Literary Clusterfucks 2013

By perpetuating the myth that Indians who bear Spanish surnames are simply "Latino" -- and that Latino does not refer to anyone else -- we also deny Indians from Latin America a natural kinship to American Indians. DNA testing and blood type have shown most of the "brown" people in the Americas -- whether they live in Montana or Mexico City -- are descended from a small band of people who came here from Asia tens of thousands of years ago.

I'm pretty dumb sometimes and this isn't my field but that idea has never occurred to me and is v interesting.

Once you remove most of the florid language, she makes some solid points about race and gender.

Some of this might be sour grapes aimed at editors who made non-biased decisions about her writing. Some of this is likely valid.

i thought the word latino comes from latin america, ie a place where latin romance language (spanish, portuguese + french) are primarily spoken

(By some estimates, the Spaniards killed 10 times more people than the Nazis did -- most of it documented in the Spaniards' own journals.)

Even assuming she only means "Jews killed in the holocaust" (6 million) and not "people killed in the holocaust" (something like 11 million), and not "Innocent people killed by the Nazis during WWII" (I don't even know how many) -- that gives you 60 million indians "by some estimates" killed by the Spaniards. Most estimates of the entire Indian population of the Americas at that time are not that high.

The U.S. Government has defined Hispanic or Latino persons as being "persons who trace their origin [to] . . . Central and South America, and other Spanish cultures."[12] The United States Census uses the ethnonym Hispanic or Latino to refer to "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race."[13] The Census Bureau also explains that "[o]rigin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s ancestors before their arrival in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino

xxxp To the extent that that is true, it's also a post-colonial imposition of language & culture and then of naming, in that it erases the ppl and culture and language that were there before...which were the same people and their culture and language who lived on the US side of the then-non-existent border, which if I understand this stuff was the Hopi and pueblo peoples (iirc "anasazi" is considered an insult).

Latino points to Spain and Portugal. I can understand why people of Native American descent are unhappy with the name.

The United States was formed by English speaking former British citizens. For obvious reasons, we don't refer to American-born citizens as Anglos.

I take that back. I forgot we're a part of the Anglosphere.

a lot of people from those spanish speaking countries dont even speak spanish as their first language, latino in that sense is a sloppy bullshit term, but so is cultural holocaust

the skin color type hierarchies that exist within these cultures is a lot more of a problem than english speakers using the word 'latino'. people either have a good grasp of the history of the region or don't, and people who don't aren't gonna be making assumptions based on the etymology of the word 'latino'.

i dont even speak latin

like the fact that the language is called 'spanish' is actually a lot more problematic because some people actually confuse latin america and spain as places...that exist... the word latino? who cares. you either know why there's a huge skin color spectrum in south america or you don't.

Rolling Afro-Latin music thread 2013 < good thread despite the cultural genocide title

xxxp To the extent that that is true, it's also a post-colonial imposition of language & culture and then of naming, in that it erases the ppl and culture and language that were there before...which were the same people and their culture and language who lived on the US side of the then-non-existent border, which if I understand this stuff was the Hopi and pueblo peoples (iirc "anasazi" is considered an insult).

― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Friday, January 11, 2013 1:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I get this, but (1) pretty much every cultural/ethnic/natural descriptor has an extremely problematic history and is imperfect at best if not downright arbitrary (2) her navajo cousins not withstanding, the vast majority of today's "latino" identified people can probably not easily trace their heritage back to a single indian group, and many have at least some spanish ancestry

I did know about native ppl in South America, I just never connected the shared heritage between them and southwestern US-ian native peoples and thought that it might be a problem to create some arbitrary distinctions and erase others. Like I said I'm pretty dumb sometimes.

From: http://escalatingidentity.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/who-is-oakland-anti-oppression-politics-decolonization-and-the-state/

No individual or organization can speak for people of color, women, the world’s colonized populations, workers, or any demographic category as a whole – although activists of color, female and queer activists, and labor activists from the Global North routinely and arrogantly claim this right. These “representatives” and institutions speak on behalf of social categories which are not, in fact, communities of shared opinion. This representational politics tends to eradicate any space for political disagreement between individuals subsumed under the same identity categories.

the vast majority of today's "latino" identified people can probably not easily trace their heritage back to a single indian group

i think this is less true than you think

actually that was my impression too. there are discrete ethnic groups in south american like the mayans who trace their heritage directly back to a historical native group but the vast majority does not.

i dont have any figures but at the very least i object to the 'vast'

anyway this is kind of a funny digression to this thread

yeah there are tons of regions at least in mexico but i think this is true of all of latin america where a lot of the people living there part of a culture that stretches back to pre colonial times and they still speak the language and do a lot of the stuff, its an ongoing situation

then there are a lot of people of mixed heritage, and people of spanish etc decent

like the fact that the language is called 'spanish' is actually a lot more problematic because some people actually confuse latin america and spain as places...that exist... the word latino? who cares. you either know why there's a huge skin color spectrum in south america or you don't.

