Historically, Mexican-Americans have generally been considered “white” in Texas; they served in white units of the segregated military, including the National Guard, and were allowed, during the Jim Crow years, to marry white (but not black) partners. In the early ’40s, the Texas Legislature even passed a “Caucasian Race Resolution,” which affirmed their status as white. Today the U.S. Census treats “Hispanic,” “Latino” and “Spanish origin” — terms that apply to anyone of Spanish-speaking background — as an ethnic category. Race is a separate category, with various options, including a nonspecific “some other race.” In 2000, about half of all Hispanics checked “white” for race. Castro told me that he was planning to check “some other race” in 2010. He is uncomfortable referring to himself as “brown,” and he doesn’t use the term “people of color” when he discusses Mexican-Americans.

From the May 9th New York Times Magazine piece profile on Julián Castro. Castro, 35, is the current mayor of San Antonio, Texas and a rising political star in the Democratic Party. A few observers think he has a good shot at being the first Hispanic — though the piece suggests he prefers ‘Latino’ — president of the United States.

Though the piece is about Castro, it’s also about Hispanic/Latino political influence, Chicano versus Hispanic/Latino identity, and assimilation (Castro doesn’t speak Spanish). Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants make up 60 percent of all Hispanics. Border and immigration issues often dominate the Hispanic agenda, even though Cuban-Americans largely arrive(d) here legally as defectors, and Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Plus race means that Afro-Latinos, Asian Latinos, and aboriginal Latin Americans may form different identity-based political alliances.

For Castro to win national office, he will have to be a bilingual Obama. Like Obama, he will need to reassure white voters that he is sufficiently American and doesn’t secretly hate white people. He will also need enough Chicano-ness to woo Mexican-American voters without alienating other Hispanic/Latino voters. And finally, he will need to woo black voters in places like Georgia and California where blacks and Latinos often compete for jobs and neighborhood presence.

Also see: Liza Sabater’s excellent 2007 post On why I hate Hispanic Heritage Month for an explanation of ‘Hispanic’ versus ‘Latino.’

Way tangential point, though related to Liza’s piece: even the “Latin American” label is problematic. It makes sense, I think, to group countries by language or colonial power. Grouping countries where Spanish is the official or predominant language is understandable. But ‘Latin America’ also includes Portuguese-speaking Brazil and French-speaking Haiti while excluding the English-speaking South American country Guyana. It includes the French departments Martinique and Guadeloupe, but excludes English-speaking Dominica, which lies between the islands. It includes Puerto Rico and Haiti, but not Jamaica. And yet, the region as a whole shares a history of colonialization, subjugation or extermination of aboriginal Americans, and varying degrees of participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. So how useful is it to draw those linguistic boundaries, and where should we draw them?

Latin America is extravagant and irrational, nothing can be done about it; its dictators are savages and inhumane, but we miss them as characters of a novel; and we find solace in its inhabitants’ ability to maintain their will to dream in the middle of poverty and injustice. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is very nice to be exotic, to brown under the sun and to be neighbors with criminals and torturers, to populate chaotic and bloody cities, to believe in voodoo or in the Virgin of Guadalupe, to belong to such gracious and unusual nations.

In his talk, Volpi criticizes the concept of a Latin American genre of fiction defined by a belief in or resignation to the supernatural. Volpi believes that such a thing ignores the rich literary diversity of Latin America. It’s a pernicious form of stereotyping that limits writers, readers, and regions.

This paragraph in particular caught my attention because I think it is the way most Southern nations and peoples are viewed and treated by the European-American establishment. Tan, brown and black people are almost universally deemed less modern, more regressive, and in need of either saving or punishment depending on your political leanings. This plays out in the fiction world when we expect that the work of Southern nations writers will be more tortured, more magical or just plain different somehow than that of their European or American counterparts. And if it isn’t, it is not authentic.

Perhaps this is part of a larger discussion about art, authenticity and representation. Is it ever possible for an ‘Othered’ artist to make art without being Positive and Uplifting^TM or An Authentic Representation of the Group Experience^TM?

Also see: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2009 TED talk Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story, and Binyavanga Wainaina’s 2005 Granta essay How to Write About Africa.

[Via The Millions]

* Chil’ please. Yes I know Africa is a continent of 47 countries, give or take some disputed territory and excluding islands off the coasts. But how many times have you heard the place spoken of as though it was one big ass nation full of black people somewhere over there?