Self-identification among Latinos

Although many Americans tend to lump Latinos together as a homogeneous group, the members of this sector of US society distinguish among themselves in a number of different ways. National origin, race, and culture serve to create distinctive subgroups. Some twenty different countries, as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, contribute to Latino immigration. The US Census Bureau defines Hispanic or Latino as "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." While Latinos can be any race, they can choose from the following groups on the census: White; Black or African American; and American Indian or Alaska Native. Additionally, the US Census includes a designation of "some other race." Both race and national origin have contributed to the evolution of distinctive cultural traits among Latinos as well.

The major Latino groups found in the United States have their roots in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. In 2022, the US Census Bureau estimated that 63.7 million (19.1 percent) of residents of the United States were Hispanic or Latino. About 60 percent of those were of Mexican origin. Included in those numbers are recent immigrants, those who have arrived from Latin American nations both legally and illegally, and US citizens whose families have been residents of the United States for many generations. The combination of this group’s high birthrate coupled with the constant influx of immigrants into the United States has led to the prediction that by the year 2060 the Latino population will exceed 111 million, representing 28 percent of the total US population. An examination of the major countries of origin helps illustrate the complexity of Latino identities.

Mexican Americans

Mexico leads all other nations in the number of foreign-born living in the United States, though the quantity of new Mexican immigrants arriving to the US each year has slowed during the 2010s and early 2020s. The availability of unskilled or entry-level jobs in the United States has contributed greatly to Mexico’s historically high immigrant influx. There were an estimated 37.4 million people of Mexican origin in the US in 2022.

However, migration from what is now Mexico into what became the US Southwest began as early as the sixteenth century, leading to varied self-identification among Mexican immigrants and their descendants born in the United States. There are Latinos in New Mexico today who refer to themselves as Spanish Americans because their ancestors arrived from Mexico when that country did not exist as a nation but was only a colony of the Spanish crown. Some politically active Mexican Americans regarded themselves as a separate cultural and even racial entity, referring to themselves as Chicanos or Chicanas—a term used to identify people of Mexican descent born in the US that became popular during the movement for social justice among Mexican Americans in the 1960s. Other terms that arose during that period, such as La Raza, have fallen out of favor in recent decades. Some critics view that term as denoting racial superiority.

Often, more recent immigrants still consider themselves Mexican, although that identification tends to fade for some with the passage of time. This is especially true for those more closely fitting the racial stereotype of White. Second and third generation Mexican Americans are more likely to refer to themselves simply as American. One 2017 poll by the Museum of the American Latino, for example, found that over 56 percent of third or higher generation Latinos identified as "American," while just 7 percent of foreign-born Latinos identify in that way.

Caribbean Americans

The islands providing the largest Caribbean segment of the Latino population in the US in 2022 were Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Puerto Ricans are distinct from other Caribbean islanders in that they are US citizens under a federal law (commonly known as the Jones Act) passed in 1917. Nevertheless, Puerto Ricans began to immigrate to the mainland in significant numbers with the inauguration of inexpensive air fares following World War II. Subsequently, they came to escape the lack of economic opportunity on their island. Most were either semiskilled or unskilled. In the 1990s, estimates placed the number of Puerto Ricans born on the island or their descendants born on the mainland at the 2 million mark. These Puerto Ricans resided mostly in the US Northeast.

Puerto Ricans continued to move to the US mainland into the early twenty-first century, in part due to an economic recession. Hurricanes Maria and Irma, which caused catastrophic damage to the island in 2017, further prompted many Puerto Ricans to leave their island, resulting in a net population loss on the island between 2010 and 2022 of about 500,000 people. By 2022, approximately 5.9 million people of Puerto Rican origin lived in the mainland US. Latino cultural identification remained strong even among those born on the mainland. The term “Nuyoricans” has been used to describe Puerto Ricans making New York their home. The 2020 US Census revealed shifting attitudes in the way Puerto Ricans identified racially. The number of Puerto Ricans identifying as White fell by nearly 80 percent between 2010 and 2020, while those identifying as "two races or more" saw a close to 50 percent rise. Experts theorized that such changes were due to increased understanding of Puerto Rican ancestry as well as changes in census wording.

The massive wave of Cuban immigration to the United States began in January 1959, when Fidel Castro and his followers seized control of the island. Because this initial group contained a large number from Cuba’s business and professional elite, they quickly established themselves as an economic and political force in the greater Miami area. Some of the very oldest of the initial wave still consider themselves Cubanos and expect to return to the island. By 2022, an estimated 2.4 million people of Cuban descent lived in the US, according to the US Census Bureau, a 30 percent increase over 2010 figures.

The island of Hispaniola is divided between the Latino Dominican Republic and the French- and Creole-speaking country of Haiti. Both countries suffer from severe economic problems, and therefore many in their population seek to emigrate in any manner possible to the United States. Dominicans seeking to enter the United States illegally have often proceeded through Puerto Rico, where they seek to pass as Puerto Rican citizens. Poor and often ill-trained, they are prepared to accept jobs at the entry level. Like many Puerto Ricans, Dominicans have also settled in the greater New York area in large numbers; there they can blend in easily with the larger Latino population. By 2022, people from the Dominican Republic had one of the fastest-growing rates of population growth in the US, increasing by 59 percent between 2010 and 2022. More than 2.3 million Dominicans lived in the US in 2022.

Central Americans

A recent example of mass immigration of Latinos to the United States occurred in the decades of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, when in excess of 1 million political and economic refugees arrived from Central America, mainly from three countries. These newcomers did not regard themselves as Central Americans but rather as Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Nicaraguans, as Central America has a history of political divisions since its emergence from Spanish colonialism.

Most of these three groups have continued to remain in the US through one form of amnesty or another, concentrating in California, Florida, and communities on the Eastern seaboard. In 2022, Salvadorans made up the third-largest Latino population in the United States, with nearly 2.5 million people of Salvadoran origin living in the US that year. Meanwhile, those from Honduras and Guatemala saw huge increases in population between 2010 and 2022; the growth rates of people from Honduras in the US increased by 67 percent, while Guatemalans rose by 62 percent. Among themselves, immigrants from Central America call one another a variety of monikers, including Guanacos (Salvadorans), Catrachos (Hondurans), Chapín (Guatemalans), and Ticos (Costa Ricans).

South Americans

Among South Americans experiencing the fastest population growth in the US during the early twenty-first century were people from Venezuela. The number of Venezuelans in the US increased by an impressive 236 percent between 2010 and 2022. This growth was attributed to an increase in people wishing to flee from the authoritarian regime in Venezuela and ongoing economic turmoil in that country due to falling oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The balance of the South American countries have contributed immigrants as well, although generally as smaller percentages of their total populations. For example, the drug trade and the resulting political unrest has caused Bolivians, Ecuadorians, Peruvians, and Colombians to seek asylum in the United States, which continues to represent a beacon of hope to citizens of those countries where political disorder or economic deprivation threaten the lives of their citizens.

Bibliography

Barreto, Matt, and Gary M. Segura. Latino America: How America's Most Dynamic Population Is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation. New York: PublicAffairs, 2014. Print.

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States. New York: Norton, 2014. Print.

Garcia, Mario T. The Latino Generation: Voices of the New America. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2014. Print.

"How Do Latinos Self-Identify?" National Museum of the American Latino, Smithsonian, latino.si.edu/exhibitions/presente/how-do-latinos-self-identify. Accessed 13 Oct. 2023.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel, et al. "Key Facts about U.S. Latinos for National Hispanic Heritage Month." Pew Research Center, 22 Sept. 2023, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/22/key-facts-about-us-latinos-for-national-hispanic-heritage-month/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023.

Lopez, Mark Hugo, et al. "Who Is Hispanic?" Pew Research Center, 5 Sept. 2023, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/05/who-is-hispanic/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023.

Suarez, Ray. Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation. New York: Celebra, 2013. Print.

"Surprised by Census Results, Many in Puerto Rico Reconsider Views on Race." NBC News, 15 Oct. 2021, www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/surprised-census-results-many-puerto-rico-reconsider-views-race-rcna3101. Accessed 13 Oct. 2023.