Ozzie Guillen and the Latino Ethnic Identity

Any devotee of Chicago sports was familiar with the Blizzard of Oz long before his rise to infamy during this past week.  Some of us learned to tolerate his verbal antics while others of us learned to be chagrined.  And while Ozzie Guillen’s latest controversy is nothing new for some, as sports columnists from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune make clear, the reaction of Miami’s Cuban-origin community to Guillen’s remarks about Cuba’s former leader, Fidel Castro, offers another opportunity to explore the Latino ethnic identity.

Like a Rorschach test, one can read just about anything into this story.  One read is how the Marlins team owners seemingly misjudged Cuban’s love of the baseball.  Clearly some are willing to allow their hatred of Castro to trump any appreciation of the sport.  Another read would suggest that Miami’s Cubans are more eager to exert a Cuban nationalist identity, one that supersedes their identification with American baseball - long admired and romanticized as the quintessential national pastime shared from one generation to the next.  A more compelling read, however, is how the reaction of some among Miami’s Cuban-origin population further suggests – however anecdotally - the fallacy of a "Latino community" in the United States.

I argued recently that a Latino identity is an homogeneous monolithic that obviates the cultural heritages of diverse people.  Elsewhere on this site was discussed the Pew Hispanic Research Center’s findings that American Hispanics and Latinos do not proclaim a pan-ethnic identity, choosing instead a non-American, but nationally-bound identity.

And now we have Miami’s Cubans.  Like a switch hitter at the plate, they are exerting a nationalist identity with one hand and denying affiliation with a Latino American identity with the other.  Further, Guillen’s own Venezuelan heritage creates an additional crack in the "Latino" facade.  Miami’s Cuban-origin population does not recognize Guillen as a fellow Latino American in calling for his firing or organizing boycotts until he is fired.  Rather, they see someone insensitive if not antithetical to their own Cuban national interests.

The irony here of course is the former Cuban leader's own appreciation for baseball, evidenced by his likely or unlikely try-out for one major league team or another.  Perhaps Miamians should heed the words of James Earl Jones as Terrance Mann in Field of Dreams as they confront lingering tensions emerging from any nationalistic, cultural, or ethnic differences.  Baseball, he says, “reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again."

Amen to that.