Hispanic Ministry Write-up 1

Pgs. 3-26 in TEC: Latinos in the Race Structure

Usually in both the Spanish-speaking world, as well as the English-speaking world, the color of one’s skin, the texture of their hair, or the contour of their face determines how they are treated in said society. Accents, surnames, residence, class and clothing also often determine the apparent worth of an individual. Perception of worth regarding people who are significantly different than the typical white person in America fluctuates depending upon where the person of a different ethnicity from European. For example, in the Midwest, wherein there is many an Indian, the Latino may be “light” relative the evaluation. However, in the southeast, the same Latino may in fact be considered “dark” compared to an Asian. These dimensions of race, although fundamental to the life of a Latino, nonetheless raise formidable questions regarding the nature of “race” in America. It is very well likely that even the Latino themselves will change the perception of their own race in their lifetime. For example, if they live in a predominantly Anglo neighborhood, it is possible that they will act more Anglo-oriented. However, if they are heavily influenced by an Afro-American crowd, the same person might behave like an African American. It is unfortunate, infinitely so, that we Anglo’s do not understand the frustration that Latinos have in response to their classified “race”. Classification of race for Latinos is entirely contextually dependent, fluctuating, provisional, and even contested at times. Torres (1998) indicates that the lighter skinned Latinos tend to rule over those of darker orientation, even within the same class. 

The U.S Census Bureau contends that race and ethnicity are two independent concepts, with no inter-relation. Many Latinos, however, understand the notion of “race” to be referring to the nation of origin, ethnicity, culture, skin color, or even a combination of these things. So then, for Latinos, race is more a question of socialization rather than biology, as per se. In the US, categories of genetically-based criteria have been the dominate conceptions of race. In effect, then, racial categories have been discrete and mutually exclusive, which has led to great error in classification. For Latinos, the issue of race is never a simple one to address. Fortunately, in the 2000 US Census, people were able to indicate descent from more than one race when answering the question. So then, there is a growing trend, seemingly, to view race as the Latinos do already. 

The population of Latinos in America is growing at a rate 7X that of the nation as a whole. The 2000 US Census projects that the Latino population will exceed that of African Americans by 2005 (I wonder if in fact it has?). In conjunction, the new trends of inter-racial unions lie in direct opposition to those of the past. Indeed, formerly well-to-do whites married “lower-class” minorities (e.g. Latinos), but now there is more and more an equality of both economic dimensions and education dimensions in reference to an inter-racial union. In 1960, the percentage of inter-racial marriages was 0.4% of all marriages, whereas that rose to 2.2% by 1999. Additionally, the number of births to inter-racial parents rose from 1.2% to 4.4% of all births in 1995. 

In 1996, there were more Latinos living in poverty than whites, and even blacks, states CR (I wonder if this according % or to actual numbers?). Latinos generally only make 2/3 of a white person’s salary for the same job. 20% of Latinos aged 16-24 have dropped out of school. 

So then, even in the 2005th year of our Lord, racial/ethnic categories are still socially meaningful indicators of racial subordination and privilege. We should therefore throw ashes on our heads and go sit on dung hills. 

Hispanic Ministry Write-up 2

Pgs. 27-46 in TEC: The Idea of Race

Latinos’ highly variant phenotypic expression, their history, and their perception of race itself, all contribute to challenging the US Governments’ conceptualization of “race”. Immigration and intermarriage have made more salient the questions regarding race in America. Race is not a self-evident fact, requiring no protracted thought, as was once commonly thought. Instead, race is fluid and variable. Race can be defined by a civil government, but when the civil government changes, the conception of race might very well change also. Most often in the USA, race is merely thought of as ancestral descent, a product of one’s genes, and skin color dependent. Traditionally, then, what made a person “white” was not possessing “one-drop” of black/nonwhite blood. Historically, only four groups of people, the white (Europe), the black (Africa), the red (Indian), and the yellow (Asia), have been recognized as “races”. However, where does this leave the Latino, who could be a mixture of all of these? 

The authors of CR posit that referring to “color” in ancient history is incorrect, because people were then identified by religion, culture, language, and other variables, but not skin color. So then, what we consider “race” today is not the “race” of yesteryear; hence it would be wrong to apply today’s assumptions to historic relations. It is humorous to me that Europeans were viewed as savages and “benighted barbarians” by most Romans. In antiquity, intermarriage was not expressly shunned, and was quite common, however (32). Slavery was independent of race, but there were actually more white slaves in antiquity than any other people group. In the 1700’s, it was common for “exploited people” (often those of color) to be forced into rationalizing their oppression. 

31% of the 51 countries in the Americas do not include race/ethnicity questions in their census data, which makes me wonder why America still does. However, in the 69% that did include race/ethnicity data in their censuses, there was a clear fluctuation and fluidity of race and ethnicity within them over the last 40 years. 

