Anti-Spanish Discrimination?

[Terechu]

Nadie como los expatríados para mantener vivas las tradiciones! Os deseo, a toda la familia del pequeño "Mateo", salud para criarlo entre todos en armonía, y en especial a tí Raquel, que serás una abuelita de manual!

[Raquel M]

http://youtu.be/Wq-ez40Shr0

Gracias Terechu!!!
Que siga la tradicion!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ronzalez]

Hi, everybody. Art sent me an email asking me how I was doing, and I wanted to share my latest thoughts with the rest of you, extremely unpleasant and depressing though they are.

Here's a study that was done at the University of Chicago School of Business that pretty much corroborates what I've been saying -- at least as far as resume discrimination against patently black names on the top of a resume go:

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/facult ... lygreg.pdf

The study didn't include Spanish names, but if it ever does in the future, I won't be at all shocked to see that Spanish names face the same extent of discrimination. America is a very northern European-supremacist country, whether it's comfortable facing that or not. It is epidemically regarded that only Germanic northern Europeans naturally have the "right stuff" to be trusted with positions of real prestige and influence, such as the executive suite and scientific research. But black and hispanic ethnicities are best handled by being kept to less cognitively-oriented positions that can be more tightly controlled, such as customer service and other semiskilled and unskilled labor.

I'm sorry to say it, but I know in my heart that this is how things really are in this country -- and possibly the world -- beneath the surface. It's taken me far too long to discover that life is essentially an iceberg where 90 percent of what it really is, lies hidden beneath the waterline of appearance.

And no, I haven't yet changed my name, for two reasons: 1) picking just the right one is a lot harder than you might imagine (I'm tempted to just go with "Pariah", which is apparently English for "Gonzalez"), and 2) it's a very hard thing to surrender away your birth name like that -- it's a bit like intentionally taking your own life or giving away your only child, as it feels like that much of a part of me after all these years.

But genocide is genocide -- as I see it, my kind has already been discreetly marginalized into oblivion in America, so the end of one more Spanish "Gonzalez" name is no different than an actual death, so at least this way I might possibly have a slim chance yet at a life, career, marriage, and children, all at the ripe old age of 41... too little too late, most likely.

[Bob]

Ronzalez, I'm sorry to learn of your negative experiences, Fortunately, they were far from universal, at least among my own ancestors. My grandparents were born in Asturias and came to this country with their infant son in 1913. When they settled in Spelter WV my grandmother took in boarders, and my grandfather kept order with a bullwhip after working in the zinc smelter. Quite a few of his neighbors moved to Niagara Falls with him, where he continued to express a fierce sense of defending his own, as well as being a loving and kind member of the community. When he was a little over 80, a driver lost control of his car and drove it into the porch steps of my grandfather's house. He was outside in a flash, confident that he could handle whatever was happening armed with a long and razor sharp knife. He would never permit anyone to treat him without respect. His kids married women of many different ethnic backgrounds.

My first wife was of Irish and Hungarian ancestry. My second wife was very waspy (ancestors from England via Texas and Oklahoma) Since she died I have started a relationship with a woman whose ancestors were Scandinavian (Sweden). I have never experienced any of the discrimination you wrote about nor, for that matter, reverse discrimination.

[Art]

First, I want to say again how very pleased I am that Bob is back in the saddle!

Thanks for the update, Ron! That's an interesting study and the results are sadly disappointing.

As you say, that research only addressed the situation of African-Americans. African-Americans have a much more difficult position in our culture than Europeans with a Hispanic surname. Latin Americans who don't look European probably have a very different experience than we do.
But I agree that it would be helpful to see results of a study that included Hispanic names.

Ron, I've been wanting to share this with you for some time. In Hispanic Business magazine you'll find all sorts of Hispanic C-level executives in the top corporations.
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com
I've been skimming that magazine for several years now and any of the issues would illustrate what I mean.

For example, check out this article (multiple pages, arranged by category):
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/top100influentials2010/

A few of the names that stand out:

• Beatriz Perez, Chief Marketing Officer of Coca Cola Corp, North America
• Rosa Sabater, Senior VP of Consumer Marketing for American Express
• Rebecca Vargas, Senior VP, Marketing Director, JP Morgan Chase, & Co.
• Rick Gomez, VP of Marketing at the very conservative Coors Family of Brands
• Annette Martinez, VP of Operations-Human Resources at State Farm Insurance
• Richard Rodriguez, President of the Chicago Transit Authority
• Carlos Paya, President of Elan Corp
• Eduardo Castro-Wright, Vice Chairman, Walmart and President and CEO of Global.com and Global Sourcing (a Walmart entity)

(Heh, if a "Castro" can make it in America, any Hispanic name can.)

And this page shows a listing of people in academia, in other words, scientists and researchers:
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/top100i ... t=Academic

Of course, there's no shortage of Hispanic surnames in national politics today.

These people aren't tokens.

Where's the contemporary proof for this statement?

.... only Germanic northern Europeans naturally have the "right stuff" to be trusted with positions of real prestige and influence, such as the executive suite and scientific research.

One caveat, though, is that it is likely that all or most of these people are highly educated. Without a strong education, it's very difficult to get a good job today.


Or take a look at the response to your claims on the forum. Nearly all of the members are Hispanics and I think all of them have disagreed with your analysis. Many were surprised by your claims.

Forum members: Have any of you felt abused by the system? Where? What sorts of prejudice? By whom?

I'm not expecting to hear positive replies, but do tell us if you have faced discrimination!

Today is different for us than in prior generations. Many of our grandparents and perhaps parents did sense the prejudice, but that's largely done for us. Today it's other groups who are receiving that negative attention. (Although no discrimination is something to be happy about.)


