The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America

by Nicolas C. Vaca PhD

Overview

“A hard and unnerving look at how changing demographics will forever alter our country’s dialogue on race.” — San Jose Mercury News

As Latino and African Americans increasingly live side by side in large urban centers, as well as in suburban clusters, the idealized concept of a "Rainbow Coalition" would suggest that these two disenfranchised groups are natural political allies. Indeed, as the number of Latinos has increased dramatically over the last ten years, competition over power and resources between these two groups has led to surprisingly antagonistic and uncooperative interactions. Many African Americans now view Latinos, because of their growth in numbers, as a threat to their social, economic, and political gains.

Nicolas C. Vaca debunks the myth of "The Great Union" and offers the hope he believes each community could learn from, in order to achieve a mutually agreed upon agenda. More than simply unveiling the problem, The Presumed Alliance offers optimistic solutions to the future relations between Latino and Black America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060522056
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/17/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Nicolas C. Vaca holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a practicing attorney in the Bay Area and has been a visiting scholar at University of California at Berkeley for the past two years. An award-winning journalist, Vaca is also a contributing writer to the prestigious journal California Lawyer. He lives in California.

Read an Excerpt

The Presumed Alliance
The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America

Introduction

Shortly after the 2000 Census released its numbers pronouncing that the Latino population at 35.3 million was closing in on the African American population at 36.4 million, the Charlotte Post, an African American newspaper published in Charlotte, North Carolina, asked one of its writers, Artellia Burch, to go out and get the reaction of Charlotte's Black population to this startling fact. The census had revealed that Charlotte's Hispanic population grew from 9817 in 1990 to 77,092 in 2000, a 685 percent increase over the last 10 years. Little wonder that the Charlotte Post wanted to know what its readership thought about this.

Burch dutifully interviewed various Black residents of Charlotte and published her interviews in a piece entitled "When Worlds Collide: Blacks Have Reservations About Influx of Hispanic Immigrants." The story contained quotes from Black residents which reflected some of the worst stereotypes of Latinos. For example, an African American computer technician unabashedly admitted that he was prejudiced against Latinos. He said, "I definitely think they are people to fear. . . . They travel in packs. They like to play stupid acting as if they don't understand English when you know they do. A group of them will sit around and talk to each other in their language. They could be plotting to kill you and you would never know."

The computer technician's mean-spirited observations of Latinos were not restricted to their potentially menacing ways. No, he was also concerned with the loss of jobs to the newly arrived immigrants. "They are taking over," he said. "They're taking all of our jobs. Slowly but surely. I just don't care to be around them. They make my skin crawl. I keep my ideas to myself. This might sound bad, but I don't go around making remarks about them to other people. So, only God can judge me."

Another respondent, an African American computer engineer, said that he was not surprised that Latino numbers were now nearly even with Blacks. Why not? Because "Hispanics come over here, start businesses, and multiply like rabbits. . . . It's no surprise they outnumber us because they have a baby every year." These and other equally disparaging observations from Black residents of Charlotte landed Burch in a firestorm of controversy. She was interviewed by Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal's website had a link to her story. The controversy was so great that BlackPressUSA.com, which carried Burch's story on its website, felt compelled to remove it.

Burch's sin, if her story can be called that, was that she exposed what everyone believed was a well-kept secret. The secret was this: Because Latinos and Blacks have been exploited and suffered poverty and discrimination, and because they are both people of "color," it is commonly assumed that Blacks would not only not disparage the new Latino arrivals but would sympathize and understand the marginal nature of their lives. It was this presumed ideological alliance between Blacks and Latinos that Burch's story exposed in a very direct and graphic manner. It was the political incorrectness of the views expressed by her interviewees that caused the controversy.

When I committed to writing this book I did so with the knowledge that I too would likely become the focus of high-tension emotions. I got a taste of what I could expect one evening when I met with a couple of Latino attorney friends for drinks and what I thought would be an enlightened discussion about the subject matter of this book. One of the attorneys was of Peruvian heritage and the other was a veteran, like myself, of 1970s Chicano activism.

When we got together, I presented a broad-stroke synopsis of the book to my colleagues. Even before our first drinks arrived, the Chicano attorney became agitated and challenged the need for such a book, arguing, categorically, that all the book would do is exaggerate an already existing division between Latinos and Blacks. "Something that the gringo wants and which he can exploit." The words came out like well-rehearsed lines -- no surprise to me since such a perspective had been in existence since the 1970s Third-World Strike Movement in the San Francisco Bay Area and was accepted gospel by many Chicano and Black activists.

