East Coast v. West Coast

True to my disciplined approach to life, my first topical post will not deal with the South Bronx or Veganism. Me being me.

Joe Hirsch, of the Mott Haven Herald, writes that New York State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. "is concerned that Puerto Ricans and New Yorkers are being left out" of a commission studying the creation and funding of the National Museum of the American Latino, a future project that has gained bi-partisan support as well as the support of president Obama.

Leaving the main concern of Senator Diaz aside for the moment, this issue around the museum reminds me of some observations I made during a trip back in 2005 to San Francisco. My trip back then taught me about the almost absolute institutional disconnect that both official and 'underground' cultural players have as to the respective plights of the Latino and Latin American artistic communities in the East and West of the country. In other words, our peers in San Francisco knew very little about Latin American cultural life in New York, and vice-versa.

Is this issue of the museum excluding New Yorkers the first clash between both cultural communities? THAT might be interesting!

Florida, Nevada and California have members in the commission, New York has zero. Why? Might it be that the leadership in those states is fairly homogeneous (Cubans in Florida, Chicanos in both Nevada and California) while there is much infighting for resources and attention among the myriad micro-communities of artists and ethnic enclaves in the New York City Latino and Latin American community? Hummm? That, I guess, is not a question, but my hypothesis.

The Latin population in New York City is changing so fast that it is hard to imagine for those not interested. But the changes are huge and will have an impact on everybody. I guess, true to the New York spirit, people will only notice when their rents are affected. And they will. Ha!