Latino Immigration as a Force for Change

Judging from the hype in the headlines, you might think that Latinos had finally arrived.

“Latin U.S.A.--How Young Hispanics are Changing America,” trumpeted the cover of Newsweek last month.

And July’s American Demographics proclaimed in a seven-page story: “Generacion Latino: Hispanic Teens . . . [Are] Redefining Mainstream American Culture.”

Oh, really? If you ignore the bad grammar (generacion is feminine) and read beyond the splashy pitches, you’re in for an editorial letdown.

Or a sigh of relief, if you’re among those who fear that Latino immigration is turning the United States into a Third World country.

Rest easy, pilgrim. Latinos aren’t really changing America.

America is changing us.

I was particularly interested in these so-called trend pieces because I’ve recently racked my brain wondering how the growing Latino community has shaped California and the rest of the country. I’ve asked friends, colleagues and experts this question: What cultural values and customs have immigrants imparted to the larger society that has taken them in?

The query elicited much head-scratching from hyphenated Americans: Mexican, Italian, Irish and Cambodian. Perhaps, I thought, these articles would provide some answers.

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Here’s what the media came up with: Latinos have given America Ricky Martin, Nuevo Latino cuisine and a record-setting gusto for consumerism. Apparently, food, fashion and music are the main measures by which we weigh the immigrant influence on mainstream culture. (American Demographics tells us that Hispanic youths spend more on movie tickets and makeup than their peers.)

The reality is that Latinos in the United States tend to abandon many of the positive cultural traits they cherished back home. The more they assimilate, the more those valuable qualities vanish.

In Mexico, for example, teenagers go out of their way to greet the parents of their friends when they call or visit. They chat and interact with the adults, who are seen as extensions of the friendship.

Not here. Many American kids don’t even say hello to a mother or father who answers the phone at a friend’s house. When they visit in person, some kids even treat the adults as if they were furniture.

I don’t mean to suggest any cultural superiority. Mexican society has plenty of faults. In fact, anti-immigration extremists worry that the growth of Latino political power might infect U.S. institutions with the corruption that is endemic south of the border.

The truth is a lot less colorful. Young Latino politicians campaign on a mantra of apple pie and motherhood. We are just like the rest of you, they insist. We worry about education, jobs, public safety, family values.

Very wholesome. And very boring. I’d like to see Latinos take over Sacramento and declare an official state siesta time. Businesses would be ordered to close between 2 and 4 p.m. so we can all go home and have a big sit-down meal with our families.

OK, maybe that’s too impractical and Old World. But there’s real-world value in other family-friendly customs that immigrants bring with them and Americans would do well to adopt.

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In many Latin countries, children tend to live with their parents until they get married, no matter how old the kids get. You find that practice among Latino families here, but some people consider it strange.

Also, in Latin America you don’t see so many homes for senior citizens because families always make room at home for los abuelitos. In the United States, abandonment of the elderly is a national disgrace.

Why can’t immigrants, then, manage to change America in these rich, meaningful ways? Why must our biggest contributions be designer guayaberas and la vida loca?

Isn’t life here crazy enough already?

Newsweek reports that young Latinos are more culturally assertive than their parents because they flaunt their identity. The reclaiming of Latino roots is supposedly the “defining trait” of the second and third generation.

But other immigrants did the same. New generations of Irish Americans are embracing “Riverdance” and making pilgrimages to Ireland, notes Charles Fanning, professor of Irish studies at Southern Illinois University. He calls it a “cultural luxury” of otherwise assimilated offspring who can now afford to indulge ethnic tastes.

Early Irish immigrants had something else in common with recent Latino arrivals, adds Fanning. The Irish, too, were feared as foreign hordes who would radically alter American culture.

“And of course,” he says, “that didn’t happen.”

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach him at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.