On Wednesday my program had this opportunity where you can sign up to visit a Gymnasium (The Danish equivalent to a highschool) and sort of take part in a class discussion panel where the Danish students can get a change to ask 'American' students their perspectives on different issues. I thought that signing up would've been a nice way to both learn about the Danish education system but also discuss some burning issues within the Danish context. I was a little excited about it so when I saw they had a session about 'Hispanics in the U.S' I signed up. Given that the Danes have no actual clue about Hispanics anywhere, let alone in the U.S, I thought it would've been interesting to get to talk about my experience migrating into the U.S as a Hispanic and some of the challenges I (and other Latinos) face. Sometimes I think its cute they think Latin America is such an exotic place. And while our hips don't lie, no we don't wear bowls of fruits on our heads. In the end though, I was a little disappointed about the experience. Here is the run do of why:
First, I wasn't disappointed about the Danish students I met. I was assigned this charming group of young girls (I just turned 22, they were 18. I thought they were babies!!) who were engaging, cool, and had really interesting questions for me. I kept joking around to them that their high school seemed the least like a high school. Most of them were literally just hanging out in the sun< it was difficult for me to understand that people were getting educated here. The Danish system is so different. Mainly its like okay here is a reading go think about it outside and then come back and we will talk about it. Coming from the Florida education system out of all places this seemed wrong wrong wrong. I had to wear a uniform in public school, classes ran back to back to back and god forbid you were in the hallway without a pass... In Denmark people go to school to hang out. How foreign is that.
I was more disappointed at the other 'American' students who had decided to volunteer to be part of the session. Besides the organizer, the other 3 students who had decided to volunteer to talk about Hispanics in the U.S were from the mid-west and white. I really have no problem with people's race whatsoever, at first I even found it very comedic that that very set up right there represented a large extent of what the situation of Hispanics in the U.S is like. Then, when they asked us why we had decided to come to this session in the introduction I of course said that some of the subjects discussed are personal to me and my history. The other students pretty much said 'We are here because there are a lot of Hispanics in the college we go to school to.' In what way does that make you entitled to speak about the experience of Hispanics in the U.S I'm still trying to figure out. They could've been Hispanic Studies majors, or have studied Spanish extensively in college, even perhaps lived in a Latin American country for an important period of their life, had lived in a Latin neighborhood in the U.S, or had a Latin best friend, liked Shakira, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, danced professional salsa.... anything else more substantial! No, they knew the Hispanic experience because they went to a college with a large amount of 'Hispanic people.' I found that a little disturbing. And sadly it didn't end there... I was grasping on the hope that once coming back as a class to discuss what we had talked about in groups there was going to be a good discussion about what the situation of Hispanics in the U.S is. Most of it was okay and the insights were a good starting point, a vast part of it was just not okay. The professor of the class had some great sources to lead the class and it seemed to me that the Danish students had read a nice background as to how complex the Hispanic plight in the U.S is. Mostly, they had read Samuel Huntington's 'The Hispanic Challenge' and watched documentaries like 'Un Dia Sin Mexicanos' (A Day Without Mexicans) which are great starting points. I don't mean to say that my American peers had no place in the topic, since I think it is a matter than affects many Americans, nor do I think they are horrible people who bash Latinos. What I mean to say is that a constructive discussion about Hispanics in the U.S (or any other racial issue) involves a type of open conversation that delves deeply into cultural issues, not into how many Hispanics you think you see that go to your college (who are pretty much a small percentage of the demographics that exist). However, here are my criticisms of both my experience and those readings in particular:
1. 'The Hispanic Challenge,' while good at starting a thought-provoking debate about the impact of Hispanic immigration to the U.S, has a thesis that is oversimplified and sometimes deeply flawed. For me, his article is a classic example of how immigrant bashing and ethnic prejudice have become increasingly mainstreamed by the liberal press. It tells of an argument where Hispanic immigrants are destroying the foundations of U.S. culture as we know it (since when is the Hispanic immigration issue something from a science fiction novel?) and claims that Hispanics in the U.S refuse to learn English for the convenience of living in large Latin American communities. What's more, he paints an image of Mexican immigrants literally inundating the United States with their overwhelming numbers. And in the subject of language his fear that Spanish will overtake English in the United States is also exaggerated and insubstantial. While some of the points he brings out are critical to any foreign policy debates, one must be careful to conclude facts from what seem points of views. His 'evidence' comes from interviews of one industry official, I'm not sure if he knows what sound is. I can tell you right now that Hispanics in the U.S did not come with the purpose of changing the very foundation of America. The vast majority of them will learn English, incorporate into society, and even provide key services that makes the U.S go round and round. Undermining the benefits that immigrants have given to the U.S is wiping and undermining the Hispanic experience and history.
