Episode 4: "Say MY Name"

What does it mean to be Latinx?
Why not just say "Mexican" or "Cuban" or "wetback" -- Wait, no, hang on there are rules here. That last one is actually a stigmatized pejorative, and I can promise you NO one will appreciate it used in their direction. But the others?
Is there a difference between "Chicano" and "Hispanic?" Do people from Ecuador identify as Ecuadorans, Ecuadorians, Ecuadoranos, or just mexicans?

Why does it sometimes seem like the folks who struggle the hardest at deciphering these labels are the ones we might otherwise be looking to for our own clarification? Or have you ever asked a Hispanic person how they feel about being pre-labeled, "Hispanic"

How about asking How they feel about their own name?
I was christened "Jose Carlos" and dubbed Junior, as the successor of my father's name. At the age of 34, I am not very familiar with either of those appellations. My childhood recognized me as "Charlie" or when my mother was angry, "BOY." My elementary teachers were often mildly irritated when roll call would pass completely, with Jose being marked absent until Charlie raised his hand and said he hadn't heard his name. I wasn't trying to be rude, I just didn't have any concept of Jose, and the next time I heard it again would be a whole year later, so it took a while to learn that it was in fact my own name. I remember thinking it was unfair, that the records always seemed to mis-identify me, but even then, couldn't see the whole scope of that, it just seemed like a typo. Computers were very new, and I do remember one teacher saying that, dismissing the confusion without further discussion on how the supposedly stupendous cyber-records could be so consistently wrong. But the lessons of the day would start, and within a few moments, all would be forgotten… until 6th grade, when it happened 6 times in the same day, as I learned how to transition between classes, all taught by different teachers, all recognizing the same problem. By now, at least I knew to speak up and offer the correction. And so the thoughtfully prepared handmade icons for the class bulletin board would be hastily amended, leaving "Jose" buried under a red slash and the letters for "Charlie" squeezed in where they could fit, often not quite legibly. I look back with a mild irony that while every kid gets called some mocking name in grade school, one of the ones I remember, "carlos cantina" had the quality of being closer to truth than my denial of it. I wouldn't have recognized that then, I remember being taught to avoid being thought of as "too Spanish"  and while Spanish was an official language of parental code, using it or showing attempt to learn it was often a punishable offense, which is how the silly nickname ended up having any power as a mockery.

By the time I left home for college, I was tired of having to correct people, and tired of the corrections offered by those advocating for me. I took advantage of being in a place 1011 miles from home, where nobody knew anything about me. When the professor called "Jose" on the role, I simply said, "here." A reinvention of identity was underway, but I soon learned that it wasn't without its own risks. I was attending on a scholarship. Based on population density of the area I grew up in, it was probably more competitive than the one it was modeled after, but nevertheless it was not called the National Merit Scholarship, it was called the National Hispanic Scholarship. The school's interest in awarding it was based in values now labeled as DEI, but its true offer to me turned out to be an opportunity to be one of 5 Hispanic people in an otherwise monochromatic burg 80,000, in central Indiana. "Jose" on a name-card might as well have been a neon sign accompanied by a klaxon blaring "This guy ain't from around here!"

I remember watching TV shows set in "up north areas" and learning to accelerate the pace of word delivery to overcome my previously learned southern drawl, practicing local lingual nuances, and eventually getting to a point where the most flattering thing someone said to me was, "I can't tell where your accent is from."

It didn't matter.

The conversations were inevitable. No one was rude, but many were curious. "Where are you from? … but no, like where are you REALLY from?… What country did your family move here from?"

I made a game of challenging expectations, and my learned lack of locatable accent helped. I had better command of the English language than most people I spoke with, thanks in part to a childhood where I could remember being denied many of the popular toys, but can never remember being denied a book. Those books formed an entire wall of them in my bedroom, and I had a very active library card as well. Having been forbidden the study of Spanish, I learned French, First from my own mother, who brought home a books-on-tape series that we all did one summer. By college, I counted it as my highest scoring AP achievement, but still didn't know much Spanish, and refrained from vocalizing ANY experience in Spanish speaking. My French was, and remains, terribly American, but it was enough to confuse people who were expecting Spanish to be my primary language. By now, I do count Spanish as a third, and am about as good with it as I am with German, thanks to Duolingo. Anyway, I didn't lie to people-- I just withheld from giving the answer they seemed to be looking for. I was born in Virginia, considered myself a Native Texan, the son of a Texan and a Californian, who also had at least one parent born in the same state. I was astounded by how many would either continue probing my history until I acknowledged at least one ancestor from Mexico, or would give up and claim the assumption that surely one existed. After all, my name WAS "Jose." … at least to some. I held to my lack of interest in correcting people about my name, so made a point of being open to nicknames. I offered no correction to any until a running group wanted to call me "the Kenyan" and I objected to what seemed an obvious cultural insensitivity. A group of roommates to my partner at the time remarked. "Jose doesn't seem enough. You're pretty Hispanic looking. We will call you Guillermo."

