NCLR Defends its Name, Literally
Enlace, News Report , Hiram Soto, Posted: Jul 22, 2008
Editor's Note: The Latino rights organization National Council of La Raza says the controversy over its name is the result of a word lost in translation.
SAN DIEGO – The National Council of La Raza spends most of its time protecting and advancing the rights of Latinos through advocacy and community work. But as it wrapped up its convention in San Diego last week, it found itself defending its name.
That's because activists who oppose illegal immigration are saying in e-mails, during street protests and through the media that “La Raza” means “The Race,” and have been calling the organization a hate group.
The accusations have prompted soul-searching among NCLR supporters as to what the name actually means and stands for. Most say the situation is the result of a word lost in translation.
In the past few days, organizers have addressed the issue at news conferences and on their Web site, where they explain their interpretation of the name.
“While it is true that one meaning of 'raza' in Spanish is indeed 'race,' . . . words can and do have multiple meanings,” reads the statement. “ 'La raza' means 'the people' or 'the community.'
“Translating our name as 'the race' is not only inaccurate, it is factually incorrect. 'Hispanic' is an ethnicity, not a race. . . . Hispanics can be and are members of any and all races.”
Still, raza can mean different things to different people, even Spanish speakers. For some it means family and community, while for others it represents the language and customs of Latinos.
During a speech Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama described “la raza” as “big enough to embrace the notion that we are all part of a greater community.”
“It's a very subjective term,” said Bernardo Ferdman, a professor at the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management at Alliant University, who teaches about diversity in the workplace.
“The concept of race that people use in the United States is not the same as the one used in Latin America. People talk about the human race, the human races, and the race meaning the people, or el pueblo, so it has several meanings.”
Several Latin American countries celebrate Oct. 12 as Dia de la Raza – Columbus Day in the United States – commemorating the beginning of a mixture between Spaniards and the native populations.
The interpretation of the term among protesters outside the convention center was that “raza” stood for exclusion and divisiveness.
“It's flat-out racism,” said Dominique Harkay, who opposes illegal immigration. “If they want to change that perception, they should change their name.”
The NCLR's president, Janet Murguía, has acknowledged that there have been conversations about changing the name. It has been difficult because of the name's historical weight, Murguía said.
The organization was born in 1968 under the name Southwest Council of La Raza during a time when Latinos had little social representation and their issues were mostly ignored.
Many members feel they should be true to their roots and stick with the name.
Related Articles:
Latinos Assimilate on Their Own Terms
Searching for a Term to Replace Ethnic
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User Comments
Nezzie on Jul 25, 2008 at 12:37:31 said:
It is comments like those above that are going to get the anchor babies and there chain migration families expunged from America. This is truly unfortunate.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
soulnote on Jul 24, 2008 at 09:11:44 said:
Hate equals fear.
Love equals freedom.
Humanity equals all of us.
Hate is a prison of fear that you can become wrapped up in and not even see. It consumes you and you lose your true loving self.
Stereotypes degrade all of us. Each human is a million stories unto themselves. The only purebreds are dogs.
Love your brother/sister.
Fritz on Jul 23, 2008 at 21:33:56 said:
Black, White & Brown = Mestizo and Mestizo = AMERICA.
It's in the "Blood" brothers and sisters.
It started when the Europeans came to America in 1492.
AMERICA IS A MESTIZO NATION!
J Cir on Jul 23, 2008 at 17:57:37 said:
Gee, you honor...
I didn't cross the teller's cash drawer, the cash drawer crossed me.
I didn't cross my neighbor's private property, his private property crossed me.
I didn't cross the 14 year old's virginity, her virginity crossed me.
I didn't cross the legal limit for DUI, the legal limit crossed me.
The bullet from my gun didn't pass through his head, his head passed in front of the bullet.
La Raza sympathizers... Pathetic. Ungrateful. Hostile. Disgraceful. Shameless. Entitled. Ignorant. And most of all, Un-American.
nativessayno on Jul 23, 2008 at 16:50:54 said:
...We Did Not Cross The Border The Border Crossed Us...a neat cliche to excuse for not following and obeying U.S. laws. Rewrite history to make a case (weakly) to do as you please.
I too, am mestizo but not latino.
Athabaskan citizen (200th generation)
Fritz on Jul 23, 2008 at 16:44:50 said:
Black, White & Brown = Mestizo
I agree America is a Mestizo Nation.
San Antonio Mex on Jul 23, 2008 at 16:37:15 said:
AMERICA IS A MESTIZO NATION!
Let me remind you that "We Did Not Cross The Border The Border Crossed Us"!
Get over it! Think about this, what would our Country be like without the American Southwest? Would it be like South Africa maybe France who knows?
