Support

This is an "out there" post, and I am really just curious, so . . . chime in at the comments.

Sixteen years ago, we moved from an area of the country where there were NO Mexican-Americans (there were two in the phone book with my kids' last name--us and their uncle), to an area of the country (near Miami) where there were Latins galore. My kids' last name had 15 solid pages in the phone book. It was really great. We moved from someplace that never, ever felt like a melting pot, to a place where it was a rainbow of cultures--Cubans and Hatians, and Venezuelans and Brazilians and . . . you name the country, it was represented.

So the first week in our new house, the cable guy comes. We ordered "basic" cable. He comes in, he starts chatting. Nice guy. Latin. He looks at the job order more carefully and says to my Significant Other, "Oh . . . you're LATIN! Hey, man, que pasa." All of a sudden, my Significant Other was the recipient of a series of cool handshakes and an animated conversation.

Cable man goes out in yard. Cable man comes back in. Cable man winks at family of Mexican-Americans. Cable man says, "Hey . . . you got ALL the channels now. HBO, Showtime, Cinemax. EVERYTHING. For free. I put this little thing" (he holds up something that looked like a large silver bullet with a hole through the middle) "on your line, man. Around here, the Latins gotta stick together."

He leaves. I had amazing cable for three years.

Everywhere we went, when people heard my kids' last name, which is akin to the Mexican version of "Smith" we got free desserts. Extra ice cream at the ice cream store. You name it. If somehow a person in a service position heard we were Latin--and if they were Latin--it was like this secret world of . . . we gotta stick together.

So four hurricanes, three more children, and sixeen years later, we move BACK here. The Latin "Smith" page of the phone book is now two pages not two names. But it's still not a Latin-friendly place. At all. Outright snubs and comments, all sorts of things, especially in the anti-immigration political climate.

So it is that when Baby Girl and I watch any kind of competition show--whether it's American Idol, which she and Oldest watched devotedly, or this show, at the outset, she always looks for a Latin person to root for, and her secondary choice is someone gay. If they are kicked off, then she finds a third choice. It's actually kind of funny. Our way of "sticking together." Not that we're gay but we have so many friends who are so . . . we root the gay-way.

So here's my BOOK question. Do you ever buy, or gravitate, toward a book or author because of what they represent to you. Now . . . it doesn't have to mean you are Latin and buy Latin authors, or African-American and buy African-American authors. Maybe you have a certain disease or certain problem, and you choose memoirs by people you relate to. Maybe you saw such-and-such an author on a talk show and they said something about their personal life and you feel "represented" when you buy their books. Maybe it's someone from your area of the country, your hometown. Maybe you support erotica authors because it's what you write. Or some other "niche" in e-books or indie publishing.

Do you ever buy a book to SUPPORT a niche, or support an AUTHOR for a reason other than what's necessarily between the cover? Just curious.