Could Obama be the 1st Latino President or the Latinization of Racial Identity in the USA

Could Obama be the first Latino president of the United States?
The Latinization of racial identity

Ten years ago, writer Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton the nation's first black president. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her book "Beloved", Morrison never meant it as an accolade, but as a characterization of the former President's background and how he was treated around here in Washington.

A decade later an African-American may win the presidency.

I'm no Pulitzer-prize winner, but I'd like to proffer this: no matter on what side of the aisle you sit, if elected, Barack Obama could be the first Latino president of the United States.

This is not a political speech. I in no way am trying to sway how you'll vote on Tuesday. But rather I'd like to talk about how Obama to me represents the Latinization of racial identity in the United States.

Let me explain.

The press may call Obama black, but he is equally white. In that, he has more in common with Latinos on a racial level than either European or African-Americans.

Let me explain further.

Unbeknownst to most people in the states, even to Latinos themselves, Hispanics belong to no one race.

To many of you, this may be befuddling. Well as a Latino myself, I didn't fully grasp it myself until I went to Spain first hand.

Fifteen years ago, I was on a train traveling to Granada to see the Alhambra, the Moorish palace in southern Spain. On the train with me was a young Anglo woman. And we started chatting. She hailed from of all places Alhambra, California and grew up with many Mexican-Americans.

At one point, she said with a bit of astonishment: "The Spanish are so white. They really don't look like Mexicans."

I nodded and thought a while to myself. Yes, the Spanish are white just like Italians, the French or Greeks. Cesar Chavez doesn't look Spanish; he looks native American. I don't look Spanish, I look native American.

Despite that revelation, it didn't really sink in until three years ago. I was at a reception for minority journalists at the Gannett headquarters, the nation's largest newspaper publisher where I worked at the time.

I struck up a conversation with a man who I thought for sure was Mexican-American from the Southwest. He indeed was from the Southwest, but he was no Latino – but Navaho. Derrick Henry works as a web producer for the New York Times.

All of this points to one thing – a fundamental difference in the way Anglo and Latin Europeans colonized the world.

Everywhere the English went to colonize, they brought racist segregation – in New Zealand with the Maori, in Australian with the Aborigines, in India with every Indian, in the Americans with the native Americans and of course in South Africa with the Africans.

In contrast, everywhere the Spanish and Portuguese went they brought racist assimilation. The missions in California, Texas and southwest were not churches for Spanish immigrants, but rather camps to forcibly Latinize the native Americans.

But it was more than cultural assimilation.

In the early 1500s, Spanish priests urged their colonists to inter-marry with the natives in an effort to Christianize the locals.

Many Mexicans point to Martin Cortez as the first true Mexican. He's the the son of the conqueror of Mexico Hernan Cortes and his native American guide Malintzin.

A century later, Maryland, the state founded by English-speaking Catholics - enacted the first U.S. law criminalizing interracial marriage in 1664.

Can you image the child of John Smith and Pocahontas described as the first true American?

The result has been a more fluid idea of race wherever the Spanish and Portuguese colonized.

Today someone would not hesitate to call Sammy Sosa from the Dominican Republic "Spanish" but wouldn't think of calling Bob Marley from nearby Jamaica "English" even though Marley's father hailed from the British Isles. Mayan activist Rigoberto Menchu is routinely called "Spanish" but no one would think to call native American activist Russell Means "English."

I have a friend name Kara Andrade who is a Mayan Indian from Guatemala. She thinks of herself as cien per ciento Latina. During the recent AARP member conference, I met a woman from the west African island of Cape Verde. Her name is Loretta Andrade, and she also thinks of herself as Latina.

In places as remote as Macau near China, villages in south India and Sri Lanka, Guam, the Philippines and east, west and north Africa you can find people with local faces and Latin names.

But Latiness goes beyond Latin names.

Obama says he has a "funny name." But what about these names – Salma Hayek or Shakira Meberak. Both Hayek – the Mexican bombshell actress – and Shakira - the Colombia rock superstar - have Arab names and Arab ancestry.

How about this name: Mario Kreutzberger. He's better know as Don Francisco – the host of one of the most popular Spanish-language television shows Sabado Gigante . His ancestry is German and Jewish via Chile. His family escaped the Holocaust.

With that, I leave you with the words of the Jose Maria Morelos – who lead the fight for Mexican independence from Spain.

In 1812, he said: "Let that mouthful of conditions (native Americans, mulattos, mestizos etc) be abolished by calling them one and all Americans."

Mr. Morelos' ancestry was European from Spain, native American from Mexico and African, most likely from west Africa.

Barack Obama's candidacy shows us we in the United States have moved one step away from the English idea of race and one step closer to the more inclusive Latino one.