Somos Latino - Washington Post
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Latinos in the United States are coming full circle: Some of our ancestors were here before the country was born, and the recent census report shows that our already significant presence is only expected to grow.
We made up more than half of the nation’s population growth in the past decade and account for nearly one in five Americans. All projections show Latinos — a diverse collection of races and national origins — are expected to become an increasingly prominent force in American politics, culture and canon.
Hispanic Heritage Month arrived soon after the release of this data, marking the one time of year Latinos’ contributions are put on full display — which some Latinos believe is an acknowledgment that for most of the year, the Latino story is not considered an American story.
Hispanic Heritage Month starts in the middle of September, a timing emblematic of Latinos’ status in this country: occupying a liminal space in the American psyche, viewed as too foreign to be American, but too American to be foreign. Ni de aquí, ni de allá, we say — from neither here nor there.
“Regardless of how long any of our families and communities have been in this country, this country still treats all of us as if we got here yesterday. And I’m hoping that our future doesn’t always have to be ‘We just got here yesterday,’ ” said Paul Joseph López Oro, an assistant professor of Africana studies at Smith College.
In fact, Latino children born in this country — not newly arrived immigrants — are powering most of the Latino growth, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2019, 80 percent of Latinos living in the country were U.S. citizens, a number that has been growing steadily for years.
Our growth is not only happening in Texas, California and Florida, the three states with the highest Hispanic populations. From 2010 to 2020, the Latino population more than doubled in North Dakota, and in Montana, it grew 50 percent.
All 50 states and D.C. have seen growth in their Hispanic populations since 2010.
And we are diverse.
We eat different foods and wave different flags. We span the spectrum of skin color and religious beliefs. Some of us are immigrants, while some of us have ancestors who were indigenous to this land and never left.
We call ourselves by different names: Latinos, Latinxs, Latines. Or we prefer to be specific: Boricua or Chicano, Dominican or Venezuelan American. While light-skinned Hispanics dominate depictions of Latinos in the U.S. and Latin America, Black and Indigenous Hispanics have been calling attention to deep-seated issues of colorism within the community.
And yet we’re bonded by a shared struggle for recognition and representation. By a sense of both pride in our ever-evolving sense of “Latinidad,” and controversy over whether the label itself really serves a purpose. And by the acknowledgment that while we see the differences among us, we are often treated as if we are the same.
The Latinos we spoke with for Hispanic Heritage Month expressed a pride in the particularities of their heritage and upbringing, and a connection with the large and thriving Latino community of which they are a part.
They talked about their individual senses of identity, their collective struggle and their visions for the future generations of Latinos who will be solo de aquí — only from here.
Amara La Negra
Dominican, 30, singer, Miami
Amara La Negra is used to people in the music industry trying to put her in a box. To them, she makes it very clear: “I’m Dominican. I’m Latina. I’m Black.”
“First of all, the most important thing, first of all, I’m Black,” said Amara, 30. “That’s the first thing you see. I am Black. Then on top of that, I am Latina. Then on top of that, I’m Afro-Latina and that is what I am.”
Amara, who draws from reggaeton, dembow and R&B influences, scored a multi-album record deal in 2018 and stars on VH1’s reality show “Love & Hip Hop Miami,” said she can’t see herself being “any other way” but vocal about her identity. On the show’s first season, music producer Young Hollywood advised Amara to stop wearing her signature Afro and straighten her hair to look more “elegant,” which prompted her to walk out of his studio.
“The world will always tell you basically to shut up, to tone it down, that you’re doing too much and to bring it back,” Amara said. “When they’ve wanted to put me in a certain category, I make it very obvious and very in your face.”
Even her stage name is a testament to her pride. Born Diana Danelys De Los Santos, she was once in a girl group called “Amara.” After the group broke up, she kept Amara as her first name and tacked on “la negra,” or “the Black woman” as a nod to the fact that she was often seen as the Black girl in the group.
“People would never remember my name. They would be like, ‘What’s the Black girl’s name?’ ” Amara said. “It was my way to be proud of who I am, proud of my blackness.”
She hopes that by embracing her heritage and being a visible counter to stereotypical images of Latinas (think Jennifer Lopez and Sofia Vergara, who have lighter skin and straight hair), she can challenge long-held anti-Blackness.
“Ignorance has been passed down from generation to generation about how being Black is a bad thing and people hide their Blackness as much as possible because they just feel they can navigate through life easier, ” Amara said. “The more we become honest, real and accept who we are, the better it is not just for us, but for other generations to come.”
Miguel Cardona
Puerto Rican, 46, U.S. secretary of education, D.C.
“Students who are bicultural: that’s your superpower.”
Cardona grew up in Connecticut where he was a teacher, a principal, the state’s education commissioner. This year, President Biden appointed him as education secretary, the first Latino to hold the position.
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Julissa Arce
Mexican, 38, author, Los Angeles
“I see a Latino community that has awakened to their own selves.”
