پرتره های سیاسی لاتین و انگلیسی: درس هایی از تحقیقات میدانی میان فرهنگی

Authors report sharply contrasting portraits of Anglo and Latino political values and behaviors, urging careful consideration of these differences in plans to include Latinos in civic life in the US. Reported data were collected during two and one half years of ethnographic field research which accompanied a domestic diversity program.1 Developed in the Washington, DC metro area, the Hispanic Leadership Project set out to prepare leaders from a recently arrived Latino immigrant population — primarily from El Salvador — to advocate and form political alliances on behalf of their people. With joint local government and private foundation support, project designers sought alternatives to the marginalization and misrepresentation which are common experiences of Latino peoples recently settled in the US. Intentionally inclusive, but accidentally ethnocentric, the Hispanic Leadership Program could not realize most of its ambitious goals for social change, but proved to be a very heuristically powerful approach to set certain Anglo and Latino cultural patterns in bold relief, particularly those related to political self-expression and world view. Despite the specific features of its context and participants, the project offers broader lessons to guide future research and practice; noted are guidelines for quantitative follow-up study and for subsequent efforts to foster Latino participation in politics. The Hispanic Leadership Project and companion research are offered as a demonstration of learning to be extracted from putative program failures and from use of qualitative methods in intercultural research.

This report grows from unexpected events unfolding when one community outside Washington, DC tried to integrate a new Latino population through teaching its informal leaders to be an effective presence in local politics. The Hispanic Leadership Project, an “experiment in knowledge and power sharing”, veered off its intended course. Giving up attempts to conform events to plans, authors persisted for two and one half years in improvisatory program activities and in ethnographic documentation used for the development of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990 (1990) and Strauss & Corbin, 1990 (1994)). As a result, an experimental diversity program, which, by some traditions, would be granted a quiet burial, now yields fine grained, vividly contrasting portraits of Latino and Anglo political world views and provisional theory to guide future research and practice (Weigl, 1999; Weigl & Reyes, 1997 (1997) and Weigl & Reyes, 1997 (1998)). The progress of this diversity program, the Hispanic Leadership Project, demonstrates how forces of “primary level” culture (Hall, 1976) and the dynamics of acculturation (Ward, 1997) may powerfully override official governmental “good intentions” in managing diversity and how study of the interaction between two cultures, paradoxically, may provide the optimal strategy to uncover core emic features of each, contributing to cultural psychology ( Schweder, 1991) as well as intercultural theory and practice. The authors believe project findings might inform public activities and policy to include Latinos in civic life in a way that sharply deviates from American assimilationist traditions. Detailed portrayal of Latino and Anglo cultural differences critical to this process of inclusion are presented in this report. The project concentrated on the political interface between the grass roots leadership of a recently immigrated, poor Latino population and middle to upper middle class Anglos of a liberal and activist bent in the most political of all US contexts — the nation's capitol. The reader might validly point out that the project design was bound to optimize the discovery of cultural contrasts and was the product of very unique, specific circumstances. In the process of sharing findings reported here (Weigl (1995) and Weigl (1999); Weigl & Reyes, 1997 (1997) and Weigl & Reyes, 1997 (1998)) authors have been surprised at the extent to which others active in applied and academic work find in study reports concise statement of cultural realities long known, but often not stated explicitly. Also, we had not anticipated that study findings would duplicate, and sometimes significantly enlarge on reports coming from even well established Latino communities in cities such as Boston ( Hardy-Fanta, 1992), San Antonio ( Flores, 1997), San Jose ( Rosaldo & Flores, 1997), and Los Angeles ( Regalado, 1997; Rocco, 1997). Nonetheless, critical thinking and caution should precede exporting findings reported below to other contexts as “proven Anglo–Latino differences”. Sensitivity to local ecologies is essential. It is critical to consider distinguishing features of Latino and Anglo groups, the level of acculturation prevailing among Latinos, and the political traditions and problems of particular communities. On the basis of work both in Latin America and in the US, the authors, one American the other Mexican, nonetheless do contend that there are huge commonalties among Latinos who are poor, who are largely of Indian ancestry, and who continually have experienced the lower rungs of power and status hierarchies in home and adopted countries. At the close of this report, suggestions for the development of a Latino Traditionalism Scale are offered to operationalize a Latino ethnicity construct which captures distinguishing characteristics of poor Latino groups. Clearly, there are some (Hero, 1992; Oboler, 1995) who see any definition of a monolithic “Hispanic” population as colonial thinking serving to marginalize minorities. They note the large distinctions among Latino groups in the US, differences Latinos themselves may use as a basis for separating from one another. With reference to Phinney's (1996) analysis of the different components of ethnicity, we should not permit the existence of many conscious ethnic distinctions among Latinos to prevent study of some profound cultural commonalties operating beneath these potentially polarizing constructs of self and other. Poor Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Mexican, Peruvian, and Bolivian immigrants have much in common. Greater contrast among some Caribbean and Southern Cone (Argentine, Uruguayan) groups perhaps should be noted. Nonetheless, careful study of certain Latino commonalties is essential to build a more adequate knowledge base for including a huge new pool of US residents as citizens and community members.