I responded by telling him that the 2000 Census made the discussion of the relationship between Latinos and Blacks essential -- that Latino birthrates and immigration, both legal and illegal, cranked up the Latino population to such a level that it almost equaled the Black population and was projected to outstrip it in the near future. Our population growth, I continued, was such that any dialogue on race relations in the United States could no longer be restricted to the Black-White dynamic but had to include Latinos as well and that a major component of that discussion had to address any problems between Blacks and Latinos. The Chicano attorney persisted with his assault and told me that what I should focus on is building bridges between Blacks and Latinos. How could we build bridges, I responded, unless we examined the basis of any conflict? The Latino attorney, perceiving that emotions were escalating, tried to calm the waters by telling the Chicano attorney that all I was doing was discussing what existed -- I had not created the conflict, I was only addressing it. The Chicano attorney flicked the Latino's comments aside with a wave of his hand and continued with his barrage, his voice now two octaves higher than when we began our conversation. When it was clear that I would not come around to his position, he announced that he was leaving and that I should not expect any further calls from him. I was surprised by both the emotional level of our conversation and the dramatic manner in which it ended. Here was someone I had known for some years, with whom I had socialized on many occasions, who belonged to some of the same professional organizations that I did, but who had no compunction about terminating our friendship simply because of the subject matter of this book. If this was his reaction, what could I expect from those with whom I had no such ties?

The irony of the Chicano attorney's reaction was not lost on me. Neither Burch nor I were the first to address this issue. The troubled relationship between Blacks and Latinos had been broached before by Latinos, Blacks, and whites because the conflict between Latinos and Blacks had been perceived, and if not perceived then anticipated, by academics and laypeople years before Burch's article appeared. It had also been discussed in direct and uncompromising ways. An example of this was the division between Latinos and Blacks over immigration that manifested itself in the 1980s when Congress, concerned with controlling illegal immigration, began putting together what would later become known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). A component of IRCA was an employer sanctions provision, which, for the first time ever in the history of immigration legislation, imposed federal civil and criminal penalties on employers who knowingly hired, recruited, or referred aliens who are not authorized to work by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

When IRCA was wending its way through Congress, spokespeople from Latino and other minority groups warned that employers would be so afraid of violating the law that they "would not hire foreign-looking or foreign-sounding U.S. citizens or aliens who were legally authorized to work," thereby discriminating against Latinos and other minorities. However, the NAACP and labor organizations supported the employer sanctions provision as a way of combating illegal immigration.

The chickens came home to roost on March 29, 1990, approximately six years after passage of IRCA, when the U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report, the third in a series, concluding that the IRCA sanctions resulted in widespread discrimination against eligible workers who appeared to be foreign or who sounded foreign. Latinos' worst fears were confirmed.

The Presumed Alliance
The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America. Copyright © by Nicolas Vaca. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Introduction	1
1	The Latino Tsunami: The Browning of America	17
2	Somewhere over the Rainbow Coalition: The Zero-Sum Game and Black-Latino Conflict	48
3	Who's the Leader of the Civil Rights Band? Latinos' Role in Brown v. Board of Education	62
4	The Folly of Presumption: Black Voters and the Los Angeles 2001 Mayoral Election	85
5	Passed By and Shut Out: Blacks Trapped in Miami's Latino Vortex	108
6	When Blacks Rule: Lessons from Compton	127
7	Houston, We Have a Problem: Latinos Abandon Party Loyalty to Vote for One of Their Own	146
8	The Big Manzana: The Troubled Road to a Latino-Black Coalition and the Latino Mosaic of New York City	169
9	Visions of the Future	185
	Notes	203
	Index	229

Editorial Reviews

Nicolás Vaca has written a brave and path-breaking book. For too long, commentators have ignored important differences between the experiences of blacks and Latinos in the United States, to the detriment of a full understanding of both groups. With grace and scholarly attention to detail, Vaca demonstrates that Latinos’ interests are not always identical to those of blacks. Vaca shows that the presumed alliance between the two groups is less a fact than it is a product of wishful thinking on the part of civil rights activists.” — Linda Chavez, author of Out of the Barrio and An Unlikely Conservative

“The most thorough analysis yet of Black/Latino relations. This is an in-depth look at the shifting sands of ethnic politics.” — Bob Blauner, author of Still the Big News: Racial Oppression and Black Lives, White Lives: Three Decades of Race Relations in America

“The work puts the often conflicted relationship between blacks and Latinos into the context of immigration and the dramatic growth in the Latino population. The topic of black/Latino will certainly become more heated in the years to come as Latinos are now the nation’s largest minority. Vaca’s narrative is provocative and often disturbing. It will no doubt illicit heated responses, which hopefully will lead to a better understanding.” — Rudy Acuña, author of Occupied America: A History of Chicanos and Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles

“A frank discussion on the latest taboo subject in the race milieu: the growing tension between Latinos and blacks.” — San Jose Mercury News

“A thought-provoking book.” — New York Post

“A riveting narrative...Vaca’s well-researched book is essential reading for anyone desiring an understanding of the future of ethnographic conflict in the United States.” — Booklist

“A thoughtful political/historical essay on the profound gulf that yawns between America’s most populous minority groups.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Fascinating and complicated...Vaca tears off the rose-colored glasses, bids farewell to political correctness and handles the subject matter with genuine interest and expertise.” — Hartford Courant