I am very happy that our Country is geographically what it is today. Latinos have contributed so much to this wonderful nation including land, blood, language, culture etc. Blame your ancestors for your "heartaches" before you blame us. They are the ones that illegally immigrated to Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon etc. If this “had not happened” you would still be east of the Mississippi and no "heartaches".
Love,
American Mexican (11th Generation)
Vietnam Vet
nativessayno on Jul 23, 2008 at 09:47:14 said:
well duh,
Jose Angel Gutierrez, professor at University of Texas, Arlington and founder of La Raza Unida political party stated: “We have an aging white America. . . . They are dying. . . . They are ******** in their pants with fear! I love it!” “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him. And since 1970, he has professed, “Our devil has pale skin and blue eyes.”
*****Setting a great example for your "race" too, Jose!:
"Edwin Ramos, now 21, is being held on three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunman’s car from completing a left turn down a narrow street, police say." -SF Chronicle.
Any organization that espouses re-conquering the land from gringos IS a racist group, period. The saddest part is that these NCLR fat cats get millions of our tax dollars; they use the flood of poor immigrants to the U.S. as pawns- (Very cynical!), while we gotta pay and pay. I personally think they encourage non-constructive views that hate "whitey", (we are lazy, racist, overly-selective of the kind of work we do, etc. etc. propaganda for the "Latinos"" but at the same time have a perverse attitude to their own,(they consider themselves "Spanish") but are "indigenous" when it suits their gain. Funny, I thought Spain was in Europe and the Spanish conquered and colonized Latin America! Don't let facts get in the way though.
NCLR's agenda is obvious is certain respects. What ethnic group that wishes to curry favor here has not at least mouthed a: golly gee, the US is great…we love it here? Never hear that much, but do hear a lot of whining and demands of us instead. We get a lot of schizoid pseudo contrarian lip about how the SW U.S. is really "theirs". Beyond audacity… and fascist. I guess they believe let's take advantage of Americanos; their generosity and actual openness, then if someone stands in the way just call them a xenophobe…has worked pretty well up till recently.
Essentially their credo is: we came here and now we do what we want….So far it has actually worked!!!!!!
One of Calderon's entourage to the US a few months ago stole several US officials Blackberry's. Then when caught; denied it. What does this all mean? I think it means we are being royally bamboozled by very shrewd,unethical schemers often posing as woe-is-me victims. Go ahead, call me a xenophobe since I'm becoming one at this rate of personal dismay. But I am only a trusting non-Latino that can easily be run roughshod by a southern neighbor that has (earned?) so many entitlements here.
Very sad.
J Cir on Jul 22, 2008 at 21:49:44 said:
1. La Raza has long supported the efforts of MEChA. The official MECha website unabashedly declares that Chicano's are "Indigenous people to this land by placing our movement in Aztlan, the homeland of all peoples from Anahuak." Note the phrase, "this land", in the context of the word Aztlan. According to Wikipedia, "Aztlán" refers to the "lands of Northern Mexico that were annexed by the United States as a result of the Mexican-American War. Combined with the claim of some historical linguists and anthropologists that the original homeland of the Aztecan peoples was located in the southwestern United states, Aztlán in this sense became a symbol of mestizo activists who believe they have a legal and primordial right to the land." None of the contemporary leadership in either MECha or La Raza have to the best of my knowledge ever repudiated this racist and separatist objective. State Farm, then, is in effect enabling and assisting an organization that at the very least condones the efforts of those most Mexican immigrants to regain US territory they feel was wrongfully taken from their ancestors. The presence of tens of millions of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, and an unknown number of "Lawful Permanent Residents", many if not most of whom are ethnically Mexican, may be sympathetic with the Aztlan movement, and a silent, bloodless reconquest of the southwestern US may be underway, at least demographically, culturally, and linguistically. (By the way, how many of those "Lawful Permanent Residents" were themselves illegal immigrants who were inappropriately provided amnesty in 1986, or children of those who received amnesty?)
2. La Raza continues to lobby for drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. We all know this is simply another mechanism to more effectively normalize illegal immigrants. Rewarding illegal immigrants with driving privleges is a slap in the face to the rule of law as well as to law abiding American citizens.
3. La Raza continues to lobby for in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants. The US has better things to do with taxpayer money than to fund the higher education of illegal immigrants. There are plenty of quality universities in Mexico and Central America that I'm sure would be eager to provide university level instruction to those who have benefited from America's taxpayer funded elementary and high school education system.
4. La Raza opposes at almost every level long overdue efforts and policy proposals, demanded by a clear majority of American citizens, to enforce its borders, halt illegal immigration, reduce chain migration, place education and knowledge of English at a higher premium than family reunification for new immigrants, and deport criminal illegal immigrants (including those convicted of violent crimes). In effect, La Raza opposes the rightful and Constitutional duty of the federal government to maintain border security and protect American's sovereignty.
