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Hispanic or Latino?

So, how should you refer to people from most of the countries throughout Latin America or Spain? Hispanics or Latinos? It depends on who you ask.

The origin of the word "Hispanic" is the Latin term Romans used when referring to Europe’s Iberian Peninsula – "Hispania" –made up of Spain and Portugal. Many people I know balk at being identified as Hispanic, noting that Spain colonized their family’s country of origin and they in no way want to show acceptance or even tolerance of that historical fact.

The National Council of La Raza website notes: "the terms 'Hispanic' and 'Latino' are used interchangeably by the U.S. Census Bureau to refer to persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central and South American, Dominican, Spanish, and other Hispanic descent; they may be of any race. Some segments of the population also use the term 'La Raza' which has its origins in early 20th century Latin American literature and translates into English most closely as 'the people,' or, according to some scholars, 'the Hispanic people of the New World.' Mexican scholar José Vasconcelos coined the term to reflect the fact that the people of Latin America are a mixture of many of the world's races, cultures, and religions." (Click here to learn more about Vasconcelos.)

The NCLR web site goes on to explain how "some people have mistranslated 'La Raza' to mean 'The Race,' implying that it is a term meant to exclude others. In fact, the full term coined by Vasconcelos, 'La Raza Cósmica,' meaning the 'cosmic people,' was developed to reflect not purity but the mixture inherent in the Hispanic people. This is an inclusive concept, meaning that Hispanics share with all other peoples of the world a common heritage and destiny."

But Carlos Hernandez-Chavez, a friend of mine born and raised in Mexico and now a U.S. citizen, reminded me, whatever the reference you use – Hispanic or Latino - our cultures, regardless of one’s opinion of Spanish colonialism, has a strong European influence from Spain. "What’s this ‘Latino’ thing about?" he asked. "Not all Spanish-speaking people are Latin American. And not all Latin-based languages are Spanish. Calling myself a Latino makes no sense to me." Latin-based (or Romance) languages include French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian. If forced to choose between the two, Carlos opts for "Hispanic." After a few moments, he added, "if you really want to be accurate, call me what I am – Mexican."

According to a 2002 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 53 percent of Hispanics had no preference between "Hispanic" and "Latino." Among the 47 percent with a preference, 34 percent preferred "Hispanic" to "Latino" (13 percent). That same survey also provides a good lead on what to do when faced with the challenge of not knowing whether to refer to someone as Hispanic or Latino - 88 percent of "Hispanics" prefer to identify themselves by national origin rather than either of the two more generic references. It seems to me that the more we generalize ethnic references, the more likely we are to slip into stereotypes. No, we don’t all eat tacos.

Everyday Democracy created a dialogue guide about immigration for communities that want to address this hot button issue. Conversations are designed to help participants consider that Hispanics or Latinos are but one cluster of ethnicities that make up U.S. immigrants. Click here to read about communities who have addressed their immigration issues through dialogue aimed toward taking action and here to download a free copy of our immigration discussion guide.

Gloria Francesca Mengual is a program director for Everyday Democracy. She is of Puerto Rican and Spanish descent and because she identifies more strongly with her Puerto Rican heritage, prefers Puerto Rican. If the choices are limited to Hispanic or Latino, Hispanic feels more accurate to her.

April books roundup

It's time for our monthly roundup of recent books of interest to people who are working, organizing, and educating for positive community change. This month's selections include Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon; Fight  Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community by Bill McKibben and the Step It Up Team; and The True Patriot: A Pamphlet by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer. You can get these books at your local bookseller, or online, or at the links offered below.

