| One beauty and challenge of writing for The Capital City Hues is that my ideas for columns sometimes take a back seat to the theme of the issue of the month. This is the case with Hispanic Heritage Month and I am so glad that I am being gently coerced to resurrect related connections. Hispanic History Month means different things to different people. For some, the recognition can be as simple and uncommitted as eating an enchilada at a community event and marveling at how the experience was not at all like they had imagined it to be. For another it could mean overcoming the arrogant posture that English is the only language worth knowing and enrolling in an elementary Spanish class. For others, Hispanic Heritage Month will dredge up intense or subtle feelings of racism (even though 'Hispanic' is not a race) apparently prompted by headline immigration matters -- but the seeds of hatred are usually deeper than what appears on the surface. "Why don't they go back to where they came from?" some might ask. "Why don't you go back where you came from?" would be my answer. Yes. Hispanic Heritage Month can serve as a critical reminder that, with the exception of indigenous people, we are all from somewhere else. Most of us arrived here (wherever "here" happens to be) from somewhere else. Some involuntarily, and most voluntarily. When the Ice Age formed land bridges that linked continents -- people(s) walked from one part of the world to another. When enormous bodies of water swallowed up the land bridges, human beings found other ways to migrate from one area to another. In search of food. In search of more hospitable climates. In search or riches real or imagined. Because mobility was and largely is thought to be a good thing and a sign of freedom. There is nothing new or startling about this human propensity. I am indebted to the people I grew up with and I was blessed with the experience of "multiculturism" long before the term was ever invented. These"blessings" were not always pleasant and they were certainly not conflict-free, but I am grateful for them nevertheless. I was so fortunate to have Radame Colado as an elementary and junior high school classmate in New York City in the fifties and sixties. He taught me how to say "salty codfish" in Spanish. Illian Arroyo always got A's on all her exams in junior high, and that accomplishment set a critically important standard for me even though I never achieved her consistent achievement. Mario openly dated a Chinese girl which tossed my racial assumptions into a typhoon that continues to swirl. Thank you, Mario for, at least, appearing not to care about distinctions and definitions that are pathetically weak in the face of a force as powerful as love. Thank you to Joseph Melendez who didn't speak a word of Spanish and tried so hard to blend in to the "American" landscape. Thank you to the brother and sister from Spain who captivated many elementary school assemblies with Flamenco dancing replete with elegant, tight fitting, costumes and castanettes. Thank you -- again -- to Mario for not having me killed when I fought with him in the middle of the street in a Puerto Rican neighborhood while his brethren filled the street and hung out of windows shouting, "Do you want us to take care of him, Mario?" And Mario answered, "No. This is just between the two of us." And this was way before the Bill Withers song, "Just the Two of Us." Thank you to Frank Morales who was the best punch ball player (kind of like softball or baseball except that you punch a rubber ball with your fist instead of hitting a ball with a bat) and artist in the Jacob Riis Housing Projects. Thank you to all the children, adolescents and adults who looked out for me when I was in my early 20s and took on the job of community center director at the Church of St. Edward the Martyr in Spanish Harlem. It was the kind of job that only people in their 20s would consider taking on. You know. The years when you feel invincible. Impervious to virtually everything. Immune to the manifestations of intense despair. Thank you to the many young people who literally had my back as I tried to impose reasonable order on emerging chaos. Thank you to the mothers who ventured down to the center on Friday nights to bring me plates of beans and rice and fish because I showed a little love to their children. Because I was young enough or naïve enough to tell the old-ass men to vacate the gym in the early afternoon when the young kids were there. Because I was stupid enough or courageous enough to tell them to take their drinking, smoking, snorting, cursing and fighting someplace else because little kids didn't need to see that. Thank you to Eddie Palmieri, Johnny Pacheco and Orlando Marin for condensing their souls on vinyl to blast through tenement and housing project windows to soothe restless souls -- for creating sounds that permeated the air like the scents of fried plantain and rice and beans on Friday nights. And fast-forwarding to Wisconsin -- thank you to Dora for enlisting me to be one of Los Tres Reyes Magos (The Three Wise Men) for the annual Centro Hispano celebration. I served in that capacity for about 13 years, and it's funny how it came about: I started work in the Dane County Executive's Office in late 1992 (and I retired about a year ago). One of the first things I did was to go around to introduce myself to every conceivable community organization. That's when I met Dora, who was director of Centro Hispano at the time. I asked what I could do for her agency as I readied myself to leave. She told me, without hesitation, that I could be one of the Wise Men at the Centro Hispano holiday celebration. She further told me that the costumes would be picked up from the cleaners the following day and that I should come by to try one on. I did as I was told and returned the next day. To our surprise (and we shouldn't have been surprised at all) all the costumes were way too small for me. Since the event was only days away, Dora told me that she and a couple of volunteers would work all night to make a costume just for me. The condition was that I would have to agree to be one of the Wise Men for life! I agreed and that's how I came to be one of the Wise Men for 13 years. I was given "permission" to skip my Wise Man duties in the winter of 1997. That's because I was studying Spanish at a language immersion school in Costa Rica. But that's another story. So, thank you to Hispanic Heritage Month for breathing life into memories. And thank you even more for bridging the gap between the past and powerful present that encompasses Latino people from all over the world. Thank you for reminding us that it is futile to assume anything about anyone or anything. We cannot and should not assume that Spanish-speaking people from Honduras are "the same" as people from Puerto Rico or Mexico or Costa Rica or Bolivia. Hispanic Heritage Month is an opportunity to throw out the false notion that to know one is to know all of any particular "group." Celebrations are important. Recognitions are important. Commemorations are important. Setting aside days or weeks or months are important to recognize crucial elements of our collective experience. This heightened and transient awareness will continue to be important until we recognize that we are all truly in this business of life together. And we aren't there yet. |
| Simple Things/Lang Kenneth Haynes Grateful for America's Hispanic Heritage |
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