Memo From Middle America | DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES’ Eva Longoria And The Failure Of Mexican Assimilation

By Allan Wall

06/05/2012

Contemporary American society is celebrity-obsessed, and celebrities are rich, famous and influential. One of those celebrities is Eva Longoria.

Eva Longoria was born in Texas in 1975, of Mexican ancestry. Her first big role was in the soap opera The Young and the Restless (2001-2003). She achieved her biggest acting role as Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives, which ran from 2004 to 2012.

Aside from her matchless thespian talent, Miss Longoria is a model who has appeared on the covers of magazines and has been featured in advertising campaigns by L’Oreal, Bebe Sport, Hanes, New York & Co., Magnum Ice Cream, Heineken, Microsoft and London Fog. She has received numerous accolades, having been listed in the “Most Beautiful People” list by People en Español, as #1 in Maxim’s Hottest Female Stars of 2005 and 2006, #9 in Maxim’s Hot 100 2007 list, #14 on People’s Most Beautiful List of 2011, and in the 2012 People list Most Beautiful at Every Age.

She was a judge on Next Food Network Star and hostess of the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards.

Eva Longoria has made a lot of money. She was #1 on Forbes magazine’s list of highest-paid TV actresses of 2011, pulling in 13 million dollars last year.

She has her own perfume “EVA by Eva Longoria” and she’s published her own cookbook.

The celebrity marriage/divorce is also a staple of the celebrity lifestyle, and Eva’s been part of two of those: the first with Tyler Christopher of General Hospital (2002-2004); the second with Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs (2007 to 2011). The rights to publicize her Paris wedding to Parker had been marketed to OK! magazine.

On the rebound from her marriage to Tony Parker (get the pun?), she has dated Spanish actress Penelope Cruz’s little brother Eduardo.

So Eva Longoria is a big celebrity, in our celebrity-crazed society. She’s rich, successful, popular and comfortable.

She is also a full-fledged leftist Raza promoter. For several years, she has worked for the activist organization known as the National Council of La Raza. (For more on that outfit, see my article Yes, La Raza Really Does Mean “The Race” — And the Idea Was Invented By A Nazi Sympathizer

Unlike most Americans, Eva Longoria doesn’t want illegal aliens deported. She has agitated for more Spanish translators in hospitals

Of course Eva is for the DREAM Act. And, again unlike most Americans, she opposes Arizona’s SB 1070.

In fact, she teamed up with MALDEF (Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund) to oppose the Arizona law. Not only that, but Eva Longoria has also determined that the law is unconstitutional:

When Arizona adopted SB 1070 ….Eva Longoria announced the bill was unconstitutional. With MALDEF’s (Mexican American Legal Defense Fund) Executive Director Thomas A. Saenz, she briefed Hollywood professionals on the bill and its implications.

Celebrity Politics: Eva Longoria and Immigration, by David S. Meyer, Politics Outdoors, May 17^th, 2011).

In 2009, Eva enrolled in a master’s program in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies of California State University (Northridge).

Several months ago, Eva was named as a national co-chair of the Obama Re-election campaign (There are actually 35 co-chairs — another is unrepentant MECHista and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Obama taps Villaraigosa, Longoria, others to co-chair campaign. LA Times, Feb. 22nd, 2012)

Check out this clip of liberal commentator/comedian Bill Maher interviewing Eva. Bill Maher is asking her about “your people” (which doesn’t mean Americans in general — just Hispanics). Maher gets into the friction between Cuban-Americans and Mexican-Americans, and in order to explain it, Eva claims that “Mexicans were occupied”. She’s probably talking about the fact that what is now the U.S. Southwest passed from Mexican to U.S. sovereignty a century and a half ago. Actually though, the vast majority of today’s Mexican-Americans are descendents of recent immigrants, and are not descended from the Mexican citizens who were here when the U.S. took control in the mid-1800s.

