My idea of nirvana: An appetizer sampler plate. I get introduced to many things and can decide what I like and dislike for further dining later on. Sometimes, I even eat something I never thought I’d like. This is how I discovered Rocky Mountain oysters.(1)
I mention this because as you read read my last column and particularly this one, you should think of them like an appetizer sampler plate, albeit with less fat. What’s here is intended to introduce you to a topic, to hopefully get you interested in consuming and learning more.
My words are by no means meant to cover everything, just as no appetizer sampler has a sample of everything. (And yet, still, there was room for gonads. Seriously?) The role of LGBT people in America’s minority communities couldn’t be scratched in 27,000 words in three years, much less 2,700 in three weeks.
Just as importantly, however, these columns probably shouldn’t even be considered a representative sample. Howzat?
Again, I return to the appetizer sampler platter: There’s not a plate out there that doesn’t seem to have three basic staples: buffalo wings, fried cheese, and something pulverized encased in a potato skin. The second half of the plate is then left for things like hummus, exploding onions and other curiosities. What you find there is based on the culture of where you are. (Colorado, one must assume, has a lot of testicle-free bulls.)
These columns are the same: The cover some territory that others have covered in depth. But they also try to get you to consider some things you otherwise would not.
Does that mean they should all be viewed as equal? No, just as the buffalo wing is America’s favorite appetizer, some views are more popular and ingrained than others.(2) And while stereotypes and prejudice can be a cause for that, sometimes reality is, as well. I just think it’s interesting to consider other viewpoints and examine new things once in a while. (Unless they’re bull gonads.)
Nowhere is this diversity of viewpoints more apparent than in the LGBT Latino and African-American communities. Two groups that may not be traditionally associated with the LGBT community, their self-reported members show 4.6 percent of African-Americans see themselves as LGBT, while 4 percent of Latinos do.(3) Again, both of these numbers are higher than number of self-reported LGBT whites, at 3.2 percent.
Having taught a few LBGT Latino students over the years, I’ve watched them struggle to come out. And among two students I knew had come out in school, neither one of them had talked to their families about it. Whether their families truly didn’t know or just didn’t want to know I am not able to say.
According to an article in California Healthline, my students’ experiences are not unique. “Gay Latinos face discrimination from family, from friends, from church...The level of homophobia is so high in the Latino society that people have to live in a double life, a hidden life.”(4)
Statistics, and personal experiences, bear this statement out:
Family: Some 60 percent of LGBT Latino youth who are rejected by their families contemplate suicide, in contrast to 8 percent of those who are accepted, says one study from San Francisco State University. “A young person's ability to feel there is a future is linked to accepting behaviors in the family," the study’s author said.
Obviously, that’s true for any LGBT youth; it’s well-known that they contemplate suicide at a higher rate than their non-LGBT peers. According to one study, however, LBGT youth “comprise up to 30 percent of completed youth suicides annually.”(6) This is basically half the rate of Latino youth.
Is this comparing apples and oranges? Possibly; the questions and the data sets come from vastly different places. However, I think if nothing else it demonstrates that within the Latino community, the family unit seems to play a larger role in personal acceptance of an LGBT identity.
Friends: In my travels in the Latino cultural world, from Mexico to Southern California to The Philippines, I’ve found manliness, or whatever you want to call it, to be a fairly dominant theme. Monica Trasandes, who monitors Spanish-Language media for GLAAD, agrees.
“The culture of ‘macho’ in Latin American countries and how ‘being masculine is rewarded as opposed to being effeminate’ may be a contributing factor to homophobic expression,” she says, even though she largely disagrees with the stereotype of the Latino as homophobe.(5)
(“Macho” and “manliness”: That’s what you call it!)
The church: Nearly three in every four Latinos in the United States are Catholic, and even though this number is changing, the importance of the Church in Latino life is undeniable.(7) The Church’s disapproval -- to put it mildly -- of LGBT “lifestyles” is well known. And even though that has changed somewhat in recent years with the election of a new Pope, it is safe to say that when LGBT Latinos come out, they still do so in the face of what can be a very hostile religion.(8)
Not that things aren’t changing, according to one poll, “Virtually identical shares of Latinos (59%) and the general public (58%) say homosexuality should be accepted by society.”(9) Other polls show that 74 percent of Latinos support gay marriage or similar legal recognitions.(9)
From that I take hope. Not just for society, as so often is the case, but for the students I know who don’t have that hope. I’d like to believe if they knew their world and society were changing it might keep their thoughts from going to the dark places so many of their peers seem to.
But to know that they have to hear it. Perhaps it’s time they heard it from me. Over lunch maybe, at a quiet table in the corner of the cafeteria. Not exactly the best place in the world to share deep thoughts, but at least there’s no bull ‘nads.
References:
1) Rocky Mountain Oysters
https://www.google.com/search?q=rocky+mountain+oysters&oq=rocky+mountain+oysters&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3447j0&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8
1a) I did not like them.
1b) I am no longer friends with the person who did not tell me what I was eating.
2) Chain Food Showdown: The Best & Worst Buffalo Wings At America's Casual Dining Restaurants
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/best-worst-buffalo-wings-chain-restaurants_n_1543746.html
3) Gallup study: 3.4 percent of US adults are LGBT
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=893&sid=3083798
4) Gay Latinos Fighting Bias, Stereotypes on Many Levels
http://www.californiahealthline.org/insight/2011/gay-latinos-fighting-bias-stereotypes-on-many-levels
5) Operation Tolerancia: Addressing Homophobia in Latino Communities
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lilia-luciano/addressing-homophobia-in-latino-communities_b_1935635.html
6) Gay Male and Lesbian Suicide
http://www.lambda.org/youth_suicide.htm
7) Latino Religion in the U.S.: Demographic Shifts and Trend
http://www.nhclc.org/news/latino-religion-us-demographic-shifts-and-trend
8) Chris Cuomo, Catholic League's Bill Donohue Clash Over Pope's Comments, Homosexuality
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/chris-cuomo-bill-donohue-pope-homosexuality_n_3961339.html
9) When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/04/when-labels-dont-fit-hispanics-and-their-views-of-identity/1/