SquidRoad

An open letter to Soledad O'Brien

Dear Soledad,

For years I have admired your reporting as well as your composure behind the mic or the anchor desk. In fact, it is my desire to hear another Latina tell our story that prompted me to watch your special, “Latino in America” (LIA).

However, from a storytelling standpoint—and for four hours worth of coverage, no less—it seems you bit off more than you could chew.

Was LIA really about the Garcias? If so, the symbolism is not lost on us; the Garcia name—one of my family names, in fact—is reaching “Jones” or “Smith” status, it's so popular. We get that.

But there’s so much more to us than sheer numbers. When the general public sees the “numbers” and takes in the highly negative stereotypes LIA depicted, they are probably thinking one thing: “Houston, we have a problem.”

While I believe your intentions were noble, you missed a huge opportunity to educate the public—as well as corporate America—on the success and promise of many, many Latinos who are indeed movers and shakers in society—not just among Latinos, mind you. They are in mainstream business, technology, public service, nonprofit, media, education—you name it. And they are making a positive impact. They can be found outside L.A. and Miami, too.

Was LIA about the immigrant experience? Or all Latinos in the US? If the latter, then please, please finish the story. There are 51 million of us—60% of whom were born here, many born elsewhere, but who share powerful success stories. Maybe you cover this in your book. But there’s not a hint of it in the LIA report—especially for the burgeoning under-18 population.

Essentially, you've just told these young people: Mijo/Mija, this is your future. This is who we think you are. You can do it.

What kind of potential does the world think they have after watching LIA? What kind of future do they think we have as a people?

The problem is, LIA focuses on the struggle. Of course, that is real. But where’s the overcoming? That is what imparts hope and helps the next generation indeed feel, ¡Sí, se puede! But they have to be able to look at success and see themselves in it.

We are so proud of and adore Lorena Garcia, Lupe Ontiveros, Eva Longoria Parker, George Lopez and so many others. But again, mostly a vertical slice of success.

On Twitter and on the Web, there is nothing short of lively discourse—I’d call it a movimiento. From lists of Latino leaders to passionate commentary on what is viewed as a huge opportunity lost, you have started a discussion on the power and potential of Latinos.

And that is a good thing.

Soledad, thank you for taking on this task. While I and many others feel it is far from finished, there is plenty of material out there to tell the rest of the story.

Ok, so I have an identity crisis

My blogging life started with me as Squid (which, by the way, rhymes with Nyd).

Before that we'd started a business called Amorcitos Greetings, which lived a short but sweet life. (More on that another time.) But the name made a great login--one no one else had.

And then there's social media, where your real name is your calling card.

Crap.

So, which one is it? Who am I? And why do you care? I dunno. But where it's landed is here: Squid is my blogging alter-ego, while Amorcitos and nydiateter are my IDs for cultural and other business/professional connections.

One day, I'll try to get us all in the room together for a little roundtable. Gosh, I hope we don't argue.

NaNoWriMo, here I come (again)

Makes my heart race just thinking about it.

I mean, why on earth do these crazy people push aspiring writers everywhere to write 1500 words every day during the month of November?

Most do it to crank out a novel. If I'm even a wee bit lucky, I'll get a couple of short stories out of that 30-day mad dash. But heck if I'm not going to try (again). Need the outlet, in any case.

So much to write about, so little time! This year, I'm doing a little planning to collect and compile content ahead of time. On the docket:

• "That's Not My Mother--That's My Niece!" A story of how falling out of a car, on your head, can get you easily confused with someone four times your age
• A memorial about my incredible dad, whom I have missed for the past 22 years
• A bio on my mom, one of the most brilliant people I know, who has but a 6th grade education
• A fascinating piece on how my great-grandfather was gunned down in cold blood (well, let's hope it's fascinating when I'm done with it)

So I guess it's mostly family stuff. Will I get in trouble if I land on something like Julia Alvarez's Yo! ? Because that's exactly where things could go. And that's why I'd wish I'd taken a fiction or creative writing class. I'm a copywriter by trade, so it's hard to make up a story of my own. Write around someone else's story? Much easier.

Ok, so there's my commitment--a few short stories, max. That's as much as I can take, and already it feels like I've signed my life away! Heck, I can hardly accept a dinner invite a week out, much less tell you what I'm going to be writing about in a few weeks. Heh.

Good news? My new Twitter friend, Elianne (great site, ¿no?) says she's going in, too. Accountability. That's good...right?

Late adopter? You just might slip off

...the tech curve--completely!

What an interesting couple of weeks this has been. I'd always been on the cutting edge of tech stuff, especially social media tools. Used to blog all the time. Ck the archives.

Then I traveled--a whole bunch, for a couple of years. Couldn't keep track of my time zone, much less what I was reading. Result? No writing.

And now, that growing list of blog feeds is being managed by GoogleReader--not excited about that. Try going from a nice, neat little desktop app to a flash-based tool that may not really be all that flashy, much less functional.

Not only have I not figured out an efficient way to even browse the 350+ blogs I follow, I'm turning completely to Twitter (oy!) for my sources. That's not entirely bad. But this is where my early-adoption of tech changed to late-adoption.

Back when Facebook experienced its boomer/GenX onslaught a couple years ago, my brother told me I should join Twitter. I thought, no way--I'm not updating even more frequently than FB! And I avoided it, until earlier this year I realized that, heck, even if I can't blog like I used to, I can micro-blog using this quick little tool.

I love to read lots of info and share it w/others who can benefit from it. Would love to say I'm an info-sponge, but I'm more like a pipe. A leaky one.

Anyway, I've been making up for lost time ever since. Now I'm figuring out what my objectives really are w/social media, whether I'll ever blog again (decided I will, both here and kind of 'flash-blogging' at Posterous) and what it all looks like when other priorities compete for my very short attention span.

Excited to have a go at it again, but I won't lie: I got the jitters about keeping it all up. For now, I'm back in the game and looking forward to it.