Hola. I come in peace.
Take a look at my last name. Pérez-Feria. Admit it: Don’t the hyphen and accent freak you out, even a little? But fear not, the professor is in, and I’m, once and for all, going to demystify what it actually means to be Hispanic in this country and, more important, why you, a card-carrying non-Hispanic, should care. OK. Everyone take a deep breath. Here we go.
First, a little context. My amazing parents, Addy and Manuel, fled Cuba a couple of years after Fidel Castro got his hooks into our beloved homeland. [Quick aside: Don’t let anyone romanticize the tragic Cuban experience of the past half-century. Fidel Castro is one evil dude.] Luckily for us, my rock star mom spoke English fluently and was offered a professorship at a Boston-based university. I came to be shortly thereafter. The fact that I was born in this country was treated as a geographic anomaly by my über Cuban grandmothers who drilled into me—literally from birth—the joys of Cuban music, the importance of Cuban history and the necessity of the Spanish language. One thing I know for sure is that I was the only kid in kindergarten who knew exactly who Celia Cruz and José Martí were. (Google it.)
A few decades later, I was offered the job that most members of my family couldn’t believe: Editor in chief of the largest and most important magazine for US Hispanics, Time Inc’s juggernaut, People en Español. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a pretty cool gig and all, but I had no idea what that job meant to people I loved. My family knew my career was going well before, but with People en Español, my parents told me that their dreams for me had actually come true. Who knew?
The first speech I was asked to give as the new editor was to a small gathering of fellow journalists. My remarks were, I thought then, mere logical truths about Hispanics that have surely been uttered many times before by many people before. Apparently not. What I had said that afternoon was repeated quickly and often and the requests for me to speak started pouring in. Something was afoot.
Here’s the walkaway from what I said: “Hispanic” and “Latino” aren’t culturally significant terms; they’re bandied about for marketing purposes. Ask my grandmother if she’s Hispanic or Latino and she’d look at you as if you had three heads—she’s Cuban. Others are Mexican, Colombian, Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan, Argentinean and so on. In the Spanish-speaking world, there are some 20 countries (and Puerto Rico), all with different cultures, food, music, idioms, histories. Mistake a Colombian with a Venezuelan and prepare to explain yourself. Argentinean and Chilean? Peruvian and Bolivian? Cuban and Puerto Rican? Spanish and anybody else? Same thing. It’s not that one country feels superior to the other. It’s nothing more than a palpable and universal frustration that Spanish-speaking peoples all share and want understood: We’re not the same.
So, how did we get to be called “Hispanic” and “Latino?” Well, my theory is that some marketing execs on Madison Avenue got together a while back and figured out that if they can group these disparate people under one banner, they can track and monetize them more efficiently. That makes a lot of sense. If you’re one of, say, 127 Bolivians walking around this country, it behooves you to be grouped with 40 million Mexicans. I mean, who’s going to listen to 127 Bolivians? But here’s the rub: Bolivians are different from Mexicans in significant ways. Here’s a quiz: Would you market a product in Beverly Hills the same way you market in Arkansas? Didn’t think so. So why would anyone market to wealthy Cubans in Miami the same way they market to Mexicans in Texas?
The people you call Hispanics are different in not insignificant ways. But there’s good news, capitalists: There are also at least three similarities. 1) Shared language (it’s obvious, but important nonetheless); 2) Shared religious beliefs (all Catholic, though not a marketing factor) and, most vital, 3) The wholehearted belief in the American Dream. Every Hispanic person is in this country today because they, their parents or grandparents all dreamed of a better life for their kids. In my case, it was political (fleeing a dictator), but, in most other instances, it was escaping economic hardship.
Here’s my free consulting advice of the year. How do you make money on Hispanics? Play to their core belief that life can and does get better. The key word is—wait for it—aspirational. At People en Español that translated into putting a superstar in a $25,000 gown on the magazine’s cover. My audience couldn’t afford that dress, of course, but they aspired to one day and loved seeing their favorite celebrity with a surname just like theirs on that shiny cover smiling back at them. They felt included.
Useful tip: Next time you have the opportunity to engage with a Hispanic person, take a moment and ask them where they’re from. Not just what country, but also what town. Not only will you learn something that day, you’ll have given hope to one more Sánchez or Rodríguez or, yes, Pérez-Feria that, you, too, see them for who they actually are.
Hola. We come in peace. We really do.