Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz recently came to Colgate University to give a lecture about his work. His work often features the experiences of Latin American people, and this is what he chose to focus on during his lecture. He spoke both about how others view Latin-Americans and how they view themselves, and what I found most interesting was his commentary about how Latin-Americans actually assist in the negative perception of themselves by others. He related, I think accurately, the fact that Latin-Americans take pride (sometimes too much) in their uniqueness, and use that pride as a basis for denying the identity to others. This occurs especially in the United States. For example, if you consider yourself Latin-American but don't speak Spanish, many Spanish-speaking Latin-Americans will say that you aren't Latin-American enough. I personally have unfortunately been guilty of thinking of my fellow Latin-Americans as "less than" if they didn't speak Spanish. The problem with this is that we as Latin-Americans take the side of the oppressors who say that the Latin-American identity is not a valid one, that the rich cultures and traditions are worthless.
In fact, what we all, as Latin-Americans, have in common is a history of colonization and oppression by outside powers. One of Díaz's main points from this lecture was that we should be celebrating our similarities, and using them in order to unite and create larger communities. Instead of building bridges, we as Latin-Americans, and we as humankind in general, perpetually focus on differences and use these to create division and "other" people different from us.
On the other hand, the blame for Latin-Americans’ need to preserve what is uniquely theirs should not be put solely on them. It is a consequence of the larger oppression of Whiteness. Generational differences also contribute to this need. For example, Latin-American immigrants and the children of immigrants (first generation) deal with a struggle that other Latinos don’t necessarily have to deal with which is a loss of our own culture. So, yes, speaking Spanish may be a huge part of our identity and our need to preserve it and our feelings surrounding it are valid. We shouldn’t have to feel guilty that this might exclude others (though we shouldn’t purposefully make them feel bad for it), we shouldn’t have to censor ourselves. Instead of blaming other people for not preserving it, we should hold the oppressor accountable for requiring “assimilation.” Additionally, other generations of Latinos who have been in the U.S. longer and are of a higher socioeconomic background also have privileges that first generation Latinos do not have, and they are not blamed for “excluding” other Latinos as often as first generation latinos. The point is that there shouldn't be any "blame" within groups that have so much to celebrate.
In short, everyone regardless of identity would benefit from finding things in common with others and using these to build an infinitely large community of humans.
