Latino Today, But What About Tomorrow?
*Interesting. Esther Cepeda takes us on the often trodden journey of Latino/Hispanic identity. But she adds some poll numbers for context, and pulls the conversation forward to future generations, to ask the identity question again. As I see it, the future answers the present ask – and vice-versa. Latinos are not homogeneous in race, ethnicity, or culture. We’re an aggregate of nuances and striking contradictions. And we’ll continue to be those things as we intermarry, acculturate, succeed and move on. We’re mostly mestizo, and in the future we’ll be more so. VL
By Estehr Cepeda, NBC News
CHICAGO – There are two kinds of Hispanics in this country.
Those who are Latino only by others’ definitions of them, who have unique identities of their own tied to either their parents’ home country or their own experience of growing up in a specific region of America. They probably identify more with their personal areas of interest – foodie, Catholic, parent, marathoner, IT professional, knitter – than they do with an overt statement of their heritage.
And then there are those who are uniquely tied to a specific hyphenated American experience whose contours are delineated by a pride, a struggle, a story, an aspect of the development of U.S. history that is not only a point of honor for those who blazed the trails of the American Dream before them, but a responsibility and a privilege to keep alive and pass on to others.
To put it another way, there are those who read the first few paragraphs of this piece and were unable to get past the interchangeability of my use of the terms Hispanic and Latino due to their deeply personal preferences for one label or the other. And then there are those who probably clicked away to check on the latest basketball scores or tomorrow’s movie times.
Click HERE to read the full story.
[Photo by Cliff/Flickr]
