I write several editorials a week for a daily newspaper and often get asked how I come up with something to write about each day. It’s simple — there’s almost something to get pissed about every day.
But I’m not trying to rant here. I’m trying to do what most bloggers should be doing — serving information, offering some thoughts and building conversation.
So here’s my first pitch to you…
The perception among Latinos I talk to is that women carry the weight for our community–especially when it comes to the well being of families and children.DO LATINO MEN NEED TO STEP UP? And how? What are the challenges?
Where is headway being made? For the guys holding it down (what does that even mean?), what are the frustrations?
We need to talk. Take a look at some of these stats and info:
• In New York State, Latinos are more than 28 percent of the inmate population. The vast majority are men.
• Among Latino groups in New York City, Puerto Rican and Dominicans have higher rates of households headed by single females.
• The Correctional Association of NY, citing official NYC reports, found that…
The neighborhoods with the highest rates of juvenile detention are University Heights, East Harlem, St. George, Harlem, Soundview, South Jamaica, South Bronx, East New York, Morris Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant, Far Rockaway, Bushwick, Queens Village/FLRL PK/Hollis, Brownsville, Washington Heights and Tremont.
• As of March 31, 2007, there were 2,610 children – 2,224 boys and 386 girls – incarcerated in NY state juvenile institutions. Most of these kids are African American and Latino. (Correctional Association citing the NYS Office of Children and Family Services)
hola,
good read.
It seems to me that the answer must come from different aspects. Therefore the questions you posed are correct because there is more than one. We need to see if we are on the same page as a community. I say this because within our community there are many different groups that have different agendas. For example the amount of women in the workforce has changed and with that I believe the conceptual “need” for a “man” has shifted to one of “preference” and not for a man but instead for a “partner.” Just the vernacular of progressive liberation can shift a culture, though slowly. Just with this point alone it creates a different question altogether. Many men may feel less adequate to be an equal partner with a woman. Hundreds of years of religious indoctrination, social marginalization and victimization by those that have conquered us has not allowed us the opportunity to develope emotional intelligence or at least stop perpetuating the emulation of our “conquistadores” or colonizers.
Though I do not subscribe to this way of thinking any longer I sometimes find myself regressing and have to catch myself and though I do not believe we will move forward by making excuses, we must recognize and dissect whatever road got us to where we are today.
This is just one of the many aspects that we need to discuss to begin moving in the right direction. Yesterdays rules can no longer apply. Men and women of all cultures need to forget what they think they know about the other.Lets put our weapons dow,”Pido una paz para esta guerra” like Gilbertito says.
I do not wish to turn this into a discussion about Men and Women but our development and our relationships as Latino Men with mothers and tias,primas,suegras,hermanas,novias,esposas,santera,vecina, etc., and sometimes amigas have shaped us every step of the way.
I’m still trying to find my way.
Nando
Erica I am late in replying to this but I do want to say that its not just about stepping up the point is step up to what and why. You use crime stats but is that the example of how we are not stepping up? That to me is more of a social not individual question which is what your pregunta implies. I have actually been thinking a lot lately about taking pics of Papis and their kids porque I do see that we need to step up but truth is that with my lens as a single Papi I do see them stepping up as Papis (not papichulos). I am sure our numbers are not in the main but if we don’t see the shift and don’t articulate preguntas in order to widen or focus our view then we will miss lo que esta pasando as well as what is not. I partly credit shift in macho behavior to women because creo que feminist praxis has impacted men in certain ways, I also think que what we “know” of latino men as a category is not enough. Pa mi I have seen and been the good bad y feo. But when I did some shit that I shouldn’t have been doing it wasn’t that I wasn’t stepping up it was that I was just not legally thus the social question. I also have to say que a veces women block the steppin up, por ejemplo at times men do try to father their kids but if you don’t make enough or if there is emotional tension entre los dos and the men just wants to be a father but not a partner then sometimes women hold that against us and block access to kids. I have not had acces denied to mi nena but as an unmarried father I have seen how that situation can play out against the man in several ways and have negative impacts on all involved. Bueno all this just to problematize what it is we should be stepping up to and suggest instead that maybe we need to step out, out of una sociedad y cultura (not just latino) that structures inequality and unhealthy subjectivities, male and female. Como dice la cancion de Roy Brown “una mujer y un hombre cara a cara” that’s what we need more of. Dialogues between us not at us