THE COPPER QUILL

Rick Kearns, Co-Founder of The Copper Quill 

While it’s still legal to do so, I want to share some of my experiences as a person of Puerto Rican descent who grew up in this area in the '60's and '70's. When I was going to school, there was no mention in our textbooks of the many writers and artists from Latin America and the Caribbean. According to those texts, we did not exist. We were invisible. And all we saw on TV and movies were negative portrayals of Latino/a people. Latino/a characters were mostly either violent criminals or cartoonish buffoons or both; the condescension and hostility came through loud and clear. This racist treatment had a profound effect on our communities, especially on children. Later, sociologists and other social scientists proved how such negative stereotypes affected the self-image of young people of color. And too many Latino/as internalized those harmful images without understanding what was happening to them. But I was lucky, sort of. 

I was the fortunate son of loving and successful parents. My Mom, who was Puerto Rican, had advanced degrees from Columbia University and spoke six languages. My father, who was of Northern European heritage, was an Ivy League-educated attorney.  We lived in a nice neighborhood and went to good schools. But while I was a lucky kid, I was, in the eyes of some people, "just" a Puerto Rican. And from an early age I noticed how none of the Latino/a people in TV shows or movies were like my friends and relatives. There were no Latino/a doctors, lawyers, or engineers on those programs but they existed in real time in my real family. There were no hard-working, intelligent, and complicated Latino/a characters in those productions like the people I knew in my hometown and elsewhere in the US. That lack of recognition and lack of respect was part of the world I grew up in. And I am very glad to say that in general, things have changed for the better. We are seeing more 3-dimensional intelligent Latino/a people in the public sphere and some acknowledgement of our heritage is also part of that improvement. But we are also seeing a trend towards regression back to the bad old days of overt racism and erasure.

Hispanic Heritage Month was created to celebrate Latino communities and cultures in the US and their contributions to the nation. It was also created in response to periods of overt anti-Latino and anti-immigrant racism in our country.  We are witnessing one of those difficult passages right now.  And one of the ways we can combat these destructive trends is to learn about our neighbors through their poems, novels, plays, paintings, and music.   

We at The Copper Quill want to encourage our community to check out the works of the many gifted Latino/a writers and artists that have been contributing to the rich tapestry of our shared artistic heritage.