March 15, 2013

Mexican-American Eric Garcetti leads L.A. mayor vote

Barely anybody showed up to vote in the first round of the Los Angeles mayor's race last week, but the leader was men's clothier heir Eric Garcetti, the least casually dressed Southern Californian since George S. Patton. (The candidate is the son of the D.A. who botched the O.J. prosecution, Gil Garcetti. Eric's education: UCLA Lab School, Harvard-Westlake, Columbia U., Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and London School of Economics). For complicated dynastic reasons that I can't quite keep straight in my head, the aristocratic Garcetti insists that he is the Mexican candidate in the race. 

Lately, it seems like the best career gimmick is to be a white guy with some sort of claim on being Hispanic. (Okay, the best of all is to be a super-WASPy black like the President, but that seems rarer to pull off.) In 2013, you don't even have to be Spanish-surnamed. An Italian one like Garcetti or Bergoglio will do just fine.

30 comments:

  1. Lately, you don't even have to have a Spanish-surname. An Italian one like Garcetti or Bergoglio will do just fine.

    Having a surname ending in a vowel may be important. That may be how Alberto Fujimori became president of Peru.

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  2. We are going to see increasing numbers of Southern Europeans claiming not to be white.

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  3. For genealogical reasons that I can't quite keep straight in my head, Garcetti asserts that he is the Mexican candidate in the race.

    ***COUGH*** Who is Hispanic? ***COUGH***

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  4. We are going to see increasing numbers of Southern Europeans claiming not to be white.

    "Hispanic" and "Latino" aren't racial categories.

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  5. "Jorge Mario Bergoglio: Is The New Pope Latino?"

    http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/03/jorge_mario_bergoglio_new_pope_latino_spanish.php

    "So is this guy the church's first Latino pope?

    Tough question:


    That's like asking if L.A. mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti is Latino (he insists he is, pointing to his family's time in Mexico).

    Argentinians are often of pure Italian blood, and Bergoglio's name certainly points to that.

    The question is, how do you define Latino? Does a Latino have to have indigenous blood?"

    "Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor at UCLA's Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies, votes no doubt when it comes to the question of whether Bergoglio should be considered the church's first Latino pope.

    "Yes," he says. "We can consider him Latino in various respects."

    He says using a test of indigenous blood -- the pope's parents are from Italy -- "would eliminate a large part of Latin America and a lot of Latinos." (Salma Hayek and world's-richest-guy Carlos Slim of Mexico might not be considered Latino if indigenous blood were used as the litmus test).

    "More important," Hinojosa-Ojeda says, "is the experience, not the genetic background."

    He said the conclave was clearly conscious of Bergoglio's Latin American roots when it elevated him today"

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  6. I love how you expose the "hispanic" bullshit.

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  7. he candidate is the son of the D.A. who botched the O.J. prosecution, Gil Garcetti. Eric's education: UCLA Lab School, Harvard-Westlake, Columbia U., Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and London School of Economics). "

    His father was the DA, so how could he afford Harvard-Westlake? I thought that was a really expensive school.

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  8. Gil's father-in-law was owner of Louis Roth and Co., a national menswear company. Presumably, that's why the grandson Eric is so distractingly well-dressed at all times: it's a family tradition.

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  9. We are going to see increasing numbers of Southern Europeans claiming not to be white.
    Looks like it.

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  10. OT:

    The WSJ had an op ed about taking a NAFTA approach to immigration which would let Mexicans work and live legally in the US as Europeans can within the EU. I am trying to think through the implications of open borders among Canada, Mexico, and the US. Presumably Mexicans in the US wouldn't be able to vote or get welfare.

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  11. In the mid-19th century, two French Canadians and one Frenchman were Mayors of Los Angeles. Were they the Hispanic candidates like the Italians are now?

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  12. So as a half italian american, i can get myself in on this racket? I did vacation in puerto rico once as well.

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  13. Would those be the Aberdeen MacRoths or the Edinburgh MacRoths?

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  14. Hmmm... So he'd rather identify as a Hispanic and not a Jew?

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  15. Doesn't this guy look a lot like Phil Dunphy from Modern Family?

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  16. "Phil Dunphy from Modern Family?"

    A more sheveled Phil Dunphy.

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  17. Nothing to see here folks. Just another white guy pretending to be something he's not.

    I wonder are REAL hispanics fooled by these guys?

