New horizons: the past, present, and future of Latinos in America according to Harry Pachon

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Oct-Nov, 2004 by Jorge Ferraez, Kerri Allen

Dr. Harry P. Pachon has been at the helm of many heavyweight Latino organizations in the United States. He is currently the president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at Claremont University in California--the premiere American research institute on Latino issues. Prior to that, he was the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. He has been honored by the Mexican government with an Ohtli Award for his humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Mexican-American community. Latino Leaders caught this dynamic expert in the throes of an election year to talk about immigration, government, and more casual things, like boat-building.

LL: What is a quick and simple overview of the Hispanic community in the United States today?

P: It's turned from a regional community into a national community with a presence throughout the United States. In 23 of the 50 states, Latinos outnumber Asians and Black Americans. We've moved from the geographic concentrations in the Southwest, Florida, New York, and Illinois to a truly national presence. This trend is going to continue, and we'll have Latino communities throughout the continental United States and Hawaii.

LL: Marketers and politicians have tried to identify values that are commonly shared among the sub-communities within the larger Latino community. What are some of those values?

P: We've gone through a curious phenomenon in the past 30 years with Latinos in the United States. First, Latinos were invisible, and later when they became visible, people thought that because Latin Americans come from more than 20 different countries, there are no commonalities. Just like people were wrong when they said Latinos were invisible, I think they are misled when they say there are no commonalities. There are commonalities of language, of religion--an overwhelming 70% of Latinos are Catholic--the commonality of having immigrant roots. Most Latinos, outside of New Mexico, can really trace their arrival to the US in the last 50 years. That's not something that's academic to many Latinos, they have experienced it personally or their families have experienced it in the recent past. I've worked in the Latino community for the past 20 years, and I've always thought that it's an exaggeration that the Latino communities are split. There are many commonalities that bind us together.

LL: What are the Latino communities doing with these commonalities to evolve?

P: That's a very good but difficult question to answer. The values are there, but they're also being impinged upon by American values. There is a new mix of values that are present in the Latino community throughout the United States. When Latinos first get here, they like to think of themselves as either being Mexican-American or Guatemalan or Colombian or Dominican. But after a short while, they begin to realize that there is a Pan Hispanic culture and community that involves all the different nationalities. And that Pan-Hispanic community is being impacted by American culture. There is an Americanization of Latinos, so that by the third generation--if not the second--many have become filly fluent in English and have lost some of their Spanish roots, but can still relate to the values of having a common religion and the recent immigration experience.

LL: As in the Irish-American community, do you think religion is a large factor in keeping Latinos rooted in the traditions of their home countries?

P: There are a couple of factors that are weakening the ties--which is not all bad--because you don't want to be an isolated community either. By the third generation, who are the grandchildren of immigrants, one out of every two is marrying a non-Latino. If we want to think of the future Latino community as being frozen in time or locked into its own barrios, I think we're mistaken. First off, we don't see the power of Americanization, and second, we don't see that Americanization also refers to blood, in regards to "out-marriage" and integrating into the community itself. Those factors don't get emphasized enough. And there is one factor that many Latinos share in common: we have an immigrant experience. We left our home countries because things were better here in the United States than they were back in the homeland. I don't think this is given enough emphasis. Some neo-Conservatives and Right-wing people in the United States say that Latinos are separatists or that they think more of their home countries than they do of the United States. Well, the reason people left is because they weren't enjoying the full freedom of their lives or the full potential of their lives in Latin America, so they value the US Latinos are refreshing the American ethics of hard work, upward mobility, public education, improving your children's future. These are all American values that Latinos are now reflecting and embodying.

LL: Jewish, Irish, German immigrants--everyone has put a little something into the melting pot. What do you think will be the greatest contribution of the Latinos to US society overall?