Small rainbows of our own making are there, to brighten a long road through hellish times. It is in such practice, through daily struggle together, that we are most likely to find the road to greater solidarity against a common enemy. But we also need a will to find it and ideas about where, including some new theory. This, despite such data as a 24.4 percent Latino population of New York City alone in 1991, or the fact that in 1990 more Puerto Ricans were killed by New York police under suspicious circumstances than any other ethnic group. Latino populations are growing rapidly in many eastern cities and the rural South, yet remain invisibile or stigmatized - usually both.
Eastern blinders persist.
I've even heard that the need for a new racial paradigm is dismissed in New York as a California hangup. It would seem that an old ignorance has combined with new immigrant bashing to sustain divisions today. If the West Coast has more recognition of those who are neither Black nor white, it is mostly out of fear about the proximate demise of its white majority. A second, closely related reason is the relentless campaign by California Gov. Pete Wilson to scapegoat immigrants for economic problems and pass racist, unconstitutional laws attacking their health, education, and children's future. Wilson's immigrant bashing is likely to provide a model for other parts of the country.