I really loved learning more about one of the many identities we have in America that make up such a huge majority. I thought it was really well developed and offered so many different perspectives about Latinos in this country and how they all can differ depending on where you are. As a concept, I think people understand that not everyone is different, but this book really shows you how different people can be even within just one culture/identity.

Latine Heritage Month

Part 1: Origin Stories

1. Arrivals

The author starts the story off telling the first story she knows, her own. The daughter of a Peruvian man and American woman, she remembers feeling race at a young age. Those of us of color often do.

She had been the only American—I had ever known in our tiny village on the faraway coast of Peru. I had heard indigenous Peruvians whisper about pale strangers like her, pishtacos, white ghouls, hungry ghosts


This reminds me of 白鬼, which in Cantonese means white ghost. Language, am I right?

Whiteness varies. It also changes with time. It is often decided by the colonizers of the time. It is political, as these things are.

The Spanish were already a stew of ethnicities, born of a mingling of Moors and Jews and ancient Christian Iberians.


While the Spanish speaking diaspora is vast, it is also not united. The dream of Pan-Latinism will probably never occur.

What Spain's harsh colonial system wrought, in its effort to play God, was a single language from a multitude of indigenous tongues. But it also destroyed any possible sense of unity.


And if language is supposedly the great unifier, what happens, when generations later, no one speaks the language at all? Do we still expect sameness?

Latin America became a slew of cultures with distinct national characters. But the looming tower of Spanish still stands, even if our children don't speak it as well as our ancestors. Even if our grandchildren don't speak it at all.

If we're comparing colonizers, in what world is rape and subjugation better than death? /s

Much is made of the claim that Spanish colonizers were kinder to the natives than the English would be, and less racist. At least they mixed with them—so the argument goes—lived among them, married them. But that calculus masks a wider, more sinister history. Indian women were rarely married to their Spanish masters; they were abducted, enslaved, raped, abandoned.


Argentina and Uruguay are two of the whitest nations in South America. They promoted European immigration, while supporting more sinister practices.

Uruguay, which celebrated its declaration of independence in 1831 with a sweeping genocide that killed all but five hundred of its native people, then spun around, flung open its ports, and vigorously transformed itself into a nation that is now 90 percent white.


2. The Price of Admission

People talk of seeing color. What of accents? Another word I hate. Everyone has one. Yours doesn't make you any better than someone else.

And what about having a non-native accent is wrong? That just means the person is multilingual, which is (1) amazing, and (2) kind of sexy. The last time I downloaded Hinge I lasted six days, but one of my prompts was that I was into polyglots. The amount of men that asked me what that meant...

We could see the measure of his disquiet: there was the unremitting sting of gringo disrespect; the thinly veiled references to his short stature, his brown skin, his thick accent.


Separating families is a new form of low that is not up for discussion. It's disgusting and wrong, and if you think otherwise, you're disgusting and wrong.

Fortune also favored those whose parents joined them a few months later. Others, however, would cry into their pillows night after night, separated from their families for as many as eighteen years. A number would never see their parents again.


People talk about illegal immigration as if they have much choice in the matter. Why would you brave danger and hatred if you didn't have to? It's truly the luck of the draw to be born in the right place at the right time.

they had already survived a hair-raising peril, la carretera de la muerte, "the highway of death," the 136-mile artery connecting Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo. For decades, that singularly nondescript thoroughfare had been the backdrop for kidnappings, rapes, young girls sold into sexual slavery, robberies, "disappearances," and outright murders.


3. Forerunners

I used to be offended when people told me to go home, especially if they directed me toward China. I'm not Chinese. Now I tell them to go home. Blank stares, all around.

There is always the chance that you will want to go home. "Go back where you belong!"


