we srand,
without a sense of guilt. Gringolandia, after all, is our ambivalenr. schizot7

THE HISPANICCONDITION

phrenichogar.We arereconsideringthe joumey, looking back while wondering: Who arewe?Where did we come [rom?What havewe achieved?Overall,
the resultinghybnd, a mix of Englishand Spanish,of the iand of lersureand
futuristic technologyand the Third World, hasceasedro be an elusiveutopia.
latin Americahasinvadedthe United Statesand reversedthe processof colonization highlighted by the Trearyof GuadalupeHidalgo and the SpanishAmericanWar. Suddenly,and without much fanfare,the First World has
becamea conglomerationof tourists,refugees,and 6migrsfrom what Waldo
where those
Frank once calledla Ameicahispana,a sopaderazase identidodes,
who arefuily adaptedand happilyfunctionalarelookeddown on.
This metamorphosisincludes many iosses,of course,for all of us, from
alien citizensto fuil-sratuscitizens:the loss of language;the loss of idendty;
and, more important,the lossof tradition.Someare
the lossof self-esteem;
left behind en route, whereasothers forget the flavor of home. But less is
more, and confusion is being tumed into enlightenment.ln this nation of
imaginationand plenty, where 4ewcomersare welcome to reinvent their
past, loss quickly becomesan asset.The vanishingof a collectiveidentiryHispanics as eternally oppressed-necessarilyimplies the creation of a
refreshinglydifferent self. Confusion, once recycled,becomeselfusion and
revision.Among many, Guillermo G6mez-Peflahas verbalizedthis type of
cultural hodgepodge,this convolutedsum of parts making up today's
Hispanic condition. "l am a child of crisis and cultural syncretism,"he
argued,"half hippie and half punk."
My generationgrewup watchingmoviesaboutcowboysand sciencefiction, lisreningto cumbiasand tunes from the Moody Blues,constructing
andArtforum,
altarsand filming in Super-8,readingrhe ComoEmplumado
traveiingto Tepoztldnand SanFrancisco,creatingand de-creatingmyths.
We wenr to Cuba in searchof politicalillumination,to Spainto visit the
musicocrazygrandmotherand to the U.S.in searchof the instantaneous
We found nothing.Our dreamswound up Settingcaught
sexualParadise.
in thewebsof rheborder.
Our generationbelongsto the world's biggestfloatingpopulation:the
wearytravelers,the dislocated,thoseo[ us who left becausewe didn't fit
anymore,thoseo[ us who still haven'tarrivedbecausewe don't know
we can'tgo backanyrnore.
whereto arriveat, or because
emotionis that of loss,which comesfrom our
Our deepestgenerational
havrngleft. Our iossis total and occursat multiplelevels.
l8

LIFE IN THE HYPHEN

Loss of land and self. By accommodaringourselvesro rhe American

Dream,by forcing the United Sratesto acknowledgeus as parr of its uterus,
we are transformingourselvesinside El Dorado and, simultaneously,reevaluating the culture and environmentwe left behind. Not since rhe abolition of
slaveryand the wavesof Jewish immigrarion from EasremEurope has a
group beenso capableof tuming everybodyupside down. If, as W. E. B. Du
Boisonceclaimed,the problem of the rwentiethcenrurywas meanrro be rhe
problem of the color line, the nexr hundred yearswill haveaccuhurationand
miscegenarion
as rheir leirmotif and strife. Mulricuhuralismwill sooneror
later fade away and will rake with it the need for Latinos to inhabit the
hyphen and exist in constanrconrradictionas eremal ax6lotk.By then the
United Sutes will be a radicallydifferentcounrry. Meanwhile,we are experiencinga rebinh and arehavinga fesrivedme decidingro be undecided.
How can one undersund rhe hyphen, the encounrerberweenAngios and
Hispanics,the mix berweenGeorgeWashingtonand Sim6n Bolivar?Has the
cultural impact of south-of-rhe-borderimmigranrcin a country that prides
irelf on is Eurocenrriclineageand consmndyrries ro minimize, even hide,
its Spanishand Portuguesebackgrounds,been properly analyzed?
Where can
one begin expioring the Ladno hybrid and its multiple linls to Hispanic
America?To what exrenris rhe bardeinside ladnos berweenrwo conflicdng
worldviews,one obsessedwith immediaresarisfacrionand success,the other
traumatizedby a painful, unresolvedpasr, evidenrin our an and letters?
Should the opposition to the EnglishOniy movement,Chicanoacrivism,
Cuban exile polirics, and the Nuyorican existentialdilemma be approached
as manifestationsof a collecrive,more-orlesshomogeneouspsyche?Are
Brazilians,
Jamaicans,and Haidans-all non-Spanishspeakers-our siblings?
ls oscar Hr.luelospossiblewithourJosd LezamaLima and Guillermo cabrera
Infante?Or is he only a child of Donald Barthelmeand SusanSonug?What
does he as a Cuban-Americanshare with ChicanaSandraCisnerosand
Dominican-AmericannovelisrJulia Alvarez, aurhor of How the Garcia Girls
I-ostTheirAccents,orher than an amorphousand evasiveerhnic background?
Are CdsarChavezand rwenrieth-cenruryMexican anarchistRicardo Frores
Mag6n ideologrcalcousins?Is Edward Rivera,aurhor of the memoir Family
Installments
and an Englishwrirer and professorar Ciry Collegeof New york,
in any way relatedro EugenioMaria de Hosros,Ren6Marqu6s,andJosdLuis
GoruAlez,PuerroRico'sliterarycomersronesin rhe wenrierh cenrury?Is the
Mexican-American
writer RudolfoA. Anaya,responsiblefor BlessMe, IJltima,
a successorofJuan Rulfo and Wiiliam Faulkner?Ought RichardRodriguezbe
i9