Arce moved to the United States on a visa that expired when she was 14, leaving her undocumented. She rose to become a Wall Street executive while keeping her immigration status a secret. Now a citizen, her forthcoming book is “You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation.”
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Paul Joseph López Oro
Black Honduran of Garifuna descent, 36, university professor, Northampton, Mass.
“I genuinely see Hispanic Heritage Month as Taco Tuesdays in the White House.”
López Oro, who is part of the Afro-descendant Garifuna community, is an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Smith College. He studies Black politics in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States.
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José González
Chicano, 40, conservationist, Sacramento
Conservationist José González wanted to know if there were other Latinos who, like him, had a love for the outdoors.
So in 2013, he created Latino Outdoors, which holds events including hiking, birding and bouldering meetups at local chapters around the country. The goal is to welcome more Latinos to national parks and other outdoor spaces.
“I heard people in our community say ‘Why would I want to go sleep on the ground? ... Or you invite me to a restoration project, that sounds like free labor when I’ve been working hard in all these ways,’ ” González, 40, said. “And to that I say, that’s fair.”
González, who is Chicano, emphasizes that they may have “been denied the benefit of knowing how healing and restoring some of these outdoor experiences can be.”
At every event, González wants to emphasize what Latinos already bring to the outdoors. At an outing at a park, he pointed out a bird to one of the hikers and asked if the animal, a turkey vulture, was familiar.
“He gave me like four different words for it,” González said. The hiker went on to describe how his grandfather would say that in Mexico, the presence of turkey vultures indicated which towns had bandits.
González said he was “amazed” by the man’s response, and that it showed him the value in not assuming that Latinos aren’t knowledgeable about nature.
“Most, if not all, of our communities hold a relationship to the land,” González said. “And so some of the activities might be new, like camping or hiking, and others are not new activities, but they haven’t been able to do them in community.”
Volunteer leaders hold events for families and individuals at approximately 20 chapters around the country. González also hopes to reinforce the idea that Latinos, like other Americans, belong in outdoor spaces and are not “forever immigrants” that don’t belong in the United States.
“We wanted to connect people to a place so that they felt they weren’t trespassers,” González said. “This is a public park. If you’re a member of the public, then you should be here.”
James Rojas
Mexican American, 61, urban planner and community activist, Oakland, Calif.
“Latinidad is a feeling. It’s like ‘soul’: You can’t put your finger on it, but you can feel it.”
Rojas has conducted more than 1,000 urban planning workshops that center underrepresented communities. He managed the creation of the Cesar Chavez Transit Plaza and the Chinatown Gateway in Los Angeles.
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Adrienne Peña- Garza
Tejana, 42, activist, Pharr, Tex.
“I’m not a big advocate of identity politics.”
Peña-Garza is a consultant, a mother of two and the chairwoman of the Hidalgo County GOP in Texas. She lives in a town near the southern border and identifies as Tejana.
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Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Ecuadorian American, 32, author, New Haven, Conn.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, 32, came to the United States undocumented when she was 5 years old to reunite with her parents, who had made the journey from Ecuador years before her.
On the surface, she makes the American Dream seem easy: She was one of the first undocumented students accepted into Harvard University and was the first undocumented National Book Awards finalist for her nonfiction book “The Undocumented Americans.” She’s now on the cusp of completing her PhD at Yale University.
But when asked what it was like being among a wave of “firsts” in the Latino community, the author was blunt: “It sucks,” she said. “And it’s hard.”
“I know that there were people before me, like Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez. And they paved the way for what we have now. But me and my peers, and I speak for the handful of people that I know ... we are definitely working extremely hard to not have to write about our traumas or to not have to italicize words in Spanish and to not have to write about our abuelas and to not have to romanticize our families,” she said.
This new wave of Sandra Cisneroses and Julia Alvarezes are a group of young Latinos and Latinas doing the work to destigmatize mental health issues and reduce body shaming and colorism in the community. And knowing that, she said, makes it worth it.
“The work we’re doing now is going to impact what future writers are going to do,” she said “It’s hard to be in these early waves of a canon being formed, but it’s also exciting! It’s also exciting.”
Maria Teresa Kumar
Colombian American, 47, president and CEO of Voto Latino, D.C.
“What unites us is a shared experience of struggle and a deep belief that we can make it in this country.”
Kumar immigrated from the populous capital city of Bogotá, Colombia, to a town of a few hundred people in California when she was 4 years old.
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Mónica Ramírez
Mexican American, 44, founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women, Fremont, Ohio
“I believe that much of the work that I’ve done throughout my career has been to honor my family and to continue their legacy in agriculture.”
Ramírez grew up in a migrant farmworker community in rural Ohio and was part of the first generation in her family who did not have to work in the fields to make a living.
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Nelson German
Dominican, 40, chef, Oakland, Calif.