It's not just Game of Thrones, y'all. We can't talk about white people without talking about incest. It's just a fact.

married their own cousins to preserve their whiteness


As someone that understands Vietnamese better than I speak it, I will be the last person to judge a No Sabo Kid.

she was shunned by Mexican youngsters because she didn't speak Spanish


I almost never ate Tex-Mex in Texas, but I crave it monthly now.

the classic Austin fajita: skirt steak, flash-grilled then sliced into juicy strips, tucked into tortillas, drowned in tomatoes, onion, serrano peppers, and cilantro


No one judges white illegal immigrants. No one even looks at them. We call their accents sexy, while demeaning those of people of color.

In 2019, five years after Arturo arrived, seven-hundred thousand tourists like him—a little more than 1.2 percent of all fifty-six million visitors to the United States—overstayed their visas. The great majority of them were Canadians.


Part II: Turf and Skin

4. Why They Left, Where They Went

I find this interesting, and would love to know which groups marry out more than in. Probably my own, but this isn't about me right now.

They may also be one of the most segregated Latino groups in the United States. Comfortable in black neighborhoods, they nevertheless prefer to live in Dominican communities, marry one another, and have Dominican children. If they do marry outside their immediate cohort, they typically choose Puerto Ricans.


Stars are also subject to colorism within their own families. It was heartbreaking to hear that Eva Longoria is considered the ugly duckling in her family. Michelle Rodriguez's story is similar.

tells of the tension between her father's Puerto Rican family and her Dominican mother, who was considerably darker skinned. As Michelle learned eventually, generations of her Puerto Rican ancestors had gone to great lengths to keep the bloodline white—even marrying their own cousins, a not uncommon practice among elite white Latin Americans in general. Suddenly being forced to accept a black Dominican bride into the clan and break that chain of whiteness was too much for Michelle's Puerto Rican family, and the marriage eventually collapsed.


Sadly, judgment lies on both ends of the scale.

two dark-skinned Dominican American girls—enthusiastic fans of her books—were taken aback by her whiteness and whisperd to Álvarez's agent, "That's Julia Álvarez? But she's not a Latina!" In their view, she couldn't be one of them; her skin was too porcelain, too European looking, too fair. "It's possible to be too white in the Dominican Republic," Álvarez says wistfully.


How can the census be accurate when people don't even accurately portray themselves? Are you one thing? Are you another? Who gets to decide?

Overwhelmingly, they are mestizos, the product of a half millennium of exuberant crossbreeding between European colonizers and indigenous peoples, which, themselves, experienced long histories of conquest and hybridization. Finally, immigrants from this part of Central America, like Mexicans, can range across a broad spectrum of phenotypes. Although they may be perceived as brown, on census forms they generally identify as white.


5. Shades of Belonging

I find this fascinating. Identify as white all you want, but to white people, you're still different. You're still a minority, with all that comes with that.

Mexicanos whose lands had been hijacked by "Westward ho!" invaders pluckily decided to be on the side of privilege and identify themselves as "white." But they were treated like blacks anyway.


Not here for racism, obviously, but I wish the first sentence still held true. Tired of animals dogs in stores. And restaurants. It's a hygiene issue. And no, your dog's mouth is not cleaner than a human's. Who started that lie?

Signs on storefronts reminded them of their status: "No dogs. No Negroes. No Mexicans."


You can buy anything. Race, too, apparently.

the bizarre loophole allowing a mulatto to purchase "whiteness" and access "white" privileges if he paid the Spanish Crown enough money


And if you are "unfortunate" enough to be born with darker skin, it is your job to "fix" that by marrying whiter. /s

in a varicolored country traumatized by a brutal, racist colonial past, a lighter shade of skin—un blanqueamiento, a whitening—would make your children's lives easier. It is a systemic racism of another kind. The Latino kind.


Aha, more statistics! I love statistics.

A full 40 percent of Latinos born in this country marry non-Latinos. Those who have earned a college education are even more likely to do so; half of all Hispanics with a bachelor's degree marry outside the cohort. And the overwhelming likelihood is that they will marry whites.


6. The Color Line

I don't know why people are consistently surprised by the diversity in Latin America. It is a place comprised of many nations that dealt with colonization and immigration.

