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Powerfully written!, December 4, 2005
This review is from: The Hispanic Condition: The Power of a People (Paperback)
Chicano. Jibaro. Mestizo. Latino Agringado. Gringos Hispanzados. Pachuco. Bracero. Cubano. Gusano. Hispanic. Indio. Latino. Latinoamericano. In his book, The Hispanic Condition: The Power of a People (1995), Ilan Stavans uses all of the above terms to describe a group to whom "[t]he American Dream has not fully opened its arms," a group who has, in his eyes, a "refreshingly modern" choice: "to live in the hyphen, to inhabit the borderland." (Stavans 1995: 4) Stavans' Fanon-inspired, Baldwin-influenced, commentary on Latino identity is evidence of what Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett labels "diasporic discourse." She further states that such discourse is "strong on displacement, detachment, uprooting, and dispersion - on disarticulation." Clearly, this is evident through Stavans' statement: "Latinos in the United States [are] citizens of both realities, representatives of doubt in a land of uncertainty[.]" (Stavans 1995: 245)
But the process of rearticulation, that is, "how the local is produced and what forms it takes in the space of dispersal," for Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, is "trickier because of the risk of closure, essentialism, or premature pluralism." (Kirschenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 339) Stavans' work demonstrates the difficulties described by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett when he suggests that "[t]o become U.S. full citizens, Hispanics need more than a passport; we need to reinvent ourselves, to rewrite our own history, to reformulate the paths of our imagination." (Stavans 1995: 234) This essay examines Stavans' effort to rearticulate Latino identity through an examination of how he answers the question: "¿quiénes somos de verdad."
"Latinos appear to be a homogenous minority," he writes, "thinking and acting and speaking alike; but nothing is further from the truth. Diversity is their trademark." (Stavans 1995: 31) For Stavans, Latino identity is anything but static. Constantly straddling the void between a past characterized by disjunction and disconnection, and a present that gives neither respite nor reconciliation, Latino identity is a pluralistic mélange of race and culture: "Latinos are not an ethnic group but a sum of multiracial, multicultural backgrounds." (Stavans 1995: 228) It is concerned with the present and the past: "Latinos are seen as being devoted to eternal truths, to the act of recalling, to continuity through oral tradition." (Stavans 1995: 215). It is simultaneously of this world and not of this world: "Latinos get lost somewhere between the reality and the dream."(Stavans 1995: 181) It is always betwixt and between: "Wherever we go, as Latinos we will always carry our idiosyncratic self with us." (Stavans 1995: 10) Even music exemplifies this dichotomy: "Latino music seems to oscillate between existential dilemmas and folklore." (Stavans 1995: 101) Latino identity, for Stavans, is forever fragmented: "Latinos, I believe, were, are, and will always be perpetual alien residents never fully here - strangers in a native land." (Stavans 1995: 245) Latino identity resists definition: "Ours is an elusive identity - abstract, unreachable, obscure, a multifaceted monster." (Stavans 1995: 241) :Latino identity is always changing: "The shaping of Latino identity is an ongoing process." (Stavans 1995: 203) "We view the world," writes Stavans, "as half lie, half truth --mitad y mitad (Stavans 1995: 110)
Always in flux, Latino identity is internally and externally multifaceted, a dichotomized, spinning vortex of fragile stability. Within Latino culture, there is a strong sense of hubris: "The Latino people are inhabited by a sense of outward pride." (Stavans 1995: 107) Pride is lived through a devotion to language: "Latinos are amazingly loyal to their mother tongue." (Stavans 1995 153) Outsiders, particularly whites, have a negative perspective on Latinos: "Latinos are and always have been perceived by the gringos, in their obsessively repetitive Eurocentrism, as inferior neighbors and unwelcome guests, simpletons, queer and unappealing." (Stavans 1995: 207) Internally, Latinos are a maze of theatrical emotion and control, as evidenced when Stavans says, "[t]he Latino collective psyche is a labyrinth of passion and power, a carnival of sex, race, and death." (Stavans 1995: 152) Such forces combine to make Latino culture vulnerable to collapse: "The Latino minority is inhabited by centrifugal forces that tear its heart apart." (Stavans 1995: 68) And as a result, Latinos must move forward because "Latinos cannot afford to live on the margins any longer, parasites of a bygone past." (Stavans 1995: 14) Moreover, the character of Latino identity has been transformed over time, and "Latinos, living in a universe of cultural contradictions and fragmentary realities, have ceased to be belligerent in the way they typically were during the anti-establishment decade." (Stavans 1995: 9) Latinos, once maligned, are now finding their experience in American society a favorable one, as "[s]ociety is beginning to embrace Latinos, from rejects to fashion setters, from outcasts to insider traders." (Stavans 1995: 3)
It is time, according to Stavans, to discard the old identity and take on a new one. It is time for a new Latino to emerge from an over-lived past. This new identity is brought to our attention through Stavan's bold call: "A new consciousness is emerging, a new Latino." (Stavans 1995: 209) He sees a strong transformation taking place, saying "something essential is changing in the texture of the Latino community." (Stavans 1995: 232) This new Latino is unlike the persistent stereotypes that abound in society, no longer poor, no longer lower class: "[T]he belief that we, the Latino population, are mostly young poor and uneducated...is almost a distortion." (Stavans 1995: 233). This new Latino has the benefit of education, opportunity, and property ownership, yet is not too distanced from the masses: "Although the incomes of a large number of Latinos are, sadly, under the poverty level, another important segment is rapidly emerging as newcomers to the middle class." (Stavans 1995: 233) this new Latino will succeed, transforming the production of knowledge: "[T]he new Latino promises to produce a shelf of classics, books that will become national treasures." (Stavans 1995: 234) Ready or not, this new Latino is here to claim his/her place in American society: "Latinos, unlike previous minorities, are about to give America the nation and the continent a big surprise." (Stavans 1995: 245) Even more exciting is Stavans claim that "Latinos want to revolutionize the country's overall metabolism." (Stavans 1995: 235)
Stavans rearticulation of Latino identity takes the risks that Kirshenblatt-Gimblett suggests are difficult, risking closure, essentialism, and premature pluralism. However tricky this rearticulation may be, Stavans steers clear of closure by demonstrating the "new-found" popularity of Latino identity. He carefully negotiates his way around essentialism by illuminating the diversity of Latino people, while at the same time identifying their specific uniqueness. His pluralism of Latino society is not premature, rather, it is overdue. For too long, Latinos have been compartmentalized through misguided monolithic thinking. His letter to his child is revealing; Stavans' own sense of double consciousness is displayed as he tells her that ""Latinos shall always inhabit the hyphen." (Stavans 1995: 244) His devotion to his new creation, the new Latino, is evidenced through a single statement: "America is in my blood." (Stavans 1995: 243)
Kellie Hogue
Indiana University
Works Cited:
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. "Further Inflections: Toward Ethnographies of the Future." Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No.3 (Aug., 1994), 339-344.
Stavans, Ilan. 1995. The Hispanic Condition: The Power of a People. New York: Harper Collins
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