Slavery by Another Name tells how for decades after the Civil War, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, charged with outrageous fines, then sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. The practice was finally given up due to government embarrassment over possible enemy propaganda about American racial abuse at the beginning of World War II. Blackmon, a white man who is Atlanta bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, started writing nearly a decade ago about how U.S. Steel Corp. relied on forced black laborers in Alabama coal mines in the early 20th century. This book grew out of that reporting. (Order here.) Click here for more of Blackmon's writings on race, school resegregation (he attended Mississippi schools as they were integrated in the 1970s), baseball, and more.  You can also read an excerpt from the book and listen to a "Talk of the Nation" interview with Blackmon here.

Earth Day 2008 may be behind us, but many communities are eager to keep the momentum going. In Fight Global Warming Now, McKibben and his collaborators offer a hands-on, locally oriented guidebook for halting climate change. McKibben draws from the lessons of 1,400 Step It Up demonstrations held last spring, one of the biggest days of environmental action since the original Earth Day and one that came together in mere months. He pledges that proceeds from the book will go back into efforts to combat climate change. (Order here.) Another recent McKibben book - Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future - is recently out in paperback, and it's a good companion to Fight Global Warming Now. McKibben shares why, particularly in our current era of unequal wages and dwindling natural resources, "more" usually doesn't mean "better." He shows how communities around the world are building vibrant local economies where people work together to create more of their own food, energy, and even entertainment.

The True Patriot has been out for a few months, but it may be a good prism through which to view the rest of this presidential election year. "We believe all politics is fundamentally about morality," Liu and Hanauer write in the slim book's introduction. "What rules do we need to live a good life together? How should those rules govern the choices we make not only as individuals but as a community?" Written in the style of Thomas Paine's classic Common Sense, The True Patriot has a decidedly progressive philosophy but one that calls to conservatives as well by appealing to core American values, like sharing of sacrifice. In a radio interview, Liu said, "I think if you take these values seriously, you’re able to find a zone where people of both parties can come together and say, 'You know what? This is the essence of true patriotism: whether we are looking out for the next generation, whether we have a sense of obligation and responsibility, not just to ourselves but to those who are going to come after us.'" (Order here.)

What are you reading these days? What's next on your list?

Tracking tales of civic revival

PACE - Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement - presented preliminary findings from its study of "How Local Governments Are Reinventing Civic Engagement" at a webinar today. "There's a lot going on, and it's coming from many directions," said lead researcher Mike McGrath, who shared these examples:

California is home to a groundswell of activity, ranging from Oakland's Neighborhood Law Corps to the renaming of Ventura's Marketing and Public Affairs Division as the Civic Engagement Division. In Palo Alto, the city council adopted public engagement as one of four priorities for 2008. The 1978 Proposition 13 property tax revolt in California created a climate where local governments faced with hard budgetary choices have had to seek greater citizen consensus on decisions.

In Sarasota County, Florida, several foundations teamed to create a nonprofit called SCOPE (Sarasota Openly Plans for Excellence). As its website says: "The idea for SCOPE emerged following a series of discussions among a broad-based group of Sarasota County residents concerned about the county’s future. After several informal meetings, a diverse group of community leaders came together to discuss the idea of undertaking a visioning or community goal-setting process." Since its founding in 2001, SCOPE has held citizen study groups on a wide array of issues, including affordable housing, family violence, traffic congestion, and  many others. See more about SCOPE's work here.

Dubuque, Iowa, was in sorry shape in the mid-1980s after the John Deere tractor company left town, but a series of visioning processes held since then have helped turn the former industrial town into a community that's pursuing riverfront development, a revitalized downtown, and greater broadband connectivity. A city that actually once had a "Will the last person to leave Dubuque please turn out the lights?" billboard now calls itself "the masterpiece on the Mississippi" and boasts the highest job-growth rate in the state.

Other communities mentioned included Portland, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; Greeley County, Kansas; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Worcester, Massachusetts, where neighborhood teams use handheld computers and digital cameras to record code-enforcement eyesores and public safety problems. The PACE team also gave props to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which has worked with Everyday Democracy as it has addressed community growth, sustainability, and education issues via its long-running Portsmouth Listens program.

