The Question

Someone asked me the other day: “Why is it difficult for Latinos to understand philosophy?” The question itself is quite innocuous, as it merely meant to ask why it was that there were so few Latinos who either studied or taught philosophy (as I do)? So I think that by “understand” the person meant “be interested in.” But, as innocuous as it is, it demands an answer, so this is what I said:

It is not a matter of understanding, but of exposure. The idea of "philosophy" does not jive with other ideas familiar to Latinos; it does not "fit" into the Latino picture of the world in any easy way. There are different associations Latinos make when they think of filosofos—and they’re not always positive. However, Latinos are, in fact, extremely philosophical; just listen to our music, attend to our views on death, birth or family, read our literature. I think my father is one of the most philosophical persons I know--he has a conception of human experience similar to the famous Scottish philosopher David Hume. My father is a skeptic, but a philosophical one who recognizes the limits of his skepticism and, in turn, the limits of human reason. But no one would ever refer to him as a philosopher, except, perhaps, to mock him. This referral, I think, would require an exposure to philosophy and to the Western idea of the philosophical life that only higher education can provide; this exposure, furthermore, would require the Latino community to encourage their youth to pursue philosophy as a discipline, which will never happen so long as the purpose of going to college is to get a job and make money.

I'm not saying that Latinos need to study philosophy. The situation is the same with any other discipline. The idea here is that from the beginning my world-view has been limited to my experience, which in turn has been limited by the experience of those around me, but most importantly, by the experience of those I love and respect. My parents could never have encouraged me to pursue the humanities in college, not from any fault (or wisdom) of their own, but because, for one, the concept of the humanities didn’t appear on their radar—it wasn’t part of the conceptual scheme which determined their experience. This is one of the reasons why I claim to be a “second generation immigrant”: my life up to now has been a series of trespasses and relocations, a continuation of the first generation’s journey, but without the violence and death.