Until the recent couple of decades, there was minimal literature regarding multi-raced individuals. However, that literature that did exist generally viewed mix-raced individuals as marginal, with a neither/nor status, having limited social assimilation, and pathological personalities. I am still attempting to figure out why it was once purported that those of a mixture of two distinct races were considered pathological. It was generally held that mixed-race individuals were merely the offspring of exploitive sexual unions between wealthy whites and poor people of color. The increase in the number of inter-racial families, however, is forcing modern literature toward new perspectives regarding mixed-race individuals. In the past, mix-raced children were born to black women and white men, but now that has been balanced, for example, by black men and white women inter-marrying. In fact, 2/3 of all inter-racial marriages were between white women and black men in 1991. It is generally held to be true that leftist individuals, college professors, artists, entertainers, and others with International careers are most likely to intermarry amongst other races.

Race is a social construction, our authors deduce (42). Most scholars today agree that “race” is determined by the surrounding context. Even though the US Census requested a review of the classification of race/ethnicity following 2000, it has yet to act upon its inquiry.

Hispanic Ministry Write-up 3

Common Cultural Themes within Community Based Theolgy

Pgs. 42-70 in ILT.

The authors assert that in order to do theology, one must participate in angoing communal process. Eurocentris theologies have positioned themselves historically and socially as the “Center” of worldwide theological thought, as though they were somehow more legitimate or objective. Hispanic theology is a distinctive type of God-talk whose function is to understand the Divine from within the Hispanic culture, to seek God’s liberative will in the face of oppression, to seek a voice that proclaims liberation and salvation, to create harmony between the Scriptural revelation and the practice of Hispanic communities, to strive against the perceptions of the dominant culture toward Hispanics, and to expose the racism, classism, and sexism that is implicitly contained within the dominant culture’s theology (note that author uses “dominant culture” to be code-word for white). I have deduced, from reading this article in its entirety, that De La Torre absolutely despises white folks. 

Recurring themes within Hispanic societies are not applicable to all groups, but nonetheless do serve as reliable guides for the Hispanic population at large. Hispanic cultural roots affect and shape the community based theology of Hispanics. Indeed, cultural roots directly affect the perception of God and the personhood of Jesus, how they read and understand the Bible, how they worship and praise God, and how they practice the justice-based teachings of the Bible (I openly question the rendering of diakasune as “justice” instead of “righteousness”, and find De La Torre’s explanation of it to be inadequate). 

For the large part, Hispanics are viewed as people who do not belong in the USA. It is important to note that Hispanics generally define their ethnicity in terms of where they were born. I wonder, then, if that does not at all contribute to the perception of Hispanics as people that do not belong. After all, if a person asks a Hispanic their ethnicity, and they reply “Mexican” versus “American” (though they live in America), the questioner has little recourse than to think of the person as an “outsider.” I am a 4th generation descendant of a poor Irish potatoe farmer, who left Ireland because of famine and lack of opportunity. However, when asked my ethnicity, I do not retrace my lineage to Ireland (though verily it does, and even my Grandfather remembered Ireland from his adolescence, and spoke of it frequently), but to America instead. I am struggling with this material because it is presented as if the Hispanic population does nothing to precipitate the perception of being “outsiders”, “aliens”, or “exiles”. I have found it to be true, in my own experience with Hispanic communities in South Georgia (although I will never, ever, assert that my experience is normative!) that the Hispanic communities form a sub-culture within the American culture, and exist as a practically autonomous body within the prevading American (white) culture. I understand that perhaps they are doing such, as to retain their cultural distinctives, and ensure the passage of said distinctives to their children. However, in opposittion to the example of my Irish lineage being assimilated into the American culture, it seems as though the aforementioned “subcultures” of Hispanics refuse assimilation, and thus force upon themselves the perception of being “outsiders”. In the 2000 Census, there were ~36 million Hispanics registered in America, and that number is bound to increase drastically as time progresses. Perhaps if the Hispanics assimilated more so, they would be accepted as veritable “Americans”, and not “outsiders”, “exiles”, or “aliens”. I am sure you do not like my statement, however. 

Hispanic Ministry Write-up 4

Changing Race: Pgs 64-86.

Decennial censuses often only reflect a country’s historical needs (not future needs); however, the information collected is often deemed necessary for the needs of small geographic areas, as well as the greater nation at large. Furthermore, categories of classification within the Census generally reflect the dominant party’s (code word of white race) consideration of who should be counted, how often they should be counted, and how they will be counted. Over the years of Decennial Censuses, our author posits (65) that there have been two basic socially constructed polarities that contain “whites” on one end of the spectrum, and all “other colors” on the other end of the spectrum. However, I disagree with this conception, and posit instead that there are four general classifications: 1) Yellow (Asians), 2) White (Caucasions), 3) Black (Negroes), 4) Brown (Indians). 

