By José Gandue @spinning zone
Cover art by Zonagirante Studio
According to statistics a friend sent me via WhatsApp, a large part of the Latin American population living in the United States (especially men) He voted for the same person who has repeatedly said in his speeches that immigrants carry bad genes and contaminate Americans. They voted for the same person who sponsored a comedian who shamelessly made a bad joke by babbling that Puerto Rico is a garbage island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. They chose the orange man who shouts that the wave of immigrants "invading" his country are mostly rapists, murderers, and dangerous gang members. They voted with the same naiveté a Jew might have shown in 1933 when electing Hitler, believing they could later join the SS. As the old meme that's been circulating for years says, if it had been the dinosaurs..., They would surely vote for the arrival of meteorites to the planet, believing that it would not harm them.
That's how we are. A very large portion of those of us who call ourselves Latinos. We despise our origins, our colors, our neighbors, and we are confused in front of the mirror, swearing that we are less Black, Indian, or Creole than those around us. There are plenty of examples. There are those Dominicans who detest Haitians fleeing hunger. Colombians who look down on Venezuelans, just as, decades ago, Venezuelans discriminated against Colombians who came to their country. The Chilean who looks down on the Bolivian and the Argentinian who mocks the Paraguayan. We are the best example of miscegenation in the world, and yet we flagellate ourselves by denying the fucking reality. We are racist against ourselves. We are self-destructive. We believe the worst stories. We are social climbers, and they know it, and they laugh at us.
Okay, enough rant against the sellouts., Those who were convinced by evangelical sect pastors that it was a choice between Trump and the devil (what an irony), Those who reject feminism because they're offended by the use of more egalitarian pronouns and demand obvious rights. Those who swear the autocrat won't do any of the things he said he would. and then they will see their loved ones forced onto a bus that will leave them stranded at the border. Okay, enough. Now we need to talk seriously and understand who we are and where we're going.
No, I won't dare give you a hippie unity speech where we hug each other and listen to Violeta Parra. But I must point out a glaring contradiction: We want to be respected, but we don't respect others. We want people to buy what we make, but we don't buy what our neighbors make. We claim to be Latinos, but we don't accept our diversity., We consume only what the cliché we have become produces, under the guidelines of corporations, which are hardly directed by those who understand us. For many of our people, we are Carmen Miranda, with a banana headdress, believing that the three hundred people who can see us in Iowa are better than the five thousand who celebrate us in Bogotá. Not only is it a concept that goes against our self-esteem, but it is also a bad business, because we are denying our natural market.
We cannot continue with this colonial mentality, believing that Elon Musk is coming to save us. No one is saying we should stop listening to Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Foo Fighters, or Pearl Jam. No. Nor are we suggesting we turn off Netflix or Max. Rather, what I'm proposing, naively but sincerely, is that we begin to understand where we stand, where we come from, and get to know those who live in our environment. If we look closely, we will realize that we have a rich and diverse cultural scene, and a great entrepreneurial spirit. And on the other hand, a great deal of ignorance about who we are and what we can offer. We have been taught to hate those who seem like us, resulting in us harming ourselves. We have a lot in common, especially our needs and desires to get ahead. We are not like Trump and his fascist gang, and we never will be, no matter how much Milei, Bolsonaro, Kast, and others insist otherwise. Let's stop looking at the sky for meteorites.