November 3, 1999

Business & Race

'Born Again' Hispanics:
Choosing What to Be

By LEON E. WYNTER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Meet Kim DeVigil, "born again" Hispanic. That's "dee-VEE- hil," the Spanish way, even though her parents and siblings go by the anglicized "de-VIGH-il."

Ms. DeVigil cruises telenovelas (soap operas) on Spanish TV, though much of the dialogue goes over her head. She hasn't lived in a Mexican-American neighborhood since she was 12, but she often invites her Anglo neighbors over for green-chili parties.

The pop success of Ricky Martin has helped to focus attention on U.S. Hispanics, but those who have recently arrived aren't the only ones laying claim to that identity. These days, otherwise assimilated Americans with Hispanic lineage are self-consciously embracing their Latin heritage.

It's hard to measure, but according to Strategy Research, a Miami market research firm, of the 30% of Hispanics who are U.S. born, 77% are "highly acculturated" and only 9% say they're most comfortable speaking Spanish. But while Hispanic music, food and athletes are crossing over into the mainstream, many Hispanics like Ms. DeVigil are partly crossing back.

When she was in her early 20s, Ms. DeVigil, who is now 40, had few Hispanic friends. Today being Mexican-American is central to her identity. "I'm not schizoid here. I'm very tied to my Mexican roots," says Ms. DeVigil in her flat Midwestern accent.

Kim DeVigil

Ms. DeVigil's maternal grandparents came from Mexico. Her paternal grandfather hailed from Spain, and her father's mother came from Italy. Ms. DeVigil went to elementary school in a Mexican-American neighborhood in north Denver, but when her parents divorced she moved with her father to a white suburb.

"It wasn't cool to be Chicano, so I dropped everything about my heritage and became like my Anglo friends," she says. By high school, she had started telling people she was Italian, because Italian was accepted and Mexican was not.

At the University of Northern Colorado, Hispanic student groups quickly spotted Ms. DeVigil and invited her to join them. Her first employer, Public Service of Colorado, also saw her as Hispanic, and she started representing the company at Hispanic community events. She later had a similar role at Coors Brewing.

But the emotional spring in Ms. DeVigil's Hispanic rebirth was a deepened relationship with her grandfather, who grew up as Manuel but changed his name to Richard even as he toiled as a migrant farm worker.

"That's where the assimilation in my family began," says Ms. DeVigil. "But he couldn't escape his looks." Ms. DeVigil's embrace of his experience was the light of his waning years, she says.

Her defining public move to identify herself as Hispanic came in 1991, when she was asked to serve as co-host of a bilingual Mexican-American community-affairs TV program. The producer urged her to pronounce her name in Spanish, "and it made sense for me," she says.

Still, despite two rounds of post-college Spanish classes, Ms. DeVigil wasn't close to mastering the language. In 1996 she married an Anglo, a local newscaster. Last year, the couple moved to Ponte Vedra Beach, a suburb of Jacksonville, Fla., where her husband is an anchorman. She started a public relations firm with a diverse mix of clients, including the National Society of Hispanic MBAs.

In 1996, her grandfather died in her arms. Ms. DeVigil imagines him smiling on her with pride. Trying to be "Anglo" was "survival for him in his day," she says. "Identity is not survival for me, it's choice."

Police Abuse Gives Insurer an Opportunity

The slogan could be: "Worried about DWB? Get PPD."

PrePaid Legal Services Inc. -- its Big Board symbol is PPD -- sells personal legal insurance. Last August it began capitalizing on publicity about police abuses against minorities and poor people that have been branded with such acronyms as DWB (driving while black) and BWD (broke while driving).

With midnight traffic stops and arrests in mind, the Ada, Okla., firm added a round-the-clock option to its service called Legal Shield. It's a plastic card that can be used to refer an overzealous police officer to a toll-free number for a lawyer on call.

"If Abner Louima had a legal shield card and showed it on the way to that bathroom, I believe [the assault on him] would never have happened," says PrePaid CEO Harlan Stonecipher, referring to the Haitian immigrant who was attacked by police in a Brooklyn, N.Y., station house.

Most of PrePaid's 750,000 member families are white middle-income people who use the $300-a-year service for routine civil matters. But Mr. Stonecipher sees middle-class minorities, sensitized by recent stories about police use of racial profiling, as a growth market.

When Tony Brown, the black journalist-turned-entrepreneur, began promoting the Legal Shield card on his New York radio talk show, "people went bonkers for it," says Mr. Brown, who has spearheaded sales in New York, primarily in the African-American market.

Legal Shield might not have prevented the assault on Mr. Louima, says Mr. Brown, but it might make the average rogue officer "think twice about paying his mortgage."

• With this column, Leon Wynter begins a leave to write a book. Business & Race will return in April.

For information about subscribing, go to http://wsj.com