“How many Mexican Americans sit on the board of fortune 500 companies?”

Last I heard Monica Lazano was on those boards, too.

If Disney and BoA are fortune 500 companies then OK, I stand corrected.

Admittedly, I did not make it past Senneca’s first 1 1/2 paragraphs. I’m not a gluten for punishment. too much “take,” or as we say in construction: “crap in, crap out.”

No offense.

Conjecture is not fact.

As for the queen’s English, I doubt that there are any medievalists here in this blog.

There are only “*” in CA universities and only “*” are non-”white.”

If you know more than me then OK.

I can understand how some feel that a “colonialized” mentality has been carried across the border…however, I don’t think that we should assume that just because an elected or appointed official is Latino that he or she has our best interests at heart.

We have blogged about Latinos who are introducing positive legislation (namely Hilda Solis and Raul Grijalva…and sometimes Linda Sanchez), yet people don’t seem to be moved by the positivity. We also try to encourage activism (See DREAM Act Post), etc. I think that we are capable of achieving, but we have to continue questioning authority and not assuming that all Mexican-Americans will represent a more liberal view or that they will even do a great job in X,Y, or Z ambassador post.

As for your info on Pascual, I have read similar things, more specifically this:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue56/article3455.html

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2005/04/rise-disaster-capitalism

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

By Naomi Klein – April 15th, 2005

Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush Administration’s doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate “post conflict” plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in different countries “at the same time,” each lasting “five to seven years…”

Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and then drawing up ad hoc plans to pick up the pieces. In close cooperation with the National Intelligence Council, Pascual’s office keeps “high risk” countries on a “watch list” and assembles rapid-response teams ready to engage in prewar planning and to “mobilize and deploy quickly” after a conflict has gone down. The teams are made up of private companies, nongovernmental organizations and members of think tanks—some, Pascual told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October, will have “pre-completed” contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken. Doing this paperwork in advance could “cut off three to six months in your response time.”

Few ideologues can resist the allure of a blank slate—that was colonialism’s seductive promise: “discovering” wide-open new lands where utopia seemed possible. But colonialism is dead, or so we are told; there are no new places to discover, no terra nullius (there never was), no more blank pages on which, as Mao once said, “the newest and most beautiful words can be written.” There is, however, plenty of destruction—countries smashed to rubble, whether by so-called Acts of God or by Acts of Bush (on orders from God). [or acts of Obama] And where there is destruction there is reconstruction, a chance to grab hold of “the terrible barrenness,” as a UN official recently described the devastation in Aceh, and fill it with the most perfect, beautiful plans.

“We used to have vulgar colonialism,” says Shalmali Guttal, a Bangalore-based researcher with Focus on the Global South. “Now we have sophisticated colonialism, and they call it ‘reconstruction.’”

It certainly seems that ever-larger portions of the globe are under active reconstruction; being rebuilt by a parallel government made up of a familiar cast of for-profit consulting firms, engineering companies, mega-NGOs, government and UN aid agencies and international financial institutions. And from the people living in these reconstruction sites—Iraq to Aceh, Afghanistan to Haiti—a similar chorus of complaints can be heard. The work is far too slow, if it is happening at all. Foreign consultants live high on cost-plus expense accounts and thousand-dollar-a-day salaries, while locals are shut out of much-needed jobs, training and decision making. Expert “democracy builders” lecture governments on the importance of transparency and “good governance” yet most contractors and NGOs refuse to open their books to those same governments, let alone give them control over how their aid money is spent.

No, it isn’t. You think of us as powerless, and I don’t. Unfortunately many of us don’t know we have power and don’t use it. Call the State Department and your representatives and demand that the future Ambassador not be Pascal or any other Cuban.

Furthermore, you seem to care too much what the so-called elite in Mexico think, and who they will “accept.” As far as I’m concerned, they have no choice. You don’t don’t understand your power as an American.

I think that’s why Mexico is always trying to discourage immigrants from assimilating and internalizing an American identity. Because when you think of yourself as an American, you know you’re equal and you start demanding things.

