18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Misses the Point and Doesn't Deliver, August 17, 2009
This review is from: The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity (Hardcover)
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I enjoyed reading some of the passages in this book pertaining to the contributions of the hispanic community to America's culture and economy. The information provided, however, was incomplete and frequently missed the point.
First of all, Geraldo regards Latinos in the US as the big monolith that they certainly are not. He believes that the biggest obstacles in the face of this monolithic community are what he calls "the education siesta" (true in some Latino communities but not all) and immigration (also relevant to one community (i.e. Mexican) but not all.) Lumping the distinct Latino communities in America into one will not go well with most Latino readers, I suspect.
Also, I didn't quite understand the parallels her tried to draw between the flow of Jewish, Italian and Irish "legal" immigrants at the turn of the century and the flood of "illegal" immigrants today. He failed to mention the role geography has played in both situations. The main reason the illegal immigration today is far more serious than ones past is that it is constant and unrelenting due to the land continuity between the US and Mexico. This very important difference and its impact on the overall culture, quality of life and public services in this country was never even mentioned in the book.
There was also very little mention of suspect groups like La Raza and others that are viewed by the vast majority of Americans as separatist and their impact on the Latino communities and the country as a whole.
My biggest beef with this book is that it didn't really deliver on its promise. Geraldo didn't really explain "how" Hispanics will lead America to a new era of prosperity. He didn't paint a prosperous future where the Hispanics where the leading force. He gave little hints here and there but nothing that one would expect from the title of the book.
Although the book was lacking in the areas I mentioned above and many more, I found it pretty entertaining and down right funny. The part where Geraldo compares himself to Oprah and Lassie is friggin' hilarious!
Skip this book, unless you you want to drink Geraldo's Kool-Aid.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Polemical and Personal -- Some Good, Some Poor but Mostly Name-Dropping, August 17, 2009
This review is from: The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity (Hardcover)
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Although Amazon does not like comments on the author himself, in this case it is impossible to separate the author from the content since so much of the content is about himself. Author Rivera repeatedly talks about himself and his personal life, even listing his children and giving brief bios on them.
The book starts out with name-dropping (Jennifer Lopez is the first to be quoted) and continues throughout the book. He definitely takes a journalistic, even tabloid view of his subject which also meanders throughout. There are NO footnotes or end notes, and NO references except vague quotes in the narrative that are difficult (if not impossible) to verify.
Supposedly this book is about how Hispanics will lead America into a new era of prosperity. Wow! Really? Sounds interesting. Fifteen percent of the population will become the leadership that will teach all those nasty nativist Americans of European extraction how to run a republic. Please tell me where Hispanics have successfully run a republic better than Americans of European extraction have done here in the US. No doubt there is a market for jingoistic tripe like this, but hardly among Americans of European extraction.
The work clearly exhibits much muddle-headed thinking, although it is useful to know what some segments of our society might believe. The biggest drum the author beats is over illegal aliens or undocumented workers depending on the reader's point of view. Rivera believes they should be given immediate and unqualified amnesty, and although he doesn't explicitly state this opinion, he apparently believes we should have an open border to allow as many Hispanics to come in as wish to enter. But what does this have to do with Hispanics leading the US into a new era? Well, once Hispanics are in the majority, I guess Hispanics will rule.
But actually, Rivera has a more subtle argument -- we MUST have Hispanic immigration, illegal or legal, to keep Social Security afloat in the short term. In fact he is correct on this point, regardless of what our cowardly and dissembling politicans in Washington say as they religiously spend every dime of the non-existent "Social Security Trust Fund" each year. But is that a reasonable solution to our great Ponzi scheme?
History abounds with examples of people losing control over their country through attracting immigrants of other nationalities, races, cultures, religions and linguistic orientations. That was how Mexico lost Texas in the first place. Also how the Boers lost South Africa to the English, or the Roman Empire lost Gaul to the Franks. If that is what the reader wants, then author Rivera is your man. As he states unequivocally, "No one is more proudly Puerto Rican than I am."