This chapter (4) traces the changes that have occurred in the Decennial Censuses’ classification of race and color throughout the years of its existence. In an interesting note, the US Constitution did not point out color or race when it set forth criteria with which the censuses were to be taken, but only “free status” instead. However, with only few exceptions, the end result was still largely determined on the modern conception of racial lines (as most “blacks” at the time were not free, etc). The necessity of a Census is a result of our desired form of Democratic government, which is necessarily representatitive by default. 

In the original Census, Blacks were only counted as 3/5 of a person, whereas indentured sevrants (I am a 4th generation child of an indentured Irishman) were counted as “free people”, and hence were represented in the government census.Not being counted meant that the person did not had no official place in society, and by being counted as only 3/5 of a person, slaves were actually viewed as subhuman. These are some of the things that make me scratch my head in wonder when I realize that the ones who perpetrated such dehumanization considered themselves “Christians”. Between the first drafting of the Constitution in 1787 and the first census of 1790, the term “white” became an explicit part of the first category used, and thereby was made central in the census. 

In 1830, uniform censuses across the states of the Union first appeared, and the “color line” became all the more evident. The Hypodescent rule became more explicit in 1830, and “other races” were subsequently put into the not-white or colored column of classification. In an attempt to not lose their numerical predominance in America, whites recruited anglos from Germany and Great Britian in the mid 19th century. Free white males above 20 at that time were only ~21% of the populations, whereas blacks were ~18% respectively. It is funny to me how anal people were in the late 1800’s (1890), as they partitioned mixtures of races into 4 different distinct classes: quadroons, octroons, mulattoes, and blacks. Whites were, by the 20th century, the class by which others were defined. 1910 recognized the “other” status of some people, and gave them an option to mark accordingly. By 1920, anyone with even a little black ancestory was now deemed “black”. Hispanics, due their multiplicity of phenotypes, are seemingly left out of these stereotypical classifications. For the first 200 years of the Census, “color”, not race, ahas been the term of reference. However, things have gotten better since 1950, for at that time the Census admitted that “race” is not scientific, but only culturally constructed instead. 

Hispanic Ministry Write-up 5

Changing Race Pgs 87-99.

The Shifting Color Line

It is amusing to me that in 1854 Chinese people were ruled by a court of law to be “generic Indians”. Were we so ignorant then as not to be able to distinguish the differences in lineages? 

Native Americans have generically been referred to as “Indians”. They derived the name “Indian” first from Christopher Columbus, who “discovered” this land known as America, and thought that he had instead landed somewhere in India. It is always amusing to me that people say Columbus “discovered” America, as if it did not exist previous to his “discovery”. During the early years of the census in America, Indians were classified as whites when they paid government taxes, but if they did not pay taxes, they were known as “free colored” people. Now that definitely indicates a bias toward those who have financial means of sustenance! By 1870, the census admitted that “Indians” had intermixed to the extent that there were then only few persons of “pure” Indian lineage. I wonder why they did not likewise conclude that we Europeans have similarly intermixed to the extent that there are no longer any “Anglos” (?).

Blacks (note that I refuse to use the term “African American” because I once worked with an “African American” who was “white” at the biotech company where I was employed; by the way, he abhorred telling people that he was “an African American”). In Censuses prior to 1820, the gender and age of slaves was not reported, and even until 1840, slaves were merely “numbered” and not named or distinguished in anyway. The term “negro” was used exclusively until 1960, and only in 2000 did the  category for blacks change (to: black, African American, or Negro). I do not comprehend the distinction between “black, African American, or Negro”, truth be told. 

A white person born in the USA at any time since its inception would automatically be a citizen of the USA, regardless of their parents’ status. However, the same was not the case for colors other than “white”, which clearly is a case of selective application of our country’s laws (we must consider that other “colors” were scarcely even perceived as humans at that time). In the 19th century, the notion of “sovereigns nations” eroded away within the USA border. This notion of “sovereign nations” is ludicrous as I look back upon them, and I openly wonder how our forefathers were ever so ignorant to think they could work in practice.

The Dred Scott case of 1857 only intensified the discrimination against non-white colored people. The judges essentially declared slaves as “property”, which thereby disallowed them citizenship rights (after all, if they are only “property”, why not treat them like an animal?). I appreciate infinitely the author pointing out that both Indians and blacks owned their own slaves prior to closure to the Civil War, which is often over-looked by history books that are hell-bent on demonizing the white race (98). 

Historically, census categories have reflected, established, and sustained power relations between the races, which generally empowered the white race. 

Hispanic classification in the Census has fluctuated because of changes in perceptions of  “race” and cultural criteria, of which the US had no direct control. However, it is nonetheless clear that political motivations influenced drastically the definition of citizenship and (as a byproduct) the definition of racial classification in the US Census. It is now acknowledged that race and ethnicity are social constructions.