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• Q & A with Mr. Tobar
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Tavis: Hector Tobar is the Mexico City bureau chief for the 'Los Angeles Times," who earlier in his career was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for the 'Los Angeles Times' coverage of the 1992 riots. He is also the author of the book, "Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States." Hector, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Hector Tobar: Hey, thanks for having me.

Tavis: Let me start our conversation with this subtitle, if I might, because I think the subtitle may very well speak to the angst that some people have in this country about this issue of immigration. "Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States." Let me split that right in half and take it one part at a time. "Defining a New American Identity." Isn't that the problem?

Tobar: Well, exactly. I think that increasingly in the United States, there are people who still speak Spanish, embrace the language of their grandfathers and their parents, a language which they still feel most comfortable speaking, and also embrace the idea of becoming Americans, the idea that they want to have their futures in this country, that they come here to embrace the freedom, the opportunity, that this country presents. Yet at the same time, they don't want to turn their backs on their roots. They don't want to completely assimilate to, you know, Anglo Saxon culture. They want to be able to sort of be Mexicanos and be Americans at the same time.

Tavis: Is that possible?

Tobar: I think it is. I think throughout its history, the United States has seen people come here with a notion of themselves that's European, that is African, that is Asian, and have been able to sort of incorporate themselves into the United States and also change the United States, change what it means to be an American.

Tavis: If people have a problem with defining a new American identity - and many people do obviously on the part of any particular group, in this case, Spanish-speaking individuals - they really have a problem with the second part of this subtitle, "in the Spanish-Speaking United States." There are those who will argue that you can't have a Spanish-speaking United States.

Tobar: Well, I would tend to agree. I mean, I think that language is one of those things that unifies a country. At the same time, I think it's possible to be multilingual, to have Spanish be part of your life, to have Spanish be the language in which you express the intimacies in your family, in which you talk about the family history, and have English be the language in which you go to work, the language in which you educate your children. I think in many Latino families, English is seen as sort of an accomplishment. You know, the fact that you've been able to conquer English.

I live in Mexico City now and you constantly see ads for English language study programs because people sort of see that as an achievement. So I think that people sort of want really to become Americans and embrace the idea of American-ness, but at the same time, I think they also feel rejected. They feel like the dominant culture doesn't really want them, so they embrace this idea of their Latin-ness as sort of a self-defense and also a sense of pride.

I mean, that's why people carry Mexican flags or Guatemalan flags or Hawaiian flags. I saw Argentinean flags in the protests. It was because it was a way of saying here we are marching for our rights, for our right to become Americans, but at the same time, we're not rejecting who we are. We're not going to allow ourselves to be intimidated, to have that part of our identity washed away.

Tavis: I don't ask this question out of any particular naiveté, but I am fascinated by whatever the answer you probably give me will be. How does one feel that a culture doesn't want one when everywhere one looks, one sees ads by every major corporation in America in Spanish? If they don't want you, they certainly want your money, so they're reaching out to you on some level. So how does one feel that the culture doesn't want you to be a part of the culture if everywhere you look you see them trying to accommodate your Spanish-speaking?

Tobar: Well, people are getting a double message. There's definitely a growing presence of Spanish media, of Spanish culture, in the United States. But at the same time, we have the legislation that was passed by the House which would have made a felon of anyone who had crossed the border illegally.

I think that, in that sort of ambivalence that people feel towards the United States and the ambivalence that the United States feels towards the immigrants, what happened when the House proposal was approved was that people felt the balance tilting towards that negativity, towards rejection. You know, they're going to build a wall. I mean, they talk about this in Mexico as if it were the Berlin Wall or the Wall of China. So I think people sort of felt a sense that we need to defend ourselves. We need to fall back on what we understand what's ours and what protects us.

Tavis: We are, with regard to this legislation and other pieces that have been proposed, as you well know, we're debating certainly political issues, we're debating economic issues, we're debating social issues. Let me raise, though, that fourth area that I think we ought to spend some time on which is the issue of cultural impact, which you talk about in this particular text.

