Latino Power and the Last Cliche : Accomplishment Overtakes the Crab-in-a-Bucket Fable

About 300 Latino leaders got together last weekend to discuss the political prospects for their people in the 1990s. Although I have reported on many similar gatherings over the last 20 years, this was one of the most impressive--but not for reasons that others who were there might point to.

It was certainly important that the meeting at Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute attracted not just community activists but many Latino elected officials, both Democrats like Los Angeles City Council members Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina and Republicans like Orange County Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez. And it is noteworthy that so many Latino academics and attorneys can now speak as experts on complex topics like demographics, the 1990 census and the political reapportionment that will follow.

But the most persuasive evidence that Latino activists really have reached a new level of political sophistication is that nobody repeated the old story about the Mexican crabs.

I doubt if there’s a Mexican-American alive who has not heard some version of this tale:

A fisherman returns to the dock, his bucket filled nearly to the brim with crabs. He puts the bucket down momentarily and another fisherman warns him to put a lid on it, lest some of the crabs escape. “Oh, don’t worry,” the fisherman replies. “They’re Mexican crabs. As soon as one starts to climb up, the others will pull him back down.”

That story has been repeated for years, apparently because people think it offers a lesson about the need to pull together, which Latinos allegedly don’t do enough. I’ve always hated that story, though, and want it laid to rest.

First, it does not reflect reality. It presumes that Mexican-Americans can’t work together (or Puerto Ricans and other Latinos, for I have heard variations of the story told by other groups). History provides ample proof that they can. As far back as the 1920s, Mexicans who sought refuge here during the Mexican Revolution organized themselves into self-help groups centered around their community churches. Some even formed labor unions to organize Mexican workers on the farms and in the mines of the Southwest. If those movements failed to achieve all their potential, it was usually because employers, farmers and other powerful interests did all they could to repress them.

Second, and more important, the story is simplistic. It presumes that all Latinos have to do to make it in the United States is to mindlessly stick together, working toward some common goal or following some leader in lock step. That’s unrealistic and maybe even dangerous.

That old story may have had some meaning for earlier generations of Mexican-Americans. They were usually poor and ill-educated and had many basic needs (like getting enough to eat) that could best be met by working together. Today the Latino community in this country is so large and diverse that absolute unity is all but impossible.

So why does this unrealistic ideal of Latino unity persist? Probably because there are many idealistic Latinos who believe their people should all pull together, as African-Americans have struggled with admirable unity for their civil rights. But these Latinos overlook the fact that the black experience in this nation is different from the historical experiences Latinos have had. Some Latinos faced discrimination akin to that known by black Americans. But others have animmigrant history similar to the experience shared by people who came here from Europe and Asia. A few whose families were here before the United States fought the Mexican War share, with American Indians, the experience of being a conquered people.

What troubles me about idealized calls for Latino unity is that they can be exploited by political charlatans. If we are to take the story of the Mexican crabs literally, for example, Latino voters should never, ever, vote against a Latino politician, no matter how bad or ineffective he is, simply because he is Latino. The wrongheadedness of that position is obvious.

That’s why I was pleased to spend the entire day at the Rose Institute conference and not once hear the crab story repeated, either publicly or privately. Instead people talked about the nuts-and-bolts of voter registration, the 1990 census and campaigns for redistricting cities, counties and states so that Latino candidates have a better chance at getting elected.

Of course, a few folks did run around talking as if a single, all-encompassing organization had to be formed to push for more Latino representation when state and national legislatures are reapportioned after the 1990 census. But they were a minority, and they won’t get very far. More than likely, several nonpartisan Latino groups will be pushing for better political representation in the 1990s, including Latino caucuses in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

In a nation that could easily see a Republican like Vasquez running against a Democrat like Molina for higher office someday, that’s the way it should be.