THE HISPANICCONDITION

LIFE IN ]'HE HYPHEN

seen as a result of a mlxed marriage berween Alfonso Reyes and John Stuart
Mill? Is Arthur Allonso Schomburg-the so-calledSherlock Holmes of Negro
History, whose collection of book on African-Amencan heritage forms the
core o[ the New York Public Library's present-day Schomburg Center for

nurtured. Idiosy,ncratic differences puzzle me: What distinguishes us from

Anglo-Saxons and other European immigrants as well as from other minorities (such as blacks and Asians) in the Unired States?Is there such a thing as

Researchon Black Culture-our ancestor, in spite of his disenchanlment

with his Puerto Ricanness?How do Latinos perceive the odd link berween
the clock and the crucifix? Is there such a thing as Latin time? Is there a
branch of Salvadoran literature in English? What makes gay Latinos unique?
What is the role played by Spanish-language television and printed media in
the shaping of a new Latlno ldendry?
These are urgent questions in need of comprehensiveanswersand deserving many independent volumes. My objective in the following pages is to set
what I.;udge to be an appropriate intellectual framework to begin discussing
them. I shall therefore address the tensions within the minority group, our
differences and our similaritles, as well as the role played by popular and
high-brow culture in and beyond the community. My approach, I should
wam, isn't chronological. This, after all, is not a history of Hispanics in the
United Statesbut a set of reflections on our plural culture. (A chronology at
the end of rhe volume offers a sequenceof historical and cultural highlights.)
Juxtaposing, when pertinent, some biographical information to enlighten the
unaware, I shall comment on politics, race, sex, and the spiritual realm; discuss stereot)?es; and consider the effects of a handful of writers, pictorial
artists, folk musicians, and media luminaries on culture in the United States.
I titled the book flre Hispanic Condition because I am eager to show the multiple links berween Latinos and their siblings south of the Rio Grande, a journey from Spanish into English, the northward odyssey of the omnipresent
bracero worker, jibaro immigrant, and Cuban refugee. In the fashion of the
lifelong attempts by Zora Neale Hurston, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, and the
black artists and scholars during the Harlem Renaissanceof the 1930s, who
fought to disprove once and for all the common misconception that "Negros
have no history," my overall hope is to demonstrate that we Latinos have an
abundance of histories, linked to a common root but with decisivelydifferent
traditions. At each and every moment, these ancestral histories determine
who we are and what we think. As I am sure it can already be perceived, my
personal interest is not in the purely political, demographic, and sociological
dimensions, but, rather, in the Hispanic American and Latino intellectual
and artistic legacies. What attracts me more than actual events are worl<s o[
fiction and visual art, hlstoriography as a cradle where cultural artifacts are

