To the editors:
Fairness dictates that you should consider printing my brief rebuttal to the claimed absolutes found in the Puerto Rican community by a trio of vipers. Namely, that Latins are devoid of moral fiber, ambition, culture, or brain cells.
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“Patrick” would have known, if he merely asked, that the term “Anglo” as used by Hispanics is not a euphemism for white people. Spaniards are white, yet we’d never make the mistake of calling them Anglos. The term refers to people either of English ancestry or who have embraced our Anglo-based culture as their only culture. To further muddy the waters, if “Patrick” were to review the video The History of White People, he’d discover that the dominant culture seriously (and only half in jest) questions whether his ancestors were, in fact, “white.”
Welfare? Of the caseloads for Aid to Families With Dependent Children in Illinois in 1987, 9.6 percent were Hispanic, versus 28.7 percent mainstream white (Sun-Times, 2/11/87). This indicates to me that there are a hell of a lot of Latinos out there who have jobs. Nonexistent Puerto Rican fathers? The 1980 census found that 72 percent of Puerto Rican households were headed by a man. Uncultured? Anthropologists tell us that every child in the world who speaks a language inherits its concomitant culture. Most Hispanic-Americans are bilingual and bicultural. That’s one more culture than “Patrick” has got. Stupid? There are no data as to how many Hispanics earn a GED certificate after dropping out of high school, but we do know from the census that, as of 1982, one in every four Hispanics has attained at least one year of college, leading me to believe that we do have some familiarity with American literature and the behavior of the “Patricks” of this great land.
J. Higgs-Peres
