APA Newsletters
Spring 2000
Volume 99, Number 2

Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy

Palabras del Editor

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Palabras del Editor

Eduardo Mendieta
University of San Francisco

This first issue of the APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy is the result of a decade of committed work on the part of the chairs and members of the APA Committee on Hispanics/Latinos. We therefore must begin by thanking our past chairs and committee members. We must particularly acknowledge the contributions, guidance, mentoring and perseverance of Jorge J. E. Gracia, Ofelia Schutte, and Linda Martín Alcoff, who over the last decade have chaired the committee and prevented it from shipwrecking on the shoals of the apathy and recalcitrance of a resentful APA membership.

It would be an understatement to say that we stand at an encrucijada, at the crossroads, within the American Philosophical Association, and within the broader social context of the United States. Hispanics/Latinos, as the mantra goes, are rapidly becoming the largest minority, so rapidly that soon the term "largest minority," in some states, will become an oxymoron. Demographic transformations of this nature entail profound challenges. We have barely begun to face up to these challenges. From bilingualism, and questions concerning the need for affirmative action, to issues of naturalization, and race relations within and without Hispanic/Latino and Chicano communities, Hispanics/Latinos are challenging all of us in the United States to restructure political, cultural, and economic discourses, federal and local policies, and tactics of social activism. Furthermore, a serious national dialogue has yet to get underway concerning relations among Hispanics/Latinos and relations between these and other minorities within the U.S. It is clear that too much is uncertain to hazard either apocalyptic scenarios or rosy pictures of the near future. As things stand economically, politically, and socially, however, things do not bode well for Hispanics/Latinos in general. We tend to be the most undereducated, the youngest, the least likely to own homes, the least likely to attend ivy league universities: so many elements in a recipe for the constitution of an underclass and a social disaster.1

Within the American Philosophical Association, we are also at a crossroads. It is not necessary to rehearse here the statistics game. Readers can get the numbers from Prof. Alcoff’s report (printed below), and also in the last chapter to Jorge J. E. Gracia’s Hispanic/Latino Identity: A Philosophical Perspective.2 Nonetheless, one thing is quite clear: Latino/Hispanic philosophers are underrepresented within the discipline, both as faculty and students. Their absence within the ranks of philosophy departments is of course linked to their general absence from higher education. Yet, philosophy is particularly notorious for its lack of Hispanics/Latinos. This lack furthermore announces itself loudly by the conspicuous absence of Latino/Hispanic philosophy in the philosophy curriculum. As Gracia noted in his recent book, while Africana, Black and Asian philosophy have finally achieved both legitimacy and a secure place within curriculum in philosophy departments, Hispanics/Latinos (here understood in the broadest sense of the term to refer to philosophers from both the Iberian peninsula and Latin America, as well as philosophers of Latin American descent producing philosophy in the U.S. in English), seem either not to exist or to have been relegated to other disciplines. These absences, furthermore, trickle down into the politics of publication, hiring, tenuring and funding of programs, and so forth. We enter the great circle of what comes first: the numbers that catalyze commitment, or institutional commitment to open up new educational horizons and new lines for faculty hiring. This situation also does not bode well for Latino/Hispanics interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy with a special focus on Latino/Hispanic and/or Latin American philosophy. Why should they want even to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy when all signs point away from the discipline? The philosophical calling is not only an existential vocation, but also a social duty, even an imperative. Cultures have shown great derision for philosophers, but they cannot dispense with them, especially when societies face profound changes like those we face today. We have a duty to make philosophy not just an option, but a desirable choice to Hispanic/Latino youth. They will be our patrimonio, our gift to future generations, provided we rise to the occasion.

As members of the APA committee on Hispanics/Latinos, and as members of the discipline in general, Hispanics/Latinos face a dual challenge: to increase our numbers within the discipline and to contribute to the transformation and expansion of philosophy curriculum across the country. It is our hope that this APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy will facilitate both tasks.

A newsletter is primarily that, a carrier of news, announcements, brief-but-useful crystals of information and insight. A newsletter should be like a fortune cookie aphorism. You should be able to maximize its use while minimizing the time you spend weeding through it. At the same time, we hope that the newsletter will publish researched papers that can contribute to our discussions concerning the future of Hispanics/Latinos within the APA and the discipline, and our presence in the curriculum. We want scholars to be able to list, as scholarly publications on their vitae, publications in this newsletter. This will act as an incentive for submissions. Papers, of course, will be submitted for blind reviews, to be solicited from members of the committee and the general membership. We also hope that we can publish—perhaps even in Spanish and Portuguese—contributions from Latin American and Brazilian colleagues.

As a newsletter, in addition, we hope to offer a variety of venues and formats to keep our readership informed about events, discussions, contributions, etc. that pertain to our general goals. We plan to include in future issues of the newsletter: 1) interviews with Latino/Hispanic philosophers; 2) list of publications by Latino/Hispanic philosophers; 3) list of journals, encyclopedias, Internet resources related to Hispanic/Latino issues in philosophy; 4) list of upcoming conferences; 5) reviews of books dealing with Latino/Hispanic issues in philosophy; 6) profiles and histories of Latin American philosophers and philosophy in specific countries, i.e., we hope to provide scholarly articles profiling the development of philosophy in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Puerto Rico, etc.; and 7) table discussions on topics such as on the relationship between Hispanic/Latino and Latin American philosophy, on bilingualism in the U.S., on interminority relations in the U.S., on Browning—Hispanizing—the philosophy curriculum, etc.

Finally, one thing needs to be made clear, the modus operandi of the present editor has not been to perpetuate the neopotism so common to both the APA and certain Latin American countries. What is here included is a reflection of the generosity, care and enthusiasm of interested parties. We can only hope that the enthusiasm of the present contributors will stimulate others, and that we will have many, many more contributions. We invite and eagerly await not only your contributions but also ideas for themes, issues, topics, formats, etc.

Notes

1. See Mary Romero, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Vilma Ortiz, eds., Challenging Fronteras: Structuring Lives in the U.S. (New York: Routledge, 1996), Darrell Y. Hamamoto and Rodolfo D. Torres, eds., New American Destinies: A Reader in Contemporary Asian and Latino Immigration (New York: Routledge, 1996), and Roberto Suro, Strangers Among Us: How Latino Immigration Is Transforming America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).

2. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. See also Gracia’s article, "Hispanics, Philosophy, and the Curriculum" in Teaching Philosophy, 23, 3 (1999), 241–8.

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APA Newsletters Spring 2000 Volume 99, Number 2

APA Newsletters
Spring 2000
Volume 99, Number 2