by José de la Isla
HOUSTON — Did you ever attend a party and no one noticed you were there, and when you left no one noticed that you weren’t?
That is how I interpreted Long Island University professor José R. Sánchez’s New Year’s observation about the media’s oversight of some important passings.
He counted up the year-end recognitions of notable people who passed away in 2009 and noted next to no recognition of Latinos. The “treatment of Latino deaths is symptomatic of a wider neglect of Latinos,” he wrote in an essay for the National Institute for Latino Policy.
The New York Times included a chimpanzee among the 23 important “people” who died during the year, but not one Latino. The Chicago Tribune mentioned two Latinos out of 104 people: Argentine grammy winner Mercedes Sosa and Nicaraguan boxer Alex Arguello. Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, doesn’t count.
The Los Angeles Times mentioned only three Latinos out of 120 notable deaths.
It included actor Ricardo Montalbán, Mexican- American jockey Ismael Valenzuela, and one other person already mentioned. The Baltimore Sun also only listed three out of 134, with two-time Venezuelan president Rafael Antonio Caldera and baseball manager Preston Gómez, new to those already mentioned.
The 91 notable death listed by The Associated Press only included Montalbán. Sánchez concluded that a “group that is either not seen or that draws little interest will find its contributions minimized or dismissed.” And he relates this invisibility to powerlessness.
Sánchez might be right to a certain extent. When power, politics, fame and status are considered the purpose of life, getting recognized means everything. Getting overlooked is insulting.
Yet other trends, civic ones, might also suggest another path, one away from complaint, regret and grievance.
Only during the past decade did the U.S. Census results sink in about the exponential growth of the Latino population. It came as news to many, even though it’s been obvious for three decades. And for many it was a revelation similar to Columbus “discovering” America.
Ashamedly, this happened just during the past decade. Even though the Census Bureau reported in July 2001 that Hispanics already outnumbered African Americans by one million persons, the press and public alike regularly comment that Latinos “will soon become the nation’s largest minority population.
But “minority” status is nothing to aspire to. It is a quasi-legalisic designation and not one that comes out of conflating history, tradition, language, culture, world view and life, in general. It is what some sociologists call a “huristic,” a useful designation. But it is not useful when it stigmatizes or is used to suggest people who are outside the major currents of national life.
In fact, the revelation by the Census served to show just how out of touch so many persons are about knowing their own country.
Few people have formed a context for understanding other major events of the past decade.
A grassroots Hispanic enfranchisement movement began long before, in 1976, which validated that civil rights is not about color alone. The 2004 national election validated Hispanics as a national electorate. In 2006, the largest civil right marches in the nation’s history, over immigration reform, validated the Hispanic stake in the nation’s policy direction. That was the organiz- ing tipping point in several key states for the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
These events still aren’t registering in the national consciousness, even though
they are the result of civic participation by millions.
Sometimes nobody notices when you arrive at the party alone. But it’s hard to ignore when 50 million of you do. The work to be done is simple. Take the world as you find it, as did those few Hispanic notables who were mentioned in the media, and make this a more interesting place for everyone.
Now that’s something to have on your tombstone.