There are green-eyed Mexicans. The rich blond Mexicans. The Mexicans with the faces of Arab sheiks. The Jewish Mexicans. The big-footed-as-a-German Mexicans. The leftover-French Mexicans. The chaparrito compact Mexicans. The Tarahumara tall-as-desert saguaro Mexicans. The Mediterranean Mexicans. The Mexicans with Tunisian eyebrows. The negrito Mexicans of the double coasts. The Chinese Mexican. The curly haired, freckle-faced, redheaded Mexicans. The Lebanese Mexicans. Look, I don't know what you're talking about when you say I don't look Mexican. I am Mexican.
—Sandra Cisneros, author


Within this color spectrum are people like actor Anya Taylor-Joy. While her father is an Argentine of English and Scottish descent, and her maternal grandmother is Spanish, and she grew up in Argentina, Anya is not a person of color. She is still a white Latina. This distinction is important.

White Latinos—descendants of 100 percent white European stock—are not people of color.


History is written by the victors. It is often riddled with lies.

"In Argentina, we're simply taught that the indigenous all died of yellow fever," she says. "So few are doing the work of unearthing the real truth. Maybe it's because all our intellectuals are sent off to be educated somewhere else: England, France, Spain, Italy. They don't want anything to do with Latin American culture. You know the old joke that Argentines are Spanish-speaking Italians who believe that they're really French? It's so true."


There is one good thing to come from globalization: food.

The eastern influence is so present in Peru that the national cuisine is a fusion of Chinese, Japanese, and the rest of our genetic jumble. As a child in Lima, I was raised on arroz chaufa (fried rice), lomo saltado (stir-fry beef), crisp shrimp wontones, and ceviche (citrus infused sashimi)


Part III: Souls

7. The God of Conquest

Growing from religious trauma can be tricky. I say this all the time.

"I was raised Catholic," young Latinos will answer when I ask them about their beliefs, and then their voices trail off, leaving open the question of whether they still practice or how they will raise their children.


Surprise, you're Jewish! No, but seriously, is this the Latino version of the "Cherokee Princess" legend?

Less visible were the Jews' hasty conversions, the rush to hide one's traditions, the sudden, passionate claim that Catholicism was the true faith and Jesus the only prophet. Denial and recantations ruled the day.


Christians are quick to blame Muslims for being strict within their religion. Open your eyes.

The only religion in recorded human history that adopted converts as quickly is probably Islam, although Mohammedans did not force conversion, nor did they require believers to abandon faiths as they took on the new.


I grew up with many, many Mexican Americans. Even if they're liberal, this is so true.

It is no surprise that, among Latinos, Mexican Americans are the most ardent supporters of Catholicism. Six out of ten say they hold strong ties to the Church.


I fled religion entirely, but I can see why Protestantism is popular.

Like their Anglo counterparts, some have fled Catholicism because of simple disillusionment: either a growing disgust with mounting cases of corrupt and pedophile priests, or the Church's resolute stand against abortion and same-sex marriage.


I am a proud garlic eater. I would not take this as an insult.

Catholics were papists, "garlic eaters"


8. The Gods of Chance

I feel like this could be said of politics, and everything that is wrong with the US.

If there are two religions in the land, they will cut each other's throats; and if there are thirty, they will dwell happily in peace.
—Voltaire, The Philosophical Letters, 1733


This doesn't surprise me at all, but again, I grew up in a very Latino heavy community in the South.

If it surprises anyone that Latinos—a segment of American society once assumed to be liberal—have recently begun to identify more and more with conservative doctrine, one only need study the religious migration to Evangelicalism to understand why.


Part IV: How We Think, How We Work

9. Mind-sets

I just threw up a little.

"a Republican believes in family, education, hard work, opportunity, individuality, the freedom to succeed on one's own, the freedom from government interference, and the conviction that a sturdy belief in God makes the rest possible."


Cubans voting Republican doesn't surprise me. I shouldn't be surprised at Mexicans. But I am?