I started to be curious about what assumptions were being made, but I didn't have a reason to be fearful, until my last year there. First was a job that I took, off-campus at a big-box hardware store. I went through a training that taught me to be friendly, and approach customers ready to help. No sweat… but at first, customers seemed reflexively apprehensive, uncertain of my intentions until enough conversation could be had to establish that communication wouldn't be a barrier-- and then one thanked me, glancing down and addressing me by the name on my tag, "Josie" wait, no-- but HOW?? I remember losing my stride about that, my cheerful disposition erupting into significant indignation. It wasn't a cultural slight, but did paint a picture of just how unfamiliar my name was there. I don't remember being directly rude, but I do remember the conversation abruptly ending. I went to the manager's office and asked to have a new name tag. I didn't bother with trying to approximate a pronunciation guide, pronouns were not yet relevant, but Josie was my mother's name, and I didn't want to identify as someone who I had spent significant of my adolescence being at odds with. So I went the other way, and the new tag read, "Joe." I have never thought to ask my father if that's how his own identity became, "Joe," I don't suppose I have needed to. I couldn't help but notice that after "Joe" became the name on the tag, people didn't need nearly as much proof that I could talk to them.

But then there were the police. On two separate occasions, I found myself stripped of agency and autonomy, suspected of robbery. The first was on a particularly drunken night, where I'd stopped along a walk because the world was spinning too much. The officer found me responsive and even polite, but uncomprehending. It seemed a grand opportunity to tie up some loose ends, until the neighbor whose yard I was slumped in came to my rescue, delivering a verifiable account of how I'd arrived there and that I couldn't have possibly been connectable to whatever the officer might think. According to the records, the officer noted my politeness, and the resident's resolute alibi, and decided he couldn't just leave me there, so he called an ambulance, and that night led to an $18,000 medical bill. The second time no one was there for the on-the-spot rescue, so I spent a night in jail, without so much as a phone call. Luckily I was not so alone then either, as soon as my partner found out where I was, she called my father, who wired bail money, and I just managed to walk into the early morning sunshine before an arraignment could be processed. No charges were ever filed. I remember hearing about my roommate going through a similar situation, but being offered his phone call in the squad car, making it immediately upon arriving, and his father drove down to bail him immediately. His name was Joe, but it was different. His name was on his ID, and his skin matched that of the officers, so even if they were engaged in an assumption about his guilt, they offered courtesy, and seemed to have been content with the notion that it would all work out. I, on the other hand, seemed only spared by knowing the right white folks. A third personal anecdote involved international travel, and coming "home" to general confusion about my "purpose in the country" despite my American passport, and once again being redeemed when it was revealed that my traveling companion happened to be a white man.

I am not "Jose," despite my printed records. I didn't spend long enough trying to be "Jose" and my experience with that suggested it was not in my best interest. My chosen identities have also come with asterisks, so I will never fully be "Joe" because it defies the printed records, and only my immediate family will remember who "Charlie" is.

So who am I, really?

Now that's ONE person's experience. But imagine it being applicable, not to a singular being such as myself, but to an entire subset of population? I am afraid I have to be technical here, with "subset" which gets us into the nature of the next segment. Is being "Latino" a national identity, a cultural one, or one marked by phenotypes?

*** Audio Clip: src New York TImes ***

That was a clip from a video Op-Ed from the New York Times, entitled, A conversation with Latinos on Race. The video, and the article that went with it, were released around March of 2016, and I can't imagine what might have driven the interest in studying this issue at around that time…

Anyway, The issue surrounds the use of generic terms, vague ideas that we could take or leave. I remember asking my father whether I should Identify as "hispanic or chicano," on a census form. He shrugged and told me he had always checked, "other," because there didn't seem any relevent meaning in the classification labels the government might dole out. But these terms are a bit more than a vague governmental construct, aren't they-- the issue can be so much more direct and personal for some. How is one supposed to feel about being Latino?

Your listening to 102.3 FM, WHIV, and to a relatively new show on the dial, and one that I must confess, presents as something of a challenge to produce. In this show, Which I have taken to calling "a Good Hombre" I have been talking about my perspective as someone who's ethnic background is increasingly the subject of national news. I continue to be told the story isn't about me, and that may be true. But I cannot deny that what my family seems to have pushed aside in playing the assimilation game is not as easy for everyone, and historically not an absolute even for the most successful at it.

So as much as I have some strong feelings about sharing my own past on your public radio waves, as much as I have done so little to promote this content yet, still not sure if its worthy of such public forum, I know I have a position of privilege on the issues facing my heredity, and to not use it feels irresponsible. That said, I am far from the most experienced in these matters, so I am also sharing the words of scholars and journalists who have much more eloquent things to say. Here is a clip featuring Juan Gonzales, as he gets into labels discussing his book, Harvest of Empires, on an episode of Democracy Now from June of 2022

My name is Joe, my name is Jose. The two are synonymous in history, as alternative forms of Joseph. Each represents a facet of an identity that is the sum of its parts. That sum includes that I am a human, lifting my voice for Human rights.