Gregory Rodriguez: All Publications, Events and Press

Dialogue Isn't the Last Word

Ron Tang — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:19:00 -0400

Barack Obama loves reconciliation, but it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes it isn't even possible, and let's be honest, it isn't always the point.

About six weeks ago, during his "More Perfect Union" speech on race that some heralded as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, Obama had a choice between reconciliation and renunciation, and, true to form, he chose the former. He protested that he could "no more disown" the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. than he could disown "the black community" or his own (sometimes politically incorrect) white grandmother. Really?

Right about now, his much-heralded tutorial on… more

The Joe Lunch Bucket Strategy

Ron Tang — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:52:00 -0400

If Americans are such huge fans of big dreams and high rolling, self-made tycoons and upward mobility, why then do we insist on seeing our national political elites -- who are also generally our economic and educational elites -- throw back a shot of whiskey or lace up bowling shoes?

Why do we need to pretend that high-flying politicians who graduated from the fanciest schools and dine at the toniest restaurants really don't live in a different world and -- dare I say it -- class than the rest of us?

The easy answer is that we want to identify with them,… more

Absolut Canard

Ron Tang — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:01:00 -0400

If I didn't already prefer Ketel One vodka in my martinis, I might very well call for my own boycott against Absolut.

Not because I agree with the knuckleheads who fear that the Swedish company's advertisement featuring a map of the American Southwest as Mexican territory is fueling ethnic secessionism, but because, in its attempt to lure upper-middle-class consumers in Mexico, the company played on an age-old canard that has historically been used to justify discrimination against Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans here in the United States.

Last week I was in Las Vegas, and I found myself having a depressing… more

A 670-Mile-Long Shrine To American Insecurity

Ron Tang — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:51:00 -0400

Last February, I found myself in the difficult position of explaining American insecurity to a group of Mexican undergraduates at a college in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of the border at Brownsville, Texas. I was taking questions after delivering a lecture on the long-term prospects of Mexican immigrants being accepted into U.S. society. A neatly dressed young man in the back stood up to ask a pointed question. "How," he said politely in Spanish, "could such a rich and powerful country be so self-centered as to build a wall on its border to keep people out?"

For a moment, I figured… more

The Perfect Candidate

Ron Tang — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:43:00 -0400

If Americans have such a low opinion of politicians -- and they do -- why then do they invest so many hopes and expectations in one of them every four years?

Are they stupid? Naive? Like continually heartbroken but eternally hopeful lovers, do they really think their next suitor will not disappoint them like all the rest?

Try writing a newspaper column for a few weeks and, if you dare check your e-mail, you'll get a whiff of how much people want to love, revere and believe in the perfection of the presidential candidate of their choice. Like loyal servants or younger… more

Obama's Brilliant Bad Speech

Ron Tang — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:00:00 -0400

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking.

Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of unity… more

White Suspicion, Black 'Luck'

Ron Tang — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:00:00 -0400

For decades, critics of affirmative action on both sides of the aisle have argued that the policy calls into question the talents and qualifications of the minorities who benefit from it. They insisted that it generates a cloud of suspicion around the successful black or Latino student or professional. It makes whites wonder whether their minority colleagues really "earned" their positions.

It turns out those critics are right about the suspicion part. And evidently you don't even have to be an actual beneficiary of affirmative action to be accused of having an unfair advantage. Geraldine Ferraro's remark that "if [Barack] Obama… more

Go To Where the People Are

Ron Tang — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:07:00 -0400

All right, I admit it. I sold out. Last Wednesday night, I went on "The Colbert Report," and I can't quite shake the feeling that I made a pact with the devil.

But did I?

I published a book four months ago, and everyone knows a sit-down with Stephen Colbert gives book sales a healthy bump.

So when a "Report" producer called last month to invite me to the show, I said what any author eager to sell more books would say: "Heck, yes!"

Then invitee remorse set in.

For one thing, I am perhaps the only person in my age group who… more

Gregory Rodriguez on The Colbert Report | Interview

Communications — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:56:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Gregory Rodriguez Interviews with Steven Colbert (The Colbert Report)

New America Foundation's Gregory Rodriguez appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his new book, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds.

Video of the interview is posted here:

Rally 'Round the Flag, Dem

Ron Tang — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

If Barack Obama really wants to rise above the "old politics of division," he might want to start by putting that American flag pin back on his lapel and retracting his all too earnest explanation as to why he took it off in the first place.

No, not because he should seek to appease his conservative critics who are absurdly questioning his loyalty to the country. But because it could help heal the festering division over the meaning of patriotism in America while also beginning to make up for the Democratic Party's self-imposed patriotism deficit.

Last October, when responding to questions… more

"Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds" in SF Chronicle | Questioning Immigrants' Desire to Assimilate

Communications — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:49:00 -0500

New America in the News:

SF Chronicle | Questioning Immigrants' Desire to Assimilate

. . . Two new books diverge from the political approach to the simmering assimilation debate, one looking backward, another looking forward. Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez's provocatively titled "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America" examines Mexican Americans' self-identity through history, from the Aztec conquest to 21st century immigration into the United States. Rodriguez makes a strong argument that the very idea of treating Mexican Americans or Latinos as a single racial category, as the U.S. Census attempts to do with the "Hispanic" label, misses the fact that, for the past 500 years, the Mexican people have been an "in between" group, with each individual deciding where he or she belonged based on economic and cultural advantage. . .