It's good that each of us has the right to maintain our vision of the world, regardless of how accurate it is. Even if it's not serving our best interests, I'd want that right because it also gives me the freedom to try out alternative possibilities.

Whatever you do, Ron, we'll be interested in hearing how it's going for you.

[Terechu]

Oh well, you should know that on a much smaller and local level, here in Spain you are unlikely to be voted into any public office if don't sport a local surname, i.e. someone with a Castillian surname would have to prove his birthright in Catalonia, the Basque Region, Galicia, Asturias, Mallorca and Valencia, while local surnames have it much easier. Regardless how corrupt a mayor or regional president, with the right surname his/her sins will be forgiven.

Only very brilliant people, like former president Felipe González, a native of Seville with a thick accent, can rise above the local pettiness.

[Art]

That's interesting, Terechu. I'm not sure I understand the Felipe González example. Would a person named "González" have trouble being elected to national office? Or is it mostly a problem in local and regional elections?

---------------------------

Muy interesante, Terechu. No estoy seguro que entiendo el ejemplo de Felipe González. ¿Es que una persona llamada "González" tendrá problemas para ser elegido para un cargo nacional? ¿O es solamente un problema en las elecciones locales y regionales?

[Terechu]

Art, I meant his Andalusian accent. He was elected president despite his accent, it was something unheard of until then that anyone in government should have a regional accent. Regardless where any government member came from, he was expected to speak accent-free Castillian.

[Art]

Oh, I understand now. Thanks!

Has there ever been an Asturian in a high national office?

-------------------

Ah, lo entiendo ahora. ¡Gracias!

¿Ha sido una vez un/a asturiano/a en los niveles más altos del gobierno nacional?

[Ronzalez]

.... only Germanic northern Europeans naturally have the "right stuff" to be trusted with positions of real prestige and influence, such as the executive suite and scientific research.

One caveat, though, is that it is likely that all or most of these people are highly educated. Without a strong education, it's very difficult to get a good job today.

Art, what I'm meaning to say is that even if you ARE highly educated in America, it's systematically unacknowledged unless your ethnicity is also Northern European Germanic -- you're still restricted to jobs "more appropriate" to your "ethnic niche".

This "pro-Hanseatic" bias in America is so incredibly strong in this respect that it's like once people hear that your last name is Spanish, for example, instantly everything else about you poofs into oblivion, and you suddenly become, in their mind's eye, "alien sub-human" somehow. They actually sort of see you as one of those animal-human hybrids from the movie "The Island of Doctor Moreau" -- creatures who have to constantly struggle to suppress their base animal impulses and maintain their civilized human behavior.

Even if your resume bears the name of even a truly great school -- and lots of education -- once people see a non-Germanic last name in America, your goose is cooked. Their view of what kind of "creature" you are by virtue of that last name completely invalidates everything else you've managed to achieve in life. Just as in the acting industry, you are immediately typecast and never allowed out of that iron box.

So why even bother going to the all the trouble of getting highly educated in America, so long as you have a Spanish last name and are unwilling to change it?

Again, I'm sorry to say all this, but this really has been my experience.

[Ronzalez]

There's a book I finished recently that has finally explained all of this to me. It's by Nell Irvin Painter, and it's called The History of White People.

Here's the link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/History-White-Peo ... 0393049345

What the book reveals is that America was basically built on Saxon-Germanic supremacy, and has long had at least a silent revulsion towards even the people of Eastern and Southern Europe -- and Mediterranean cultures in particular.

I hate to say it, but even though Asturians and other northern Spanish regard themselves as "white" and basically conduct themselves accordingly, there really does exist a disregard for even them that doesn't appear to have ever really changed, nor does it ever appear to be changeable anytime soon.

[Terechu]

Sorry, but I'm starting to lose patience. You sound like a rabbit in a lion's den. If you're trying to fit into a Nordic/Arian group you're lost from the get-go.
Stop reading nazi bullsh--- and dedicate some time to Spansh history, your roots and your culture, FCOL!
And don't let other people tell you your place in Society!

[Art]

Heh, I really wondered about this author's perspective, too. The author is a Black historian, so it's not a White Suprematist diatribe (which is what I assumed when I saw the title). This interview transcript on NPR is pretty interesting:
http://www.wbur.org/npr/124700316/autho ... ite-people

[Marta Elena Díaz García]

Hi, Ronzalez:

Why don´t start accepting yourself first?. How do you want Americans to accept non Saxon-Germanic people, to accept you, when you are the first renouncing your own roots, your surname?.
What is bad with them?

I know a couple that changed the surname of their son because they considered that the husband surname was low category (Fernandez) while the surname of the wife was not. Even, the husband told me that his surname was an inferiority complex for him during his childhood and youth.....and his adulthood as you can see.

Fernandez is a very common surname in Spain, consequently..... it is of low category!

This couple is instilling to their son a snob, a class-conscious attitude. With this background, what do you expect? If Spanish do not accept themselves as they are, nobody does.

Please, stop licking your wounds and get out the corner, proud of yourself and your roots!.

Marta

[Terechu]

Heh, I really wondered about this author's perspective, too. The author is a Black historian, so it's not a White Suprematist diatribe (which is what I assumed when I saw the title). This interview transcript on NPR is pretty interesting:
http://www.wbur.org/npr/124700316/autho ... ite-people

Yep, it sounds like something Richard Pryor might have written (The History of White People'n shittt) - I can see him now! It would probably have been better researched, too!
I don't know where the author got his degree, but he's got his facts quite mixed up. I cracked up with his Germans from Prussia being from Weimar and the southern Germans from Vienna.