Realities and Challenges

By Stephen A. Nuño.         

The first reality is that we are here and we are not going anywhere.  This is our home.  Indeed, this is the home of our ancestors.  We draw much of our culture from our Spanish/European heritage, but we draw much of our blood from our indigenous veins.  The Seal of Los Angeles bears four flags: the flag of León/Castile, the flag of Mexico, the Republic of California, and the flag of the United States.  Our ancestors were here to see all four flags raised and each flag has been woven with the Latino experience.  Our posterity will continue long after we are gone and our destiny is to see that the last flag bear our indelible print.  That is reality and it cannot be changed.

Another reality is that the Latino community is growing not only in numbers and markets, but also in influence.  In a democratic and capitalistic society, numbers matter.  Numbers matter because votes matter and because markets matter. In many ways, demographics are destiny. Every other person added to the U.S. population last year was Hispanic. And while Latinos are growing in numbers, more important for our longer-term impact on the U.S. is that Latinos are growing in age.  The median age for Latinos is roughly thirty years old, old enough to have experienced barely three Presidential elections. The average non-Hispanic white American is over forty-two years old.  We are at an electoral disadvantage because of this, but time is our friend.  This is reality and it cannot be changed.

However, the most important demographic for Latinos in the long term is our birth-rate.  All across the Western world birthrates are so low they will no longer be able to replace their population.   In the UK, that number is 1.9 births per female.  In Greece, 1.3 and in Russia, 1.2.  In Canada it is 1.5, and in the United States it is 2 births per every woman.  While US birthrates are barely at replacement rate, Latinos contribute greatly to this.  Latino fertility rates in the United States is 2.8 births per woman.  By 2050, 1 in every 4 Americans will be Latino.  This is reality.

Make no mistake about it; modern day immigrants (illegal or not) are the entrepreneurs of our society. They come not seeking handouts, but seeking work.  Contrary to what the racist nativists argue, Mexican immigrants come from a country with a higher literacy rate than most major sources of immigrants in the past, including England.  They come here bearing cell phones and access to bank accounts from which they can easily transfer funds to one another.  They come with social networks long established and well entrenched.   The “unskilled labor” nativists speak of are the most technologically advanced unskilled labor force in our country’s history. 

However, the institutional barriers are greater today even if the social barriers are not.  We are at war with those who would seek to change our conception of citizenship.  Historically, citizens have been those who participate in society and contribute to its well being.  Non-citizens participated in local elections and ran for office for much of our history, up until the 1920’s.  Today, our conception of citizenship is confined by those who seek to create a simplified legalistic structure not meant to encourage people to become participants in society, but which forces them to live in our shadows. 

Our challenge as Latinos is to uplift, to guide, and to serve as an example to our newly arrived brethren.  To uplift them with compassion for the times they have left behind and for the times that are ahead.  We must provide guidance to them so that they may traverse the pitfalls of their new home.  Above all, we must serve as an example so that our kids and our people know success is not based on what family you were born into, as it is in Mexico or almost any other country in this world.  Success is based on performance and innovation.  Success is based on how well we develop relationships with others.

A recent study at Harvard University found that almost half of Latinos who start high school in Los Angeles Unified School District will never graduate. This is unacceptable.  We can blame the school system.  We can blame racism.  We can blame a whole host of things, but if you ever dealt with LAUSD, you know that the odds are much greater if we simply focus on the things we can change.  As we grow and become more influential, we may be able to save LAUSD, but I am not optimistic.  Our best hope is to uplift ourselves and our community on our own. It is enticing, indeed romantic, to believe we can create parity and prosperity at the same time, but it is a myth we subject our children to every day in MEChA clubs across our universities, and those ideas are promoted by Latino “leaders” who seek not to make our lives better, but to make their own lives relevant.

These challenges are great and also frightening, because once we accept this challenge we become responsible for our own destiny. If we are to own our successes, we must be willing to own our failures.  By nature, it would be nice to own our successes and blame our failures on someone else, but we cannot have it both ways. We must face our ghosts if we are to reach our destiny. I believe it is achievable and if you listen to all of the anti-immigration rhetoric on the radio and television, it´s obvious that others fear we can achieve our destiny as well. 

Stephen A. Nuño, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He can be reached at Stephen.Nuno@nau.edu

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