a Latino identiry? OughtJosd Martf and Eugenio Maria de Hostos be considered the forefathers of Ladno politics and culture? Need one rerum ro rhe
Alamo to come to terms with the clash berween two essentially different psyches, Anglo-Saxon Protestant and Hispanic Catholic? The voyage ro what
William H. Gass called "the heart of the heart of the counrry" needs to begin
by addressinga crucial issue: the diversiry factor. Latinos, no quesrion, are a
most difficult communiry to describe: Is the Cuban from Holguin similar in
attitude and culture to someone from Managua, San Salvador, or Sanro
Domingo? Is the Spanish we all speak, our lingua t'ranca, rhe only uni$nng
factor?How do the various Hispanic subgroups understand the complexities
of what it means to be part of the same minoriry goup? Or do we perceive
ourselves as a unified whole?
Culture and identiry are a parade of anachronistlc q.rynbols,larger-than-life
abstractions, less a shared set of beliefs and values than the collective strategies by which we organize and make sense of our experience, a complex yet
tightly integrated construction in a state of perpetual flux. To begin, it is
utterly impossible to examine Latinos without regard to the geography we
come from. We. are, we recognize ourseives to be, an extremity of Latin
America, a diaspora alive and well north of the Rio Grande. For the Yiddish
writer Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the milkman, for instance, America was a
slrron).{n o[ redemption, the end of pogoms, the solution to eanh]y marrers.
Russia, Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe were lands of suffering.
lmmigrating to America, where gold grew on trees and could easily be found
on sidewalk, was synonymous with entering Paradise.To leave, never to
look back and retum, was an imperative. Many miles, almost impossible to
breach again, divrded the old land from the new. We, on the orher hand, are
just around lhe corner: Oaxaca, Mexico; Varadero, Cuba; and Sanrurce,
Puerto Rico, are literally next door. We can spend every other month, even
every other week, either north or south. lndeed, some among us swear to
return home when military dictatorships are finally deposed and more
benign regimes come to li[e, or simply when enough money is saved in a
bank account. Meanwhile, we inhabit a home divided, multiplied, neither in
the barrio or the besieged ghetto nor across the river or the Gulf o[ Mexico, a
home either here or within hours'distance. Jos6 Antonio Villaneal's 1959
novel Pocho,for example, called by some critics "a foundational texr" and
2l

THE HISPANICCONDITION

believedto be the first English-writtennovel by a Chicano,is preciselyabout

the etemal need to retum among Chicanos:a retum to source,a retum to
the self. And Pablo Medina'smeticulousCuban-Americanautobiography
FxrledMemoies,along the samelines, is about the impossibilityof retuming
to childhood,to the mother'ssoil, to happiness.But retum is indeedpossible in most cases.Cheaplabor comesand goesback and forth to Pueblaand
SanJuan.
One ought never to forget that Hispanicsand their siblings north of the
border have an intimate, long-standing,love-hatereladonship.Latinos are a
major source of income for the familiesthey left behind. In Mexico, for
instance,money wired by relativesworking as pizza deliveryboys, domestic
servants,and constructionworkersamounmto a third of the nation's overall
revenues.Is this nothing new, when one ponderspreviouswavesof immigration? Perhaps.Others havedreamedof Americaas paradiseon earth,but our
arrivalin the PromisedLand with strings attachedunderscorestroublesome
pattems of assimilation.WhereasGermans,Irish, Chinese,and others may
haveevidenceda certainambiguiryand lack of commitmentduring their first
stageof assimilationin the United States,the proximiry of our original soil,
both in the geographicand metaphoricalsense,is tempting. This thought
brings to mind a claim by the lberian philosopherJosd Ortegay Gasset,
oJthe Masses,
among many other titles, in a 1939 lecrure
aurhor of Rebellion
deliveredin BuenosAires. Onegay Gassetstatedthat Spaniardsassumedthe
role of the New Man the moment they settledin the New World. Their attitude was the result not of a centuriesJongprocess,but of an immediateand
sudden transformation.To this idea the Colombian writer Antonio Sanin
Cano once mistakenlyadded that Hispanics,vis-)-vis other settlers,have a
brilliant capaciryto assimilate;unlike the British, for instance,who can live
for yearsin a foreignland and neverbecomepart of it, we do. What he forgot
to add is that we achievetotal adaptationat a huge cost to ourselvesand others. We becomethe New Man and Woman carry4ngalong our former environment. Add the fact that we are often approachedas traitors in the place
once calledhome: We left, we betrayedour patriotism,we rejectedand were
rejectedby the milieu, we abortedourselvesand spat on the ulerus. Cubans
worms in Havana'seyes.Mainland Puerto
in exile are known as gusanos,
Ricansoften complain of the lack of support from their original familiesin
the Caribbeanand find their cultural ties tenuous and thin. Mexicanshave
Pochos,and other rlpes of Chicanos;when
mixed feelingstoward Pachucos,
possible,Mexico ignoresour politics and cultural manifesmtions,only taking
22

