The word is sensibilidad. It refers to a quality of temperament easier to recognize than define, a spacious basket of subtleties: strength without roughness, pride tempered with humor, a hint of festival, a tinge of tragedy. Like the monolithic term Hispanic, it tends to blur the individual colors of each distinct Latin culture, and yet artists, designers, actors and authors from all corners of Latin culture resort to the word when others fail to capture just what is most infectious about a Latin sense of style.
This sensibilidad is changing the way America looks, the way it eats, dresses, drinks, dances, the way it lives. Latin colors and shapes in clothing and design, with their origins deep in the Moorish curves of Spain or the ancient cultures of Central and South America, are now so thoroughly mixed into the mainstream that their source is often forgotten. There seems to be a Taco Bell on every corner, Corona beer in every bar. The First Lady's preferred fashion designer, Adolfo, is Cuban. And out of the crossover into the mainstream come some curious hybrids: bolero jackets with blue jeans, Jalapeno Cheez Whiz, Brie enchiladas and, in Santa Fe, even an adobe McDonald's.
Some observers suggest that Hispanic influence remains fresh and strong in the U.S. because its strains are undiluted. Immigrant groups have often had to renounce their past, relinquish their language and escape from ethnic enclaves in order to make it in America. By contrast, says Thomas Weyr, author of Hispanic U.S.A., "the Hispanic community wants to assimilate and remain separate at the same time." For many Hispanic Americans, the concept of the melting pot leaves too little room for diversity or identity. Better to live * in two cultures simultaneously and enjoy the fireworks when the cultures collide.
Whatever their field, Hispanic artists, designers, chefs and architects are united in their distaste for stereotypes and their appreciation of the richness of the individual cultures that are clustered under the Hispanic umbrella. "Taste is universal," insists Venezuelan-born Fashion Designer Carolina Herrera. "You either have it or you don't." The visions of creative Hispanics, like those of any other artists, are complex and individual. And yet few will deny the abiding presence and influence of a certain shared . . . sensibilidad.
DESIGN
In recent years, particularly in the South and West, Hispanic decorating styles have spread from ethnic enclave to city center to suburb. Design and architecture magazines and chic boutiques are full of the terra-cotta pots, vivid woven rugs and ceramic tiles of the Santa Fe style, and homebuilders around the country are busy slapping stucco onto plywood and chicken wire to satisfy a growing yen for adobe homes. At the same time, more public buildings are being constructed in a modern flourish on the Old World style of Spain, with arched porticoes, wide, shady courtyards and bubbling fountains. "I like a building that has a lot of romance in it, that isn't so sterile," says Miami's trailblazing architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia, who grew up in Lima, Peru. "There are moments in a building that seem spontaneous, not so rational and functional. These are the intuitive moments that show the true feelings of the architect."