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Monday, October 12, 2009

A Minority by Many Names

By JosÉ Armas
Freelance writer
          We're having a birthday party to celebrate the anniversary of our culture. And you're invited. "So, who exactly are you?" you might ask. The answer, of course, is: Well ... it depends. Perhaps sharing my identity odyssey might make the answer a little more clear.
        Growing up in California's rich, agricultural San Joaquin Valley, I was called a Mexicano, or Mexican-American (also known as "cheap Mexican labor"). By high school, I became a chicano with a small "c," which meant I was a poor, acculturated Mexicano. We had a bilingual household; my mom spoke Spanish to us and we responded in English. But, I recovered my native language as the Chicano Movement emerged. I then defined myself a Chicano, with a capital "C" when our movimiento began giving political life to La Raza.
        "La Raza? What's that?" Well, La Raza, which means "the people," are mestizos, or a mestizaje. "What!? More names?" Let me explain: Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos wrote long ago that La Raza i.e. mestizos were the mixture that created a new people when the Spaniards — who themselves had been a mixture of thousands of years of blood and culture of the European, the Moors and Jews and sundry other folks — encountered Emperor Moctezuma's great Aztec civilization in the New World. This mestizo child became the fountain from which 95 percent of the contemporary Latino stems. "Latino? Oh, boy...." Wait, wait, I'm getting there.
        Don José seemed to understand where our mestizaje was heading because he referred to my new culture as La Raza Cosmica, or the Cosmic People. He said our culture would eventually embody all the races of the world. And sure enough, our culture came to include the blood of African slaves, but also Indian slave blood, thanks to my ancestors like Moctezuma, who practiced such quaint rituals like cutting the throbbing hearts out of other Indians they didn't like to offer as sacrifices to their gods. Don José also said that someday, everyone in the world would look like me (I'm pretty sure he said this, though I must admit to not actually being there). And wouldn't you know it, that's where we're quickly evolving to — blood-wise, anyway.
        All this is just part of the dynamic, historical evolution of my mestizo culture. Chicano leader Corky Gonzales wrote in his epic identity poem "I Am Joaquin" that our history is filled with both great and bad chapters but also said we were descendents of "...sons of chiefs/ and kings/ and bloody revolutionists..." But, I digress.
        Our mestizo culture is the umbrella for names like Chicano, Mexicano, Spanish, Spanish-American, Spanish-surnamed, Mexican-American, Hispano, Hispanic-American, Latin-American, Indio-Hispano, Latino. At one time or another, I was referred to by most of these names. Then of course, there are mestizos that are identified by the 22 Latin American nationalities like Puerto Rican and Cuban. During my Chicano identity days (with the capital "C") we referred to Cubans as "Chicanos with an attitude." But that's another story. If it's a little confusing, don't fret: for years, the government was so confused about what to call us that they referred to us as "Other." I hated that name.
        Well, in my own identity odyssey and in search of more inclusive term, I identified myself as a Hispanic for a while, but then about 10 years ago I began using "Latino," which seems less elitist and encompasses more of our mestizaje community.
        By comparison, the Afro-American identity is much more defined; they went from being called Negro, to colored, to black, until one day their leadership got together and instructed the media: "We now want you to refer to us as "African-Americans." And the media has.
        Our leadership has yet to make that decisive decision about one name — perhaps because our young culture is still evolving. Compared to other cultures that are thousands of years old, our culture is really just at its adolescent stage of development, still forging its identity. And as a young culture, another thing we have to look forward to is that, unlike other cultures that have seen their "golden age" come and go, our golden age is still ahead of us.
        So. All clear? It doesn't matter if it isn't. You are still all welcome to celebrate and toast our 517 year birthday — which happens to be today — also known as Día De La Raza.