Gregory Rodriguez directs the California Fellows Program and is an Irvine Senior Fellow at New America Foundation.

White Like Us

Ron Tang — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Six weeks ago, 29-year-old Culver City Internet copy writer Christian Lander started a blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, on a whim, thinking he'd poke fun at himself and fellow white people. Spending roughly two hours a day writing satirical posts about "stuff white people like," Lander had no idea how much his little inside joke would catch on. In the first week, the site received about 200 hits a day. The next week it jumped to 600, and then 4,000 the next. By last week, he was averaging 300,000 daily hits.

Lander, who arrived in L.A. from Toronto 2 1/2 years ago, came up… more

It's a Critical Time of Our Sign

Ron Tang — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I don't know about you, but I'm proud of the fact that the most celebrated symbol of our city isn't a statue that was a gift from the French. I also think it's fitting that it isn't burdened with heavy ideology, profound symbolism or deep meaning. Nobody ever accused the Hollywood sign of inspiring high-minded musings about the essence of our city, let alone the exalted mission of our nation. If anything, it evokes a sordid lust for fame and fortune.

I imagine all those aspiring starlets from the Midwest coming to L.A. and sighing as they look up at that… more

Monterrey U.S.A.

Ron Tang — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

When the Kentucky-based Yum Corp. was looking for a city in Mexico in which to open a Taco Bell, it must have figured it couldn't go wrong with this ultra-modern, hyper-Americanized metropolis 125 miles from the Texas border in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. Regiomontanos, as Monterrey residents are called, wear their pro-Americanism on their sleeves and see little shame in the fact that their streets are as overrun by corporate American retailers as any suburban town north of the border.

Norteno Mexican culture has long been known for its openness to American ways, but Monterrey's love affair with… more

The Black-Brown Divide

Ron Tang — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I imagine he said it as if he were confessing a deep, dark secret. And, of course (wink, wink), he had no idea his little confession would make the rounds. But when Sergio Bendixen, Hillary Clinton's pollster and resident Latino expert, told the New Yorker after her win in New Hampshire that "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," he started a firestorm of innuendo that has begun to shape how the media are covering the race for the Democratic presiden-tial… more

Gregory Rodriguez in Chicago Tribune | 'Clinton's Hispanic Edge'

Communications — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:01:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Clinton's Hispanic edge over Obama (Chicago Tribune)

Currently, at least eight black U.S. congressmen represent districts that are heavily Latino, according to Gregory Rodriguez, author of "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America."

Clinton's Latino Spin

Ron Tang — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

If a Hillary Clinton campaign official told a reporter that white voters never support black candidates, would the media have swallowed the message whole? What if a campaign pollster began whispering that Jews don't have an "affinity" for African American politicians? Would the pundits have accepted the premise unquestioningly?

A few weeks ago, Sergio Bendixen, a Clinton pollster and Latino expert, publicly articulated what campaign officials appear to have been whispering for months. In an interview with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, Bendixen explained that "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has… more

MLK Would be Proud

Ron Tang — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Is Barack Obama a crossover candidate? And, if so, where is he crossing over from and to?

Over the past year, Obama has been called a post-racial candidate and has been praised for his ability to transcend race. But such idealistic observations are not only wrongheaded, they fundamentally misconstrue the Illinois senator's complex identity as well as the new understanding he brings to America's ongoing debate over how best to unify our wildly diverse nation.

Last February, in an interview on "60 Minutes," Obama told Steve Kroft that he had not "decided" to be African American. When asked whether he… more

France Shrugs Off Its Je Ne Sais Quoi

Ron Tang — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The reams of news stories on the new French ban on smoking in cafes, restaurants and night spots have invariably focused on the aura of glamour those little death sticks once conveyed. In newspapers around the globe, nostalgic descriptions of the likes of Coco Chanel or Albert Camus taking a luxurious drag on a cigarette have been, um, de rigueur. But to focus on the diminished allure of the cigarette is to miss the significance of the French banning the most cinematic of sins. No, it's not that the French gave the cigarette -- the "little cigar" -- its… more

Who's In and Who's Out

adminn — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:45:00 -0500

What do the Hillary Clinton campaign and comedian Michael Richards have in common? When feeling insecure, both appeal to social prejudices to delegitimize their adversaries.

Three weeks ago, two Clinton campaign volunteer county coordinators in Iowa forwarded an e-mail that accused Illinois Sen. Barack Obama of being a stealth Muslim intent on bringing jihad to the United States. Last week, former Nebraska senator and Clinton supporter Bob Kerrey borrowed a page from Rush Limbaugh when he made a point of highlighting Obama's middle name -- Hussein (quick, what's Mike Huckabee's middle name?) -- and Muslim heritage on… more