Nothing says Christmas like evergreen trees, candy canes, strings of colorful lights, ginger bread-spiced Xanax and kids screaming in terror while perched on Santa’s lap. The latter is particularly reminiscent of those times when you feel the yuletide holiday brings out the best in people. As these photos indicate, that’s just not true. Yes, it’s that glorious time of the year. Merry Christmas, all you little fuckers!
Filed under Curiosities
Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown in the newly-discovered “Something Good–Negro Kiss”.
Little treasures from the early days of cinema keep popping up. That’s what Dino Everett, an archivist at the University of Southern California (USC), discovered in a 19th-century nitrate print hidden among a batch of silent films originally owned by a Louisiana collector. The clip, shot on a Lumière Cinématographe, turned out to be an 1898 short entitled Something Good–Negro Kiss, which is now the earliest documented film of open affection between a Black man and a Black woman.
Everett later told his students, “I think this is one of the most important films I’ve come across.” He really had no idea.
Everett contacted the University of Chicago’s Allyson Nadia Field, an expert on African-American cinema. Using inventory and distribution catalogues, Field traced the film to Chicago and learned it had been shot by William Selig, a pioneer in film production and a former vaudeville performer. With help of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Field also identified the performers: Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown. Suttle is dressed in a dapper suit and bowtie, while Brown dons an ornate dress — costumes that Field says were typical of minstrel performers.
Something Good is a restaging of Thomas Edison’s The Kiss (1896), one of the world’s earliest motion pictures. Scandalous for its time, The Kiss featured stage performers John C. Rice and May Irwin engaging in a graphic display of physical affection. Both Rice and May were popular figures of the minstrel entertainment circuit, and perhaps the title of this newly-discovered film, Something Good–Negro Kiss, is deliberately subverting the racism inherent in American minstrelsy.
A 120-year-old classic moment in cinematic time:
Image and video courtesy of USC School of Cinematic Arts
“You never really stop loving someone.”
The hours moved quickly: midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock… Why can’t I sleep? He flipped the pillow again, sighing heavily, and closed his eyes, determined to keep them that way.
Then David’s smiling face sprinted through his mind. “Oh, God!” he hollered, more out of irritation than sadness, his hands slamming onto his forehead. “Not now! I’m too tired!” His arms flopped down on either side of him. “I’m just too damn tired.”
David’s quirky grin disappeared, but the same guilty sensation settled back into him. He sat up, face buried in his hands. “It’s not fair,” he whispered. “It’s just not right. Why, God? Why David? Why’d you do that to him? I’ve asked you again and again, and you still won’t tell me.”
“You shouldn’t be afraid of death,” Juan Miguel’s paternal grandfather once told him and his brothers. The old man actually admired death. “It doesn’t discriminate. It takes whomever it wants: young, old, anyone.”
But as Juan Miguel now let his body convulse in quiet sobs, he had to disagree; it does discriminate. It takes the young, when it should take the old. It takes the good, when it should take the bad.
I know.
The e-book version of my debut novel, “The Silent Fountain”, is now available. And what better Christmas present than a story of someone in a gigantic old house filled with colorful characters and strange sounds?! Aside from me in a Speedo with a bottle of wine…no, wait! That was in another life. Never mind! I told you people when I started this blog nearly 7 years ago I was weird! Like you needed more proof, right? Anyway, thanks for your love and adoration, my good followers!
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”
Image by J.L.A. De La Garza
Filed under News
The Chief is happy to announce the upcoming publication of my first completed novel, “The Silent Fountain”, courtesy of Book Baby – an independent firm based in Pennsauken, New Jersey. It will be available in both print and electronic versions by mid-December 2018. Once I confirm the actual publication date, I will issue another formal announcement.
To family and friends who have known of my literary dreams for decades and heard me speak of this for so long (too long actually), yes finally, it is now becoming a reality! Following what seems like a lifetime of promises, it IS happening. Now, aren’t you glad you waited!
After some two decades of writing and rewriting; plotting and planning; submitting and getting rejected; hoping and praying; and slaving over hot pencils and hotter keyboards, it is all coming to fruition. It took a while (to put it mildly), but I have kept my promise to all of you.