And telenovelas exist to distract the lower classes. Furthermore, they instill hierarchy. They teach you that you are on the bottom and that you’re supposed to be there because of your color/race. One time I was ordering food, and on the TV was on one of the Spanish language TV stations. They kept flashing images of of brown skinned Indian men, and after every one some ugly girl with dyed blonde hair would say “feo.” It happened really fast like they were trying to instill it: feo, feo, feo.

I was like is this for real? People watch this and they don’t complain? Too much.

That’s why I think so many on this board think that when a Mexican-American person achieves success or gets into a position of authority, that it’s a joke. The person must be an upstart or a fool or corrupt. Or that he’s just as low class person imitating a successful person.

That mentality is left over from the oppression of Mexico. It has to go.

On the contrary, it is not consideration, but context. Once context is understood, we can run circles around it, ie, exposing the sham of the Meican nopaligarchs in general, Arturo’s puffery in particular. My point in the previous post is that the greatest caricature of these nopaligarchs is seen nightly on our TV screens, the greatest social commentary of caricature creating medium is the telenovela.

Your point is well taken about the previous two M-A ambassador appointments, but John Gavin, come on, who are you kidding? He was only “accepted” by Mexico’s foreign consulate precisely because he was perceived to be different than a typical M-A. He was high-brow, he was glamorous; and had equal status as a telenovela star.

It is good that Mexico is now considered a “middle-income” country by the IMF and is one of the G-20. But who was first in line for IMF funding to the tune of Billions of dollars? Mexico’s central bank. If nopaligarchs like Arturo Sarukhan and his kind are so high born, then don’t go around with hat in hand asking for bailouts; the peasant and middle class will never see those funds anyway, and I’ll bet anything that the construction of a few more mansions in Polanco, Lomas, or other ritzy places in Mexico D.F. will not be a mere coincidence with receipt of those billions from the IMF.

To your other point, about “we” asking that a M-A ambassador be appointed, you should see MichaelR’s comment right before yours who nails it on the head. It is quite simply naive the “we” could simply “ask” and one will be appointed.

The “we” has no such will or foresight, or any kind of political, financial or cultural gravitas, or to put it more diplomatically, as they say in my rancho, collective huevos. We do have people that are highly qualified by education, or by education and wealth, or by education and wealth and connections.

To talk consideration, let’s consider the highest political ranking U.S. Latino luminaries. Take Villaraigosa, take, Cisneros. Even by the local standards, Tony Villar is a weasel; if we consider him so, do you think the elite snobbery of Mexico will accept him, he who butchers and mangles the Spanish language with such regular aplomb? Now take Cisneros who is universes away from Villaraigosa in terms of intellect and social charm. There are others, though, in business where the case can credibly be made for an appointment as U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

One that comes to mind is Carlos Gutierrez. Precisely because he fits the Telenovela model of a business tycoon (check!), has international experience (check!), has served in a high government post (check!) is highly educated (check!) is independently wealthy (check!), has a high-brow Latin-American family pedigree (check!); I can confidently speculate that Carlos can best Arturo in any dimplomatic arm-wrestle match up. He’s a Republican and Cuban, but so what. I’m certain the Clinton State Dept will have no issues in presenting Carlos’ diplomatic portfolio before Mexico’s foreign secretariat. After all, he is a U.S. Latino, right?

A side note: Mexico’s elite considers cuban emigre elites to be of the same social class due to the two W’s: white and wealth. Whereas Mexican-American elites are not considered of the same country club scene. Back to cartoon comparisons: Generally, a cuban elite left an hacienda or a mansion in Havana for another mansion in Miami. Generally, there are not equivalent numbers of wealthy emigres from Mexico, with the only popular image being that of a bracero. So when Villaraigosa, Fabian Nunez or any of their ilk, go on official state visits to Mexico’s capital, the entrenched local mindset automatically perceives them as “sons of braceros”, not country club set. Despite Villaraigosa’s achievements and/or failings as an elite public servant in Latino U.S., it is Mexico’s, or Arturo’s problem, this perception.

Anna, your critique of giving too much “consideration” to Mexico’s elite is missplaced. Again it is about setting a context.

Remember I recommended the book 1984 by george Orwell? At the G-20 Summit, the Queen of England gave that book to Mexican president Felipe Calderon:

http://www.infowars.com/queen-elizabeths-gift-to-calderon-orwells-nineteen-eighty-four/