I've blogged plenty of times before that I feel not Latina enough for many reasons. So when the hubby emailed me a story about some new ads asking "Are you too gringo?" I jumped. Bottom line: These are the most racist ads I have seen in forever. And with the advent of the internet, that's saying something.

What gets me about these ads is that they were made by Latinos for Latinos. The self-hate is so thick that it makes me want to puke.

Ad #1 shows 2 Latinos running after some kids who steal decorative ice cream cones. They get to a fence and the kids get away. The stereotype is that you are too gringo if you can't jump a fence. Get it. Us Mexicans are made for jumping fences! ha! *grrr*

Ad #2 shows a Latino on a game show and getting all these geography questions wrong. The idea here is that you're too gringo if you don't know anything about another country. Um, ok, I might buy into that. Maybe you're too Dubya? But at the end, he still gets it wrong by answering "Guadalajara" to where the Eiffel tower is located. There is applause. It's not that the Latino is a dummy, it's just that he only knows American cities.

Ad #3 is the worst, IMO. It shows a young Latino as President and ready to push the big red button to start a war. He snaps out of his daydream. The idea here is that you are too gringo if you dream about being President. The ad ends with a more peaceful & happy daydream...Clipping hedges.

I really don't know where to start. These ads smack of that whole "Oh, you're too good now, eh?" For those of you not familiar with this theme, it's like this. You grow up in a working class family, maybe a poor family. Everyone is pretty much the same. Until YOU work your ass off, go to college, graduate, get a good job, and wa-la! You are now the black sheep of the family. Family members look at you like you are a snob, when you're not. Some ask for money because you're rich now! Um, yeah...And of course, the ultimate put down...You are now a sell-out. So why not dream about clipping hedges instead of being President?

The number of Latinos who do go on to college is low. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2005, only 12.3% of Hispanics over 25 have graduated from college. It goes only up to 15.8% if you only count those born in the USA. I can't recall where I heard it, but the fact that I have a master's degree puts me in such a tiny minority of Latinos in America, that we should really know each other by name. This is why I really hate the daydreaming ad.

We have a population where 1/3 of us stop our formal education after high school. In a society where technology is queen, we need more education. Technical school, community college, whatever. We cannot stop learning. Ads like this will only feed into the stereotype that Latinos are lazy and dumb. When kids buy into that stereotype, we lose them. I've seen it.

It's just so sad to see us cutting each other down like this. So sad that I can't figure out what to say anymore.

Labels: latina