Among the merits of qualitative research, as reported here, is its utility in opening avenues for research and social intervention. The Hispanic Leadership Project was a big, many faceted, often unwieldy hybrid of social change and intercultural research (Weigl, 1995). It generated a range of surprises bound to frustrate the traditional researcher. Authors hope that faithful portrayal of the intervention program will bring increased attention to matters of central importance for developing valid intercultural theory and for appropriately assisting American communities with demographic change. Especially in initial phases of exploring new issues and social territory, critical learning often will come only through studying complex webs of events as they occur in their natural settings and through a commitment to work with correspondingly complex, often ambiguous data sets. At a most inclusive theoretical level, four propositions, built up pyramidally from prior sequences of observation and analysis, capture critical features of Latino culture, particularly as they emerge in contrast with Anglo society and Anglo politics. These propositions cut across nine dimensions to capture the heart of reported political portraits. They are also conceptual points of departure for contemplating future research, intercultural practice, and community service. Primary groups are the fundamental building blocks of Latino culture. This is a superordinate reality that includes, but goes beyond discussion of Latino familialism and dynamics of “respect”, “dignity”, and “personalism” so often cited in presenting Latino culture. Small intimate collectives are the vehicles through which Latinos participate in their society. Relations characterized by friendship, loyalty, common history, and mutual help-giving define critical Latino primary groups. They may exist in the form of family, work group, team, village alliance, mothers’ cooperative, or congregation. Secondary and ad hoc groups are foreign, non-Latino realities, likely to be useful only to Latinos at an advanced stage of acculturation. They cannot be used to facilitate early stage Latino adaptation to life in the US. The need to establish and maintain cultural identity can override and supercede a range of concerns related to political advantage and material gain. Cultural identity, much of it mediated by primary group membership, is a requisite for survival. The disintegration of that identity and its social supports are precursors to a range of social and personal pathology. Participants in this study entirely ignored the access to political power and to resources for their people in order to create the minimal, essential social structure needed to sustain personal Latino identity. More work is needed to acknowledge and conceptualize the types of epistemic and social needs expressed in identity maintenance activities. Personal Latino power always is exercised from a location in a hierarchy with influence extending over those below and beholding to a range of powers above. This is a concept needed to supplant more undifferentiated concepts of personal powerlessness and external locus of control. Latino personal power, even among relatively poorer low status persons, can be self-enhancing and of very substantive impact; however, this power is always exercised within a social sphere defined by primary group linkages. Beyond one's sphere of influence, there is a sense of dependence on a range of benefactors, patrons, and higher authorities for protection and access to resources. With greater traditionalism, these powers are more like to include a range of spirit forces, saints, and God which act as intermediaries in arenas beyond one's own locus of control. The claiming of rights will emerge only with a context of specific memberships, concrete social settings, daily interaction rituals, and durable relationships. Latino civics lessons will be of little value in abstract or legalistic formats. People have a sense of their rights in the context of certain groups which acknowledge and protect those rights. Apart from some structured familiar community life with its familiar spaces, there will be little development of citizenship. Community development and personal political enfranchisement are inseparable.