“The Silent Fountain” is best classified as a paranormal romance – emphasis on paranormal. I don’t do romance very well – either in literature or real life. I came up with the story idea around 1996 and first submitted it to a traditional publisher in 2001. The publisher, a university-based imprint that shall go unnamed, specializes in fiction and non-fiction from both published and unpublished writers of Hispanic heritage, with a focus on all things Hispanic or Latino. The company stated in their mission that they strive to combat stereotypes about Latinos and to give a voice to a group that has otherwise been ignored by the mainstream press and the literary world.
I felt “The Silent Fountain” met that criteria. As my blog followers should know by now, I am definitely of Hispanic heritage. I’ve been fighting stereotypes about Latinos my entire life. Most of the characters in “The Silent Fountain” are Hispanic; yet don’t fit the Hollywood mold of how we behave and what we look like. They’re not gang-bangers or low-riders; they’re not violent, alcoholic, dim-witted and sexually-obsessed cretins; and they’re not illiterate fools who snuck across the U.S. border in the middle of the night with a handful of clothes stuffed into plastic bags.
The people in my novel are educated, smart and possess the amazing ability to speak perfect English. Most are native-born Texans who own and operate a real estate conglomerate; live in a large, century-old, well-appointed home; listen to classical music; and wear nice clothes. They are much like my own relatives and other Latinos I’ve known and worked with over the nearly six decades of my life on Earth.
But that university turned it down, giving me the most classic of all literary rejections: it didn’t meet “their needs at this time.” I got the same response from the seven other publishing houses where I submitted the novel. One editor actually returned the manuscript with a note declaring the “characters are too implausible” because of their wealth and Hispanic ethnicity. “The average reader won’t believe that,” they told me. I replied with a letter to that editor (which I know sounds childish and unprofessional) telling them I write for smart people anyway. They didn’t reply.
After taking a closer look at the type of books and essays the university imprint publishes and distributes, I realized why they turned me down. I’m not some pathetic wetback who made their way to the U.S. via a harrowing journey across vast expanses of deserts and mountains atop an aging train; thus, neither are my characters. I don’t know many people like that anyway. I’ve spent my life avoiding people who are illiterate and don’t care about the sanctity of U.S. law. My book also isn’t a saccharine-laced tale told in a first-person narrative by a young child who grew up in huts with no shoes and little schooling; yet still has the ability to comprehend everything that’s going on around them and are subsequently able to offer their elders sensible explanations on how to deal with critical issues. This is not a children’s picture book with verbiage sweet enough to give you cavities. In fact, there are no children in my novel. Moreover, it’s a paranormal romance with some sexual activity and foul language. So, while they look for Hispanic-oriented literary works by Hispanic authors that defy mainstream stereotypes, I feel they essentially created a stereotypical classification for themselves. And, as usual, I didn’t fit into it. But that’s okay. People have always tried to place me in a box to make themselves comfortable with who they think I am or should be and ended up failing. Such as happened in this case.
Upon starting this blog in 2012, I had to sit back and reconsider where I wanted my writing ventures to go. Did I want to attempt the traditional route again? Go through the same decades-old procedures for contacting a publishing house? Between 2001 and 2012, it seemed the list of book publishers had dwindled. Publishing has fallen victim to the same corporate evil as banks did in the 1990s and IT firms did in the last decade: mergers and acquisitions.
By 2012, however, self-publishing had become a more popular route for average writers. In fact, self-publishing has come a long way from the vanity press market several years ago; the last resort road for luckless writers. Growth of that beloved monstrosity known as the Internet gave storytellers a more direct path to seeing their words in print. And thus, I made my decision. And here I am.
Below is a synopsis of the novel, which is the verbiage that will appear on the back cover.
Juan Miguel de la Montana lives a quiet life as a single man, spending his personal time reading, exercising, listening to music and drinking white wine. But his carefully-structured routine is interrupted when he learns of the death of an old college friend. He attends the funeral and planned to return home quickly. He didn’t expect to encounter another college friend at the grave site, much less strike up a conversation and then meet him for dinner. He certainly didn’t expect the man to invite him to a nearby ranch estate where he’s vacationing with friends, much less accept the offer.
Yet, once there, Juan Miguel feels pleasantly overwhelmed – and begins to enjoy the company of the estate’s owners, the Santiago family, and their colorful friends. Black orchids, a blue-eyed cat, lilac perfume and a long-dormant water fountain slip into his subconscious and initially mean nothing to him. But, just as Juan Miguel falls in love with his new friends and the ranch’s bucolic surroundings, he’s unprepared to fall in love with Esperanza, a Santiago relative.