5. La Raza is hostile toward America declaring English its official language. To quote former La Raza president Raul Yzaguirre, who was Hillary Clinton’s Hispanic outreach advisor: “US English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.” A repugnant and ungrateful position. What would the reaction be in Mexico if Americans demanded government literature be provided in English?
6. In reaction to the legally protected political campaigns waged by patriotic, anti-illegal immigration activists, it was reported in the New York Times that current La Raza president Janet Murguia said “hate speech” should “not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights.” In other words, Ms. Murguria and her ilk are so obsessed with excusing the many crimes that illegal immigrants commit and granting them amnesty that they would advocate censoring American citizens who are opposed to their seditious and nefarious goals. How very un-American of Ms. Murguria.
7. La Raza sponsors financially and politically separatist, publicly funded "charter" schools. The anti-American principal of Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, a notorious and academically deficient charter school that teaches in Aztec dialect, stated, “We don’t want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don’t need a White water fountain…ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction.” La Raza directly and openly endorses this anti-American, racist crap. Pathetic.
With treasonable groups like La Raza cheerfully leading the charge, America is on a death-spiral toward a 3rd World, socialist hell, as our government cedes more and more power to an illegitimate segment of society, many millions of whom entered the US illegally, which resists assimilation, which rejects adopting the English language as its own, which maintains political and cultural allegiances to their countries of origin, which expects Americans to yield to their cultural and linguistic heritage instead of the other way around, and which has not demonstrated a genuine love of the US as its been for 230 years.
Wake up America!
J Cir on Jul 22, 2008 at 21:28:10 said:
Immigration Is Hurting The U.S. Worker
Low Paid American workers have borne the heaviest impact of immigration
By Steven A. Camarota
Americas Quarterly
Spring 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United States needs fewer immigrants, not more. Lower levels of immigration, both legal and illegal make sense for my country because the growing number of undereducated people crossing our borders have hurt less educated native-born workers. The U.S. needs to focus on reducing overall immigration levels. This means a drop in the number of immigrants from Latin America, which accounts for half of the new arrivals, many of them at the lower end of the educational spectrum.
The number of immigrants—legal and illegal—living in the U.S., is growing at an unprecedented rate. U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year. IN 2006, the immigrant, or foreign-born population, reached about 38 million in the United States. Roughly 12 million of these were illegal aliens. Legal and illegal immigrants now account for one out of every eight persons living in the United States. As recently as 1970 the proportion was one in twenty residents. The U.S. has never confronted an immigrant population that has grown this much, this fast.
Low-paid American workers have borne the heaviest impact of immigration. This is largely because of the educational profile of the bulk of today’s immigrants. Nine percent of adult native-born Americans (ages 18 to 64) were high school dropouts in 2006, while 34 percent of recent adult immigrants had not completed high school. (The rate was 60 percent for illegal immigrants.)
Common sense, economic theory, and a fair reading of the research on this question indicate that allowing in so many immigrants (legal and illegal) with relatively little education reduces the wages and job prospects for Americans with little education. These are the Americans who are already the poorest workers. Between 2000 and 2005, the number of jobless natives (age 18 to 64) with no education beyond a high school degree increased by over two million, to 23 million, according to the Current Population Survey. During the same period, the number of less-educated immigrants (legal and illegal) holding a job grew 1.5 million.
Of greater concern, the percentage of employed native-born without a high school degree fell from 53 to 48 percent in the last five years. African Americans have particularly been affected. A September 2006 National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that immigration accounted for about a third of the decline in the employment rate of the least-educated African American men over the last few decades.
The disproportionate flow of undereducated immigrants to the U.S. has also depressed wages for native-born workers on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. In the last two-and-a-half decades, average hourly wages for male workers with less than a high school education declined more than 20 percent relative to inflation. For those with only a high school degree they are down almost 10 percent.
Typically, pro-immigration voices argue that immigration is essential because there are not enough Americans to fill all the low wage jobs. But if this were so, then the wages and employment rates of such workers should be rising as employers try desperately to retain and attract workers. Yet quantitative evidence for such a phenomenon doesn’t exist. The only evidence of a labor shortage comes from the employers.
In addition to harming the poorest and least educated American workers, our immigration system has created a large burden for taxpayers. The best predictor of poverty and welfare dependence in modern America is education level. Given the low educational levels of most recent immigrants, we would expect them to be a greater drain on public coffers than the immigrants who came before them. Indeed this is the case. In 1997 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) estimated that immigrant households consumed $20 billion more in public services than they paid in taxes each year. Adjusted for inflation, with the current size of the immigrant population today, this figure would be over $40 billion.
Immigrants from Latin America place an especially heavy burden on American taxpayers. For example, 57 percent of household headed by Dominican immigrants in 2004 used at least one major welfare program; 43 percent of Mexicans took advantage of at least one welfare program; and about a third of the households headed by immigrants from Central America, Cuba and Columbia use the welfare system. In contrast only 18 percent of native households receive welfare assistance.
