Pew Research Center study – April 4, 2012:
51% of people labeled Hispanic or Latino say they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; just 24% say they prefer a pan-ethnic label.
A new Pew study reveals what most of the 50 million people with origins in a Spanish-speaking country in the U.S. already know: we are not a cookie cutter group.
Is everyone from an English-speaking country alike?
What would a study find in common among people from English speaking countries
like the United States, Canada (English and French speaking), Jamaica, Australia
(including the indigenous population), and South Africa (including those with
origins in Europe and those who are indigenous to Africa)? Are they a single
race? Do they share the same customs? As absurd as this question seems,
this is in essence what the Hispanic/Latino label attempts to do.
That said, bonds among Latinos in the U.S. do exist—and
have grown. These bonds have been forged primarily out of the solidarity
generated by a common sense of exclusion. It is an alliance formed mostly by
prejudice. We lock arms because we are misunderstood.
In the minds of many mainstream Americans (and even
among some Latinos), we are a monolithic group. Headlines that say the U.S.
will be a “non-white” nation by the middle of the 21st century
terrify a lot of people. These headlines, along with the election of an
African-American president, have fueled the surge of reactionary groups like
the Tea Party and armed right wing militias.
But I predict that as the understanding of the real
nature of Latinos increases, those fears will diminish. A younger generation of non-Hispanic Americans will grow up without the fears of their elders. Ultimately, the need to ally ourselves will diminish and, sadly, the same differences that exist among non-Hispanics will prevail among Latinos. Some demographers predict the Hispanic/Latino label will fade away by the end of this century or sooner as intermarriage and assimilation blur the already fuzzy distinctions that define the label. Perhaps that process has already begun.
Raul Ramos y Sanchez