McGrath noted how it pays to go well beyond the usual suspects (a.k.a. "stakeholders") in engaging the public. Many homeless people in Ventura, California, live in the river bottoms when the weather is dry and aren't keen to move into the indoor shelter during the rainy season. Through a community conversation on the issue, an artist who lives near the river suggested that the homeless people establish a camp. With help from a nonprofit and city resources, "River Haven" is a self-regulating, self-policing community of homeless people.

Today's PACE presentation left participants with a sense that although a robust civic revival in the United States seems to be well under way, there's plenty of work to be done to create a more coherent national movement. Some questions include:

What's better - temporary processes for public engagement, or permanent structures? If the former, should they be run by city employees or outside facilitators? If the latter, how can such structures be sustained? Should more decisions be made and implemented at the neighborhood level? Should citizen participants be selected randomly or by interest level? Can we develop a new language to better describe these new forms of shared governance, as well as minimum standards to guide everyone doing the work?

Kudos to the PACE team for its work. Anyone who wants a copy of the report can request one via email.

Remember: Matt Leighninger's book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same - cited in today's PACE presentation - is the selection for the Everyday Democracy Book Club, which will be meeting right here at DemocracySpace on Thursday, May 15. Join us at 1 p.m. Eastern that day for an hour of live discussion on the sort of examples and questions raised at today's webinar.

'We' got game - or do we?

It was a big weekend for sports fans. The NBA and Stanley Cup hockey playoffs are in full swing, the NFL draft captivated football devotees, and the 2008 baseball season is hitting its stride. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts wrote late last week how sports have "a singular ability  ... to make people say 'we.'" He continued:

It happens much less often in other areas of civic life. No one says ''we'' when they talk about homelessness or hunger, no ''our'' enters the discussion of fatherless families or abortion rights, ''us'' is a stranger to the debate over failing schools and crime. Those conversations are framed by words like ''them'' and "they.''

I have no bone to pick with sports. Still, I find myself thinking a healthier society would find common cause beyond the ball field and the basketball court, would regard working toward great and ambitious goals as a civic obligation.

He pointed to the Civil War, the Depression, the War on Poverty, and even the Apollo space program as examples of times when our nation has come together to work for the greater good. But in recent decades, too many politicians and pundits have been short on vision and long on divisive rhetoric.

Yet the tide may be turning, Pitts suggests, as Barack Obama "has been able to build a political movement on a simple promise to bring people together" and John McCain "has lately been calling people to ''sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself.'" Pitts ends his column by asking us to remember the first three words in our Constitution: We, the People. (Read the whole column here.)

Anyone who could have lurked on our Communities Creating Racial Equity Learning Exchange last week would know that all across the United States, "we" remains the operative word for activists who are intent on being sure that everyone within their communities has the chance to speak out, to take action, and to be part of building communities that thrive. (I've posted notes from the introductory session at our wiki so you can easily see just a taste of the tremendous work they're doing.)

And there are hundreds of other communities getting in the game, too. Whether your city (or even your neighborhood) is ready to work on racial equity, youth issues, or growth and sprawl, Everyday Democracy has tools to help you put points on the board. Look at our website to learn what others are doing and how you can get started.

Welcome to the Learning Exchange

About 50 people have gathered in East Hartford, Connecticut, this week from around the country to join in the first of two Learning Exchanges for Communities Creating Racial Equity. Everyday Democracy executive director Martha McCoy (below) greeted us by saying that the program is "a step in a dream we've had for a long time."

Formerly known as the Study Circles Resource Center, Everyday Democracy began focusing on racism during the 1992 civil disturbances in Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating. But in the 16 years since then, America has changed the way we talk about racism, McCoy said.

Early discussions were driven by King's plaintive question, "Can't we all just get along?" At first, it was enough for tens of thousands of people to come together in communities nationwide to talk about racial differences. Eventually, however, communities - and SCRC - understood that real change had to come on the institutional and policy level. Today, Everyday Democracy helps lead the effort to turn community organizing and dialogue into substantive change.  "We're working on two of the leading edges in the country," McCoy said: racial equity and making democracy work better.