The biggest problem for taxpayers is not illegal aliens—though they are a drain. The biggest problem is less-educated legal immigrants, who represent the majority of the immigrants from Mexico and Central America. My own research indicates that the net costs (taxes paid minus services used) to the federal government alone would roughly triple if illegal aliens were legalized and began to use services and pay taxes like legal immigrants with the same level of education.
Even if one conceded that allowing in less-educated immigrants is bad for less-educated Americans, are there any economic benefits from immigration? The best research on the subject shows that if there is a benefit it is tiny or “miniscule,” in the words of the nation’s top immigration economist, George Borjas of Harvard University. The NAS study found that by reducing the wages of the least-educated Americans (about 10 percent of the population), immigration generated an economic benefit for the rest of society equal to just two-tenths of one percent of their income.
One common argument for immigration is that American society is aging. We are told that we need young workers. But demographers have found that immigration actually has only a small impact on this problem. The 2000 Census showed that 66.2 percent of the population was of working age (15 to 64). If all post-1980 immigrants (legal and illegal) and their U.S.-born children are not counted, the working-age share would still have been 65.9 percent in 2000.
The current system, which allows people into the country if they have a family member here, is simply not sustainable. The goal of reform should be an immigration system that allows in fewer low-skilled immigrants. Actually enforcing current immigration laws would be a good first step.
New Mexican Harley on Jul 22, 2008 at 17:22:51 said:
Brittanicus,
Wow! Do you really belive in the garbage you spew? We did not cross the border the border crossed us!
Yep how many of our mexican men died in wars only to come back and not get what they were promised Citizenship by the government and sent back to their country.
Why are you so worried about the borders of Mexico? do you see Arabs or other terrorist coming in through there? No, just the mexicans. Why are you so down on the brown?
So what if we educate the poor mexicans, don't you know that education is the KEY to ending poverty?
Why does everyone pick on the poor mexicans? could it be they work hard, take jobs nobody wants and do it so they can have a better life?
American companies are all over in mexico. They exploit the people by paying low wages and locking them in the factory gates with armed guards. Bet you didn't know that! I talk about what I have seen firsthand!!
Leave them alone and let them live their lives. They don't ask for handouts just a chance to work and live like everyone else. I have never met a lazy mexican only hardworking ones.
1st Generation American-Mexican
Viva La Raza!!!!
Bill Weinberg on Jul 22, 2008 at 17:08:50 said:
By no means do I think NCLR should change their name, but their answer is a rather disingenuous one. Obviously their name is inspired by the writings of Mexican pedagogue José Vasconcelos, who saw Latin Americans as the "raza cosmica," mingling the blood of three continents (Europe, Africa and the Americas). They should admit this, even if they today use the term "raza" in a poetic rather than literalist sense. Equating them with white supremacists just because their name evokes a "race" is absurd.
San Antonio Mex on Jul 22, 2008 at 16:06:19 said:
Brittanicus, you can hang on to any European visual you want to, but the reality as you see it is gone. Yes we most certainly should get closer to Europe and our roots.
America is a Mestizo nation.
Let me remind you that "We Did Not Cross The Border The Border Crossed Us"!
Get over it! Think about this, what would our Country be like without the American Southwest? Would it be like South Africa maybe France who knows?
I am very happy that our Country is geographically what it is today. Latinos have contributed so much to this wonderful nation including land, blood, language, culture etc. Blame your ancestors for your "heartaches" before you blame us. They are the ones that illegally immigrated to Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon etc. If this “had not happened” you would still be east of the Mississippi and no "heartaches".
Love,
American Mexican (11th Generation)
Vietnam Vet
Brittanicus on Jul 22, 2008 at 10:59:47 said:
La Raza is a insurgent dangerous organization that would swamp America with a continuous influx of poor from third world countries. The race as it's called has seditious ideas to return the Southwest to Mexico. However, absolute fanatical this might seem this is their philosophy they preach amongst the Latino people's. This organization supports driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants. They vehemently opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state and federal authorities. There in opposition to the Federal SAVE ACT (H.R.4088), that would enforce mandatory employer sanction nationwide.
-->They opposes a secure fence on the southern border, These anti-sovereignty advocates bitterly protested common-sense voter ID provisions as an “absolute disgrace that would eliminate voter fraud. They have consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn and is currently leading a smear campaign against staunch anti-immigration enforcement leaders. These zealot voices have called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves — in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut off our right to 'Free Speech." They sponsor militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal education grants). The Race” has perfected the art of the PC shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal “mortgage counseling” grants, seeking special multi million-dollar earmarks and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens. Google NUMBERSUSA for facts.