2. The Mexican vs American dichotomy to describe Latin Americans in the U.S is sickening. It is not only detrimental for perpetuating the negative stereotypes of Mexicans in popular media but also does so little justice to the Hispanic experience that we may as well all be the same person and the rest blind. Hispanics in the U.S comprise so so so many nationalities and cultures, it's unfair to think that Mexicans can represent them all. I, for one, cannot relate to the plight of the Mexican. Lumping Cubans, Mexicans, South Americans, Dominican Republicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Spanish-speaking groups under ‘Hispanic’ is itself contestable. Although 2/3 of ‘Hispanics’ or Latinos in the U.S. are of Mexican origin, the remaining third includes at least 20 other national origin groups. Just as there is no such thing as a homogeneous ‘Anglo’ population, so is there no homogeneous ‘Hispanic’ one. Discussion in class turned from Hispanics to differential terms between Mexicans and Americans. Let's change that.
3. The issue of immigration in America is specially interesting to me since America is by definition a country that was founded by immigrants! To talk about what is 'American' is a complex a discourse as to talk about what is the Hispanic experience in the U.S. If you can't define what being an American is without the terms diversity and multiculturalism then the arguments of Hispanic communities is even stronger.
4. Hispanics do not come to the U.S because everything is better there and they hope one day to become millionaires. We don't have posters in our Latin American rooms with America looking like Disney World. The misconception of 'The American Dream,' while relevant to migration waves perhaps in the 20s, does little to describe the situation in Latin American countries today. The truth ends up being that Latinos come to the U.S because the U.S has, to a large extent, made the political and social situations in Latin American countries difficult for people to live there. Here is a shocker: the U.S hasn't always been a good neighbor.... To talk about illegal immigration on how great the opportunities in America are and how poor Latin American countries are is the wrong sort of discourse that has persistent in history. This analysis ignores how the U.S has treated Latin American countries and even ignores the U.S companies that are willing to hire these Hispanic immigrants in the first place. Instead of thinking that it is wrong that immigrants come here illegally, why don't we open the discussion as to why U.S companies hire these people in the first place or why have we allowed American imperialist and colonialism to keep infiltrating Latin American governments and community initiatives. Putting the blame on an already struggling group is not productive and is unjust at evaluating what has made it so that they come to the U.S. We don't sit there and think, gee it'd be great to live in the U.S and make money and leave my family let me cross the border illegally real quick. The plight of the Hispanic into the U.S is so much different than that.
These are some of the things I wish we would have talked about. The experience was overall good because I met a great group of students and had a chance to get my voice heard and my situation understood. I do realize the lightheartedness of the events, but I do get carried away with these issues because they matter to me and to some of the people at home whom I love. Open, constructive discourse is in, the rest should be out.
First, I wasn't disappointed about the Danish students I met. I was assigned this charming group of young girls (I just turned 22, they were 18. I thought they were babies!!) who were engaging, cool, and had really interesting questions for me. I kept joking around to them that their high school seemed the least like a high school. Most of them were literally just hanging out in the sun< it was difficult for me to understand that people were getting educated here. The Danish system is so different. Mainly its like okay here is a reading go think about it outside and then come back and we will talk about it. Coming from the Florida education system out of all places this seemed wrong wrong wrong. I had to wear a uniform in public school, classes ran back to back to back and god forbid you were in the hallway without a pass... In Denmark people go to school to hang out. How foreign is that.
