Two Worlds Woven Together.

The Hispank Condition By Ilan Stavans HarperCollins Publishers US$14

This book by Mexican-born novelist and professor Ilan Stavans, who lives in Massachusetts, tells the story of an odyssey begun more than a century ago by the millions of Latin Americans in a constant exodus toward the United States. It's also the story of how Latin American immigrants adapted to a different culture and a different language in a sometimes hostile environment.

Mexican immigrants, who make up most of the Hispanic population in the United States, have always considered the Rio Grande (or the Rio Bravo, as Mexicans know it) as a simple obstacle to jobs and the search for economic opportunity, an obstacle overcome by workers every day until border crossings became more rigorous. Geographic closeness, the constant stream of migrants, ties to the culture and world from which they came were all factors that helped Hispanics maintain their identity while adapting to U.S. society.

At the same time, Stavans questions the perception that Latin Americans in the United States are a monolithic community. The first part of the hook is an analysis of the cultural and historical details that differentiate the largest groups of Latin American immigrants: Mexicans, Caribbeans and Central Americans. To these groups, add the fugitives of economic disasters in Colombia, Argentina and Peru. Each brings a clear nationality and its own idiosyncrasies but in the United States, the author points out, differences are losing importance because of mixing, common language and political convenience.

Stavans tells the story of changing perceptions held by North American anglos toward their one-time neighbors in the south, who now are much closer--in the next subdivision or even the house next door. He says that what once was a negative stereotype, marked by prejudice and ignorance of others has become a friendlier image, forged by coexistence and contact between the two worlds. Still, mutual lack of understanding and, often, rejection, persist. In Miami, the city where I write this article, ethnic divisions are physically reflected in geography: There is a Hispanic Miami, a black Miami and an anglo Miami. Nevertheless, such borders become blurred in many areas of the ethnic mosaic, not only in south Florida but in other urban centers of the United States. Where Latin American immigrants live, physical and cultural mixing is a reality. Hispanics have dropped into the ever-boiling melting pot--and they are radically changing U.S. society.

Stavans speaks of the Hispanization of the United States, but also of the opposite phenomenon: The North-Americanizing of Hispanics. This phenomenon is not limited to Latin Americans in the United States; it crosses the Rio Grande. In fact, it began crossing the border long ago, but globalization and the hegemony of U.S. corporations have given it new vigor. Imitation of business practices, creation of or changes in institutions and resolution of social problems are all reflected in Hispanic mass culture (mainly on television) and in the adoption of strange, but popular, language twists. Stavans observes that in New Jersey Hispanics do not say mercado but marketa (from the English word market), while in Cuba, for several decades now, nobody estaciona a car. Instead, they parquea (park a car). Cache, the word for automobile in Spain and some Latin American countries, is used in Cuba to describe only a horse cart, a vehicle long abandoned. This book is the history of the relation between two different worlds, w oven together

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Excerpt from: The Hispanic Condition

"Las apariencias enganan. Appearances are always deceiving: on the surface, Latinos appear to be a homogeneous minority, thinking and acting and speaking alike; but nothing is further from the truth. Diversity is their trademark. True, in one way or another, we are all children of lascivious Iberians and raped Indian and African maidens, and yet heterogeneity rules: Latinos are blacks, Spaniards, Indians, mulattos, and mestizos. Unlike the African and Asian minorities in the United States, we share one language (Brazilians, French Caribbeans, and Guyanans excepted), one cultural background, and a single religion, Catholicism (although other faiths coexist in the Hispanic world and lately a large number of believers have switched to Protestantism). Those who are aware of the tensions within the Latino community know that Cubans tend to look down on Dominicans, who in turn ridicule Puerto Ricans, and so on."