“The Presumed Alliance explores [two] conflicting perceptions with refreshing candor. Vaca demythologizes the idealized concept of the “rainbow coalition” and calls on both [Latinos and African-Americans] to reintroduce themselves to each other.” — Clarence Page

"Nicolas C. Vaca, a pioneer of the Chicano movement, has taken on the biggest version of this problem. . . . Vaca gives us the first serious discussion of these divisions and the hanging fears that still accompany them.” — Denver Post

From the Publisher

"Nicolas C. Vaca, a pioneer of the Chicano movement, has taken on the biggest version of this problem. . . . Vaca gives us the first serious discussion of these divisions and the hanging fears that still accompany them.

Denver Post

A riveting narrative...Vaca’s well-researched book is essential reading for anyone desiring an understanding of the future of ethnographic conflict in the United States.

Booklist

Fascinating and complicated...Vaca tears off the rose-colored glasses, bids farewell to political correctness and handles the subject matter with genuine interest and expertise.

Hartford Courant

The work puts the often conflicted relationship between blacks and Latinos into the context of immigration and the dramatic growth in the Latino population. The topic of black/Latino will certainly become more heated in the years to come as Latinos are now the nation’s largest minority. Vaca’s narrative is provocative and often disturbing. It will no doubt illicit heated responses, which hopefully will lead to a better understanding.

Rudy Acuña

The most thorough analysis yet of Black/Latino relations. This is an in-depth look at the shifting sands of ethnic politics.

Bob Blauner

A thought-provoking book.

New York Post

Nicolás Vaca has written a brave and path-breaking book. For too long, commentators have ignored important differences between the experiences of blacks and Latinos in the United States, to the detriment of a full understanding of both groups. With grace and scholarly attention to detail, Vaca demonstrates that Latinos’ interests are not always identical to those of blacks. Vaca shows that the presumed alliance between the two groups is less a fact than it is a product of wishful thinking on the part of civil rights activists.

Linda Chavez

A frank discussion on the latest taboo subject in the race milieu: the growing tension between Latinos and blacks.

San Jose Mercury News

The Presumed Alliance explores [two] conflicting perceptions with refreshing candor. Vaca demythologizes the idealized concept of the “rainbow coalition” and calls on both [Latinos and African-Americans] to reintroduce themselves to each other.

Clarence Page

A riveting narrative...Vaca’s well-researched book is essential reading for anyone desiring an understanding of the future of ethnographic conflict in the United States.

Booklist

A thought-provoking book.

New York Post

January 2003 may have passed quietly for many, but it marked an inevitable change in American demographics-Hispanics surpassed African Americans as the nation's largest minority. In a riveting narrative, Vaca, an attorney with a Ph.D. in sociology, explores what has often been presumed: a black and Hispanic political alliance. Yet he argues that an alliance is not feasible, as the two ethnic groups compete for jobs, political clout, and educational opportunities. Vaca jumps into this fray without trepidation, though he is aware of the criticism he brings upon himself. His focal point is what he terms the "Hispanic tsunami," a powerful pattern of growth in the American Hispanic population. As examples, Vaca cites political conflict in New York, Houston, Compton (CA), and Miami. There is an excellent chapter on a 1946 California court case involving Hispanics' access to education, challenging the position that Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was the pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement. Vaca's well-researched book is essential reading for anyone desiring an understanding of the future of ethnographic conflict in the United States. Recommended for all academic and public libraries.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A thoughtful political/historical essay on the profound gulf that yawns between America's most populous minority groups. The US is browning, writes attorney and publisher Vaca, but not in a single shade. Although African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans share overlapping, sometimes even identical, political interests as long-oppressed minorities, and although many efforts have been made to forge rainbow-coalition alliances among them, he argues, "the reality is that there exists a divide between Blacks and Latinos that no amount of camouflage can hide." This divide has been widening recently, Vaca observes. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, saw a 785 percent increase in its Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000; the influx caused local African-Americans to voice fears about their new neighbors, with one remarking to a newspaper reporter, "[Latinos] travel in packs. . . . They could be plotting to kill you and you would never know." Such sentiments, Vaca writes, put the lie to the longstanding assumption that blacks and Hispanics are natural allies, both having been marginalized and victimized over much of the last two centuries. Such an alliance is ever more rhetorical, where it exists at all, especially now that Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the nation's largest minority group and have acquired significant political power on their own. In this regard, Vaca cites several cases where Latino voters have broken from the largely Democratic minority bloc to pursue their own interests in places like LA, which has seen a pitched struggle between African-American and Latino leaders over control of local government boards, and Houston, where a popular black mayor nearly lost officewhen Hispanic voters deserted him for one of their own. Can an alliance be forged? Vaca doesn't rule out the possibility. Demographers, activists, and political forecasters will want to consult his analysis.

Kirkus Reviews