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By Héctor Héreter
Sensitivity, I think is the most important element in any advertising/marketing/public relations effort conducted by any big corporation trying to seduce the United States’ Spanish speaking population or those living in Latin America.
Let’s start by the very same word of Hispanic. This concept describes very poorly, a group of people whose only common trait is their language, but with huge historical and cultural differences. If you travel from North to South, starting in Mexico and ending in the Patagonia, you will not hear anyone describing himself as "Hispanic". You will hear "I am Venezuelan, Colombian, Argentinean or Chilean" as you travel from country to country. One word of advise: never address a Chilean as Argentinean, a Colombian as a Venezuelan, a Cuban as a Mexican or a Puertorrican as somebody from the Dominican Republic, they will be very much offended.
Furthermore, the word has a strong colonial reference to Spain, and it would be the same as if Latinos refer to Americans as Englishry. But I think that for now we have to settle for this word or the other alternative of Latinos.
More than a melting pot, "Hispanics" are a salad made up by many fresh vegetables which, although sharing the same pot, preserve their very own identity and substance. So when choosing the right American dressing, South American salsa, Caribbean "mojito" or Mexican "chile con carne" to spruce it up, you must bear in mind those differences.
Well-established "Hispanic-Latino" corporations in the United States also face big challenges in reaching the different segments comprising the 38.8 (millions) Spanish-speaking people living in the U.S. mainland. Univision’s morning program "Despierta América", an equivalent of "Good Morning America", goes to great length to please each and every sector. They tailor their segments depending on the regions they want to reach: if Miami, mostly Cuban or Caribbean; West Coast, Mexican or Central American; and the North East, Puerto Rican or Dominican Republic. They even have a list of words that may be acceptable in one place and have a horrible connotation in other, so they must be avoided at all times by their commentators.
So translating is not the best strategy for getting Hispanic’s attention, maybe you will get it but not as you had hoped to.
Although marketing figures and research are a big help, understanding the U.S. Hispanic population goes beyond that. Like any other culture – whether African American, Anglo American or Latin American – they respond to specific icons and messages. When designing a strategy you must be aware of the intangibles that must be included. So the Public Relations specialist in the field becomes an intricate part of that strategy.
At the end of every Cultural Sensitivity Training I perform for top executives being appointed to a Latin American country, I suggest reading the works of renown authors such as Rómulo Gallegos, René Márquez, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz. After navigating through these books the reader develops a natural instinct for choosing the right salsa or "chile con carne". In the same token we "Hispanics" should read Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos or Ernest Hemingway to develop a feel for mainstream America, so we won’t confuse pancakes with tortillas and end up sprinkling them with "pico de gallo".