CCRE participating communities include South Sacramento County, California; New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland; Syracuse, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and Lynchburg, Virginia. Today at the conference, communities will tell their stories, discuss structural racism, and learn tools for evaluation and communication. Tomorrow, participants will look forward to the next six to 12 months of work, using markers of progress we'll identify this week (and backed by action grants that Everyday Democracy will award via generous funding from the Kellogg and Mott Foundations).

And along the way - via DemocracySpace, our website, and other tools - we'll share much of the communities' progress with you so that cities and towns beyond the initiative can take what we're learning and make it your own.

Friday digest-open thread 4/18/08

It's time to announce the spring selection for our Everyday Democracy Book Club. Join us here at Democracy Space at 1 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, May 15, as we'll meet with Everyday Democracy senior associate Matt Leighninger to discuss his book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same. In the book, Matt - who also is executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium - tells how communities all across the nation are seeing how officials and citizens can work together to address pressing issues.

This will be a great opportunity to share stories of "shared governance" and learn from other communities (and Matt's considerable expertise). Order the book from your local bookstore or online, and be sure to mark your calendar for May 15. And if you missed our last book club with Frances Moore Lappé, you can read the transcript here.

Speaking of the DDC, thanks to Joe Goldman for his tip on this recent article on Politico.com, in which e-democracy advocate Steven Clift asked this timely question: “Isn’t it interesting that the best-designed government websites are those collecting your taxes, while the worst sites are those giving you a say on how your taxes are spent?” The article tells how many other governments are way beyond ours in offering the public a chance to comment on legislation, submit petitions, and more. For example, write authors Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifr, "In England, anyone can submit an e-petition directly on the 10 Downing Street website, and the most popular ones are featured on the site’s home page. More than 7 million people — one in 10 British citizens — have signed one of those petitions since the site’s launch in the fall of 2006."

Next week, Everyday Democracy will be holding the first of two Learning Exchanges for the nine communities involved in our Communities Creating Racial Equity initiative. Two important articles on this topic crossed our desks this week. Education Week had the bad but not unsurprising news that the academic achievement gap grows fastest for bright African-American children, particularly in schools with higher black populations, "where test scores are lower on average, teachers are less experienced, and high-achieving peers are harder to find."

Meanwhile, criminal injustice is in the spotlight in the current issue of the alumni magazine for Brown University, where economics professor Glenn Loury has been working to bring greater attention to the fact, as author Beth Schwartzapfel wrote, "that the number of black men incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails—a number wildly disproportionate to their representation in the general population—reflects the social dishonor to which African Americans are still subject today, a dishonor with roots in U.S. slavery." Click here to read "A Nation of Jailers."

The good news is that many communities are proactively deciding to address racial inequity, often with the help of resources from Everyday Democracy. If you caught yesterday's water cooler, you learned how Lynchburg, Virginia, successfully held the action forum for its first round of "Many Voices - One Community" dialogues on race and racism this week, and how activists from New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Syracuse, New York; and Memphis, Tennessee are being - and leading - the change they want to see in their communities.

Next week at DemocracySpace: We'll have news from communities walking the walk for Earth Day and two days of live blogging from the CCRE Learning Exchange. If you like what you read here, you can get it delivered right to your email box by subscribing via the link atop the right-hand side of the page.

Happy Passover to our Jewish readers!

Friday digest-open thread 3/28/08

This week saw the creation of the world's newest democracy in Bhutan. The question is, can a democracy function without an opposition party? In Monday's vote, all but two of the 47 seats in the new Bhutanese parliament were swept by the pro-royalist Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT). Today, however, Reuters India is reporting that the opposition People's Democratic Party "said the country's first ever general election had been unfair and they would resign from parliament." Bhutan is perhaps best known for the Gross National Happiness index that values the well-being of people above any other profit measures. Will the good vibes continue as the nation grapples its way toward democracy? Stay tuned, and weigh in if you like at the Deliberative Democracy's Consortium blog on the subject.

