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It is Week 117 here at The Latino Newsletter, and as we head into a Labor Day break (we don’t plan to publish until next Thursday), I wanted to thank everyone who’s reached out to me about where The Latino Newsletter goes next. The response has been so encouraging and incredibly hopeful.
Also, we are pre-launching our new donation page through Donorbox. Let us know what you think.
For those who have followed my work over the years, you know I am a big fan of the work Pew Research has consistently produced. I have always been impressed by Pew’s definitive, comprehensive analysis, especially when it features U.S. Latino communities. I have been reading Pew’s reports about U.S. Latinos since 2004 (22 years, yowza) and consider it required reading for all who want to follow our communities.
Pew’s work continues to deliver, as this week’s findings about U.S. Latinos and the American Dream confirm, authored by Luis Noé-Bustamante, Ziyao Tian, Carolyne Im, and Sahana Mukherjee.
I am a Pew nerd, and once again, they found a way to identify a central tenet of why we should be covering the voices of U.S. Latinos in the first place. As these two paragraphs note:
One-in-five Latinos say they’ve achieved the American dream, and 33% say they are on their way to achieving it. However, 18% say the American dream is out of reach for them — and 27% say it doesn’t exist at all.
When asked whether the American dream is harder or easier to achieve than it was for their parents, Hispanics are more likely to say it has become harder. This suggests a shift from a decade ago, when Hispanics were more likely to say the American dream was easier for them to achieve than it had been for their parents.
Yet, even with that, there is still the belief that U.S. Latinos’ standard of living “is better than their parents’ (57%), rather than worse (23%)” and think “their children’s standard of living will be better than their own (53%) as opposed to worse (14%).”
Those takeaways are their own curriculum. I encourage all of you to find the time to read the full report. This is definitely one I will be citing and keep coming back to as we shape the next phase of The Latino Newsletter’s coverage over the next few months.
Subgroups Say a Lot
The de-monolithing of our community is critical because it exposes preconceived and manufactured definitions of who we are as a U.S. Latino population. The Pew charts at the end of the report clearly show that.
When I see the American Dream chart across countless subgroups, there are few surprises: the more affluent you are, the more you believe in the American Dream. Younger Latinos think they are no way close to achieving it, while 33 percent of Puerto Ricans don’t believe the American Dream exists, as opposed to 28 percent of Mexicans, 21 percent of Cubans, 20 percent of South Americans, and 26 percent of all other Hispanic origins.
The standard of living subgroups chart provides other takeaways that jump out, like how 70 percent of U.S. Latino immigrants say their standard of living was better than their parents’, the same percentage as upper-income Latinos. Then, outside of younger people at 49 percent, the next lowest subgroup was Puerto Ricans at 50 percent.
I am sure you'll find many more takeaways, so feel free to email me at [email protected] or add a comment wherever you accessed this post.
Have a great Labor Day break! We will be back on Thursday, September 10.
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What We’re Reading
More Sanctions on Cuba: From the Associated Press, “The U.S. government on Thursday slapped new sanctions on Cuba in a fresh push to strangle the island’s economy and deepen its multiple crises. Among those hit with sanctions are Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of former President Raúl Castro, and Cuba’s Oil Industry Supply Import Company, known as Abapet. The company is responsible for importing special equipment and spare parts needed to sustain Cuba’s crumbling power grid.”
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of The Latino Newsletter. He is also its current part-time publisher and executive director. He wrote, edited, and published this edition.
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