Oh sure, I’m Latino.   Now it’s all cool, thanks to all the crazy hype about Ricky Martin a few years ago,.... and now J.Lo and Christina Aguillero and all those other hip folks make it popular to be Latino.  But you know, I don’t want to be defined by the fad of popular music and a few Hollywood cross-overs from VH-1.  I don’t want to be defined by the now-realized value of my ethnic commercial niche.  I am a wealth of literature and  history.  I am a product of  cultures from Africa to pre-European Americas. I am a new culture, emerging from the celebration of our rhythms.  But don’t just dance my salsa and merengue.  Study the architects, the military leaders, the athletes, the physicians, the leaders, and the artists of who I am…. of who we are.  We are a people who converge at various crossroads, and when you recruit me so you can claim your now-valued “diversity”, claim all of who I am not just the category this country created to try to grasp my existence.