Latinos and the Lottery

In response to “Latinos: Lottery’s Big Losers” Op-Ed Page, May 26, by John C. Gamboa:

Gamboa comes close to proposing that the California lottery be banned because we Latinos are incapable of controlling ourselves and spend too much money gambling.

Gamboa’s remarks serve only to further ingrain the stereotype of the hopelessly gambling-crazed Latino. Furthermore, his plea for the progressive distribution of the lottery education subsidy is flawed. It is flawed because of his following plea to index the alcohol and cigarette “sin” tax rate to inflation in order to allocate more funds to education.

I would like to remind Gamboa of the numerous marketing studies that show that Latinos drink more beer than other ethnic groups. According to his reasoning on the lottery, I guess that the higher alcohol tax rate would again mean that Latinos are disproportionately subsidizing the education of the rich. Either that, or Gamboa is counting on us Latinos to drink ourselves to brilliance.

Those who reason like Gamboa seem to feel that it is up to them to mother the rest of us Latinos. They think that we gamble too much, drink too much, smoke too much, and beat our women. Their ultimate solution: ban the sale of lottery tickets and beer to Latinos. I am not about to start claiming that I am Portuguese every time I feel like playing lotto or buying a six-pack. Please spare us your concern, and stop trying to make society pay for your perceived immaturities in the Latino community.

ADAN ORTEGA JR.

Los Angeles