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  18. Funny thing is in this race, Garcetti, Perry (the black candidate), and Gruehl (married to a Jewish man) each claimed the Hebraic mantel. This was a notable incident of demographic obliviousness even for L.A.

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  19. He resembles former Mexican Presidente Vincente Fox, with maybe the same shaped head.

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  20. elvisid - Snooki is of hispanic origin, adopted by Italian-Americans. So there could be some kind of mestizo thing going on with her.

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  21. Honestly finally a white hispanic that looks exactly like a famous white person (Ty Burrell aka Phil Dunphy) and Steve is no where to be found. At least he didn't put Garcetti side by side with Stanley Tucci.

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  22. Torn and Frayed3/16/13, 3:29 AM

    The purpose of Identify Politics is to convince people to divide into racial, ethnic, gender, and / or sexual orientation factions. By emphasizing these categories, the only division that really matters, economic class, is obfuscated.

    So instead of talking about Garcetti’s “aristocratic” background, he wisely mentions his Mexican grandparents on his father’s side. In front of quite different audiences he will surely also mention his Jewish mother. And given his looks and manner of dress, he will do just fine among the gay male demographic. So under Identity Politics, Garcetti goes from total rich boy, to a Mexican- Jew /Gay Icon.

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  23. Presumably Mexicans in the US wouldn't be able to vote or get welfare.
    3/15/13, 6:42 PM The Wall street Journal is bullshit. Illegal Immirgants who tend to have more kids than the general population always get free and reduce lunches for their kiddies for about 30 years this has happen. Personality reading some stats Texas is not dong much better than Pa, or Wi and so forth. So the Republican philosphy of low taxes, regulation and a lot of Hispanics isn't working that great.

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  24. "There are lots of Italians who look more "ethnic" than, say, Marco Rubio."

    I knew lots in Catholic school, and Nnever associated any of them with blacks, or any other "ethnic" except what they were. You were black, or you were white. I don't remember finer distinctions being made. Maybe an Asian here or there. Mestizos not yet in evidence.
    I think there is a trolling element that is trying to create categories among people where none of any significance existed 40 years ago, much less now. And if they keep it up there will be no "white" people left, as everyone will have defined themselves as something else. No AA tax base anymore--hey, maybe that's the plan...
    I lived in an area where black/white tensions were very high. . I counted about two, maybe thee,in the entire Sopranos cast; and they were pretty representative of unmixed Italians in America. Big Pussy looked like a fat Arab, and the fat homo -- Vito I think was the name -- looked a little like a fat Mexican mestizo. Most of the others just looked like fat (mostly) Italians (or whatever). Most were clearly Italian, but of those whose origins were not obvious, more looked like they could could have been Bavarians than looked like some third world nationality. The phenotype of many Italians who are of the darker type, with their chisled features, resembles that of Arabs. Carlton Coon points out that the striations in human facial musculature, create expression. Facial musculature in Negroids (or sub-Saharan) is very smooth--good for not aging so much. Their expressions are conveyed more by the rolling eyes than is the case with Caucasoids. Coon provides photos of an Italian grinning joyously, lines in the face expressing the emotion, and a black man doing the same. You can see exactly what he means. The black man's face is much smoother despite being a similar age.

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  25. My son is almost entirely English, German, and French, but 1/8 Italian with an Italian surname. He has fair skin and blonde hair. Can he get in on this, too, or do you have to look at least somewhat ethnic?

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  26. Honestly finally a white hispanic that looks exactly like a famous white person (Ty Burrell aka Phil Dunphy)

    The actual physical resemblance is slight. It's the pose and facial expression that make you think of Phil Dunphy.

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  27. If the pope looks like jeffery tambour then this guy amd ty were seperated at birth.

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  28. The Garcetti's are of Jewish Russian ancestry and Italo-Mexican parentage, Garcetti is unquestionably Latino, though he has litle or no ancestors from Spain. Finally I must point out that no one has claimed that Garcetti is not white. Apparently some commenters think that hispanics cannot be white, or that white hispanics are not "real hispanic". quite the contrary, King Juan Carlos is a real pure blood hispanic. Not all Mexicans are hispanic by the way, about 10% do not speak Spanish and are Indios.

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  29. elvisid - Snooki is of hispanic origin, adopted by Italian-Americans. So there could be some kind of mestizo thing going on with her.

    And she was born in Chile- where a chunk of the population is of Italian ancestry,

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