The Accidental Hispanic

• Inclusion rather than exclusion: Integration into the mainstream of the U.S., with its higher salaries and better working conditions without losing your national identity


• Expansion rather than contraction: If we can understand two cultures, we can understand three, or four… and, as the world around us becomes more complex and surgically segmentable, we are better prepared to understand those complexities than someone who is “uni-cultural”.


• Addition rather than subtraction: If you speak two languages, you have huge advantages over people who speak only one in anything that is international and, face it, we are not becoming more and more international. We already are.


• The end of the acrid debate of “are you really Hispanic if you don’t speak Spanish?” you can be multicultural and speak only one language –though in all honesty, if you don’t speak both you are missing a lot.


 

So, I visualize a completely different “Hispanic”, one that is “more” rather than “less” and that is valued rather than discriminated against.

The beginning of an action plan

1. Get money. Forget about political clout, evidently it is not going to happen. Get financial support from concerned CEO’s and owners of businesses. Prefer those companies that contribute; avoid those that don’t.


2. Hire a PR agency. Don’t get it pro-bono. Money talks. Unless there is money on the desk, your project doesn’t make it to the top of the desk. The PR agency’s task:
   
   
   • Begin shaping the national discourse, from “Hispanic” to “Multicultural”, from “an ethnic group” to a “plus group”
   
   
   • Blanket the Multicultural approach on the media: Television, cable, print, online, mobile, billboards… doesn’t really matter much, get all you can. A friend of mine, Floyd “The Rock Artist” told me that the secret to his growth was that, at the beginning, he would appear anywhere, in any media, in any program.
   
   
   • Mind the broken windows. Use the same tactics that changed “Negros” to “black” to “African American” pursue the new terminology aggressively.
   
   
    


3. Accelerate English and Spanish education. The only way we are a “plus” is if we deliver on the plus, thus, don’t lose your Spanish if you want to keep it, but make English a priority so that we have a body of real, honest to goodness, bilingual, bicultural, added value people.


4. Hire lawyers. Every time I mention Al Sharpton, Hispanics –and especially Cubans—go crazy. They really don’t like the guy (I do) but, face it; he’s driven a lot of cases into the public agenda. Hire lawyers to do the same. Let’s leverage the law to our advantage. You see or hear of a case where Multiculturals are being discriminated against, send a lawyer. Hire beginning lawyers, that way they get experience and we get them for less.


5. Find a leader – Every successful movement has a leader. The only two modern movements without a leader (Occupy and Anonymous) have not been successful at all. Their common point: they do not have a leader. They have an agenda, they have a vision, they have the manpower to carry out their vision, but no leader. Lesson: get a leader.


 

In 10 years it should be that, if anyone uses “Hispanic” he/she will be seen as outdated, old, biased and racist… “Multicultural” is the new African-American.

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