Another one of the books I read in early 2005. The following are notes about the book from my journal:

>>According to the author, "this book's central argument is that Latinos are changing this country in many significant ways" (226). When the book was advertised, it was billed as a book about how Latinos will elect the next President of the U.S. And he does address that using the example of the 2000 Election and the techniques Republicans used to court the Latino vote. But this book is about so much more.

One way to look at this book is as a primer about Latinos in the U.S. The author does an excellent job of highlighting our differences and yet showing what traits and issues we share in common. Issues like education and poverty are issues we all share.

The book also explains and illustrates the benefits of immigration, especially the economic contributions that immigrants, legal and illegal, make to the U.S., even illustrating how more often than not those immigrants give more to the U.S. than they get, no matter what the racist anti-immigrants say. They probably should read this book and think a bit, but odds are they won't since railing against immigrants is easier than fixing problems and dealing with the issues. The U.S. has a pattern of often using immigrants as scapegoats. But, as Ramos argues, the Latino Wave is here, and it is inevitable. By 2059, whites will no longer be the majority. And most interesting is that while America (the U.S.) is getting "latinized," Latinos are getting "americanized" as well, even as they preserve their culture. Many second and third generation immigrants do not speak Spanish, yet they are proud Latinos. Just one example that things are not simple, but rather diverse. We should embrace this diversity, why can't others see it?

Overall, this is for me a highly recommended book. Anyone wanting to learn more about Latinos in the U.S. without some stuffy academic text should read this. ( )

Ramos writes a lot of books. He's known as a TV talking head for Univision but he calls himself a journalist. This book was published in 2004 although the beginning chapters show a high regard for Bush and his early attempts to court Latinos and afterwards is called pandering by Ramos. This book is dated even as it points to the race which Obama will win. Ramos never mentions Obama although he does repeat Democrat points of view near exclusively. Ramos goes far beyond those at the final chapters. He gives readers a few chuckles with some of his references to examples to prove his points. He quotes Peter Jennings (hero), Rod Blagojevich (hero), President Salinas (looted the government), President Fox (promised to stop government bribes (mordida) haha). So he picked a few winners that will be forgotten by me reading this in the final days of 2015.
The first chapters were hard to read as he tells readers that he had an education of UCLA Extension classes before going into a long tirade about how bad the USA is. He says that he is OK with this criticism of America because this is the place to reinvent oneself. He doesn't seem to understand that that could be done anywhere besides Mexico (his birthplace) but obviously why go anywhere else when no place is better. So his point of view is contradictory in that he's not a native American but feels free to criticize America being an aggrieved immigrant while still fighting to stay in this so called Imperialist nation. He says that America took parts of Mexico for itself, being an economic Imperialist country. Because America is an Imperialist country, it is acceptable to undermine it flooding it with more immigrants in a cultural Reconquista.
Ramos mentions that Vasconcelos conceived The Cosmic Race as being Latin American. The reality is that The Cosmic Race is America as Ramos argues numerous times in the book. With populations in America oftentimes equaling other capital cities in Latin America, the reality is that Mexico could never rival America for the true location of The Cosmic Race.
Ramos concludes that the best solution would be to have open borders throughout Latin America & the USA, like the European Union (which is now close to collapsing from debt from its members (Greece) and mass migration). Ramos also endorses the creation of a World Migration Organization to supervise and monitor countries' policies.
I found this book thought provoking but poorly thought out in its conclusions and weak in argument.
The beginning chapters use the 'cite a statistic and draw a conclusion which does not logically follow necessarily' method. It's kid's cartoon argumentation.
For some reason, Ramos feels free to criticize America but never finds reason to do the same for Mexico. He has no plans make improvements there anytime soon. I don't plan on reading any more books from Ramos, although this one touched on subjects that do interest me.