And, it doesn’t seem to matter that she died sixty years ago.
I’m dedicating this book to my parents, George and Guadalupe De La Garza, who tolerated more from me than most reasonable people would have. My father especially helped me with the Spanish translations; we’d spend an hour or more on the phone. My biggest regret is that I didn’t make a more concerted effort to get this thing published before he died in 2016. And my mother’s mental health has deteriorated to the point where she probably doesn’t remember me talking about it much.
So, if there’s one piece of advice I can give to anyone, it’s NEVER put off what you can do as soon as possible. I always said that life got in the way. But I finally realized life wasn’t getting in the way. I was letting it get in the way. My writing and my dreams have always been a part of my persona. But I kept putting them on hold to take care of other stuff. Don’t do that! Your best dreams can never die, but the people you love the most eventually do.
Image by J.L.A. De La Garza
Filed under News
Email experts advise checking your ‘Spam’ folder periodically, since some communications you actually want or need might accidentally drop into it. I do that on a relatively regular basis, especially for my business email address, from where I solicit jobs for my freelance technical writing.
Going through that folder this past May revealed the curious “Certified Python Expert” communication highlighted in the above screen shot. I kept thinking someone had confused me with a herpetologist. Then I thought, no, they must believe I had worked in the gay male porn business. If you think about it, there’s not much difference between the two.
However, a thorough search for “python” will produce information on a software program – something that isn’t necessarily related to reptiles or porn. But the fact the sender addressed me as “Dear” made me wonder about their ultimate intentions. If you had the same thoughts about snakes or porn, you’re either in serious need of mental help or you’re just plain perverted.
Either way, you’ve found the perfect blog for both!
Filed under Curiosities
The jokes were seemingly endless. “No hard evidence.” “Won’t stand up in court.” This was part of the chaos surrounding the infamous John and Lorena Bobbitt fiasco from two decades ago. In June of 1993, Lorena Bobbitt was an Ecuadorian immigrant living in Arlington, Virginia and married to a former U.S. Marine, John Bobbitt. Lorena claimed John returned home in a drunken rage one night and raped her. In retaliation, she grabbed a kitchen knife and severed his penis. Then, she fled their apartment with the organ in her hand, dropping it into a field.
The story quickly made international headlines, and Lorena Bobbitt became an instant feminist heroine. And then, the jokes started – about John Bobbitt. Everyone, it seemed, especially television and radio talk show hosts, had a good time with it. Women in my own workplace laughed out loud about it, carrying on as if they were discussing the antics at a family dinner. But, I noticed no one made fun of Lorena Bobbitt.
Exactly one year after the Bobbitt incident domestic violence took a deadlier turn when O.J. Simpson was charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a friend of hers, Ron Goldman. Shortly after Simpson’s arrest, a group of women’s rights activists, led by Los Angeles-based feminist attorney Gloria Allred, demanded that Simpson be put to death, if he was found guilty. Legal semantics did not concern them in that Simpson qualified for the death penalty under California law because supposedly he’d murdered two people at the same time. Too many men, they declared, had murdered their female partners and gotten away with it. They wanted an example made of Simpson. Keep in mind that they called for Simpson’s life even before he was arraigned in court and long before the actual trial began. But, amidst all the talk about the volatile relationship between Simpson and his ex-wife, one person was consistently left out of the picture: Ron Goldman. He was hardly mentioned. In fact, he was almost always referred to as “her friend,” meaning Nicole Simpson’s. It took a lawsuit by Goldman’s father to bring Ron’s name to the forefront. But, even now, Ron is still often referred to as “Nicole’s friend.”
Four months after the Simpson case erupted family violence took yet another tragic turn. In York, South Carolina, Susan Smith placed her two young sons in her car and rolled the vehicle into a local lake whereupon the boys drowned. Smith claimed that a man had carjacked her. As with the Simpson case, race played a significant role because Smith had specifically stated a Black man had committed the crime. As officials scoured the local area for the missing car, they also descended on every Black man in the county. Not just those with a criminal record, of which there were few. Virtually every Black make who passed through York, South Carolina found himself with a target on his back. Finally, after intense scrutiny, Smith confessed to the unthinkable: she had fabricated the entire story, from the kidnapping to the pleas for her boys’ return, and led police to her car. She had driven it into a local lake – her toddlers strapped into their car seats. The boys’ bodies were still entombed in the submerged vehicle.
