Are Latinos united?
What do Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Ecuadorians, Colombians, Peruvians and other Latin American groups all have in common?
The answer is simple: they are all Latino. The only thing that truly makes anyone from the above group different from each other is the cultural background associated to each group.
For those who aren’t Latino may not think we are different and few Latinos as being a united group.
However, that idea is not exactly true.
While there is a strong sense of Latino pride for many Latinos, when it comes to being or feeling a sense of unity to others who are not of the same national background it seems non-existent.
It is this sense of division among Latinos which has some Latino stars are suggesting that if we remove, Latinos could only benefit and progress forward as a united people.
Since becoming a superstar in her own right, Eva Longoria has used her fame earned by her stint as a Housewife on ABC’s Desperate Housewives into becoming a philanthropist to aid the Latino community within the country. And one way that Longoria has aided Latinos is through her very own foundation.
Since its establishment back in 2010, the intention of the Eva Longoria Foundation is to encourage and help Latinas across the country succeed through either educational and/or entrepreneurial pursuits.
According to Longoria, the foundations mostly focuses on Latinas because she sees the growing demographic of Latinos in this country and believes that women in the community need more of a push because they “make the world go round.”
“I grew up with a family of strong, accomplished, and educated women. I believe, as they say, that you can’t be what you don’t see, and since I saw a lot of smart women in my life, education being at the center, I just mimicked that behavior. There was never a question that I’d go to college. In fact, I was the last person in my family to get a master’s degree, so that tells you I’m actually the underachiever!” -Said Longoria
Although her foundation may be devoted to aiding the growth of Latinas, Longoria strongly feels that both women and men could both benefit in progressing upward if only we as a community come together to help one another out.
Longoria: “We have to support and lift each other up. Latinos have not historically been a culture that unites easily. We’re very fractioned—you have your Mexican Americans, your Puerto Ricans, your Cuban Americans, your Central Americans—and sometimes we focus on the differences more than the commonalities.”
And Longoria is not alone in this ideology, for example Gina Rodriguez the star of Jane The Virgin took part of a panel that discussed Latinos on Television and the actress gave advice to other Latino actors.
“We need to unite,” said Rodriguez, suggesting one way to do so is by Latino actors opting to portray characters of different Latino nationalities beside their own to show this unity. “They see us as one community—we need to be one community. Let’s do that, use our power as Latinos, whatever culture you identify with and celebrate.”
Being of Latino origin I have experienced, and seen, that there are fractions that exist within the Latino community.
There are some Latinos, mostly Latinos of South America, who are being stereotyped or persecuted for being immigrants due to the country’s heated debate regarding how immigration—for some—harms the country or—for others—betters it.
With this issue and others that are race-related and plagues the Latino community, the unifying of Latinos could aid in eliminating this issue.
U.S. Latino Population Facts ( Pew Research Center)
The U.S. Hispanic population reached 62.5 million in 2021, up from 50.5 million in 2010. The 19% increase in the Hispanic population was faster than the nation’s 7% growth rate, but slower than the 23% increase in the Asian population. In 2021, Hispanics made up nearly one-in-five people in the U.S. (19%) – the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This is up from 16% in 2010 and just 5% in 1970.
Hispanics have played a major role in driving U.S. population growth over the past decade. The U.S. population grew by 23.1 million from 2010 to 2021, and Hispanics accounted for 52% of this increase – a greater share than any other racial or ethnic group. The number of non-Hispanic people who identify with two or more races increased by 8.3 million during this time, accounting for 36% of the overall U.S. population increase.
The number of Latinos who say they are multiracial has increased dramatically. Almost 28 million Latinos identified with more than one race in 2021, up from just 3 million in 2010. The increase could be due to a number of factors, including changes to the census form that make it easier for people to identify with multiple races and growing racial diversity that results in more Latinos identifying as multiracial.
Growth in multiracial Latinos comes primarily from those who identify as a specific race and “some other race” (i.e., those who write in a response to the race question) – a population that grew from 2.1 million to 25.0 million since 2010.
Those who identify as a specific race and “some other race” now represent about 90% of multiracial Latinos. The increase was due almost entirely to growth in the number of those who identified as White and some other race, according to the 2020 census.
At the same time, the number of Latinos who identified as White and no other race declined from 26.7 million in 2010 to 10.2 million in 2021.
Facebook
Instagram
RSS