Web Posted: 11/15/2008 8:03 CST Latinos broadening U.S. ‘mainstream’READcomments




Victor Landa - Express-News The first thing we need to do is take immigration off the shelf as a Latino issue.

It’s a new day, and a new game. The shift to a different political paradigm is just starting, and I suspect that, considering there is really nothing new in the world, we’re going back to a newer version of an older way of doing things.

The picture in the old frame presented a political divide that reached its widest distance just before the beginning of the most recent run for the White House. Who could mistake where the lines were drawn? Republicans were conservatives who lived in small towns, if not physically, then most certainly in their minds and hearts. They alone were patriotic; they alone would care for our country. Democrats were liberals, overlapping with socialists, who represented everything that conservatives were not. The fight was about defining the position, and the position was leveraged by issues either elevated or created.

For instance, the media were pressed down, shaken together and flowing over into the catchall definition of “mainstream media.â€