Four in five Latinos in Florida (mostly Cubans) voted to give Ronald Reagan the presidency in 1980. George W. Bush, too, won over the Hispanics of Florida, but he also won a large share of Mexican Americans in Texas—although he garnered only a smattering in the (largely Puerto Rican) Latino population of New York.


No one cares about anyone. And that's the only fact here.

most Latinos do indeed believe that liberals care more about them than conservatives do


I don't even care who you vote for. Just vote.

The very fact that almost half of all Hispanics stay home on Election Day has proved galvanizing for Republicans.


Being a diaspora kid is hard. You're never fully one thing. Truly, you're both. But people see you as neither.

We want to fit in , have our children thrive as full-fledged Americans. We want to participate, work, be counted as citizens. But we also want to retain our customs, our language, our cultural idiosyncrasies, our motherland senses of identity. And we want to be valued and respected for it.


Back to whitening the bloodline...

she married her boyfriend, an African American. As far as her ultra-conservative grandmother was concerned, she might as well have committed a crime. The woman had long made her racist views known, but now she did not hide her disgust. Why would "you marry one of them," she asked, full of indignation, "in a country full of nice white men?"


10. Muscle

The stereotypes that Latinos are lazy are outdated and ridiculous. Most stereotypes are.

Latinos and Latinas are the most highly employed people in the United States.


To add to that, this is the real crux of the matter.

We have the highest employment rate—higher than any other race or ethnicity in the nation—precisely because many of us are willing to do the work that no one else wants to do.


RIP Anthony Bourdain

We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortas, enchiladas, tamales and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities. Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes toward immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat and grow the ingredients we need to make that food. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it, and food in most American cities—would collapse overnight without Mexican workers.


Part V: How We Shine

11. Changemakers

We need to diversify curriculum. And teach the truth. The former can probably come before the latter.

"You can imagine," he says now, "the absurdity of it. A white boy from Toledo, Ohio, teaching African Americans about literature." He knew right away that he wanted to to read important books by black writers. As a child in an all-boys Jesuit school, he had grown up seeing himself in the classic "dead white male" curriculum. His students deserved nothing less, an ability to see themselves in a curriculum of their own.


12. Limelight

Again, with accents. Some are deemed sexy. Some are deemed slow. Who are you to judge? Do you even speak one language fluently?

When white players used bad grammar, Clemente's defenders noted, editors corrected them before it was published in the papers; when Latinos did it, they became objects of media derision.


📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster

Excellent non-fiction work that includes personal narratives to inform the reader of first-hand experiences. This would be a great read for any Latin American/Hispanic studies course.

No matter your views about what America is or should be, what makes up American culture, and immigration into America, one thing proves impossible to deny: the United States of America is becoming ever more Latin.

Perhaps part of our challenge has been our denial and ignorance regarding the presence of Latino/a Americans for generations. Marie Arana seeks to present the history and present of Latino/as in America in LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority.

The author is of Peruvian descent and has found great success in America and has worked at the highest echelons of the American publishing industry. Her writing is thorough and compelling. She interviewed a great number of people and their experiences provide a lot of color and depth in her narrative.

Throughout the author recognizes the challenge of speaking about “LatinoLand” as a coherent unity: as indicated at the end, perhaps there is greater unity today in terms of the experience of Latino/as in America than before, yet the various groups of Spanish speaking people from previously Spanish dominated nations remain quite different and often at least somewhat mutually antagonistic. Some might feel more affinity with white Americans or Black Americans than some other groups of Latino/as; woe to anyone who would act as if all Latino/as are essentially the same.

The author began with the basic historical outline: Columbus, the Spaniards, colonization and Catholicization, exploitation, and oppression. Then came the white Americans and the conquest of Texas and much of the rest of what was northern Mexico and which is now the American Southwest.

