The San Antonio Express-News’ Victor Landa gives us something to think about in this thoughtful piece.
For one month, all Hispanics, regardless of their nuanced differences, become a homogenized mass of beer drinking, car buying consumers. Sure, there are all manner of cultural events and civic recognitions that are part and parcel of the event, but who are those events really for?
A Latino knows he or she is a Latino. One doesn’t don the trappings of culture for a month and then tuck them away in the attic for the rest of the year. I’ve said in the past that the act of looking in the mirror is for me an event of Latino Heritage.
I don’t turn on my “Latino-ness” when the beer companies roll out their mariachi commercials.
Hispanic Heritage Month is for non-Latinos. It’s a time for the rest of the American mosaic to look our way, eat our food, enjoy our culture and understand us a little better. And that’s not a bad thing. Book stores have special Hispanic literature displays, television stations run special Hispanic programming, and every retailer worth its weight in smart marketing executives will run special advertisements and in-store events to lure the fabled Latino spending capacity.
So here we go again, ready or not. And there’s not much we can do about it.
And yes, there will be lots of cultural events around Houston and Tejas, so please attend them–even if you’re Latin@!