― iatee, Friday, January 11, 2013 10:33 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hell the fact that the language is called 'spanish' is problematic because of ethnic and linguistic nationalisms within Spain. Do you think the Catalunyans like that castellano is now known mostly as español? Not to mention the Basques.

but again you either know about this stuff or you don't but the word 'latin america' doesn't make you know about this stuff or not make you know about this stuff xp

I'm getting the impression that a substantial part of the reason native-descended ppl from Latin America & South America may not have strong ties to their ancestral native group is bc of Spanish conquest that broke up, displaced, erased, and recombined groups, so it's shitty to say NOW that they're not closely enough tied to it to "count" for something.

nobody is saying that, it counts for whatever they want it to count for

That was in response to the vast majority of today's "latino" identified people can probably not easily trace their heritage back to a single indian group, and many have at least some spanish ancestry.

I'm getting the impression that a substantial part of the reason native-descended ppl from Latin America & South America may not have strong ties to their ancestral native group is bc of Spanish conquest that broke up, displaced, erased, and recombined groups, so it's shitty to say NOW that they're not closely enough tied to it to "count" for something.

― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Friday, January 11, 2013 1:50 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not saying it doesn't "count" for something! I'm just saying I don't quite understand how she thinks the LA Times ought to identify people (unless she's just saying ethnicity isn't relevant at all in which case I don't know why it matters that her cousins are "Navajo" either).

Sorry guys, I wasn't trying to start a [REDACTED] with that post.

seems clear she prefers "native american" or "american indian"

race peace?

seems like the simplest thing to do would be to just call yourself CAUCASIAN [LATINO] as per so many job applications, government forms, and beauty pageant entrance packets

many ppl called 'latino' arent 'caucasian' tho. i think this is part of her point.

i don't think she has a point

about anything

ever

she has at least 4 points in her la times resignation letter, she numbers them and everything

tbf i haven't read anything in this thread since the last time i posted

seems clear she prefers "native american" or "american indian"

― max, Friday, January 11, 2013 1:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ok, but this wouldn't describe a lot of people who are described as latino today who are of mixed european-indian descent. And it would also suggest that we shouldn't refer to people as "Cuban" or "Mexican" or "Guatemalan" because those are all imposed by colonialism too. In any case, this is a debate that has been going on for decades and I think it's kind of ridiculous to call out the LA Times as being complicit in some kind of cultural genocide for using the prevailing term, a term that seems to have been arrived at for the moment as the result of an ongoing debate and not just imposed by some racists.

I see we've kinda moved on from the original clusterfuck, but according to someone on Twitter who contacted her, the original blog post was taken down at the request of her agent, not publisher. I hadn't remembered to consider the influence of the agent in all this, another party whose self-interest complicates things.

Ok, but this wouldn't describe a lot of people who are described as latino today who are of mixed european-indian descent.

i think if a person is of mixed euro-indian descent its "okay" by most standards to refer to them as native american or american indian

And it would also suggest that we shouldn't refer to people as "Cuban" or "Mexican" or "Guatemalan" because those are all imposed by colonialism too.

i dont really see why

In any case, this is a debate that has been going on for decades

yes

and I think it's kind of ridiculous to call out the LA Times as being complicit in some kind of cultural genocide for using the prevailing term, a term that seems to have been arrived at for the moment as the result of an ongoing debate and not just imposed by some racists.

yeah i mean i guess but i also dont feel all that compelled to condemn her for her at-the-time private resignation letter. i mean she made her views clear, she quit, the la times still calls people latino. she lost, im not gonna kick her while shes on the ground.

and not just imposed by some racists.

Like I am not trying to spin something out of control here but people keep walking right into it? Isn't it unavoidably the case that everything w/r/t race is imposed by some racists because the winners have mostly always gotten to set the terms?

i am kind of with in orbit and max here, i kind of feel like all the objections reinforce her points; plus, sidequestion--this is her letter of resignation? was this meant to be published or did she just send it to them and they made the call to publish this (w/her consent presumably)(probably already covered here, i'm just fuzzy w/ the detail of this partic incident)

also calling this "Cultural genocide" didnt originate with her did it? that seems to be one of the things zachlyon kind of brought up...?

ok max p much got to every single one of my points nm

like just as you feel it ridiculous for her to call out the la times i feel it a little ridiculous for a bunch of guys on a message board to feel the need to go out of their collective way to call her out for something thats 10 years old, that she likely doesnt support anymore, that has literally no bearing on their lives or conduct

I see we've kinda moved on from the original clusterfuck, but according to someone on Twitter who contacted her, the original blog post was taken down at the request of her agent, not publisher. I hadn't remembered to consider the influence of the agent in all this, another party whose self-interest complicates things.

― says a future man to his crystal son (reddening), Friday, January 11, 2013 1:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wonder if her agent told her to take down this tweet:

Alisa Valdes ‏@MizAlisa
To those of you asking about the disappearance of yesterday's blog post: I was asked to take it down by my publisher, and did. The end.

if we cant call people out for stuff that has no bearing on our lives or conduct we might as well just go home

;_;

http://www.latina.com/entertainment/tv/author-alisa-valdes-rodriguez-im-sick-seeing-latinas-powerless-sluts

Alisa Valdes ‏@MizAlisa
To those of you asking about the disappearance of yesterday's blog post: I was asked to take it down by my publisher, and did. The end.

LOL