(For a pro-American perspective on this issue, check out my article On Guadalupe Hidalgo Day, Here’s Why The U.S. Has Title To The Southwest).

Eva also considers herself an agricultural expert. She informed Maher’s audience that U.S. agriculture is “wholly dependent on immigration”. “Wholly dependent”? In 1995, Mark Krikorian pointed out that "farmers and hired workers who are American citizens do almost 80 percent of the nation’s farm work" and that even where immigrant pickers dominate, labor costs only make up ten percent of the retail price of your strawberries.

What’s interesting is that in many ways, Eva Longoria is from an assimilated family. English, not Spanish is her native language. She has learned Spanish, and can communicate in the language but is still not comfortable speaking it.

The Longoria family came from a village called Llongoria in Asturias, northern Spain. (Some of my wife’s forebears also came from Asturias). They arrived in New Spain — pre-independence Mexico — in 1603, and in 1767 an ancestor received a land grant along the Rio Grande from the king of Spain. That means that at least some of her ancestors were in Texas when it changed sovereignty from Mexico to the Republic of Texas to the U.S.

And Eva is also of mostly white ancestry. Eva’s ancestry was researched for the PBS Faces of America show, hosted by Harvard’s Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. They did a DNA test on her, and she was shocked and disappointed to find herself to be of mostly European ancestry (albeit with 27% Asian/ Indigenous, specifically Mayan ancestry; and 3% African).

Miss Longoria lamented:

I was like “I’m a proud Mexican-American.” I swear I was an Aztec princess in a past life, and then I do the blood test and I’m 75 per cent Spaniard. It totally screwed me up. Obviously there’s a mixture of indigenous people and Spaniards because of the conquests, but I thought I was mostly Mexican … I’m Mayan! I thought I was Aztec this whole time … But I do think I was a Mayan princess now.

So what’s the big deal here? Another leftist Hollywood actress. So what else is new?

Well, here’s the National Question aspect: Eva Longoria was born in the U.S. Her native language is English. She is popular, rich and successful. She’s a millionaire.

And yet, and yet — for some reason, at some level, she doesn’t identify with this country. She doesn’t identify with the historical American nation — seeing “her people” as being “occupied”.

This indicates to me that the failure of Hispanics to assimilate is more than an economic issue, it’s more than a linguistic issue, it’s more than a racial issue — although it includes all these factors. There is some emotional issue involved.

Very assimilated Americans of Mexican ancestry have a distinct tendency suddenly to start indentifying as Mexicans.

Like U.S.-born New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, who said he “never thought much about being Mexican” while growing up — then suddenly announces at a press conference that “I am 100% Mexican”.

Then there is actress Jessica Alba, of Mexican ancestry on her father’s side, who didn’t identify as Hispanic until recently. Now she’s on the bandwagon, bashing SB 1070.

Or U.S. boxer Oscar de la Hoya, who took out Mexican citizenship after becoming famous, boasting that “To be a Mexican citizen is something that I have always wanted to be.”

Or U.S.-born /trained astronaut Jose Hernandez, who identified as a Mexican and took a Mexican flag to space on an American rocket.

And of course, here’s Eva Longoria, whose fame and wealth, derived from tawdry TV shows, apparently gives her the right to defend Mexicans who invade our country illegally.

Is there a pattern here? We’re talking about successful Mexican-Americans, including celebrities who make more money than most of us ever will — about English-speaking American citizens who have received a lot from this country. Yet, after they’re famous, they insist on identifying as Mexicans and even agitate against the interests of the United States in the area of immigration.

Is it wrong to notice this? Is it wrong to point this out?

What does it tell us about the assimilation of millions of Mexican immigrants who weren’t born in this country, when we see successful U.S.-born Mexican-Americans who nevertheless identify so strongly with La Raza?

American citizen Allan Wall moved back to the U.S.A in 2009, after many years residing in Mexico. Allan’s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here

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