To the Editor: March 6, 1989
I should like to thank Carlos E. Cortés for pointing out various errors in L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, The Hispanics in the United States: A History (November 1988 issue).
Other criticisms by Cortés do not strike me as justified. He censures us for not mentioning Harold J. Alford, The Proud Peoples. . .. This is a brief, popular account, without footnotes. Its approach is superficial. Above all, Alford concludes that the Hispanic in the United States remains an “immigrant alien,” unassimilated—qualitatively different from the other immigrants who made up the United States. This is precisely what “Anglo” reactionaries tell me—these aliens will Latinize the United States! They will turn it into a “Third World” country! They will not, and cannot, be assimilated, etc., etc.! I should have thought that Cortés would give us credit for rejecting this particular message.
Cortés criticizes us further for failing to give the case for as well as against affirmative action. In fact, we devote two pages (pp. 256-258) to summarize the case for affirmative action. I am surprised that Cortés did not commend us for doing so, but instead complained that in our book “ideological advocacy sometimes masquerades as balanced scholarship.”
Cortés then takes issue with us for putting forward the “warmed-over, unconvincing arguments of conservative economist Thomas Sowell. ” I regard myself as a conservative, and I see nothing wrong in putting forward a conservative argument derived from a reputable man such as Sowell. I see no reason for considering conservative sentiments as an academic disqualification.
Cortés’s strictures concerning Sowell raise wider issues, more important than the merits or demerits of our book. It is well known—publicly denied though privately sometimes admitted—that conservatives are virtually excluded de facto, though not de jure, from teaching posts in a variety of new disciplines at major U.S. universities. These include Chicano studies, black studies, ethnic studies, women’s studies, and African studies. The exclusionary principle works in various other ways. Conservatives are rarely, if ever, invited as visiting lecturers; their writings are rarely included in reading lists. Had we ourselves described the U.S. as a prison house of nations (Völkergefängnis in Germanic parlance), a new Egypt and a new house of bondage for immigrant minorities, we should undoubtedly have earned praise in progressive circles. But being myself an immigrant to this country, and grateful for its blessings, this is not the kind of praise that I particularly desire.
Hoover Institution L. H. Gann
To the Editor: May 29, 1989
Thank you for the opportunity of responding to the March 6 letter from L. H. Gann concerning my review of his book, The Hispanics in the United States: A History. I will briefly address the three points with which he takes issue.
First, Gann writes, “He censures us for not mentioning Harold J. Alford, The Proud Peoples. . ..” Not true. I censured them for incorrectly claiming that their book “is the first to deal with the Hispanic peoples in the United States as a whole,” a claim that becomes even more spurious since Gann apparently knew about Alford’s book even before making that false assertion.
Second, he expresses concern with my statement that “ideological advocacy sometimes masquerades as balanced scholarship.” In his defense, Gann points to his inclusion of two pages “summarizing the case for affirmative action.” However, he neglects to mention that within this so-called summary he also snipes at affirmative action (example, “affirmative action has been defended on many contradictory grounds”), and then follows it with an effusive six-page critique entitled “The Case Against Affirmative Action.” Reads like ideological advocacy to me!
Finally, Gann seems upset that I described his attack on affirmative action as “consisting essentially of the warmed-over, unconvincing arguments of conservative economist Thomas Sowell.” While obviously he is correct that there is “nothing wrong in putting forward a conservative argument derived from a reputable man such as Sowell,” the fact that Sowell is “reputable” does not automatically render all of his arguments convincing. Sowell’s antiaffirmative-action arguments were unconvincing in the source cited by Gann (Ethnic America: A History) and become even less compelling in Gann’s warmed-over version.
In short, I stand by my original review. In retrospect, given the book’s unevenness and multitude of factual errors, I consider my review to be moderate, maybe even charitable.
University of California, Riverside Carlos E. Cortés
