Latin lovers & swarthy swindlers – Considering popular culture and the politics of race

“In 1973, the Nixon Administration divided Americans into five “racial” categories: White, Black, Asian/Pacific, Native American/Eskimo, and Hispanic. Previously, Hispanics had been a subset of each of the other classifications. Suddenly, they were grouped in a way that suggested a uniformity of culture and racial heritage that didn’t ”” and doesn’t ”” exist. The same is true of the other “minority” categories.

The Nixon Administration was reacting to the country’s growing Latino population, its increasing political clout, and xenophobia. Further proof of the politics behind the decision is provided by the dreadful miscegenation laws that once barred marriage between whites and blacks, whites and Asians ”” but didn’t prevent marriage between whites and Hispanics. (This reporter’s parents were Cuban and Panamanian, and his birth certificate lists their race as “white,” which is how they saw themselves, because they happened to be of European descent.) Recent statistical comparisons of ethnic groups refer to “non-Hispanic whites,” state that Hispanics can be of any race, but still group them together.”

• Star Trek On DVD: Few Latinos in Revisionist Version
• Penelope Cruz steers her own course in ‘Broken Embraces’
• When Fidel Castro Dictated to the Old U.S. Media
• Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.
• Pedro Almodovar’s “Los abrazos rotos” (Broken Embraces), his latest film and the fourth collaboration between the former enfant terrible of Spanish cinema and actress Penelope Cruz, has received mostly positive reviews from U.S. critics ahead of its release Friday in New York
• Pro-Castro mob attacks spouse of top Cuban blogger – Yoani Sánchez
• “Lost” Star Nestor Carbonell to Play Khan in “Star Trek” Sequel?
• Black, Hispanic Parents Say They Don’t Feel Welcome In Schools – Hartford, Connecticut
• Democrats and Republicans deployed their heavy artillery Thursday in a heated congressional hearing to debate a bill seeking to end the travel ban to Cuba.
• Part of a Cuban blogger’s essay that advocates lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba was read aloud at a House Foreign Affairs committee hearing. – Yoani Sánchez
• Obama answers top Cuban blogger – Yoani Sanchez
• Time Warner Cable Launches in Los Angeles VeneMovies, New 24 Hour Commercial Free Film Channel
• The Cuban band Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro can legitimately claim to be inventors of salsa. But it last played in the United States when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, and there was no telling when it might be able to return — until the very slightest hint of a thaw in cultural relations between the United States and Cuba quietly brought the band to New York early this month.
• 70% of Cuba’s Farmland Threatened by Erosion
• The University of Panama indefinitely suspended classes on Wednesday after confrontations between students and police during a protest against alleged U.S. involvement in plans to build new military installations.
• Who seriously wants the Cuban trade embargo?
• Report: Cuba’s human rights as abused under Raúl Castro as Fidel
• The purchasing power of Hispanics is growing at a rate nearly 3 times as fast as that of the general population in Arizona and nationwide, said an Arizona State University business expert who has studied the market for 14 years.
• Latino population growth adds to House seats – 6 states expected to gain congressional slots due to surge in Hispanic numbers
• Peru: Documentary about the “Diablada” dance will be done in Puno