L I F EI N T H EH Y P H E N
them into account when diplomatic relationswith the White House are at
stake.
Once in the United States,we are seen in unequal terms. Although
England,France,and Spainwere the chief nations to establishcoloniesthis
side of the Atlantic, the legacyof lberian conquerorsand explorersremains
unattended,quasi-forgotten,almost deleted from the nation's memory. The
frrst permanentEuropeansettlementin the New World was St. Augustine,
Florida, founded by the Spanishin 1565, over forry yearsbefore the British
in Virgrnia.Or simply considerthingsfrom an onomas.
establishedJamestown
tic point of view: Los Angeles,Sausalito,SanLuis Obispo,and San Diegoare
all Hispanicnames.Peopleknow that during the U.S. Civil War, black, freed
in 1863 from slaveryaspan of the Emancipationhoclamadon (which covered
only statesin the Confederacy),fought on both sides;what is unknown or
prehapsevensilenced,what is left unrecognized,is that Hispanicswere also
acdvesoldierson the battlefield.When the warbegan in 1861, more than
10,000 Mexican-Americans
sewed in both the Union and the Confederate
armed forces.Indeed, when it comes to l-atino history, the official chronology of the United States,from its birth until after World War II, is a
sequenceo[ omissions.Betweenl9l0 and 1912, for instance,U.S. railroad
companiesrecruited thousandsof Hispanic workers, and nearly 2,000
braceroscrossedthe border everymonth to work for the railways.Also,
Hispanicworkers' unions are not a recent invention, and CdsarChAvezwas
no sudden hero. Many PuertoRicanand Chicano rebellionsoccurredin the
early stagesof World War I, and organizerslike BemardoVega and Jesris
Col6n were instrumentalin shapinga new consciousness
before the mythic
La Causamovementtook shape.For instance,after minerswent on strike in
Ludlow, Colorado, around the time that the Archduke FrancisFerdinand,
heir apparentto the Austro-Hungarianthrone, was assassinated
in Sarajevo,
more than fifry people, many who were Mexican-Americans,
were killed by
the Nadonal Guard. PuertoRicanand Chicanosoldiersfought in World War
II, and many more participatedin the KoreanWar. Furthermore,Martf, Dr.
Ram6n Emetrio Betances.Hostos. and other revolutionarieswere active in
New York and elsewherein the United Statesin the late nineteenthcentury,
especiallyin the wake of the Spanish-AmericanWar. Bur very few are
acquaintedwith these[acs.
Flowing some 1,880 miles from southwestemColoradoto the Gulf of
Mexico,the Rio Grande,rhe Rio Turbio, is rhe dividing iine, the end and the
beginning,of the United Sntes and Latin America.The river not only sepaL)

T H E H I S P A N I CC O N D I T I O N

rates the twin cities of El Pasoand Ciudad Judrezand of Brownsvilleand

Matamores,but also,and more essentially,
is an abyss,a wound, a borderline, a symbolic dividing line betweenwhar Alan Riding once forcefully
describedas "distant neighbors."The flow of water has had differentnames
during severalperiods and along severaldifferent reachesof its course.An
incompletelist, offeredby Paul Horganin his monumenralPulitzerPrizewinning book, GreatRiver:TheRtoGrandein NorthAmencanHistory,follows:
Gran River,P'osoge,Rio Bravo,Rio Bravodel Norte, Rio Caudaloso,Rio de la
Concepci6n,Rio de las Palmas,Rio de NuestraSefrora,Rio de Buenaventura
del Norte,Rio del Norte,Rio del Norte y de NuevoMxico,Rio Grande,Rio
Grandedel Norte, Rio Guadalquivir,Riverof May, Tiguex fuver, and Gy
extension)the TortillaCurtain.What's in a name?Southfacingnonh think
of it as a streamcarryingpoisonouswater;north facingsouth prefersto seeir
as an obstacleto illegal espaldas
mojadas,a servicedoor to one's baclcyard.
The namegamepertainsto our deceitfui,equivocal,and evasivecollective
appellation:What arewe: Hispanics,hispanos,
Latinos(and Larinas),larins,
iberoatnencanos,
people,
Spanish,Spanish-speaking
HispanicAmericans(visi-vis the Latin Americanslrom acrossthe Rio Grande),mesrizos(and mestiCuban-Americans,
Dominican-Amenzas),or simply, Mexrcan-Americans,
cans,PuertoRicanson the Mainland,and so forth?And should I add Spihs
to the list?(PedroJuanSoto,who taughtat the Universidadde PuertoRico,
oncetried to tracethe word'soriginsand mutantspellingto Spigs,useduntil
1915 to describeltalians,loverso[ spiggory,
nor spaghettr,
and from I no spih
i n g l i s ; t h e t e r m t h e n e v o l v e dt o S p i c s ,S p i c h sa, n d c u r r e n r l y S p i h s )
Encyclopedias,at leastuntil recently,describedus as HispanicAmeicansisi-vis the Latin Ameicansfrom south of the border. The confusionevidendy
recallsthe fashionin which Black,Nigger,Negro,Afro-American,and AfricanAmericanhavebeenusedfrom beforeAbrahamLincoln'sabolitionof slavery
to the present.Nowadaysthe generalfeelingis that one unifying term
addressingeverybodyis better and lessconfusing;but would anybodyrefer
to Italian, German, French, and Spanishwriters as a single categoryo[
Europeanwriters?The United States,a mosaicof racesand cultures,always
needs to speak of its social quilt in generallystereotlpicalways. Aren't
Asians,black, andJewsalsoseenas homogeneous
groups,regardless
of the
ongin of theirvariousmembers?
Nevertheless,
in the pnnted media,on relevision,out in the streets,and in rhe privacyof their homes,peoplehesirare
betweena couple of favontes:Hispanicandlttino.
Althoughthesetermsmay seeminterchangeable,
an arrenriveearsensesa
24