The media did a good job of showing many women lovingly holding onto their children, as if to emphasize that most women wouldn’t dream of behaving like Susan Smith. In the Simpson case, however, the media didn’t make any effort to note that most men don’t abuse, much less murder, their wives or ex-wives.
Then, during her trial, Smith made a stunning accusation. She claimed her stepfather, Beverly Russell, had molested her as a teenager. And, after Smith was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, the focus suddenly shifted away from her and her dead young sons and onto Russell. And the same band of feminists who had been so quiet throughout the trial suddenly rose up in anger, demanding that Russell be investigated. And, just like Ron Goldman, Smith’s two sons were lost in the heated discussion about domestic violence.
I thought of these cases Both the Bobbitt and Simpson cases brought the ugly specter of domestic violence into a new light. Virtually every analysis of this subject, however, has focused on males as the aggressors. If anyone mentions the term battered husbands, they are met with incredulity. But, in a 1974 study of couples in which violence had occurred, researcher Richard Gelles found that while 47% of the men initiated the violence on a wife or girlfriend, 33% of the women did the same to a husband or boyfriend. In 1980, Gelles joined with fellow researchers Murray Straus, a pioneer in family violence research, and Suzanne Steinmetz, another prominent sociologist, to analyze an even greater number of similar situations and found that the percentages had increased exponentially – for women. In 1999, University of Wisconsin psychology professor Terrie Moffitt confirmed those findings and added that, contrary to feminist proclamations, women don’t often initiate violence as a measure of self-defense. They are often the aggressors.
Admittedly, roughly 75% of arrestees in domestic violence cases are male. But, does that mean men simply are more violent? Or, that police are more likely to arrest men? Still, the idea of women being violent is somewhat foreign. It contradicts the stereotype of the helpless, passive female.
So, just how many battered men are there in this country? No one knows. Despite years of analysis – even of that particular subject – researchers still can’t present an accurate count. To feminists, this proves that domestic violence is strictly male-on-female and nothing else. But, to those studying this issue from an analytical perspective, it points to a cultural definition of manhood. Men who are abused emotionally or physically by women are considered weak; the objects of ridicule; less than human.
To me, it points to a long-held assumption that violence against men is perfectly acceptable; that the male life is expendable. It starts in infancy, when many newborn males in the United States are routinely circumcised without any type of anesthetic relief and for no established medical purpose. The procedure became common in the early 1950s in the U.S. and soon reached a peak of roughly 90% within a few years. That figure remained relatively steady for the next 30 years, when it began to decline. By 2010, the rate of newborn male circumcisions had dropped to an astonishingly low 40%. But that’s been a difficult battle to fight. It’s still perfectly legal to sever part of an infant male’s penis for the ridiculously mere purposes of religious means or aesthetic sensibilities. Any efforts to ban the procedure – even at a local level – have always been met with hostility and ultimately abandoned.
Yet, in the 1990’s, the issue of so-called female circumcision became prominent, and women’s rights activists pushed for laws to ban the procedure in this country. They achieved that in 1996 with the passage of the Female Genital Mutilation Act, which received 100% support from all members of the U.S. Congress and took effect immediately. Opponents of FGM declared that female circumcision is worst because it removes all of the genitalia, while male circumcision only removes part of the penis. That’s like saying, if you’re going to hurt somebody, stab them. But, for God’s sake, don’t shoot them. Still, FGM never has been practiced in the U.S. or most other developed nations. Personally, I’d never heard of it until the early 1990s.
On the issue of child abuse, male children are six times as likely to endure physical abuse and ten times as likely to suffer injury than their female counterparts. Some school districts, even at the elementary level, maintain policies that forbid corporal punishment from being administered to girls, but not boys.
And then, there’s Selective Service. Mandatory military service for men in the U.S. ended nearly half a century ago, but Selective Service was reinstated in 1980. All males in this country are required to register for Selective Service within thirty days of turning 18. While there’s no penalty for late registration, there are some severe penalties for failing to register; such as an inability to obtain financial assistance for college, find employment, or get a driver’s license. Non-registrants can be fined several thousands of dollars and be imprisoned. Even men who are only children or only sons and those who are physically disabled (but can leave their residence under their own power) are required to register. Selective Service means young men can be drafted into the military in times of national crisis; meaning they can be forced into a war; meaning they could get killed. It turns young men into cannon fodder. Yet, all of that is perfectly acceptable.
