REFLECTIONS/Jonathan Gramling
Thoughts on Latine Heritage Month
Before I get into this issue’s column, I ask that our readership put good vibes and prayers into the universe for a good friend of mine who, always being the optimist, is in the last stage of her life, something that part of me refuses to accept. “Didn’t she sound so strong and vital on the phone today? How could she be so ill?”
But a part of me says that it is so. So please put those good vibes and prayers into the universe so that she can be either healed or be comfortable and loved during this time.
***
Earlier this month, it came across the wire, so to speak, that Sergio Mendes had died. I first heard Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 back during my high school years and before. My brother Jim — who is six years older than I and loves jazz of all sources — would play their album at my parents’ house in the mid to late 1960s. I would listen to the album from afar. And later on, who could forget their rendition of “The Look of Love.” It was very sexy, even to a young and naive person like myself.
I wasn’t necessarily a fan of Sergio and never bought an album, but when I read the article about his death, I felt a loss. He was quoted as saying, “I’ve been very fortunate to have had such experiences because that has enriched my life. Working with different people from different countries, from different cultures, I think it just helps you grow and learn new things. … I love that because you don’t program that; it’s about the magical encounter. I think it’s a beautiful thing in life.”
And all of a sudden, I felt a deep kinship with Sergio because he described my experience publishing The Capital City Hues going on 19 years. I felt a loss for a “brother” that I never knew I had.
***
I am very blessed and fortunate to have had that experience, although I haven’t traveled the world to experience it. A portal to the world exists right here in Madison, Wisconsin, primarily due to the UW-Madison, the best university in the United States in my biased, yet totally felt opinion.
It was through UW-Madison when I was an on again and then community activist student at UW-Madison in the early 1970s that I had my first exposure to the Latine community — why Latine comes next — in Madison. Refugio “Cuco” Guajardo and his wife Carmen were stationed in Madison to organize the United Farm Workers boycott against Gallo and Franzia wines. We had a local committee, but by the end of the boycott, it was just Cuco and I walking picket at the Midvale Liquor Store a couple of times per week. I don’t know what impact it had on the boycott, but it had an impact on me as we talked about everything while we walked the picket line. Reonm Kent, a long time Madison labor organizer, called me the other day and let me know that Cuco and Carmen are still doing well. Bless them.
And then a couple of years later, I hopped a train with some friends from Milwaukee to Seattle and then hitch hiked along the Pacific Coast to San Francisco. I made contact with the UFW office in San Francisco and they told me about the opening of a UFW health clinic down in the valley the next day. It was the first clinic that the UFW had opened and I was able to witness it all because I had volunteered for the UFW. I volunteered without expecting anything, but something good followed.
Those were my first introductions to the Latine community with many more to follow.
***
Speaking of Latine, I have come through a strange journey to this term that refers to the people of Latin America. For many years, I used the term Hispanic. I think the U.S. Government and other public institutions use the terms. But then some friends of mine suggested to me that I use the term Latino to separate the Latin American people from their oppressors the Spanish. I thought that Latino made sense because people want to be free from their oppressors and have a unique identity of their own.
Well this held for about 25 years until the term Latinx started to get common use. Since Latino is a male reference to Latin American people, a movement came about to change it to Latinx, which I saw on some sweatshirts at the annual Mexican Independence Day celebration put on by La Movida.
I can understand and respect the reason — and support it — for using Latinx. But it just felt so sterile and scientific to me an devoid of any cultural linguistic context.
And then lately I saw the term Latine. I looked it up and read about it on the internet. And they daid it was a neutral term, neither male or female. But it just sounded and felt more cultural relevant and alive.
And so I have started using Latine instead of Latinx. I might be totally wrong and I would welcome letters to the editor that expressed what the proper term(s) should be. So please email me with your thoughts. It would be great to hear from you.