They may be more American than you think

Published 5:20 pm Saturday, July 26, 2008

By Staff
"So when did you learn you were Mexican?" a longtime friend once asked over drinks, his cigar dangling dangerously close to my tequila.
Given my surname is Sanchez, the question might have seemed a bit odd. Especially because the friend pushing the query also had a red-flag last name and was also of Mexican lineage. His intent was to tweak me for not speaking fluent Spanish, for never having experienced childhood rites of passage like ballet folklorico dance class, and for eluding a love/hate relationship with ranchero music, typically instilled by relatives who play it incessantly.
And, yet, I always understood that Dad was born in Mexico. That his mother abandoned life in Mexico City sometime after the Mexican Revolution and headed north. That she made a decadently rich mole sauce and preferred her tamales stuffed with pineapple and raisins rather than carne.
Growing up, we did hear some Spanish, but English was what we spoke. There was no little taqueria down the street because our home was in suburbia. My Latino nature is less obvious, and at the same time deeply ingrained, evidenced in how I view family, time and God.
I recalled my friend's gibe, with all of its underlying meanings, after hearing about the demise of Tu Ciudad (Your City), a slick magazine marketed to assimilated, English-dominant Latinos. People like me.
The concept of Tu Ciudad was brilliant in its' aspirations: to capture the affluent portion of the Hispanic population boom in Los Angeles. The magazine's goal was to eventually go coast to coast, addressing this coveted and significant portion of the 45 million-plus U.S. Hispanic population.
But Tu Ciudad folded three years after its debut.
"Frankly, this experience has left me with the feeling that the jury is still out," said editorial director Angelo Figueroa, quoted in a post mortem article. "I'm not convinced that highly assimilated, U.S.-born, English-dominant Hispanics necessarily want to be separated and marketed to as a group."
No, we do not. Or, at least, I do not. Not the majority of the time, anyway. And I have plenty of friends who'd agree, including the buddy with the cigar.
Despite the fear in some quarters that new Latino immigrants are not assimilating, the fact is that most of us in the second generation and beyond – especially those of us in the middle class – are so highly assimilated that we're becoming difficult to capture as a niche market.
I do believe that cultural values and traits are passed on, but in subtle ways. A family might lose its Spanish language as the generations pass but still retain an attitude about respect and a way of speaking that is far less staccato and direct than standard American English. Most of my Latino friends can retell incidents where they realized they were acting from their family's culture rather than thinking from their American upbringing.
One of the benefits of being "bicultural" is that you notice things others might not. You question assumptions and habits of both cultures. You choose who you're going to be. And guess what most of us are choosing. Clearly, a love of the U.S., but with a deep respect for the immigrant relatives who got us here.
That's why it's almost comical to me when certain Anglos go crazy talking about the need for "English Only" laws. Learning English is something every second-generation kid's going to do. He's also going to learn how to be an American — as well as how to be a Mexican or Dominican or Guatemalan or Colombian. But he's going to be first and foremost an American – an American enriched by another culture.
At various times in our history, "Americanization" has been harsh and coercive. To be accepted, to fit in, a person first had to be stripped of their offending native culture. My Spanish is poor because my father believed he was doing me a favor not teaching me his native language. These days we're better about this. School districts nationwide are pushing children to become bilingual and even trilingual because they know that multiple language skills are a plus, not a minus.
My hope is that those Americans who look with fear on the newest stream of immigrants will realize that the newcomers – and, even more, their children – will naturally begin to blend with this country, adopting its customs, language and attitudes.
Yes, Latinos are remaking the demographics of America. But, just the same, America is remaking Latinos.