Esther J. Cepeda: How long are you Hispanic?

Well, after seeing Cameron on the cover lookin’ gorgeous and innocent of any traffic violations which might result in her being asked for her “papers,” I had to know: How long is one Hispanic? I blew in a call – to the wise man himself.

“Every group has had to face that transition, it’s not a unique phenomenon,” said Dr. Jorge A. Girotti, himself a real-live Hispanic, who isn’t usually pegged Hispanic at first sight. Aside from being a cool Argentinian around town he’s also a top dog at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Medicine. He hopes Latin-American descendents can find a better way to describe ourselves, since the terms have been hijacked into negative-ville by those who think “we” all illegally drag ourselves over the Mexican border (my imagery, not his). He notes it gets especially hairy when kiddies are involved. “I married a Venezuelan woman and I know my kids feel allegiance to both my ancestry and my wife’s, but those lines are going to keep blurring.”"*

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