The following article was translated from Spanish. It appeared in the December 1, 1994 edition of the Oakland, California based newspaper El Mundo.

NO INDIANS, NO BLACKS

BY ROMULO HERNANDEZ

If you’re hispanic and you come to the United States, and you’re not european white, you ususally wonder if you’re going to face racial discrimination. And from filling out the first form at the Immigration office, the Social Security office or in another other situation, we discover our category, regardless of the color of our skin. There’s a specific race which unifies all of us lationos: "Mark the box that says Hispanic."

"What clerks they are! They classify everything, these gringos!" you think. My cousin thought that to be blond(even if it came out of a bottle) allowed her to put her self in the group called "white." But it wasn’t like that to the americans. She wasn’t white enough if she was born in Latin America.

With time, you get used to this "classification" system of the gringos until you read with amusement that the black model in the ads for the famous commercial bank sued for millions because she was discriminated against by the company that she was promoting. She alleged racism against her!

I said that would happen when they added someone who was not white like them.

What’s strange (considering that us Latin Americans are speaking of a country known as racist) is that at the same time we are reading about African Americans like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson at the top of the lists of the multi-millionaires of show business. And it’s become normal to see on the programs with the largest audiences (In Living Color, Martin, or Living Single) that the stars of these shows are dark-skinned people.

How different it is in the mass media of our Latin American countries! Were we to judge by the images that arrives on our television sets and movie screens, we would come to the conclusions that everyone in our countries were aryan-white with blond or red hair. No indian or black face appears on the screen except to offer a cup of coffe to, to open the door for, or to KILL a more important character who is, WHITE.

In the written press it’s no different. The photographs in the newspapers and on magazine covers show, most of the time, a profusion of faces that don’t look like most of us. A good inspiration for Latin America would be to see 6 or 7 North American magazines which feature articles about black personalities. Even the super white "Vogue" accepted long ago that there is beauty in black skin.

If we investigate the Latin American soap operas, sadly we will find the whiter the couples featured, the more successful they are. Is it that we hate ourselves? Is it that we can’t bear to look at ourselves as we really are? Are we ashamed to accept that we are black and Indian? Do we have to have more uprisings like the one in Chiapas(Mexico) to see our true racial features in Latin American media?

If individuals with indian or black faces want to increase their self-esteem, if they want to see themselves have the right to triumph in their profession or in life, unfortunately, they’re going have difficulty because of the " ideal" of beauty on Latin American television. These type faces and reflections of anchorman, actors or journalists who are people of color, are easlier to find on US television than on our latino channels. And that fact is a reflection of what is going on in Latin America. Also, this Latin American racism makes sure that you never see transmitted in commercials, not even by accident, a coastal(dark-skinned) Colombian, a( black Venezuelan, a Afro-Peruvian from El Callo near Lima or a black Mexican from Veracruz.

. We worship the "aryan" ideal to the point that Brazilian television personality, Xuxa, made her fortune(a veritable empire constructed with indian and black money) singing and dancing with a chorus of five or six teenage "blondies" like her. All with long yellow hair. Okay, that did not cause any problem at all in our Latin American countries where most of the people are mestizo(white and/or black and indian mixed), zambo(black and indian mixed), black or indian, even though they deserve to be represented on such a show. Nobody was offended. However, when they wanted to "cross-over" into the United States and produce the same program in English, we saw how the chorus of blonds was transformed into a rainbow of races. Probably because the producers received legal advice that no US broadcaster would be willing to risk his prestige, money and time with an eventual multi-million dollar lawsuit for discrimination.

And that precisely is the difference between our Latin American racism and that in the United States. In the US if you are not white, you are probably going to face situations where whites will make you feel you are not welcome, but at the same time you will receive pamphlets, fliers and books that tell you there are laws to protect you, where it is clearly stated that no one has to accept discrimination because of race, social condition or sexual orientation. Also, that practices like this can be avenged by a "juicy" lawsuit. Let Rodney King tell you whether that’s true or not.

In Hispanic America when one is victimized by racial discrimination, people keep smiling and try to justify it: "No, here we call him ‘negro’ out of affection." Although they would never refer to a white person by his color instead of his name.

With the Indian, it’s the same. The word "Indian" is used as a synonym for backward, stupid, uneducated. Thus, the word, which describes the greatest part of our race is used by us as the greatest insult. But there is a more modern example. The Colombian, Carlos Vives, is the new latin sex symbol who drives it home in a song that says, " What kind of culture could an Indian born in Chumeca have?" (He’s just implies such a person has no culture) No need to say more.

Neither is it rare to hear stated with too much pride: "In my country there are no Indian nor blacks because we had more influence from Europe." So in that case there’s no segregation? No prejudice? And in the majority of cases, no ignorance? What is curious is that from one of those countries, Argentina, where the people think of themselves as only European, came one of our greatest Hispanic singers, Mercedes Sosa, with her face so full of aboriginal features that looked like a proud symbol of the forgotten American Indian.

Further north, in Mexico, they can still be heard from the heavens those romantic voices that represented two races—Indians and blacks--voices so popular in the past which are almost completely unknown to us today: Pedro Vargas and Tona La Negra. It’s better that they were born in another time or they would still have been standing in line waiting for an opportunity. Today all vacancies for fame and glory are reserved for whiter people. They would be not place for them in today’s worship by Latinos of the Aryan look. Because Latino society in it’s silence has bought-in to the myth "White Supremacy."