LIFEIN THE HYPHEN

difference.Preferredby conservatives,rhe former is used when rhe talk is

demographics,
education,urban developmenr,
drugs,and health;rhe latter,
on the other hand, is the choice of liberalsand is frequentlyused ro refer ro
artists,musicians,and movie stars.Ana Castillois Latina and Jos6 Feliciano
is Latino,as is AndresSerrano,rhe conrroversial
photographer,
authorof Plss
Chnst,who, alongsideRoberrMapplerhorpe,
promptedconservarive
Senaror
Helms
and
others,
in
the
late
1980s,
ro
consolidate
the
so-called
culJesse
ture war againstobscenityin modem arr. Former New York City Schools
ChancellorJoseph
Femandezis Hispanic,as are CongressmanJos6
Senano
Bronx
and
Borough PresidentFernandoFerrer.A sharperdifference:
Hispanic is used by the federalgovemment to describethe hererogeneous
ethnic minority with ancestorsacrossrhe Rio Grandeand in the Caribbean
archipelago,
but sincerhesecitizensarelatinoamencanos,
Latino is acknowledgedby liberalsin rhe communiryas correcr.The issue,lessrransitorythan
it seems,invitesus to travelfar and awayto wonderwhat'sbehindthe name
Latin America,where the misunderstanding
apparentlybegan.Dunng the
1940sand evenearlier,Spanishwas a favoriteterm used by Englishspeakers
to name those from the lberian peninsulaand acrossthe border: Ricardo
Montalbanwas Spanish,aswerePedroFlores,PedroCarrasquillo,and Poncho
Sanchez,although one was Mexicanand the orherswere Cuban and Puerro
Rican.In Anglo-Saxoneyes,all were Larin lovers,mambo kings, and spirfires
homogenizedby a mother ronflue.It goeswithout sayingthat from rhe sixteenth to the earlynineteenthcenrury,the part o[ the New Wor]d (a term
coined by PeterMarryr, an early biographerof Columbus)* known today as
Latin Americawas calledSpanishAmerica(and, ro some,lberianAmerica);
linguistically,the geographyexciudedBrazil and the rhree Guyanas.The
term HispanicAmencan(Hispanicmeaning "cttizen of Hispania," rhe way
RomansaddressedSpaniards)capruredthe spotlighrin the I960s, when
waveso[ Iegaland undocumentedimmigrantsbeganpouring in from
Mexico, CentralAmerica,PuerroRico, and other Third World counrries.
(The term Third World is the abominablecrearionof Frantz Fanon and was
largelypromoted by Luis EcheverriaAlvarez,a simplemindedMexicanpresr,
dent. CarlosFuentes,in his volume on Spainand the Americas,TheBuied
Mirror, prefersthe term developing,
rarherrhan ThirdWorldor underdeveloped.)
When nationalismemergedas a cohesiveforce in l-atin America,Spanish* Seemy book Imagrning
(Neu'York:Twa;.ne-Macmillan,
TheLiteraryVoyage
Columhus:
1993),
whereI discussthe birth of rheAmericasin Europe'scollectivermagrnauon.