The author argues for bilingual education, affordable housing like through H.O.G.A.R (run by Edna Rivera) (the author claims "hogar" is an English word meaning "home" or hearth" -- if so, it is missing from American and English dictionaries as far back as the early 18th century), and many other left or far-left initiatives. He lauds La Raza (The Race in English) which offends non-Hispanics merely by its name, ACORN and its roll in taking the census, the S.I.E.U (which will be taken over by Hispanics in his forecasts), "Card-Check" although it would cause a new wave of out-sourcing to foreign countries and more loss of jobs, and even is at peace with Spanglish which he touts as a new language beinging Hispanics and English-speaking Americans together. Cuba is somehow "a sleeping giant" with its 11 million people although the island is stuck in a 1950s time capsule, and he recommends the US help Cuba into the 21st century. You'll never see the term "anchor baby" in this book, and only this author would describe a conflict between individuals as being based in which one had the largest male member. Wow, machismo at its worst.
In one of his many personal aggrandizements, the author mentions that fear was one of the reasons he avoided military service in the US Army when he was young, but considers himself a "warrior journalist" today because he has traveled with US military units in Iraq (and was protected by them.) One must really read past the author's repeated displays of abject machismo to find anything to keep.
There are so many wild statements in this book that I don't know where to begin. Venezuelan President Chavez is "ebullient", the web site Media Matters is "left-leaning but usually accurate" (wow!), Anglo-Americans are all Protestant (Catholics are excluded?), the country was formed by "ex-pat Brits" (showing an incredible lack of knowledge of American history), etc, etc. If I didn't know better, I would think the author just arrived in the US from a backward village somewhere in Venezuela.
Yet there is also good here that is valuable to read. Rivera advocates tough love for Hispanics in education and learning English so they can play his appointed role. He believes the gang cultures have to be neutralized and that the DREAM program should be resurrected to provide a path to citizenship through military service. Both of these points are well-considered.
On the other hand there are many chapters of no value and can be skipped altogether unless the reader simply wants to read Hispanic names dropped by the author. Included in these would be:
1. The First Brown President
3. The Hispanic Consumer
6. Reverse Migration
7. A Hogar is not a Home
10. The Boy Scouts Get It
12. Disfrute
15. Beisbol
16. Mutts like Us
17. Spanglish
In short, there is much to learn here if the reader is not familiar with Hispanics in the US and their issues, actual or contrived. Author Rivera puts a Latino spin on everything, even when the consequences of what he advocates would be bad for Hispanics. He shows a great deal of passion for his subject, but also a great deal of ignorance. All in all, I was happy that I read this book and am now better able to put author Rivera into context.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Typical Jerry Rivers junk, August 24, 2009
This review is from: The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Geraldo Rivera has never been known for his accuracy as a "journalist," and has always been something of a showman, with lots of razzle-dazzle and little genuine fact, or import.
This book rates overall about what I had expected. That's right, the person most people know as Geraldo Rivera is the son of a Jewish mother and Hispanic father. The scuttle but on the Good Morning America show, where he first emerged as a "hot talking head" some 35 years ago was that he traded up on his half-Hispanic heritage given the demand for "minority" reporters, and absolutely went ballistic every time anyone called him by his given name---Jerry Rivers.
And much like all his "hot talking head" reporting over the years, such as the spectacular tale of a sunken Spanish treasure whose booty he "first revealed" on air, this book is a lot of snap, crackle and fizz.
Other reviewers have already commented on many of the other disappointments here, including Rivera's failure to mention the appalling racism of groups like La Raza and the murders of many New Yorkers by Puerto Rican nationalist terrorists (freed by Bill Clinton in the waning days of his presidency, at the behest of his soon-to-be New York senator wife), not to mention other heinous crimes. They've also noted the sad statistics concerning Hispanic life in America, and the alarming rate at which illegal aliens cross the southern U.S. border --- to the detriment of all Americans, most especially Hispanics who are legal American citizens and attempting to rid their neighborhoods of crime and improve their economic lot.
Overall, I'd have to agree. This book is a quick try at a fast buck, a typical slick, and somewhat sleazy Rivera play. Skip it.
---Alyssa A. Lappen
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