[OP-ED]: Lessons from Herodotus for U.S. Latinos: History indeed matters

This was the text of my introduction speech at the first annual “Latino History Awards Luncheon”, hosted by AL DIA News at the Union League Club of Philadelphia, on September 21st, 2016

~The Editor

The official recording of the science we now called History began 484 years before Jesus Christ.

That year a man by the name of Herodotus was born in ancient Greece and over there he proposed a new discipline of studies he called “History.”

“The Father of History”, as he was later known, was the first one to break from Homeric tradition by treating this area of investigation on human affairs more like a science, not an art. A new science that collected historical data, systematically and critically, and then arranged it as a historic narrative.

Some of initial Herodotus stories were “fanciful” and others “inaccurate,” reads Wikipedia, describing the early endeavors of the first official Historian of our Western civilization.

But Herodotus was not a fool. Not at all.

This is what he wrote in the introduction to “Researchers and Stories”, one of his early books.

“Here are presented the results of the inquiry carried out by Herodotus….” 

And he went on to explain:

“The purpose of this is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time.”

“The purpose of this is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time.”

Also, he said, it is to preserve the fame of important and remarkable achievements produced "by Greeks and non Greeks."

So what does Herodotus have to do with local people like Nelson Diaz, Pedro Rivera, Pedro Cortes, Karla Narvaez-Hurley, and Pat De Carlo, our awardees today?

Well, they are “the non Greeks…”

Hear me well: Not "the Gringos”, but "the Non Greeks Latinos."

Almost like the uncivilized —the yet to be fully recognized—  the ones often left out from the official history accounts.

Thanks to God, Journalism is here to help us out.

Journalism has been called “the first draft of History.”

Our founding fathers were keenly aware of its importance. 

So much so that they made sure that in our constitutional arrangement one amendment, the remarkable First Amendment to Constitution of the United States, would be enacted it to protect it up to today, 250 years after the foundation of our Republic.

As a result, the profession of Journalism is revered in our nation, and the basic human right for free expression of individuals enshrined in the U.S. Constitution is a towering standard the United States is admired for by nations across the globe.

As a result, the profession of Journalism is revered in our nation, and the basic human right for free expression of individuals enshrined in our U.S. Constitution is a towering standard the United States is admired for by nations across the globe.

What AL DÍA is doing today is to contribute to improve the public record and do justice to men and women of exceptional accomplishments in 5 areas of human endeavor (Education, Government, Justice, Civic Works and Entrepreneurship) that have preceded us and, like an Argentinian writers puts it, “dictan reverencia a mi pecho” (inspired deep respect in our hearts).

Felix Varela y Morales, for example, the US Citizen of Latino descent who emigrated to the United States in the early 19th century and, as priest of the Catholic church, didn’t hesitate to become the champion of the immigrants of that time, pouring into America then, exactly as those of today do: poor, hungry and undereducated.

Therefore, rejected by “the natives,” those who forgot they were strangers themselves in this land, only one or two generations before.

These 19th Century immigrants Varela sheltered in his modest Transfiguration Church from Lower Manhattan, in NYC, didn’t come from the island of Cuba, where Varela was born, and source of huge immigration to the U.S in the 20th Century; or the island of Puerto Rico, which have given to the U.S. more new residents than those who have stayed in “La isla del Encanto.”

The island of the poor and rejected immigrants from the previous century was on the other side of the Atlantic: 

It is called Ireland, home of a proud ethnicity that have come and have enriched, as Latinos are doing today, the rich cultural tapestry of our exceptional nation.

Like Herodotus did, we do believe History is a science and, as such, it must not be neglected.

Journalism, "the first draft of history," is on the other hand an institution of our Democracy, and a Pillar of our Republic we must never neglect either.

Journalism, "the first draft of history," is on the other hand an institution of our Democracy, and a Pillar of our Republic we must never neglect either.

Unless we want to return to cruel Tyranny, like Greece did, or to abject Poverty, now rampant in the formerly wise and prosperous Athens, the capital of the now gone Empire.

We selected for this occasion a small but representative sample of achievement, narrowing down our natural search on the “non Greeks Latinos”, or ‘non-gringos,’ as I call them in jest, as I rarely seen them on the front page of the local newspaper of record, despite their notorious accomplishments.

Unless they are unlucky to be found guilty by the courts, or indicted by authorities, or arrested— or like Nelson Diaz, is “the angry Latino” that doesn’t know how to win a critical election for mayor of this city, their faces will never show up on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The 2 Pedros, members of the Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf cabinet, Patricia, Nelson and Karla are our champions of our most recent, and fully undocumented history.

That’s why we pick them and decided to leave for the record their uncommon personal story, now part of our common History.

That History, by the way, is not just the Latino History. It is our common History. The Great American History of the 21st Century.

Or to honor Herodotus —who could envisioned thousands of years ahead of him, to the point he is still remembered today, 2,500 years later—, this is the Great American History of the New Millennium, with Philadelphia hopefully still being the shining torch on top of the hill with a light powerful enough to illuminate an entire continent.

“Muchas Gracias y que Dios les Bendiga” 

(Thank you so much and God bless you all).