25

THE HISPANICCONDITION

Ameican lost its value becauseof its referenceto Spain, now considereda
foreign, imperialist invader. The Spanishconquistadorswere loudiy
denouncedas criminals,a trend inauguratedby FrayBartolom6de Las Casas
centuriesbefore,but until then not legldmizedby the powersthat be.
As Spanishspeakersbecamea political and economicforce, the term
Hispanic was appropriatedby the govemmentand the media. It describes
peopleon the basisof their cultural and verbalherimge.Placedalongsidecategorieslike Caucasian,fuian, and black, it provesinaccuratesimply because
a person (me, for instance)is Hispanicand Caucasian,Hispanicand black; ir
ignoresa referenceto race.After yearsin circulation,it has aireadybecomea
weapon, a stereorypingmachine. Its synonl,rnsare drug addict, criminal,
prison inmate, and out-of-wedlockfamily. Latino has then become the
opdon, a sign of rebellion, the choice of intellectualsand artists,becauseit
emergesfrom within this ethnic goup and becauseim eqrmologysimuluneously denouncesAnglo and Iberian oppression.But what is truly Latin
(Roman,Hellenistic)in it? Nothing, or very little. Columbus and his crew
called Cuba,Juanaand PuertoRico, Hispaniola(the latter's capitalwas San
Juan Bautistade Puerto Rico). One of the first West Indies islands they
encountered,now divided into the Dominican Republic and Haiti, was
known as Espafrola0ater,Saint Domingueand Hispaniola).During colonial
dmes,the regionwas calledSpanishAmericabecauseof its linguistic preponderance,and then, by the mid-nineteenthcenury-with Paris the world's
cultural centerand romanticismat is herght-a group of educatedChileans
suggestedthe name I'Amtique latine,which, sadly to say, was favoredover
SpanishAmerica.The senseof homogeneitythat camefrom a globalembrace
of Roman constiturionallaw and the identity sharedthrough the Romance
Ianguages(mainly Spanish,but also Portugueseand French)were crucial to
the decision. Sim6n Bolivar, the region's uitimate hero, who was bom in
Venezuelaand fought an ambitiousrevolutionfor independencefrom Iberian
dominion in Boyacdin 1819, saw the terrn as contribudngto the unification
of the endre southem hemisphere.Much later, in the late 1930s and early
1940s,Franklin DelanoRoosevelt'sGood NeighborPolicyalso embraced
and promotedit. Yet historiansand estheteslike PedroHenriquezUreftaand
Luis Alberto Sdnchezrailed against the designation:perhaps Hispanic
Americaand PortugueseAmerica,but please,neverLatin America.Much like
the name Americais a historicalmisconceptionthat is used to describethe
entire continent-one that originated from the explorerAmerigo Vespucci
(after all, Erik the Red, a Viking voyagerwho set foot on this side of the
26

LIFE IN THE HYPHEN

Atlandc around the year 1000, and even poor, disorientedCrist6balCol6n,

arrivedfirs0-Latino makeslittle senseeven if Romancelanguagesin Ladn
Americaare true equalizersthat resultedfrom the so-called1492 discovery.
This idea brings to mind a statementmade by Aaron Copland after a 1941
tour of nine South Americancountries."Latin Americaas a whole does not
exist," he said. "lt is a collecrionof separatecounrries,each with different
traditions. Only as I traveledfrom country ro counrry did I realizethat you
must be willing to split the continentup in your mind."
ln mammoth urban centers(LosAngeles,Miami, New York), the Spanishlanguagemedia-newspapersand televisionsrarions-addressrheir constituenry as loshispanos.
but hardly everas loslatinos.The deformedadjective
hispanois used insteadof hispdnico,which is rhe correct Spanishword; the
reason:hispdnicois too pedantic,too academic,too lberian.When salsa,
meringue,and other rhythms are referred to, latino is used. Again, the distinction, artificial and difficult to sustain,is unclear; the Manhauandaily El
Diaio, for example,calls itself the champion of Hispanics,whereasImpacto,
a national publication rhat is proud of its sensationalism,has as its subtitle
"The Latin News" (notice: I-atin, not Latino).lnevitably, rhe whole discussion reminds me of the Gershwinsong performedon roller skatesby Fred
Astaireand GingerRogersin ShallWeDance'.I say ro-may-roand you say tomah-to.
From Labradorto the Pampas,from Cape Hom ro the lberian peninsula,
from Garcilasode Ia Vegaand Count Lucanor ro SorJuana Inds de la Cruz
and Andrs Bello, the scope of Hispanic cMlization-which began in the
cavesof Altamira, Buxo, and Tito Bustillo some 25,000 or 30,000 yearsago
("the ribs of Spain," as Miguel de Unamuno would call them)-is indeed
outstanding.Although I honesdyprefer Hispanic as a composite rerm and
would rather not use L-atino,is there value in opposinga consensus?Or, as
Franz Kafkawould ask, Is there any hope in a kingdom where cats chase
aftera mouse?I herewithsuggestusing Latinosto referro rhosecitizensfrom
the Spanish-speahng
world lMng in rhe United Statesand Hispanicsto refer
living
to those
elsewhere.Which meansthat, by any account,a Latino is also
an Hispanic,but not necessarily
vice versa.
As for the pertinent art of Martin Ramfrez,rhe mute Chicano artist
whose drawingswere shown at the Corcoran Gallery in the late 1980s, an
Oliver Sacks-like "disoriented mariner" in an ever-changinggalaxy,his
quiet vicissitudein Gringolandia'slabynnthine mirrors will become my
leitmotif. I am attractedto the striking coherenceand color of his 300-

