Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 4 | A Developing Identity Hispanics in The United States

Immigrant civic integration is an integral part of the Corporation’s focus on strengthening U.S. democracy. In this essay, Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, addresses how Hispanics—both those newly arrived in the U.S. and those who have been citizens for generations—are both impacting and being influenced by American society.

The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that in 2004 there were 40,459,196 people in the United States who identified themselves as “Hispanic or Latino.” Which is it, then, “Hispanic” or “Latino,” or both? The Los Angeles Times sticks to “Latino.” The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the arbiter of such things for the federal government, debated the matter and decided not to pick one or the other so as not to offend anyone. The confusion, and occasional controversy, over the name is just symbolic of a much larger question to which there is no simple answer: who are these people? Indeed, you have to ask: are they, in fact, a single people with a common identity, a common bond or common goals? This is important to know because that population number reported by the U.S. Census Bureau is big already, and growing fast. Forty million folks is enough that if they started pulling in the same direction all at once, they could probably change the nation’s course—socially, culturally, perhaps even politically one day.

What direction would that be? It is certainly not linguistic. Hispanics are not going to make the United States into a Spanish-speaking country because nearly a quarter of this population speaks little or no Spanish at all, according to the Census, and more than a third say they speak English very well. So, it’s not language. Moreover, Hispanics do not share a common race, ethnicity or ancestry, which are the usual ways to identify a population group. They can be black or white, of indigenous origins or not, and their cultural heritages are quite diverse.

Roberto Suro, Director, Pew Hispanic Center

The official definition from the OMB relies on national origins, saying the term “Hispanic or Latino” refers to people who trace their descent from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central and South America and other Spanish cultures. That’s a pretty broad description because it encompasses immigrants who have just arrived in the United States from those regions as well as those who trace their ancestry in America back many generations. More significantly, the idea of a Hispanic or Latino people comprising many nationalities is not a very strong concept in those regions; not as strong, certainly, as individual national identities. The notion that people from all these places are bound together by an overarching group identity exists more powerfully now in the United States than in Latin America. So, whether the label is Hispanic or Latino, the “label on the label” says Made in the USA. In other words, we are dealing with a uniquely American phenomenon: even if it is based on national origins rooted elsewhere, the group identity for many Hispanics is created in the United States. To understand where this population change may be taking us as a nation, we have to look close to home, not abroad.

`Whatever the meaning of “Hispanic” or “Latino”—and I am going to use these terms interchangeably in this essay—it is not one that is artificial or imposed. If you ask people a question like, “Are you of Hispanic or Latino origin?” a good many respond affirmatively. That is how the U.S. Census gets a population count. You can ask the question in several different ways with many different kinds of surveys, and the size of the group and its basic characteristics turn out to be more or less the same. At the most basic level, then, the Latino/Hispanic “yes” is a matter of self-identification. And if more than 40 million people self-identify as Latino or Hispanic, then this sense of group membership is something large and significant on the nation’s landscape.

I could argue on the basis of sound evidence that the growth of the Hispanic population is as important a demographic development today as the inception of the Baby Boom was sixty years ago. But if you press me on what makes someone a Hispanic or a Latino, my responses start getting fuzzy after self-identification, and I am not being coy in saying that. I have been watching and writing about Hispanics for thirty years, and I answer “yes” for myself when asked, but the more I learn, the less I know for certain about identity. What are the boundaries of this group? What binds us together? What are we saying to each other and to everyone else when we assert this self-identification?

Models of Identity
The search for answers, as best I can tell, has to start with two admissions: first, when it comes to Hispanics, let’s acknowledge that we are watching a work in progress. Second, let’s accept that we need new ways of talking about group identity because the old ones don’t work very well with this population.

On the first point, the population statistics leave no doubt: the number of Hispanics doubled between 1970 and 1990 and has nearly doubled again since 1990. No population can grow that fast without changing, particularly when immigration is driving much of the growth. About four-of-every-ten Hispanics are foreign born, and among those newcomers, well more than half have arrived in the U.S. since 1990. Those numbers represent a lot of people who are still very much in the process of adjusting to new lives in a new place. And the transition will last beyond their lifetimes. High fertility rates among immigrants is the other propellant of population growth. Another three-in-ten Hispanics are the native-born children of foreign-born parents. This is the second generation, and these young people—whose median age is less than thirteen—are adapting what they inherit from their parents and what they learn outside their homes to fit their own needs. Altogether, then, about 70 percent of the Hispanic population is involved in a process of fundamental cultural transition at some stage or another. Some trajectories are becoming evident, but the final results are still very much in doubt. Hispanics are a people in motion, so we must accept the uncertainty they bring with them and be patient. Understanding their impact on American society could take a while. It could take decades.

Next page: The notion that Hispanics from different countries are bound together by an overarching group identity exists more powerfully now in the United States than in Latin America. So, whether the label is Hispanic or Latino, the ‘label on the label’ says Made in the USA.

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