I am frankly appalled at the cultural ignorance on display about the varieties of communities of Latin American descent in the United States, all because exit-polls suggest they don’t fit someone’s punditry, or neatly pre-fabricated narratives.
1/5

There exists in this country a pallid intellectual culture that opts for easy nominalisms: it aggregates characteristics to communities it has never taken the time to get to know. It invents categories and then assigns places for everyone.
2/5

It never visits their homes, eats their foods, enjoys their music, talks to their old folks, or listens to their young people.
3/5

The histories, religious expressions, gifts, sufferings, and heroisms of entire communities are swept away because we think that by some Cartesian insight we are capable of understanding others without actually getting to know them.
4/5

In the Church there is no excuse. Pastors, lay leaders, get to know the many local communities within your community.
Try to understand them, receive their poverty so your richness might become poor. Learn from them before you presume to teach, or worse, comment about them.
5/5