THE HISPANICCONDITION
LIFE IN THE HYPHEN

somepainrings.Although producedby a schizophrenic,

theseimasesmanagero constmcta well-rounded,
lanrasric
universe,
wirh figureslik'etrains,
beasts,auromobiles,women, leopards,deer,bandi.do.s,
ani rhe u*"
O.
Guadalupe;rhey are characterized
by heroismand a mysticalappro-ach
to
life He is a rrue original,a visionarywe cannor
affordro ignore.'rndeed,
in
terml of authenticity,Ramirez,it seemsto me,
reversesthe syndromeof
so-calledunrealrealism,of which rhe best,mosr
enlighteningexamplesare
chesterselzer, who took the HispanicnameAmado
Muro and prerended
to write realistaccountsof growing up Latino,
and rhe .ro.''infamous
DannySanriago.
Sanriago'sadmirablefirst novel, FamousAll Over
lown (propherr_
.When
cally called,while in manuscriprform and until its
uncorrecredgaiteyp.oor
stage,My NameWill Followyou Home)appearedin
19g3, reviewsf,r"ir"i it u,
wonderfuland hilarious.chato Medina,irc courageous
hero,was a denizen
of an unlivablebarrio in EastLos Angeres,rhe product
of a disinregradng
family who had a bunch of disorienied friends.
The novel ,"..i rJd the
Richardand Hilda Rosenrhar
Award of the AmericanAcademyand Insriture
ofArcs a'd Lettersand was describedas a stunning
debut about adorescenr
rnitiationamongLatinos.The author'sbiography
on rhe back cover,which
appearedwirhout a phorograph,smredthar ne
naa beenraisedin Califomra
and thar manyof his storieshad appearedin nationar
magazines.
The arrival
of a ralenredwriter was universailyaccraimed.Nevertheless,
successsoon
tumed sour' A joumalisr and ex-friendof santiago,
morrvatedby personal
revenge,announcedsantiago'srrue identiryin
a piecepublishedin August
I984 in rhe NewyorhRwiewoJBoohs.
Ir tumed out rhat DanielLewis
James,the author,sreal name,was nor a
young chicano, bur a septuagenanan
Anglo,who was bom in lgll into a
well-to-dofamilyin l(ansasCity, Missouri.A friend
of John Sreinbeck,
Ja;es
was educaredar Andoverand graduatedfrom yale
in Ig33. H. morr.d tu
Hollywoodandloined rhe Communistparry,
togerherwith his wife Lilith, a
ballerina.He worked with Charliect-rupiin,Jolraboraring
on TheGreat
Dictator,and wrore, rogetherwirh Sid Herzig and
Fred Sariiy, a Broadway
musical,Bloomer
Girl, which openedin I94+. During the 1950s,
he devored
himself to wridng horror movies.He was blacklisted
during the Mccarrhy
era,when the HouseCommitteeon Un-American
AcrMties rJasinvestigadng
left-winginfiltrarion of the movie indusrry. The
Lewisesbegana solid friendship with the EastLos AngelesChicanocommunity,
artendingfiesmsand
rnvitingscoresof chicanos to their carmel Highlands
cliffsideniansion.As a

resuh of thar relarionship,

Jamesbeganro feel closeto the Latino psyche,
digestingits linguisricand idiosyncrai. rvuur.
subsequentry.
FarherAlbeno Huerra,a scholarwho
teachesat rhe Univer-