If there is an argument to be made for embracing, for accepting, the cultural contribution that Spanish-speaking persons are bringing in with them into the country, if there's an argument to be made for that, what would that argument be?

Tobar: I think people bring a culture of hard work and ambition. Generally speaking, what Mexico is exporting to the United States is its ambition. It's because you can't conceive of even - you can't even dream of being a successful middle-class person if you're a poor person in Mexico. But if you bring yourself to the United States, you can dream of owning your own house, even having your own business, of sending your kids to a good university. That's a possible dream. So those ambitious people, that sort of hard-working person who comes, that's one of the things that Mexican people, Guatemalan people, Salvadoran people are contributing to American culture. They're contributing that.

They're also contributing a sense of the extended family. The extended family is sort of the core of our culture. It's that you have obligations to the family. You know, there are just many, many things. A sense of collectivity, the idea that we are a group with things in common. Yes, we embrace some parts of American individualism, but at the same time, we really believe in family unity and community unity.

Tavis: You represent, as an example, a growing number of Latinos or Hispanics in America, not in that we all have Pulitzer Prizes like you do. But you represent a growing number in that your parents came here legally from Guatemala and you were born here.

Tobar: Yes, that's right.

Tavis: All right. So there are a lot of folk just like you whose parents came either legally or illegally. They're born here now. English is their first language, quite frankly.

Tobar: Right, right.

Tavis: I have Hispanic and Latino friends who don't even speak Spanish at all.

Tobar: English is my first language.

Tavis: Exactly, English is your first language. What does your generation and the generations coming behind you, what contribution are they making? What challenge - let me just take one piece at a time. What contribution are they making to defining this new American identity? This particular generation?

Tobar: Well, yeah, my generation is like a bridge generation. I grew up in a city, Los Angeles, where Spanish really wasn't acceptable - it was sort of dismissed. It was a sign of backwardness if you spoke Spanish - to becoming an adult in Los Angeles where it was almost kind of a cool thing to be able to speak Spanish. People of my generation and my background would suddenly go and want to take Salsa classes because they felt like, hey, I should be able to know how to dance. I'm Latin, right?

So we're a generation that sort of has bridged that gap to where we've sort of seen assimilation go backwards. There's sort of a reverse assimilation. There's the desire to sort of know Latin America. So I think the generation that I'm a part of is one that has sort of built a bridge between Latin America and the United States where we recognize that, you know, Latin American history is now present here in the United States. There's a continuity that California is, in part, a Latin American place.

I tell people I'm from Los Angeles. It's the northernmost Latin American metropolis in the continent, you know. It's a Latin American city because what we've done is we have tried to find those roots, to go back to our hometowns. It's a very common thing for a Latino person of my generation to want to go back to Mexico or Guatemala. You know, go climb the Pyramids, see where we're from, and that's one thing. We've left behind the idea that we have to wipe away our brown selves to become good Americans.

Tavis: We've got about a minute to go. Let me ask you what your sense is with regard to where this debate is headed, given this new law that Georgia just passed. The state of Georgia moves in front of the House, in front of the Senate, passes a very restrictive piece of legislation where immigration is concerned. What's your sense of what that portends for legislation in the coming weeks and months around this country?

Tobar: Well, I think the country is divided like it's never been before about the immigrant and what he or she represents. I think the country is maybe not going to be able to come to terms with that in this legislative session. In the long-term, I think that increasingly, if there are more measures that seek to limit rights of Latino immigrants in the United States, there's going to be a Latino civil rights movement.

Part of my book is about the spread of this Latino community all across the United States. In this last round of demonstrations, we saw demonstrations in Charlotte, North Carolina, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in Atlanta, in places that people don't normally associate with Latino immigration.

Tavis: Not just border states.

Tobar: Not just border states, and really it's the awakening of a national Latino civil rights movement.

Tavis: He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His name is Hector Tobar. His new book now in paperback, "Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States." Hector, nice to have you on the program.

Tobar: Hey, thanks for having me, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you here.

Tobar: Thank you.

Tavis: Up next from "Desperate Housewives,' actor Ricardo Antonio Chavira. Carlos is here. Stay with us.