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(c)Rene Marin

Mourning for Barnes & Noble

First was Virgin Records. It was in the late 90’s and just arriving in NYC. Feeling of the dreadful things that comes from being a new arrival immigrant I would find solace in places such as Barnes & Noble and Virgin Records. I would go to them, whether alone or in the company of brethren searching for the same kind of soul food. I would seat at the café in the basement of Virgin Time Square, order a coup of coffee and a chocolate cake, and read some the outrageous Japanese comics that you could find only there, or just the political commentaries on current events by Playboy magazine.
Then 911 happened, the scare of bombs and the fear that came from staying too long in a public place. No more peace in reading or listening to music in public. Now you would be looking for clues of terrorism, a hiding bomb under your coffee table. The basement at Virgin records was closed. No more social gathering, no more reading and talking over a seep of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake.
The Internet was gathering force, coming back with redoubling strength from the dotcom bust. We where all excited about the possibilities of communication and access to information for free. We talked of bringing down the world of greedy capitalist pigs making fortunes selling overpriced music at Virgin while not giving a damn about the artists they represented and profited from. We talked about downloading music for free to make them go bankrupt. Well, not me, but the kids at school did. The conspiracy worked and Virgin and the whole music selfish greedy industry were gone for good.
We are today getting hooked up with our Kindles, Nooks and iPads. But while we choose to isolate ourselves with ideas, we also choose to forgo the social experience that comes with reading a paper book. It used to be that Barnes & Noble was the ultimate social intellectual experience of American life. A truly American way of life experience. You would seat down on the floor, or order coffee or tea at the Starbucks inside the store and read for hours, sometimes until the store closed. Have a conversation with a friend, socialize over a coffee table book, relax your mind with some magazines between philosophy books, the classics, American and European literature, social and political essays and commentaries, fashion, photography, art and film books. All that for free. Now, all that is about to go? Even the social experience that was to talk to your book, getting responses that were written down on its pages –after buying it of course- is lost. What we have gained in terms of access to information online we have lost in terms of social experience.
It used to be that the church was the place for social gathering, the beholder of the power of religion to unify the people. Places like libraries, bookstores, galleries and museums are the churches of today, places that people hungry for soul food come to visit and ask together for spiritual substance and enlightenment. Barnes & Noble was a kind of church or religious temple. Whether you were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist or Agnostic, there was always spiritual nutrition for you there, and the social experience of getting feed in the company of others. I’m going to weep when that social experience that comes from reading a paper book in the company of other is finally gone. And I’m going to cry when Barnes & Noble finally vanish from the spiritual food chain of the world. Altering forever America’s ecosystem.

Renelio Marin ©
August 23, 2010

Hispanic Hybrids in the U.S. and Advertising.

A Pew Hispanic Report shows the projection of the Hispanic population for the next 40 years. It used to be that the demographic outlook of the Hispanic population of the U.S. was determined by Latinos immigrants of the first generation, “back in 1995, nearly half of all Latinos age 16-25 were immigrants. This year marks the first time that a plurality (37%) of Latinos in this age group are the U.S. born children of immigrants. And additional 29% are of third and higher generations. Just 34% are immigrants themselves” (Pew Report, Between Two Worlds, 6).
From one generation to the next, immigrant families improve their proficiency in English. Of the foreign born Hispanics that belong to the 16-25 age group, 48% can carry on a conversation in English. The rest of the native born, 98% of the second generation and 97% of the third generation speak English. Looking from a different viewpoint, 36% of Latinos age 16-25 are English dominant and 41% are bilingual. That makes for 77% that speak English one way or another. Only 23% are Spanish dominant.
But this doesn’t imply that Spanish language is completely replaced by English with generational change. Spanish is retained form generation to generation, 8 in 10 of the native born second generation speak fluently in Spanish, Among the third generation youth, 4 in 10 or 38% retain the ability to speak and understand Spanish.
These hybrid youth have the ability to switch to either Spanish or English according to the social situation they are in. Some 30% of third generations report that at least half of the music they listen is in Spanish. 7 in 10 or 70% of Latino youth use Spanglish when conversing with family and friends.
This is a population that has the ability not only to speak two languages but also the ability to navigate between two cultures, the mainstream Anglo-Saxon culture of the U.S. and the Latin-American culture. Of the 16-25 group of Latinos, 94% say they have used their family country of origin to identify themselves. 87% use the term Hispanic or Latino to identify themselves while 67% use the term American. The use of these three different terms varies according with the social situation and according to generation. 96% of the third generation and 89% of the second generation describe themselves as American. It also varies according to the level of English proficiency, 93% of Latinos who speak English use the term American to describe themselves, and since English proficiency increase from generation to generation, so the use of American as identifier does. There is also the fact that citizenship is a determinant the perception of Latinos as Americans.
Parental socialization influences the use of Spanish language and the transmission of Hispanic traditional values. More than 8 in 10 or 84% immigrant youths say that their parents encourage them to speak Spanish often. Six in ten or 60% of second-generation young Latinos and 1 in 3 or 33% of third-generation say the same.
Today, first-generation Hispanics, or Spanish dominant speakers are 33.8% of the total population of young Hispanics. This number is decreasing and by 2025 it will a low of about 28% of the total. In the meantime the second generation, which is already at a 36.9% higher level, is going to jump to a 42.8 of the total of Hispanic youths by 2025. The third generation will go from 29.3% today to approximately 27% by 2025, reaching the same levels of the first-generation.
Most Latinos arriving to the U.S. are older than 20. According to the same Pew report, the median age of the first generation is 38. The median age of the second generation is only 14, which makes 37.5% of the second generation younger than 10. While the third generation, though older than the second, is still young with a median age of 20. By 2025 the first generation would have a median age of 63 if the flow of Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. stop completely. The median age of the second generation would be 29 and the third generation would have a median age of 35.
By 2025 hybrids are going to be the most significant segment of the --so-called-- Hispanic minority of the U.S. This poses a set of problems for the traditional marketing approaches of Hispanic advertising agencies to the Hispanic community. General market agencies will interpret from this that there will be no more need to use Spanish language and culture to approach the hybrid population. Clients will use this argument to justify the lack of need for hiring a Hispanic agency if a general marketing agency could do the work for them.
Now, general marketing agencies and clients tend to assume that one hand there is a pure Hispanic population that is Spanish language dominant and that is driven by its Hispanic values and that in the other hand there is a pure Anglo-Saxon community with English dominant speakers and values. They assume that it is just a matter of time before the majority of Hispanics become English language and values dominants. They are not taking into account the existence of hybrid cultures and populations. Hybrid populations are made of people who live between two or more cultures. People who speak two or more languages and have the ability to behave according to different social situations. These people can change their attitudes, behavior, gestures, use of words, tone of voice, according to need. The concept should be used then to redefine diasporic subjects engaged in process of cultural mixture, mobility and the formation of a critical consciousness that is derived from those aspects. “Hybridity is usually associated with the effects of multiple cultural attachments on identity or the process of cultural mixture. Both the effects and processes of mixture can also lead to a critical form of consciousness” (Papastergiadis 40). Hybrid identities are not fixed but changeable at will. And there is going to be the need to approach this population not as a purely Hispanic advertising agency or as a general market agency but as a hybrid agency with an expertise in hybrid culture.

Bibliography:
1) Pew Hispanic Center. Between Two Worlds. How Latinos Come of Age in America. December 2009.
2) Nikos Papastergiadis. Hybridity and Ambivalence. In Theory, Culture & Society 2005
Appendix: Pew Hispanic Center. Between Two Worlds. How Latinos Come of Age in America. December 2009.