She ultimately will profile almost every national community: some aspects of their unique history and what conditions on the ground would motivate them to want to immigrate to the United States. She of course discusses the fraught nature of immigrating to the United States, whether by some kind of student or work visa or by crossing the border by means of coyotes, and presents examples.

She discusses the constant depredations and degradations which came at the hands of the white Americans: invitations to work in substandard conditions, willingness to expel not only undocumented but also documented Latino/a immigrants when it proved convenient to do so, with even some American citizens getting deported in the process. She does not shy away from demonstrating how many times the dire conditions which compel Latino/as to risk so much to come to the United States and live as undocumented stem from our misbegotten intrusions into their political systems and as the fruit of our seemingly bottomless demand for illegal drugs.

But the author is also not sparing about challenges within Latino/a cultures: the celebration of whiteness and the desire to “whiten the race”; prejudice between communities; the very divergent political trajectories of different groups of Latino/as, and the historical and modern reasons why plenty of people whose ancestors might have come from Spanish colonized areas do not identify as Latino/a but as white.

In this book I learned that not only did FDR et al detain Japanese-Americans and detain them in concentration camps, but our government also put pressure on our Latin American allies to round up their citizens of Japanese descent and to send them to the United States so we could detain them in those camps as well. Apparently the former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, thus spent time in an American concentration camp. Tragic.

The author also addressed how Latino/as both attempt to belong and the challenges of trying to belong in American society. She well explored religion among Latino/a populations: the historical legacy of Catholicism; the surge of interest in Pentecostalism; how the “evangelication” of the Latino/a population has proven significant over the past forty years and what changes have attended on account of it.

She explores various ways of thinking in Latino/a cultures, but also emphasized how diligently Latino/as labor, and how well known they are for their work and work habits. She also highlights the many contributions made in almost every discipline, from academia to the sciences, music, television, movies, publishing, government, etc., by Latino/as. She laments how these Latino/as are poorly known and their contributions left unacknowledged as well as how poorly Latino/as are represented in corporate governance, governance in general, the highest levels of academia, etc., relative to their population in the United States.

The book might be long but is well written and easy to read. If you want to understand the great growth of Latin American cultures in the United States, and want to better understand and appreciate Latino/a presence and contribution to these United States, I highly recommend this book.

LATINOLAND by Marie Arana is subtitled "A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority." Arana, a prolific author and finalist for the National Book Award, is very honest, creative and personal in her approach to this topic. She notes that "today one in five souls on American soil claims Hispanic heritage" and "we are not a unified people." Her efforts to share her experiences and the stories of individuals like Carolyn Curiel or Ellen Ochoa add detail. However, as even she points out "one book cannot possibly capture the whole" and this necessarily broad brush tends to cloud summary conclusions. I had expected more data to be readily available and wish that Arana had been able to include more charts and graphs in addition to the sweeping historical reflection and moving stories she shares. LATINOLAND is extremely well-researched with Arana including copious notes that comprise almost a third of the text. Both Booklist and Kirkus ("an impressively wide-ranging overview") gave Arana's work a starred review.

Did you know that there are plans to open a National Museum of the American Latino on the National Capital Mall in 2035? There are so many interesting written works and resources available. Examples include Harvest of Empire (revised in 2022) by Juan Gonzalez, many of the books by Héctor Tobar, and (especially for high school readers) Living Beyond Borders (2021) edited by Margarita Longoria. The much older (2013) Latino Americans from Ray Suarez was also a series on pbs; the accompanying website features ideas for lesson plans and educational materials such as updated statistics from Pew Research Center. Numerous schools and colleges have crafted libguides for Hispanic Heritage Month; one of the most comprehensive is from Rice University’s Fondren Library. No doubt Marie Arana (who disparages Nixon's efforts to create the original week in honor of American Hispanics) would at least encourage more conversation around these materials; as she says, "although we account for more than half of the US population growth over the last decade ... it seems as if the rest of the country is perpetually in the act of discovering us."

Some relevant links:
https://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/en/about/index.html
https://klru.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/latino-americans/
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/fact-sheet/latinos-in-the-us-fact-sheet/
http://tinyurl.com/HispanicHeritageMonthSearch
https://libguides.rice.edu/hispanicheritagemonth

"LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority" by Marie Arana is a compelling and insightful exploration into the diverse tapestry of Latino culture in the United States. Arana, with her profound understanding and personal connection to the Latino experience, crafts a narrative that is both illuminative and deeply resonant. This book is not just a mere compilation of statistics and historical facts; it's a vibrant journey through the lives, struggles, and triumphs of the Latino community.

Arana masterfully blends personal anecdotes, cultural analysis, and historical context to paint a rich and nuanced portrait of Latino Americans. Her writing is both accessible and evocative, capturing the essence of a community that is often misrepresented or overlooked in mainstream discourse. Through her lens, readers are introduced to the vast array of cultures, traditions, and experiences that comprise LatinoLand, challenging monolithic stereotypes and highlighting the complexity and vibrancy of this demographic.

One of the strengths of "LatinoLand" is Arana's ability to navigate complex themes such as identity, assimilation, and the American Dream with sensitivity and depth. She delves into the socio-political challenges facing Latino Americans, from immigration policies to economic disparities, without losing sight of the individual stories that illuminate these issues. This approach not only humanizes the broader narratives but also underscores the resilience and creativity of the Latino community.

Arana's work shines in its celebration of the cultural contributions of Latino Americans to the fabric of American society. From music and literature to politics and activism, "LatinoLand" showcases the indelible impact of Latino culture, challenging readers to reconsider their perceptions and appreciate the diversity and richness of this community.

Moreover, "LatinoLand" serves as a crucial call to action, advocating for greater understanding, recognition, and inclusion of Latino Americans. Arana's passionate and informed perspective invites readers to engage with the Latino community in a more meaningful and informed manner, fostering empathy and solidarity.

In summary, "LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority" by Marie Arana is a powerful and enlightening book that offers a comprehensive and humanizing view of the Latino experience in the United States. Arana's ability to weave together personal stories with cultural and historical analysis makes this book an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities and contributions of Latino Americans. It's a testament to the strength, diversity, and vibrancy of a community that is an integral part of the American mosaic, making "LatinoLand" not just a portrait of a minority but a celebration of American plurality and identity.

I highly recommend Marie Arana's 'Latinoland', even for those well-versed in literature about Latino culture and history. Having loved her 'Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story', I had high expectations, even if I figured that it might not bring me any new insights. Well, it turns out that I learned *a lot* I didn't know, especially regarding the role of religion in Latino life and Latino figures in sports.

One of Arana's strengths is her ability to weave history through the narratives of individuals, ranging from everyday people to lesser-known yet significant figures. This book not only enriched my understanding but also highlighted the underrepresentation of our people in mainstream narratives. It's an insightful and engaging journey through Latino history and culture. Read it.
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In her latest work, Marie Arana blends together history, current research, hers and her own family’s story, and an abundance of interviews with US citizens and residents of Central American, South American, and Caribbean origin or descent. And it’s that last element in particular that elevates the book from mini-education into an eye-opening read, or at least such was the case for me. The array of personal histories shared here do so much to show off the immense, and at times almost dizzying amount of diversity that’s present in the US’s Latino population on multiple different levels. They also helpfully put on display many of the complexities (not to mention contradictions) that come right along in tow with such variety inside such a wide-spanning identity group.

Arana stresses bluntly that her book is not meant to be a comprehensive picture of this fast-growing segment of the country’s population, and should only be treated as a partial glimpse at best. However, for a glimpse, it’s honestly the strongest and most far-reaching such glimpse that I personally have ever experienced on this complex subject matter, and presented in an appreciatively accessible experience to boot.

The illuminating read that is "LatinoLand" is a work that will easily find a home on the shelves of both public and academic library shelves (amongst other places) - and writing as someone who is employed in the latter, I’m definitely planning on ensuring that my own workplace gets its own copy.