Hispanic Heritage Month is a rare national observance spanning 2 months, from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Hispanics are the largest self-identified ethnic group in the US, categorized largely by country of origin or native language, though by the second generation, those factors matter less. Hispanics may be of any race. The total number Hispanics or Latinos is estimated to be almost 63 million, or 19% of the overall US population.
Using traditional racial categories and ignoring any overlaps, African Americans are considered second in US minority numbers coming in at 41 million or 14%, while Asians number an estimated 20 million or 7%. Of course, all such totals presume that ethnic identity is important and can be defined, something that requires general agreement on the categories. Many Americans identify with more than one race or ethnicity, making their categorization uncertain.
Among those possibly falling into more than one category are my own children and grandchildren. I was married to a man of Korean descent for 24 years and my children are mixed. And what about my granddaughter with a white/Asian mother and a black father? What is her ethnicity? She just shrugs when asked how she identifies, saying "as a human being." Are we moving toward a colorblind society? I feel I've already done my part.
My granddaughter lives in Florida with her son in the same rental complex as her mother.
Granddaughter Natasha tries to visit here often as her father lives in this area.
Here I am with my great-grandson, when he came to Washington, DC, with his mother for a visit.
Those Americans considered white or Caucasian are still the largest ethnic group, 235 million, out of some 341 million. That total makes the US the world's 3rd most populous country after India and China.
Of the nearly 63 million current US residents considered Hispanic, most were actually born in this country. They include some 6 million living in Los Angeles and another 5 million in New York City, comprising the nation's 2 largest enclaves. The Hispanic proportion of US total population, as it is currently defined, has grown from just 7% in 1980 to 14% today.
Stories and songs popular throughout our nation's history have highlighted themes of race or ethnicity, including Uncle Tom's Cabin, Old Man River, Porgy & Bess, The Color Purple, Raisin in the Sun, Who's Coming to Dinner, Like Water for Chocolate, In the Hood, and In the Heights. Many of these are dramas that I have actually seen on stage or screen.
I myself am technically part of our nation's Caucasian cohort, even though I speak Spanish and have lived for a number of years in Latin America. If given a choice, I might actually prefer to identify as Hispanic.
My son Jon, a longtime US citizen, actually is Hispanic, born in Colombia. It took considerable effort and expense to adopt and bring him here as a baby. Influenced by his fellow West Virginians, he is no longer supportive of immigration; in fact, he even advocates closing the border. A number of US-based Hispanics seem to say, "I am here now, so let's just close those gates,"
My son and I, despite our political differences, celebrated our joint birthdays together last March at his workplace in Berkeley Springs, W Va.
While immigrants can help make up for population declines in rural communities like Berkeley
Springs and other small towns, their introduction there does require thoughtful management. And if Americans continue to fall short on producing babies, they simply need to welcome more immigrants,
not only to keep our population steady, but to prevent an inverted age pyramid from ending up top-heavy with elders like myself.
Cincinnati Enquirer, Ohio to provide health care, traffic safety for Springfield amid Haitian migrant influx
Politifact has debunked claims, apparently initiated on Facebook, that Haitian immigrants sent to Springfield, a small Ohio town, to boost its shrinking population, were wantonly killing
and eating local dogs and cats. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. ...The people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Donald Trump declared during a primetime debate. Gov. Mike De Wine
had to intervene to help the town better accommodate the new Haitian arrivals, while also dampening any rumors about pet eating. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has doubled down on his pet-eating claims and also declared plans to visit Springfield, with officials and residents there hoping he changes his mind.
Meanwhile, this link reveals an irony
An Ohio woman (with no Haitian or immigration connections) accused of eating a cat has reportedly pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
If pets are actually replacing children, as may happen in some cases, they must never be eaten!
On the subject of food, especially of meat, I myself avoid consuming the flesh of any animal with 4 legs and even hesitate eating any with 2, such as chickens. But I don't have the same empathy for mollusks and fish.
This comfy animal carrier is made to appeal to the "parents" of 4-legged pets.
Pet car seats are also available.
CNN, Harris and Trump shake hands at New York 9/11 remembrance ceremony on 23rd
anniversary of attacks
While it's only a symbolic gesture, better a
handshake than nothing. In the recent
Trump/Harris debate, Trump was his usual
impulsive, non-sequitur self, though somewhat
more restrained than usual because of the debate
format.
Time, Trump Faces Another Assassination Attempt: What to Know
Mr. Trump made news once again not because of his debate performance or pet-eating claims,
rather due to still another averted assassination attempt while out playing golf in Florida.
Thanks to an alert secret service agent and several witnesses, the would-attacker's efforts were
duly thwarted and he was soon arrested.
As already said, I don't plan to vote for president this time, not even for Harris, as the US has not
taken effective steps to reign in Israel's wanton killings of civilians in Gaza, including recently
of a US citizen. A ceasefire is long overdue.
At the same time, I grant that the US had been responsible for far too many civilian
deaths in Europe and Japan during World War II, something that forever tarnished President
Truman's legacy in my view.
At the risk of sounding redundant on these pages, I still have never understood why so many
Americans consider it OK, even the expression of a laudable "human right," to be able to kill
outright--to completely obliterate and snuff out the very existence of --a helpless fetus just
starting out life in the womb, the only way all we humans have begun. Abortion is being
repeatedly dubbed a "human right," but as a mother myself, I have not seen any justification for
abortion that actually makes sense to me on either an emotional or intellectual level.
It's not enough to say that a woman simply doesn't want a baby, even though she has engaged in
unprotected heterosexual relations, knowing full well that a pregnancy might then ensue. In fact,
the main purpose of sexual pleasure is simply to enable procreation. In my opinion, a unique human
being, whose gender and other attributes are already determined at conception deserves the same
opportunity as all the rest of us to go on living, even though that might inconvenience someone else.
Reuters, Study shows how a woman's brain reorganizes during pregnancy
If a surprise pregnancy then continues, the expectant mother's attitude may change. Even when a
pregnancy is unwelcome at first, the woman usually adapts to that new reality and often comes to
cherish her child. I'd often witnessed that in the era before Roe. Most human pregnancies actually
are unplanned and, like many life experiences, are unexpected. Probably very few of us were ever
deliberately conceived.
Remember the pregnant Texas teen, mentioned before on these pages, who, after being thwarted
by an abortion ban, went on to marry the father of her twin daughters? Probably that couple are still
raising their daughters together, facing the usual joys and problems of any family. There was also the
14-year-old girl adopted by a generous neighbor who helped that young mother care for her surprise
newborn triplets. The birth of triplets would certainly present a challenge to any parent. Still, those
unexpected births brought out the best in all concerned, resulting in producing living children, loved
and cared for even though not intentionally conceived.
To follow along on the thread of this subject, even convicted murderers should not be put to death
in my opinion.
The pressures on and expectations of modern day parents to raise heathy, happy offspring,
while also excelling on a paid job, certainly make the task of parenting more fraught than in the old
days when having children in a sexual relationship was simply expected and almost universal.
Children place many financial and other demands on their parents However, only in my lifetime
has not having kids become a realistic option for most sexually active heterosexual adults. Many now
choose to exercise that option by never becoming parents at all. The result has been a worldwide
baby bust.
Scandinavian countries have had some limited success lately in enticing couples to have kids by
offering generous parental leave and subsidies.
Vice President Kamala Harris's own economic plans include a proposal to provide a $6,000 tax credit
for parents of newborns and to bring back the pandemic-era expanded Child Tax Credit. Then if young
women and couples also start seeing more of their peers actually having children, that may persuade
some to do the same. People typically both follow and contribute to social trends.
But 2 kids per family is likely to remain the maximum, as most modern couples consider that having a
second child fulfills their duty toward a first child, while also not saddling them with excessive
childcare costs when a mother goes back to work. Look around you, as I have; I am not seeing any
young couples with more than 2 kids.
Of course babies don't stay babies for long. They go through successive life stages, some interesting and fun, some more challenging, then grow up to become adults who go on have their own
families, while assisting and providing care and companionship for their own elderly parents in turn.
Producing and raising children is an integral part of a continuous chain extending from the
dawn of human history on into the future. Obviously, without any babies, humankind ceases to exist
and our species becomes extinct.
Marriage rates and child bearing have especially cratered in China, Japan, and South Korea where
women, even more than men, seem to cherish the freedoms of a single life.
Axios, Pope Francis says both Trump and Harris are "against life"
According to the pontiff:
A society with a greedy generation, that doesn’t want to surround itself with children, that considers them above all worrisome, a weight, a risk, is a depressed society … The choice not to have children is selfish. Life rejuvenates and acquires energy when it multiplies: it is enriched, not impoverished.
Pope Francis is merely echoing scripture. He cites Psalm 127, describing children as "a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward." In Genesis, God tells Adam, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth…"
Hudson Institute, Religion in the Crossfire between Russia and Ukraine
President Biden may indeed be "outraged" that an American citizen was killed by Israeli forces, but
the US still has not halted the financial pipeline to Israel enabling such killings.
Now Israeli forces have even killed an American. How long is our government going to give Israel the
benefit of the doubt and to continue funding that country's war?
She recently graduated from a US university.
Now I'd like to mention a fellow blogger, Jose Azel, someone about 10 years my junior. I believe we once met at an event in Miami years ago. He left Cuba in 1961 at age 13, in Operation Pedro Pan, dubbed the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.
In his blog, the Azel Perspective, he now comments:
The membership of the 115th Congress reveals a profile
unrepresentative of the population. For example, whereas the median age of the
U.S. population is 38.1 years old, the average age of Members of the House is
57.8 years and of Senators 61.8 years. Of the 541 congressmen and women, 40 %
are lawyers, compared with one percent of lawyers in the U.S. population.
African Americans represent 12.1 % the U.S. population, but only one percent of
Congress is African American. And, only 21 % of our Congressional Representatives
are women.
Our Congressional Representatives are also better educated,
putatively more religious, and wealthier than we are. All Senators and 94.1 %
of House Members hold a four-year college degree, compared with 37 % of the
U.S. population. And, 22.8 % of the American population is religiously
unaffiliated yet, 98 % of Congress is affiliated with a specific religion. When
it comes to wealth, 7.4 % of U.S. households have a net worth above $1 million,
but nearly 40 % of our representatives are millionaires.
For better or worse, our electoral system does not produce a
government populated by individuals who are genuinely representative of society
at large.
Checking now on my own virtual connections, I've found LinkedIn reporting that I have some 700 blog followers, a modest, manageable number, happy to have them on aboard, with some in fairly regular communication. I really feel no need for my blog to go viral. But many thanks to all who have stuck with me over the years. (Please excuse font and other editing oddities that resist all my efforts at correction.)
This blog and its predecessor have actually existed since early 2009, so sometimes I just go back to reread key portions to confirm or amplify my memories. After my more than 8 decades living here on earth, sometimes my memory needs jogging, especially after I survived a fairly serious bout of Covid earlier this year. My recovery now seems to be stalled. So probably no further improvements
in either cognition or physical abilities can realistically be expected. I'm glad to have gone to Honduras when I did, perhaps just in time.
This colorful image on display at East City Art, a local arts venue, is also featured on its website.
Now I see some of my back porch houseplants growing at an unruly rate.
My biologist daughter can advise me on trimming them when she visits next month.
After I clicked recently on the Washington Post
on line, the following ad popped up How does someone there even know about my Spanish fluency? Here's the ad:
Te damos más formas de decir ¡Hola!
Obtén más formas de permanecer conectado a la distancia con tus seres queridos y más beneficios que antes para acercarlos aún más.