S;::i*;:,",1,::J**
i3:::ffi:;T:T::,,T:,i:",T.J.':.ff

the beleaguered
wrirer.inrhcjoumal Tfu CaltJomwns,
accusingrrendyLadno
writersand New york inreilecruars
of "brown-risting,,
a genius.FarherHuerta
had
a four-year-longcorrespondencewith
santiago.It originatedafrer
-kepr
the future aurhor of FamousArIover Town
reactedro one of H.irta,s essays
on Murrieta.They met at Santiago,s
CarmelHighlandshome in f Sg+,-*a
becamefriends.FatherHuerrar"Lains
Santiago's
mosr ardentdefender.He
is adamantabourrhe unrairtrearment
the wriier hasbeensubjected,", .ra
yh.rl I wrorecriticallyof the conrroversiar
noverin 1993, he senrme a cor,
dial but strongletrerinviringme ro change
my oplnlons.
Afrer the scandalerupted, an open ,!_poriu.,
sponsoredby the Berk_
eley-based
BeforeColumbusFoundarion,entirled ..ornny
sun,i'.g",'a".,
Fraud,"rookplacein ModemTimesBooktore
".
in san Francisco.
The partici_
panrs were Gary Soto,.RudolfoA.
Anaya,and Ishmaeln".a.-luniJr, of
course'is a paradigm.Like the scandalous
idenrityof Foresrcrrr..,ih" *hir.
supremacisrresponsiblefor the best-se|er
TheEducationof Little Tree,and rike
other authorsof buried background,it was
an interestingcareermove to go
irom beinga writer of low-budgermovies
ro rhe darlingof Larinolerrers.In
spite of rhe aesthericpower of Famous (her'rown,
A,
Leuispersonifres
the
leverishneedin a nation consumed
by rhe warsfor idendties,o.r*rrgr"r,
Aurhenricityand histrionics,in essence,
Ramirez'ssilenceand Dannysanti_
ago'stheatricalvoiceare-opposites.
Theyarerhebookendsof Latinoculture.
Which bringsme back to rhe cukure irsell
In a s]rmbolicpoem byJudirh
ortiz Cofer dtled "The Larin Deli" and
pubrishedin book form in ]gg3,
Hispanicsnorth of the border areseen
,,
..o.phous hybrid. sr,.,.,ng-r,.,"n
erogeneousbackgrounds,rheyaresummed
up by an archetlpal mrtu..iudy.
The poet reducesthe universeto a kind
of .u.",irr. store, a bodegain whrch
cusromerslook for a medicineto their
disheartened
spirir.This patronessof
Exiles,."awoman of no-agewhl was
neverprerry,who spendsher daysselling
cannedmemories,"listensto puerto Ricans
complainabout airfaresto san
Juan' to cubans "per'ecdngrheirspeecho[ a 'glorious
rerum, ro Havanawhereno one has been allowedrodie
and no?nr.rgto changeunril then,,,
and_toMexicans"who passthrough,
ralkinglyr_icall
y of d*laresto be made in
El None-all waiting rhe comforrof
rpot ."niprnrsh.,, Ortiz Cof.r,, *.g;,

THE HISPANICCONDITION

incrediblyinviting, is perfectto concludethis chapter.L-atinos,while racially

diverseand historicallyheterogeneous,an ajiaco (Cuban stew) made of
diverseingrediens, by chanceor destiny have all been summed up in the
samegrocerystore calledAmerica.America,where exile becomeshome,
where memory is reshaped,reinvented.In the eyesof strangers,our hopes
and mghtmares,our energyand desperation,our libido, add up to a magnlfied whole. But who arewe really?What do we want?Why arewe here?And
for how long will thebodegabe owned by somebodyelse?

2
NEE

BloodandWtle

ln The RepeatingIsland,Antonio Benitez-Rojo,the exiled Cuban-American

novelistand critic, ciaimed that the Caribbean,a basin pretty much unifred
by sugarand cacaoplantations,is an archipelagomade up o[ one single
whosevirtue is not lessenedby its hetarcherypalisiand,an island-of-islands,
erogeneity,a realiry incorporatingeveryonein the region while allowing for
indMdualities to persist. Somethingalong the same lines ought to be said
about Hispanic America: Syncretistic,essentiallyIndian, African, and European, and with el sabormestizoy mulato,it is a result of the original miscegenation,the slavetrade-what is known as the planmtion economyin the
Caribbeanand caciquefeudalsystemselsewhere-as Sim6n Bolivardreamed
it, a nationof nations.
A handful of scholarsand aficionados,the majority of them non-Hispanic,
have rried with variousdegreesof successto tacklethe collecdveLadno historical, political, and social minutiae. Most authors compareus to previous
minorities to estimateour degreeof adaptabilityand assimilationto the
mainstream,fromJoan W. Moore and Harry Pachon's1985 sociologicalvolume, Hispanicsin the UnitedStates,as well as L. H. Gann and PeterJ.
Duigan's history of Hispanicsnorth of the border, which appeareda year
after, to ThomasWeyr's sociologicalstudy on breakingthe melting pot,
Linda Chavez's consewative treaty Out oJ the Barrio: The Politicsof Hispanic
Assimilation,and Earl Shorris's excessive,grandiloquent, overwritten, and
unfriendly collectivebiographyLatinos.What theseauthors frequentlylack,
first and foremost,is an insightfulview of our cultural manifestations,so they
at times confuseanthropoiogyand folklore with art; second,they lack a
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