Thursday, August 22, 2013

My ethnolinguistic barber's story, he is a force.

I have a really cool barber.  Nice looking young guy of Peurto Rican descent.  His g.g. grand parents came to Wichita 150 years ago when the city was a few hundred people.   Laborers building the first railroad here, lived on the ground at the side of the track.  Buried in the oldest section of one of the oldest cemetery here.  
Most of his customers are tan and brown skinned men.  Last visit we got to talking about labels, not slang or insulting ones, the correct ones.  In case you are not aware here are the major ones.  Hispanic - people who speak (or their historic mother tongue is) Spanish, this includes people of Spain and Portugal (a Spanish related language).  Latino - people who speak Latin based languages but specifically it's current form of use here denotes those speakers from North, Central, and South America and Caribbean.  Chicano - Mexicans.  Mexicans - Mexicans.  My barber tells me some Mexicans resist the Latino and Hispanic label in favor of Mexican.  Chicano as an identity label was used widly in the 1960's and is less used now, the spelling is also Xicano.  If in doubt, use Hispanic, I don't think you will go wrong very often. 
This barber also works non stop to push his customers to register and vote.  He has a very interesting argument in a state 70%+ Republican.  It goes.....If we Hispanics run up our voting numbers, even in a loss, we garner more attention, and one, or maybe a few of the Republicans (he believes not all are pricks) will moderate toward our interests.  He also convinces them the total nationwide numbers matter.  Even in a losing state, the votes add to the legitimacy of democrats everywhere. In the Presidential vote he says the total US popular vote  is terribly important, though it seems our vote did not count since Kansas electoral vote went to Romney.  But, our democrat votes ARE counted and noted often in studies and publicans and provide the true legitimacy to the office, in his eyes the electoral vote is technical law, the moral law is the popular vote.  In this way he convinced quit a number of young Hispanics to vote.  I find this a very compelling example of using creative thinking to change minds and push people to action.  This guy is a force, without sarcasm or insult.

(I will delete any comment offering or using ethnic insults or derisive labels to this post)

2 comments:

  1. Darrel,
    Good post and glad to see that you finally found a good barber and got rid of that damned long hair! The fact is - within the next I would say - fofty years or sooner (and not Marco Rubio) we will have a Hispanic president.
    I am eying Julian Castro, mayor of San Antonio.


    Ron

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ron, I could go for Julian, from what I have seen, heard and read, he is an wonderful person, smart, and capable. His good looks are in his favor as well. I wonder if Hillary might consider him as VP.

      Delete

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