0.1 Preface  (Page 3/7)

The Conference on Hispanics, celebrated in Alcala de Henares, with the collaboration of the Complutense University, on Hispanic Power (1992), presented an address on “the traps of the Empire: there will be no Hispanic power without Hispanic culture,” in which in a very radical way, I expose the nucleus of my position with respect to the great “political” weight, that represents the Hispanic cultural derivative, and that I transcribe literally.

My ideological-axiological posit, and at the same time general hypothesis, is that to measure the success or progress of Hispanics –as a national group– with the same indicators of the global dominant society, i.e., the levels of political power according to the number of senators and deputies, the purchasing power entered, the schooling indices, the level of consumption, etc. –being important for the individuals and significant to the Hispanic group level— they are politically secondary; in fact, if Hispanics “obsess” as a group in “competing in those same indicators of power” (political, economic, institutional, educative) with the dominant society, they have swallowed the decoy, and have fallen in the traps of the Empire, which are money and power, sands where they will never be able to win –not even to compete with— the dominant society, accomplishing, in addition, to castrate the towns, minority groups, in the fields, where their maximum power really is, that is in its culture, identity, capacity to form a “communist-nation-city.” Therefore the Hispanic community must appear, as a “group unit,” within the US, but different from the majority society, demanding their right to the difference, simultaneously participating and “feeling” the North American common citizenship, that is also a dimension of their global identity.

It is necessary to accept, without humiliation, that “we have less” –and that we will probably never have as much as other ethnic groups in the US, but to “have” less, does not mean to “be” less. There is the principle of pride and dignity of the nation: to be less tall, less rich, less politically powerful, less instructed institutionally, that does not mean to “be” less than others that “have” more, although it exists in the individuals’ and nation’s legitimate desire and effort to surpass themselves in those areas.

Consequently the traps of the Empire are to accept the axiological and valuable paradigm of social Darwinism, with the dynamics of competition of “the strongest, the greatest, the richest, or most powerful.” It is not only the quantity, but the quality of life and culture that should be the comparative indicator of development, value, and wealth of nations.

From that derives my affirmation as the axiological posit: “there will be no Hispanic power without Hispanic culture.” Or said in another way: our power –our great power— more than the political and economic, is and will be our culture: everything else –I repeat, at a group level, not individual— are traps, decoys, propaganda, and techniques of the Empire to “deceive the fool” (Calvo Buezas, Conference on the Hispanics, Alcala de Henares, 1992).