Speaking of the DDC, today's email brought one of my favorite monthly reads, the DDC eBulletin. Many of the items collected by editor Lars Hasselblad Torres and his international cast of contributors find their way into posts here each month. You can email contributions here and read past issues and subscribe here.

There's been a lot of ink spilled and bytes - well, whatever bytes do - this election season over the rise of youth in American politics and public life. Adam Fletcher begs to differ. Writing at his Younger World blog, Fletcher says this is "No Country for Young People" because we are far more occupied with our middle-aged and senior populations than we are with children and young adults. He notes that youth involvement in civic life is far more robust overseas, and that "instead of being an occasional, one-off activity or an underfunded, underutilized grassroots movement, these efforts are systemic, operationalized and powerful." Read more here.

Meanwhile, in another topic of keen interest to young Americans, the next edition of the public radio show Justice Talking will ponder whether college admissions are becoming more elitist than ever. Here's the description: "The college admissions process has changed significantly in recent years, particularly for students seeking to get into the nation’s most elite universities. Should these schools' admissions policies favor athletes and children of alumni? Should low-income and minority students be a priority? Or should top schools only enroll the smartest and most academically accomplished? We also talk about the obstacles and misconceptions facing students who attend community college. Tune in to this edition of Justice Talking as we ask how money and privilege affect the college admissions process and whether reforms are necessary." Click here to find a station airing the show near you.

Many of us here at Everyday Democracy are fans of Parker Palmer and his Center for Courage and Renewal, which (according to its website) works "to help teachers, physicians, clergy and others 'rejoin soul and role,' renewing their passion for their work, reclaiming its basic values and deepening their service to others." Palmer recently spoke to the Commonwealth Club of California on "How to Build a Democracy." The 53-minute presentation can be heard here via American Public Media's Word for Word program. So sometime this weekend, why not get comfy on the couch and hear what he has to say?

A platform of public engagement

Scott Trimble faces an uphill battle in his run for Congress in Texas' 25th District, but the Green Party member is putting forth some interesting ideas that he hopes to spread beyond his south Austin base. Trimble writes at his blog:

I want to create a process that will allow every registered voter in the district to participate in the decisions that will affect her/his life. If I am elected, I can guarantee the people of the district that I will actively seek the advice and counsel of the people through this process.

Trimble envisions precinct-level assemblies that will discuss issues and, in turn, report to division assemblies (with perhaps 16 divisions in the congressional district) and finally to a district council. Trimble writes:

At the division assemblies, delegates will discuss the issues brought forward from the precincts, amending them as necessary to try to gain greater consensus among all the delegates there. Proposals that pass at division assemblies will be forwarded to the district assembly, and each division will elect four delegates to the District Council. Proposals that pass in the District Council will determine how I will vote as the representative of the district.

He adds elsewhere on the blog:

Even though I do not yet have the resources to set up the precinct assemblies I would like to, we can begin discussing issues right here.  If you are visiting this site, feel free to post a comment, or to email me.  This site is not just for me to post “campaign information,” it is part of the process of initiating democracy.  We can start now.

It will be interesting to see how the people of the Texas-25th react to Trimble's ideas and also how they are received by his opponents, who include incumbent Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat. We're also eager to hear whether other 2008 candidates propose local assemblies like this, or perhaps something like the Citizen Congress envisioned by former Democratic candidate John Edwards.

Film highlights challenge of community building

Julie asked us here last October what we were reading or watching that resonates with our community building experience.