When Nelson German first entered the restaurant industry two decades ago, there was little appetite for Dominican cuisine in upscale dining.
He began his training as a chef learning how to cook French, Italian and Spanish foods. But he says the industry is changing, for the better.
“In the last few years, I've been really digging into my roots and cooking things that I loved to eat as a kid,” German, 40, said. “I think now people are appreciative of that. They want to see and feel a chef's story. They want to see it on a plate.”
German, who grew up in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, owns two restaurants in Oakland, Calif., both of which incorporate his Afro-Latino roots.
“The ingredients that were shared and were brought over ties us a lot to our roots in Africa,” German said. “Being Dominican, all the stews that we do using plantains, using cassava, which is yucca, it all comes from there.”
While he appreciates that the restaurant industry is diversifying, he thinks that Latin American food hasn’t gotten the full respect it deserves.
“Even though people are appreciating more diverse food, they still see a lot of food that’s diverse and ethnic per se as cheap food, things that shouldn’t cost more than 15 dollars, even if you’re using high-quality ingredients,” he said.
German competed on the 18th season of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” but he left the show because of an injury. Regardless, he relished the opportunity to bring Dominican food to a national audience.
“Being on the show, I was focusing on making Afro-Latin food and really showcasing who I am and really representing my people,” German said. “It was a big thing for me.”
Moises Salazar
Mexican, 24, artist, Chicago
“When I came out as nonbinary, I promised myself that I was going to try to live my truth in both worlds.”
Salazar is the son of Mexican immigrants and a visual artist whose pieces focus on queerness and immigrant identity. They are nonbinary.
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Angel Manuel Soto
Puerto Rican, 38, filmmaker, Los Angeles
“The idea that we have all of this within the yoke of colonialism … how sweet would it taste if it wasn’t tarnished by this dirt that we call colonialism?”
The director of “Charm City Kings” is now set to direct the first-ever Latino superhero movie, “Blue Beetle.” Soto was born and raised in Puerto Rico and is a supporter of the independence movement.
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Pedrito Martinez
Afro-Cuban, 48, percussionist and composer, New York City
“Cuba is a very special place that has produced and continues to produce exceptionally talented and inspiring artists.”
Martinez was born in Havana and immigrated to the United States in 1998. Since settling in New York, he has performed and collaborated with countless well-known musicians, and he has been a founding member of Afro-Cuban and Latin folk, pop and jazz bands.
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Dolores Huerta
Mexican, 91, workers’ rights activist, Bakersfield, Calif.
Dolores Huerta has a message for young people of color: “Don’t give up.”
“It’s really, really difficult for young people, and it’s probably hard to sort it out because you have so many crazy things that are happening at the same time,” Huerta said.
“Remember this: You have got the power, and the power is in organizing and bringing people together.”
At 91, Huerta is one of the most prominent living civil and workers’ rights activists. She co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America, with César Chavez in 1962, and she helped secure collective bargaining rights for farmworkers. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
She is energized by Latino activists today, especially those immigrant women she works with through the Dolores Huerta Foundation, a nonprofit that provides organizing, training and resources to rural, low-income communities. Recently, they worked to improve the food in school cafeterias and the school board made over 50 percent of the recommendations they put forward, Huerta said.
“We need people to get engaged, and if something needs to be fixed in your community, guess who’s going to fix it?” Huerta said. “You are the one that is going to fix it, but you can’t do it by yourself.”
She admits that the world can be a “scary” place right now, between climate change beginning to have tangible impacts on our daily lives, to social unrest.
“There’s always somebody out there that’s going to think just like you and wants to see a better world. And you, like many generations in the past, the people who fought for unions, the people that fought for women’s right to vote, there were people that were there before you that felt the same way that you do right now. But they kept on working and they kept on working,” Huerta said.
Huerta adds that young people should “keep working until you get the kind of justice that you are demanding and that you know that you have a right to.”
Jean Guerrero
Puerto Rican and Mexican American, 33, Los Angeles Times columnist and author, San Diego
“Latinidad has been defanged and depoliticized and packaged in a way that props up the white favored status quo.”
Guerrero grew up in Southern California and was mostly raised by her Puerto Rican mother. Her latest book is “Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda.”
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Cristela Alonzo
Mexican American, 42, comedian, Los Angeles
“Seeing people come into their own and really discover that their voice is powerful makes me feel so happy and so proud.”
In 2014, she was the first Latina to create, write and star in her own sitcom. The South Texan stars in a forthcoming stand-up comedy special on Netflix.
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Julián Castro
Mexican American, 47, political activist, San Antonio
“In the years to come, I see more Garcias and Hernandezes as doctors, engineers and authors … and in the Oval Office one day.”
The Mexican American Democrat was the mayor of San Antonio from 2009 to 2014, and he went on to serve as the secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack Obama. His twin brother, Joaquin Castro, represents Texas’s 20th Congressional District.
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