To Be Latino Is To Have Options

Here’s a rough sketch of me:

I was born in San Antonio, Texas, reared on the border – Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. I studied in both US and Mexican schools. My father is an immigrant from a little town in the foothills of the Sierra Madre, called Agualeguas. From his side of my family I’m a first generation American. From my mother’s side we’ve been here for many, many generations. My grandfather was a businessman and politically active many decades ago. My mother and her mother, and her mother’s mother all called Texas home.

Now put all that in a box and label it.

I prefer Latino over Hispanic, but I have no interest in debating anyone over that fact. And in that sense I’m half-like every Latino, Hispanic, Chicano, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, and on and on American in the country. I can choose what I want to be called (The other half is the no-debate half. I think there’re just as many folks eager to argue for the sport of it.).

The thing is that there is an endless number of Latino/Hispanic combinations. The US Census is trying to get a handle on this. You can self-identify by race and then choose Hispanic or non-Hispanic. So you can be Asian-Hispanic or black non-Hispanic, or whichever combination of boxes you checked off. But still, many Latinos think the fit is too snug. This, I think, is what all Latino/Hispanics have in common – we can choose. Our commonality, apart from basic cultural tenets, is that we share a menu of options.

We can speak either Spanish or English if we have the ability and so choose. Or we can choose to speak neither or mix them in a sentence. We can root for Chicharito scoring for Man U, or Mark Sanchez lobbing a pass for the Jets; American idol or a telenovela; Gansitos or Little Debbies; raspas or sno-cones; Franzen or Ruiz Zafón.

The options are not universal.

The truth is that everyone in the world can have those same options, but not everyone can claim them as theirs. Latinos in the U.S. do, and that’s what sets us apart. It’s also what drives marketers, politicians and sociologists batty. They’d love to be able to put us in a tidy box and be done with it. But every time they do they can’t close the lid – there just isn’t a box big enough. And that really riles the angry, combative half of the Latino community who reject any and all definitions.

To be Latino is to have options and to exercise them: the thimble on Boardwalk or a frijol on El Nopal; drop food on the floor, there’s a 5 second rule or lo chupa el diablo. The bottom line is that any effort to define us is futile. But if they’d ask we’d probably all say the same thing: we’re defined by our options, and in the end it’s a very personal thing.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda