If you're to find a job in the U.S. it better be off Spanish-language TV

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Spanish-language TV journalists in the Bay Area are paid 25% less that their angloparlantes counterparts, even though the Univision local station, "KDTV has beaten most of its Bay Area English-language competitors in various ratings contests".

The problem is, brown audiences are still considered poor, cheap. Naquitos, pues.

For someone like me, or dozens of friends of mine, who've worked for a number of years in Spanish-language media in the U.S. this ain't news looooong before this news broke. But some other gringo colleagues have just found out due to the SFC story, and they seem pretty pissed. Guanabee picked up the story, and then Gawker picked up Guanabee's take on the story.

If you want to pick up my take on the story, go to my FB page and read.

Aside from the is-this-news-or-what debate, what do you think, dear paisanos? Are y'all experiencing the downside of your Latino accents at your own working places? Por favor, cuéntenmelo todo, in any language you like.

Major accents accepted.

The New York Times got it so damn right this time around

The 'México lindo y querido Syndrome', exposed

The Washington Post published today the results of a study sponsored by the Manhattan Institute that revealed that while "immigrants of the past quarter-century have been assimilating in the United States at a notably faster rate than did previous generations (...) The gap between today's foreign-born and native populations remains far wider than it was in the early 1900s and is particularly large in the case of Mexican immigrants".

Source: The Washington Post

Jacob L. Vigdor, a professor at Duke University and the author of the study, is quoted in the story explaining that a possible explanation for this accelerated assimilation process was "that the economic expansion of the 1990s created more job opportunities at all levels, speeding the economic integration of immigrants. It could also be that because today's immigrants begin at such a low starting point, 'it's easier to make progress to the next level up' of integration than it would be if the immigrant had to improve on an already high level of integration."

The last three paragraphs of the story are devoted to explain why Mexican immigrants hold one of the lowest levels of assimilation, according to the study's results. Please read:

"The overall assimilation index also masks big differences between immigrants from certain countries. Mexicans, for example have an index of 13, while Vietnamese were at 41. And although immigrants who arrived as children tend to be nearly identical to their U.S.-born counterparts, apart from their lower rates of citizenship, those who come from Mexico are less assimilated and have higher incidences of teenage pregnancy and incarceration.

"A major reason for these disparities in assimilation levels may be the high percentage of Mexican immigrants who are in the country illegally, Vigdor said. When only cultural factors are considered, Mexicans score almost as high as Vietnamese and higher than immigrants from countries such as India and China, which tend to have a high rate of immigration to the United States.

" 'If you're in the country illegally, a lot of the avenues of assimilation are cut off to you,' he said. 'There are lot of jobs you can't get, and you can't become a citizen.'

Among the ten largest immigrant groups featured in the story, Mexicans rank number 10 on 'Civic Assimilation' while they are just on the middle of the list when it comes to 'Cultural Assimilation'. They're below other Latin American contingents, such as Cubans, Dominicans or Salvadoreans, but they're above--more culturally assimilated, that is--than Indians and Chinese.

I've always backed the theory that explains the existence of a Mexican malaise called the 'México lindo y querido Syndrome'. This largely common maldición depicts the Mexican unabashed resistance to assimilation, not only in the U.S., but everywhere we end up moving to.

We're addicted to our mother country, we think assimilating to a different country is traición a la patria, is betraying our nation. Why adjusting to this new place, we think, if eventually we'll go back home, where everything goes?

Vigdor makes a point at underscoring how hard it is to adjust when you're illegally in this country, how difficult doing anything is when you're always afraid of la chota, the authorities. But I know a bunch of Mexican legal immigrants who would sell their mother for two hundred pesos before fully assimilating to the U.S.

Why is it so hard to leave all that behind? Is it, maybe, because it is all, Mexico, so close to el gabacho, that we think we're still there, that we hope that, one morning we'll wake up and here will become there?

Desde BCN, tierra de tlaxcaltecas, Melody Balzhur

México y España, dice todo el mundo, son algo así como países hermanos. A mi padre, que murió hace más de diez años, le fascinaba España: la copla, la comida, Granada y que la gente hablara español. No es el único; conozco infinidad de mexicanos que sienten una auténtica fascinación por España. Una fascinación que yo comparto. No por nada me casé con una madrileña, viví tres años allá y uno de mis hijos nació en el madrileñísimo hospital La Paz.

Antes de vivir en España tenía la impresión de que en el imaginario colectivo mexicano España era considerado un país muy parecido a México. Mi contacto cercano con la tierra de Javier Cercas y Miguel Albaladejo--dos fascinantes exponentes de la cultura ibérica no tan conocidos en México como, por ejemplo, David Bisbal o Rocío Durcal (también fascinantes; don't get me wrong, and I'm not joking about it)--me ha hecho cambiar un poco de parecer. Creo que México y España son un poco como los inmigrantes mexicanos que llegan a EEUU y los mexicoamericanos: comparten una base cultural común, pero son muy distintos entre sí. Su identidad inicia en un punto común, pero las líneas de su vida se van alejando conforme avanzan y nunca vuelven a juntarse.




¿Qué tan distintos o qué tan parecidos son España y México o, digamos, el Distrito Federal y Barcelona? Eso pienso preguntárselo a Melody Balzhur cuando hable con ella a finales de esta semana.

"Melody who?" you may ask. Melody--cuyo nombre verdadero es otro, pero no le he preguntado si quiere que lo reproduzca en este espacio--es una de las moderadoras de los foros en la página Mexicanos en España, un sitio de encuentro de todos los paisanos que radican en el país que dio al mundo, entre otras aportaciones subyugantes, el concepto Operación Triunfo y la inconmensurable Lola Flores.

"Por mucho que me pese --pensando en otros mexicanos que han tenido las cosas más difíciles [en su proceso de integración a España]--, he de decir que tengo la suerte de poder estar más que bien instalada en Barcelona. Hace 4 años que vivo aquí y, tal como dices, uno es de donde ha elegido vivir. Así que ahora mismo puedo decir que soy catalana además de tlaxcalteca", escribió Balzhur--¿también el apellido es ficticio? Se lo preguntaré--en su mensaje de respuesta a mi petición de entrevista para PSN.

España, lo sé de primera mano, no es un lugar fácil para un inmigrante, por lo menos para un inmigrante del tipo PSN (again, middle and upper class Mexican young professionals), pero preferiría que otros mexicanos que han probado el Sueño Ibérico (as opposed to the American Dream, that is) compartieran su experiencia aquí.

Para abrir boca, Melody, en breve. Y para cerrar con una nota musical, la Faraona. Quién más si no.