The "P" Word Creeps into the Social Security Debate
José de la Isla

I was shocked to hear the p-word on the air, especially during an intended serious commentary about Social Security reform.

Here goes—here’s what I heard on NPR.

Former Clinton administration Undersecretary of Commerce Ev Erhlich, no fan of President Bush’s Social Security vision, said Democrats now need to present theirs. It’s a mistake simply to defend the current system, he warned.

Why?

Because most retirees are going to be whites and most future young workers are going to be Hispanics, he explained.

Then he went on: “To put it in crude even if exaggerated terms, white people expect their benefits to be paid by their domestic workers.”

There you have it — white, better-off retirees dependent on young Hispanic workers, who are the functional equivalents of domestic workers.

So what does this mean?

Here’s Erhlich’s statement:

“If I were a Republican, I would be talking about privatization in Spanish. Sure, it’s to come out and say ‘Don’t be a pendejo and pay off the Anglos’ benefits.’”

I have to admit that in my 30 years of public policy work, I never imagined something as crucial as Social Security hinging on the p-word. Maybe Erhlich doesn’t know the legend about the word that goes back five centuries to the time of the Spanish conquest.

It seems that in the early 16th century, conquistadores on the northern frontier learned about a particularly fierce tribe. They were perplexed about what to do. Groups allied with the conquistadores said the other tribe was extremely treacherous, unpredictable and unusually deceptive.

They were warned, but to no avail.

On the day of the advance, the soldiers, ready for war, were welcomed with food by beautiful women and elders willing to share. The young people were the last to appear, and they were friendly enough.

Little did the Spaniards know that the tribal elders, tired of everyone trying to penetrate their stronghold, had decided to convert the intended conquerors. They gave from their abundance, welcomed the strangers into their families and had them marry their single girls.

After many children were born, the lust for adventure began again. The soldiers left to continue on the road to acquisition and glory. Defenseless women and children were left behind. The old people had died or they went away to live as dependents on their sons and daughters. The soldiers, after their last adventure, had no homes to return to.

From that time forward, a man seeking to capture a woman’s heart with no intention of making a permanent place is said to be out on a conquista. And those who are the victims of the consequences, are called by the tribe’s name, which over time came to mean “falling for the gambit,” “self-deceived,” “doing yourself in,” and “out-smarting yourself.” Anyone who offers too much and gets back too little is referred to as descended from the Pendejo tribe and is called a “pendejo.”

I’m sure former undersecretary Ehrlich didn’t know this etymology when he used the word. He meant it more as a substitute for the more graphic English word asshole.

I think he was trying to say that treachery doesn’t make for good progress. But all sides on the Social Security policy debate are acting like pendejos, just as in the legend.

No retirement scheme is viable unless there is income, which means our work force must function at a whole new level. By extension, that means new levels of education and training for everyone who works or intends to — young and old, men and women, domestic and transnationals.
And if we need more people for that, we should be mature enough to admit it.

Perhaps we should even consider a new classification of citizenship, one that takes into account North American (U.S., Canada and Mexico) origins or from all the Americas, for that matter.

This is old hat. In the 1970s, a pension expert before the Select Committee on Immigration and Refugee Policy testified on the coming Social Security crisis projected for 2030. He said, “We can solve the problem whenever we want in whatever numbers we want.”

He added, “Mexican immigration, almost single-handedly, could do the job.”

The real issue is how are we going to earn contributions to put into Social Security, not how are we going to divvy it up. Are we able to improve education standards and worker skills so that our labor force produces, earns and contributes more? The issue is not about who hoodwinks whom. Nor is the debate about characterizing the work of someone as trivial because they are domestic workers. Whoever leads you down that path is the real pendejo in this debate.

(Writer and commentator José de la Isla, of Houston, Texas, is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (Archer Books, 2003), soon in revised 2nd edition. De la Isla can be contacted at jisla@sbcglobal.net.)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
02/27/05
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