On Tuesday Nov 10 [1998] I went to hear a talk titled "The conspiracy against Latinos," an event sponsored by Casa Latina. The Wellesley professor who gave the talk, Elena Gascon-Vera, identified herself as Spanish of Castilian origin, though she later "allowed" that her father was partly Basque. She had attended Yale on a fellowship, has received considerable academic recognition during her thirty-five or so years of teaching, and is currently on sabbatical leave at the Center for European Studies at Harvard. I thought at first that as an experienced teacher she chose the provocative title for her talk to attract a substantial audience, which indeed she did.

      It was, however, not just a title. She actually believes there is a conspiracy against Latinos. She acknowledged, somewhat proudly, that she is an immigrant beneficiary of much of what the United States has to offer, and explained that despite having benefitted, she has deliberately chosen not to become a citizen, basically because "they don't want me." The "they", she made clear, are "white males", a category which apparently does not include "white hispanic males." Part of what she had to say was correct, and quite obvious, that "being Latino" does not identify one's race, religion or language, but is rather a cultural designation. She believes the term "Latino" was invented and used to label members of this cultural group in order to discriminate against them. With this belief I only partly concur, as I will explain shortly.

      Other parts of her talk were incorrect, and in one instance she evidenced racism. Wanting to establish the historical primacy of Latino identity in the U.S., she spoke of the sixteenth-century Spanish arrival in what is now New Mexico. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado set out in 1539 with his "band of adventurers" (as the Encyclopedia Britannica describes these gold-and-fun-seeking Spaniards) and got to New Mexico. Ipso facto, the professor implied, New Mexico is Latino. What I found striking was her total unawareness of her own implicit racism in ignoring the prior inhabitants. The very existence of the American Indians of the southwest received not a whisper of recognition in her talk. What does she think would be the reaction of Zuñi, Navajo, Apache, and Comanche peoples to her Latino claim on New Mexico?

      The speaker advised the primarily but not exclusively student audience to identify with and be proud of the label, to organize for political power on the basis of "our Latino identity." By doing so, she maintained, we can deprive them (the white males) of their power over us, and of the derogatory use of the label Latino. For a group which experiences bias and discrimination, such a call has undeniable appeal. But it's wrong, wrong in principle as well as in tactical and strategic terms. It is not simply muddled thinking to hold that by organizing ourselves into cultural power blocs, we can achieve the kind of liberation from prejudice, discrimination and oppression that we rightfully seek. Rather, it is a false road to freedom, an idea peddled by the dominant power structure, now world-wide in scope, the power structure of big money interests.

      Only in that sense is the use of labels a "conspiracy." If there is any conspiracy, it is not one directed particularly against "Latinos", but a "conspiracy" by the obscenely rich and the governing institutions that serve them to extract from each one of us every single possible bit of wealth. Failure to recognize our common humanity, our real identity, serves to keep us divided ― and conquerable! One has only to go to New Mexico to experience the disdain held by some "Latinos" of gentle lineage (like that of the speaker) for more recent arrivals, the poor Mexican "wetbacks" in search of a livelihood. They too are "Latinos", but the additional label "wetbacks" distinguishes them and makes of them yet another category to be discriminated against, even by their "fellow Latinos." Don't fall for the trap. When the U.S. Census Form asks you to indicate your race, cross out all those phoney categories and write in "human." For that is precisely what you are. The rest is primarily culture, and only a "nickle's worth" of genetics.

      That the U.S. is a country ridden with racism is of course beyond dispute. "Race" is only one of the artificial social categories invented to divide us. Nationality, religion, gender, sexual preference; they are all bogus notions in so far as having anything to do with our common humanity. Adherence to so-called "identity politics", of whatever variety, is a dead end. And all the pandering to so-called "political correctness" is precisely that ― pandering. If we buy into any of it we do so at the cost of abandoning, at least partially, thinking critically about the real issues that affect our lives.

      The absurdity of thinking in terms of identity labels is obvious if we look elsewhere. For example, in some parts of Northern Ireland two people who meet casually may not know whether they are "friends" or "enemies" until they uncover some clue, like the schools they attended, that type them as "Catholic" or "Protestant." Here there isn't even that "nickle's worth" of genetic clue, no visible distinction, yet the social construct of "difference" may be taken seriously, sometimes, as we all know, deadly seriously.

      The only conflict we ought to take seriously is that between the very rich minorities of the world and the billions of very poor people. There is really no way to overcome the prejudices, discrimination, and oppression from which many groups suffer without eliminating the gross violations of human rights caused by extreme differences in access to the necessities of life. We must come to acknowledge this reality, to understand that the rapidly growing disparity is being caused by the dominance of capitalism, and we must focus on changing that reality if we are to survive in a humane world.