I was more disappointed at the other 'American' students who had decided to volunteer to be part of the session. Besides the organizer, the other 3 students who had decided to volunteer to talk about Hispanics in the U.S were from the mid-west and white. I really have no problem with people's race whatsoever, at first I even found it very comedic that that very set up right there represented a large extent of what the situation of Hispanics in the U.S is like. Then, when they asked us why we had decided to come to this session in the introduction I of course said that some of the subjects discussed are personal to me and my history. The other students pretty much said 'We are here because there are a lot of Hispanics in the college we go to school to.' In what way does that make you entitled to speak about the experience of Hispanics in the U.S I'm still trying to figure out. They could've been Hispanic Studies majors, or have studied Spanish extensively in college, even perhaps lived in a Latin American country for an important period of their life, had lived in a Latin neighborhood in the U.S, or had a Latin best friend, liked Shakira, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, danced professional salsa.... anything else more substantial! No, they knew the Hispanic experience because they went to a college with a large amount of 'Hispanic people.' I found that a little disturbing. And sadly it didn't end there... I was grasping on the hope that once coming back as a class to discuss what we had talked about in groups there was going to be a good discussion about what the situation of Hispanics in the U.S is. Most of it was okay and the insights were a good starting point, a vast part of it was just not okay. The professor of the class had some great sources to lead the class and it seemed to me that the Danish students had read a nice background as to how complex the Hispanic plight in the U.S is. Mostly, they had read Samuel Huntington's 'The Hispanic Challenge' and watched documentaries like 'Un Dia Sin Mexicanos' (A Day Without Mexicans) which are great starting points. I don't mean to say that my American peers had no place in the topic, since I think it is a matter than affects many Americans, nor do I think they are horrible people who bash Latinos. What I mean to say is that a constructive discussion about Hispanics in the U.S (or any other racial issue) involves a type of open conversation that delves deeply into cultural issues, not into how many Hispanics you think you see that go to your college (who are pretty much a small percentage of the demographics that exist). However, here are my criticisms of both my experience and those readings in particular:
1. 'The Hispanic Challenge,' while good at starting a thought-provoking debate about the impact of Hispanic immigration to the U.S, has a thesis that is oversimplified and sometimes deeply flawed. For me, his article is a classic example of how immigrant bashing and ethnic prejudice have become increasingly mainstreamed by the liberal press. It tells of an argument where Hispanic immigrants are destroying the foundations of U.S. culture as we know it (since when is the Hispanic immigration issue something from a science fiction novel?) and claims that Hispanics in the U.S refuse to learn English for the convenience of living in large Latin American communities. What's more, he paints an image of Mexican immigrants literally inundating the United States with their overwhelming numbers. And in the subject of language his fear that Spanish will overtake English in the United States is also exaggerated and insubstantial. While some of the points he brings out are critical to any foreign policy debates, one must be careful to conclude facts from what seem points of views. His 'evidence' comes from interviews of one industry official, I'm not sure if he knows what sound is. I can tell you right now that Hispanics in the U.S did not come with the purpose of changing the very foundation of America. The vast majority of them will learn English, incorporate into society, and even provide key services that makes the U.S go round and round. Undermining the benefits that immigrants have given to the U.S is wiping and undermining the Hispanic experience and history.
2. The Mexican vs American dichotomy to describe Latin Americans in the U.S is sickening. It is not only detrimental for perpetuating the negative stereotypes of Mexicans in popular media but also does so little justice to the Hispanic experience that we may as well all be the same person and the rest blind. Hispanics in the U.S comprise so so so many nationalities and cultures, it's unfair to think that Mexicans can represent them all. I, for one, cannot relate to the plight of the Mexican. Lumping Cubans, Mexicans, South Americans, Dominican Republicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Spanish-speaking groups under ‘Hispanic’ is itself contestable. Although 2/3 of ‘Hispanics’ or Latinos in the U.S. are of Mexican origin, the remaining third includes at least 20 other national origin groups. Just as there is no such thing as a homogeneous ‘Anglo’ population, so is there no homogeneous ‘Hispanic’ one. Discussion in class turned from Hispanics to differential terms between Mexicans and Americans. Let's change that.
3. The issue of immigration in America is specially interesting to me since America is by definition a country that was founded by immigrants! To talk about what is 'American' is a complex a discourse as to talk about what is the Hispanic experience in the U.S. If you can't define what being an American is without the terms diversity and multiculturalism then the arguments of Hispanic communities is even stronger.
4. Hispanics do not come to the U.S because everything is better there and they hope one day to become millionaires. We don't have posters in our Latin American rooms with America looking like Disney World. The misconception of 'The American Dream,' while relevant to migration waves perhaps in the 20s, does little to describe the situation in Latin American countries today. The truth ends up being that Latinos come to the U.S because the U.S has, to a large extent, made the political and social situations in Latin American countries difficult for people to live there. Here is a shocker: the U.S hasn't always been a good neighbor.... To talk about illegal immigration on how great the opportunities in America are and how poor Latin American countries are is the wrong sort of discourse that has persistent in history. This analysis ignores how the U.S has treated Latin American countries and even ignores the U.S companies that are willing to hire these Hispanic immigrants in the first place. Instead of thinking that it is wrong that immigrants come here illegally, why don't we open the discussion as to why U.S companies hire these people in the first place or why have we allowed American imperialist and colonialism to keep infiltrating Latin American governments and community initiatives. Putting the blame on an already struggling group is not productive and is unjust at evaluating what has made it so that they come to the U.S. We don't sit there and think, gee it'd be great to live in the U.S and make money and leave my family let me cross the border illegally real quick. The plight of the Hispanic into the U.S is so much different than that.
These are some of the things I wish we would have talked about. The experience was overall good because I met a great group of students and had a chance to get my voice heard and my situation understood. I do realize the lightheartedness of the events, but I do get carried away with these issues because they matter to me and to some of the people at home whom I love. Open, constructive discourse is in, the rest should be out.