Last weekend I saw a great German movie, The Counterfeiters, which recently won an Oscar for top foreign film. It’s a layered story about the complexities of building community in the most trying circumstances. Although the setting – a concentration camp – was anything but democratic, the film made me think about how each of us brings our own ethics and values, our singular histories and motivations, and our individual stories to our community work.

Set in Nazi-era Germany, and based on a true story, the movie shows what happens to a group of criminals, artists, and bankers detained in a concentration camp when they’re forced to produce fake British pounds and American dollars. The scheme was an attempt by the Third Reich to destabilize the economies of the allied forces. It failed when one of the men, Adolf Burger, refused to enable the Nazis and repeatedly sabotaged the operation.

The story’s tension sets up because, in return for their services, the men conscripted to fake the currency are moved to better living conditions within the camp. Master counterfeiter Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch at first is glad to have a better chance at survival. But in time, he grows to love his follow prisoners, and he faces choices about whose interests to protect – his own, those of a few, or those of the group. None of the choices is clear-cut.

Although the circumstances in The Counterfeiters are extreme, I’ve seen a similar dynamic play out in towns around the country as people forming community coalitions struggle to build trust and clarify which interests broad-based engagement can best address. Sometimes a good movie reminds me how complex human beings are, how difficult their work for the common good is, and how much patience and respect we who learn with communities need as we watch the process unfold.

How has your work with people in your community drawn on conflicting values? How have you resolved differences to find common ground and direction?

Spitzer: What will we learn?

Most of the commentary about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's fall from power has centered around why the crusading politician chose to jeopardize his career for repeated high-priced sex, and the angst suffered by people who thought Spitzer truly was a different breed of leader. In his syndicated column, Leonard Pitts writes:

... I know there's nothing new about hypocrisy. There is, however, something new about this era of cellphone cameras, 24/7 news cycles, YouTube, diminished privacy and intrusive journalism. You'd think a smart man (that's not an oxymoron, right?) would realize this and adjust accordingly. ... Instead, with an arrogance that beggars description, with a hubris that blots the sun, they try to game the system. And when it catches up with them, they don't even bear the greatest cost. No, that's borne by wives who must stand, dead-eyed and humiliated, by their sides through the ritual of apology, by children who must go to school the day after, by constituents who believed and now see that belief betrayed.

Do you know how hard it is to believe? To overcome cynicism and inertia and place fragile trust in the hands of someone who claims to represent values higher than expedience and self? Do you have any idea how much a fool you feel to see that belief, tenderly given, callously trampled? Do you know how much less likely you are ever to give belief again? And finally, do you know how much it damages us, the larger us, when faith is calcified by cynicism? When we become unable to believe?

Writing at his blog, Rich Harwood of The Harwood Institute takes a different tack - that perhaps the lesson we can learn from Spitzer is that we ought not make our all-too-human politicians bear the mantle of leadership alone. He says:

... the Spitzer saga makes me think about notions of "imperfection."  I often think that in our desire to ascribe mythic qualities to leaders, we forget -- indeed, I think we actually seek to deny -- the reality that we all, including our leaders, are imperfect. ... Looking at Eliot Spitzer's career, I am in awe of the courage he exercised in taking on so many battles. He clearly put a stake in the ground about what he valued and he stepped forward time and again, against great odds, to pursue his aspirations. Anyone who seeks real change will be required to step forward in some way. But I am also reminded that as we act courageously we must exercise humility: that we alone cannot change the world, but that we can play a role; that in our victories we must never take more credit than is due, nor gloat in the defeat of others; and in our attempts to create change, we must know there will be times when we are wrong.

Harwood closes with a personal anecdote about how disappointed officials of a foundation lamented that he couldn't "fix" a town. He replied, "Of course, I didn’t. No one individual can. It will be the people of this community, together, who will put this town back on a better course."

Dare we hope that this will be the real lesson of Eliot Spitzer's fall: that we will get more done - and be infinitely less disappointed in our elected officials - if we can broaden the base of leadership in our communities, states, and nation?