Not until 2013 did the United States finally allow women already enlisted in the military to serve in combat roles. But they still can’t be conscripted. And Americans remain squeamish about the thought of women coming home in body bags, or with missing limbs. Apparently, though, we’ve made peace with seeing men return like that.
In the realm of capital punishment, men comprise 98.5% of death row inmates. Death penalty opponents often point out the racial disparities in meting out capital punishment, which are valid. But, in reality, the death penalty is more sexist than racist. And, when women are sentenced to die, the objections are especially boisterous. In 1984, Velma Barfield of North Carolina became the first woman executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment eight years earlier. At the time, she was only the tenth woman executed in the U.S. since 1900. Barfield poisoned a number of people to death, including her own mother. But, when she was sentenced to death, a tidal wave of protests, including some by religious leaders, ensued. And, the same cacophony of protests surrounded the execution of Karla Faye Tucker here in Texas in 1998. No one actually has declared that it’s immoral to execute a woman, even if she is a proven killer. But, it seems to be implied.
I’m not trying to defend the likes of John Bobbitt or O.J. Simpson. Neither has been an upstanding citizen. And, no one really knows what happened those two different nights so many years ago, except the parties involved. The police had been called to the Bobbitt home several times in the months preceding the knife incident. As one observer put it, to say that John and Lorena Bobbitt had marital problems is like saying Jeffery Dahmer had an eating disorder. It somewhat trivializes the entire matter.
Violence is violence, regardless of gender, race, age, or any other attribute. It’s morally wrong and it serves no purpose. We need to stop putting prices on people’s lives and categorizing violence according to how much injury the victim incurs. Despite decades of progress regarding basic human rights, most societies – even those with high standards of living and educational rates like the U.S. – seem to believe it’s okay to kill men. Except in rare cases of self-defense, it is not okay to kill anybody.
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV)
Image: J.L.A. De La Garza
Filed under Essays
“And why is it that when you’re dining here today to honor me as Hispanic Officer of the Year, I look around the room full of ranking officers, and the only other Hispanics I see are waiters and busboys? As far as I’m concerned, you can keep your awards.” – René Enriquez, as Lte. Ray Calletano, “Hill Street Blues”, 1983
“A part of me wants to kick their ass. A part of me feels sorry for their stupid ignorant selves. But if you’ve never been farther south than Nuevo Laredo, how the hell would you know what Mexicans are supposed to look like?
There are green-eyed Mexicans. The rich blond Mexicans. The Mexicans with faces of Arab sheiks. The Jewish Mexicans. The big-footed-as-a-German Mexicans. The leftover French-Mexicans. The chaparrito compact Mexicans. The Tarahumara tall-as-a-desert-saguaro Mexicans. The Mediterranean Mexicans. The Mexicans with Tunisian eyebrows. The negrito Mexicans of the double coasts. The Chinese Mexicans. The curly-haired, freckle-faced, red-headed Mexicans. The Lebanese Mexicans. Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say I don’t look Mexican. I am Mexican. Even though I was born on the U.S. side of the border.” – Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo, Chapter 72. Copyright 2003, Vintage Books.
Recently FX Networks announced the premier of “Mayans MC,” a spinoff of their highly popular, award-winning “Sons of Anarchy.” Airing from 2008 to 2014, “Sons of Anarchy” followed the lives of an outlaw motorcycle club in the fictional town of Charming, California. Exploring government corruption, personal loyalty, racism, redemption and the vigilante spirit, it’s sort of what you’d get if the Hells Angels produced a show for the Hallmark Channel. “Mayans MC” essentially continues the storyline, but with a Latino cultural flair. While the real Mayans charted the night skies, these “Mayans” are drug runners who immediately encounter another gang, Los Olvidados (The Forgotten Ones). They might as well have called it ‘Mean Ass Mexicans on Motorcycles.’ I guess not much has changed since 1983.
It’s slightly reminiscent of “Kingpin,” a severely short-lived series that dealt with “the machinations of an ambitious Mexican family . . . displayed in graphic detail as the family faces challenges from both the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and from the dangerous underworld in which they work.” The show was the brainchild of the late David Mills, a “light-skinned black man whose racial identity was not always evident to those around him” and who “wrote white characters and black characters with equal zeal.” Okay, great. He may have placed Black and White folks on equal levels, but he kept Hispanics on the criminal platform. There are more colors in the rainbow of equality than black and white.
