0.1 Preface  (Page 7/7)

Foreign Policy , F.P., in its Spanish edition (April/May 2004), gathers chapter 9 of S. Huntington’s book Who are We? (2004), and in the editorial of F.P., titled Shock of Civilizations the magazine writes:

In its list of civilizations, Huntington included, strangely, a “Latin American” one. Today, he returns to find a new shock between the Anglo-protestant principles and those of Hispanics, mainly Mexican, in the US, that, according to how he presents it, they threaten to turn into the greatest power of the globe –according to Walter Russell Mead— into a nation with two “people”, two cultures, and two languages. The cultural division between Hispanic and Anglos could replace the one of blacks and whites, as the central crisis of that society. In year of elections, when the Hispanic vote can be decisive, the question on Huntington’s next book of Who are We? must give rise to controversy. (F.P., 2004)

It is not the moment, nor does time allow, to thoroughly review the analysis of S. Huntington’s position, but I, being in agreement in negatively describing him as a xenophobe, desire to expose my opinion, which may sound politically incorrect. My hypothesis is the following.

The analysis of the phenomenon of the Hispanic presence, particularly Mexican, in the US, as a singular "total social fact,” different from the other ethnic migrations, non-assimilable by the “melting pot” machine, with deep consequences in all the North American society, originating a Hispanic-Latin cultural differential fact, of a great historical political power, agrees in many aspects (not all) with the type of description and analysis of the phenomenon, that has been made by other authors and US leaders. And like sand, we have produced a people, in which I count myself, over a long time. Samuel Huntington has sociologically described a social phenomenon, which does exist, and anticipates its social consequences, cultural and political. Up to here, in my opinion, it can sociologically be described as acceptable, then where does my critic and total discrepancy with S. Huntington come from? I disagree with Huntington in the “ideological-axiological” evaluation of the phenomenon: which he describes as a “threat” of “invasion” of the different strangers, of danger to the unit, roots, and existence of the United States. That is a negative fear, a shady vision of the American future that I do not share. I do not think that it ends in “two nations, two languages, totally separated,” as Huntington thinks, but in the United States’ future, in which Hispanics are a substantial cultural-civil dimension of the United States for half of the XXI Century. To show my interest and position on this subject, I cite one of my essays from the Magazine Foreign Policy (2004). When transcribing Huntignton’s article under the title “something else.” The magazine cites nine works on this subject, all in english, except the my chapter: “Puertorriqueños y otros hispanos: integración y desigualdad en una ciudad neoyorquina”, en Muchas Américas, cultura, sociedad y política en América Latina (Editorial Complutense, ICI, Madrid, 1990).

I am in agreement in the description of the phenomenon and of some consequences, but my evaluation of that fundamental future of highest Hispanic cultural power, I describe and evaluate it –unlike Huntington— as a positive, enriching civilization, “made in the US,” that not only greatens Hispanics, but all the North American society. Indeed one of the maximum contributions of the United States has been this: to be a nation of immigrants, and therefore of different culture-language-religions-temporality. It is very beautifully proclaimed by the national American motto: “E Pluribus Unum.”

The historical mission of the Hispanics in the United States is to contribute, enrich, and make the United States more plural, with its language, sensitivity, ways of life, art, religiosity, values, with temporality for life and the world, and with its own civilized dimension. And that is its greatest potential, not only cultural, but political in the long term. Against what Huntington proclaims, that “the American dream” is only possible to be dreamt in English, the Hispanics will demonstrate that the American dream can also be dreamt in Spanish and Hispanic-Latino American culture.