Obama and the Hispanic-American vote: Some points to consider (Part I)

Colobo

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Sat Jan-12-08 01:15 PM
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Obama and the Hispanic-American vote: Some points to consider (Part I)

Edited on Sat Jan-12-08 01:20 PM by Katzenkavalier

As you know, I'm a staunch Obama supporter, and I'm Latino as well. I'm Puerto Rican. A black Puerto Rican, to be exact, born and raised in the island. Not only that, I'm about to embark in my PhD studies in Hispanic literature, with focus on Afro-Latin American literature and cultural expressions. So, when it comes to Latin American issues, I feel I can offer a particularly unique point of view about issues affecting our community.

Now, in another thread, it was mentioned that one of Hillary's posters suggested that Barack Obama might have a hard time getting significant support from the Hispanic-American voting community. It might have surprised some that instead of me refuting the point, I agreed with it. I feel it would be a good idea to share with my fellow DUers why I think Obama is in an uphill battle to earn the support of Hispanics in the US. I'll try to be as brief as I can.

-To start, we need to consider first: Are there any sort of racial issues in Latin America?

The simple answer to that question is yes. Absolutely. Some quick facts: Latin America is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic region, with citizens of about 20 different nationalities and of several ethnic backgrounds, including European, African, Native American, Asian and Middle Eastern descent.So, HISPANICS ARE NOT A MONOLITHIC GROUP.

Now, since the colonial times, there has been extensive racial mixing in Latin America, primarily because of the absence of European women during the early stages of the conquest and later because of the economic marginalization of the poor, which forced people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds to form communities together.

However, this situation, that is, masses of people of mixed racial heritage, blacks, Native Americans and poor whites dominated by a small but economically powerful white elite, promoted the creation of a PIGMENTOCRACY, which is simply a scale to measure social status that uses the skin tone of the individual as it's measurement unit. The closer the individual was to "pure whiteness", the more powerful he could aspire to be, while the closer the individual was to pure "non-whiteness" the person was, the closer it was to "non-power" and for instance, exploitation and the dehumanization that of tens comes with it. Standards of power, beauty, desirability, intelligence and all sorts of social standards were measured by skin color and, subsequently, economic power. (Please understand, that not all whites in Latin America are rich, but most rich people down there have always been white).

-Now, how has pigmentocracy affected the racial relationships in Latin America?

It has affected them greatly, and I will use several examples to illustrate it. Let's take the case of my country, Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans are the result of the co-existence and widespread mixing among Spanish colonizers, African slaves and a few surviving Native Americans. It just takes one visit to the Island to see how strong both the Spanish and African heritage are, both in the phenotypical characteristics of the people but in their cultural expressions. However, since the formation of the Puerto Rican national identity in the mid 19th century, the African heritage of Puerto Ricans has been constantly ignored or, if not ignored, rejected. In a nation in which a very significant number of people are either mulatto or black, there has never been any mulattoes or blacks in any elective position of relevance. Blacks are a very small minority in the media, non-existent in politics, almost non-existent on Puerto Rican representations of itself as a nation. Maybe the best example I can give you of how pigmentocracy lives in PR without narrating my own personal experiences as a black PR is the last Census of 2000: About 80% of the population identified as white, while 8% identified itself as black, although most scholars and demographers agreed the figures are wildly misleading. It was said a couple of days ago that it is expected for the number of people that identify themselves as black to continue dropping while the number that identify themselves as white to keep going up... although there have not been any significant changes in demographics in the last 50 years.

To make it short, keep in mind that although Mexico's mestizo and Indian population is close to 90%, the last mestizo/Indian president in recent memory was dictator Porfirio Diaz, who ruled in the late 19th century and used to put powder on his face to appear white. Most of the poor in Mexico are mestizos and Indians, while most of the elite is white, and most of them have had their fortunes for generations. In Mexico, there was a significant African presence in the colonial times, and many Mexican national heroes like Vicente Guerrero and Jos� Mar�a Morelos were mulattoes, but that is a fact most Mexican history books prefer to ignore, just like the existing 500,000+ Afro-Mexican communities in the pacific coast of Mexico have been ignored by their government and their fellow citizens since colonial times.

Consider Colombia and its black population, the poorest in the country, most of them concentrated in the pacific coast of Colombia, with little or no access to schooling, running water, electricity and also ravaged by the guerrillas... while the money and power are concentrated in cities like Medell�n and Bogot�, cities with a high concentration of Colombians of European descent.

And I could keep going and going, but by now you should get the point: RACE DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN LATIN AMERICA, AND RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION DOES EXIST DOWN THERE, AND IN SOME CASES IN MORE DRAMATIC FASHION THAN IN THE US. That's our reality. That's the reality of millions of Hispanics who have migrated to the US...

That's "normal" to so many of us...

In the 2nd part of my report, I will tell you what is the political implication of this reality in Latin America, using Hugo Chavez, Leonel Fernandez and Evo Morales as examples, and finally, I will go over how that will impact how Hispanic-Americans might get to see Barack Obama... and why many wouldn't even consider voting for him.