The start of 2005 saw the debut of “Jonny Zero,” a Fox series about an ex-con named Jonny Calvo, played by the underwhelming Frankie G. (Gonzales), who returns to his old neighborhood to begin life anew. He naturally finds it tough to stay on the right side of the law because his former employer seeks his tough-guy services to engage in new criminal activity, while the FBI wants him to snitch on that same former employer. Decisions! Decisions! Aside from taking place in that most Latino of all American metropolises, New York City, “Jonny Zero” was also filmed there. I presume that was meant to lend it a sense of gritty urban realism. Fortunately, like “Kingpin”, “Jonny Zero” lasted all of a nano-second in TV land.
Even now, in this allegedly post-civil rights era America, Hispanics are still portrayed on television as gang bangers, maids and illegal immigrants.
In 2011, Demián Bichir received praise and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role in “A Better Life”, the story of a Mexican immigrant father who chooses to remain in the U.S. and work as a gardener in Los Angeles. His goal is simple: do for his kids what the movie’s title says to do. It’s supposed to be melodramatic and sweet and, perhaps, make the case for a more sentimental view of illegal immigration.
In an interview last year, actor Benito Martinez lamented, “I had all these images of elegance and range and style, so when I, naively, was trying to build my career, those were my examples,” the soft-spoken Martinez says. “But what I was getting in the ‘80s as a young Latino actor was, ‘You’re going to be a gang member and you’re going to go in and rob the bank.’ I had to then learn about pigeonholing. I had to learn the power of no.”
Martinez’s latest role? A migrant laborer on a tomato farm on ABC’s “American Crime”. The “power of no” often runs hard up against the need to pay bills and beef up a resume. The show was cancelled last year.
Another ABC program, “Modern Family,” has been heralded as a depiction of America’s ethnic diversity. But the main female character – portrayed by the immensely untalented Sofia Vergara – is yet another Hispanic trope: the sexpot.
Twenty years ago critics wondered aloud why the highly popular show “Friends” didn’t feature any Black characters, given that it took place in New York City. Well, it didn’t have any Asian or Hispanic characters either.
Again, not much seems to have changed for Latinos in popular culture since 1983. The late Lupe Ontiveros once calculated that she’d portrayed maids and housekeepers some 200 times in her 30+ years as a professional actress. Yes, I’ve seen plenty of Hispanic housekeepers – have even known a few. But most of the Hispanics I’ve seen and known throughout my life – even those outside my own family – have been well-educated, well-spoken, gainfully-employed, law-abiding, military-serving U.S. citizens. These are MY people – not the illiterate wetbacks scurrying across the border at midnight or hyper-violent drug cartel leaders. I’m not familiar with those latter groups. I can’t identify with them. Neither can most other Hispanic-Americans.
So why don’t we see more of us on television or in the movies? I suppose my life as a 50-something freelance technical writer taking care of his elderly mother is too bland for the American entertainment – an industry still dominated by mostly White (usually Jewish) men. And I won’t start a life of crime just to get attention and maybe a reality TV show! Hell, that would cut into my writing time!
The ordinariness of the average Hispanic-American is perhaps why I had such a hard time getting my debut novel published. Traditional publishing houses couldn’t see the reality in a book with Hispanic characters who are well-educated and speak perfect English. Yes, one publisher actually told me that a little more than a decade ago! That’s why I’ve resorted to self-publishing, which I’ll get to in a different essay.
The only way I see things changing for the general American perception of Hispanics – aside from letting the ‘Old Guard’ die off – is for Latinos to get angry. Yes, just flat out pissed off and demand more AND better from the entertainment industry. To some extent, that’s already happened with the cancellation of shows like “Kingpin” and “Jonny Zero”. But we have to point out – forcefully – to TV and film producers that they don’t have a true understanding of who we all are. Who we really are. Stereotypes are pathetically old school and don’t have a place in 21st century societies.
Years ago some White people at my father’s workplace told him he wasn’t like “other Mexicans”; that he was “different.” He honestly didn’t know what to make of it, but I did when he mentioned that to my mother and me at dinner one evening. “They’re stereotyping you, Dad,” I told him.
Filed under Essays
