This Hispanic Heritage Month, Let’s Flip The Script for Latinos!

Hispanic Heritage Month is here, and we must own it as a great opportunity to communicate and celebrate how the Latino community is driving prosperity, progress and power in the United States.???

When it comes to prosperity, the data proves it — our GDP, our purchasing power, entrepreneurial prowess, the large number of jobs we are creating.? We are fueling the economy.?

Not unrelated, our power is also trending up.? Across all sectors, there is an uptick of influence.? We see it in technology, where Latinos are creating more startups than other groups. We see it with politicians who are learning that they need Latinos in order to get elected.? We are also seeing more and more Latinos making a run for office.??

All of which translates to progress. We are getting more education, buying more houses, finding ourselves more upwardly mobile than ever before.? It is the heartfelt desire for progress that unites us as a community, despite our own enormous diversity and differences. We are demonstrating time and time again that Hispanic progress is American progress.?

Yet now is the time we have to be more focused, more determined, more organized and unified.? Because as a community, despite our contributions, despite the tangible momentum and the palpable progress, we are still underrepresented, misrepresented and undervalued.? We are still working to break down systemic barriers.???

Five years ago, we spearheaded a Hispanic Sentiment Study in the community to get a baseline on how we feel as Hispanic Americans so that we could guide our efforts to help catalyze change. This past year, we fielded the research again, and there were some interesting findings.? For one thing, we are reclaiming our Latinidad.? Where previous generations felt they had to bend over backwards to wholly assimilate, now we don’t feel a conflict between being both American and Hispanic.? As a result, we are seeing the Spanish language on the rise, a sizable jump from 63% in 2018 to 77% today.?

Latino pride has increased over the past five years, as has our sense of unity as a community, a significant and positive change because we know that when we see ourselves as a single community, we are more proactive and productive.

Yet despite these real positives, the Hispanic Sentiment Study, tracked some backsliding in how we experience our forward motion, despite its empirical truth.

In the past five years, we feel our Latino values are less reflected or respected in American values than previously.? In fact, 26% fewer people feel that our values are reflected than just five years ago, a troubling drop.?This also extends specifically to media and brands — a tremendous warning sign to those who are reflexively counting on the Latino community to buy their products, feel loyalty to their brands or engage with their media.??

There remains a perception gap, both in terms of how we view ourselves and how we are viewed by others. Some of the barriers we face are rooted in the fact that we still don’t own our narrative.?As a result, perceptions of our community are not shaped by who we are and what we do but by other people’s ideas of that.? Even worse, we often passively accept some of the narrative that was written by others.?

The truth is we must tell our own story.?We must own our narrative, we must flip the script.? We have the facts behind us, the data.?We must own our values and know our value for their positive effect — not live choked, frozen or impeded by stereotypes and prejudice.? We know what we are contributing.? We must frame our strengths to combat misinformation and disinformation with truth and facts.??

If we do that we will be empowered.? We will find what I call the Aztec moment — that Eureka moment — when you discover for yourself that your Latino identity is the real source of your strength, not something to be tamed or suppressed.?And when you tap into that — armed with facts, powered by pride, you will possess the strength you need to continue our path to progress.??

Make no mistake, we do not have to move forward alone. We have great partners in the non-profit world, across the political landscape, and most certainly in Corporate America.? The smartest companies have looked at their research, they’ve absorbed the economic models, and they know that without Latinos, their own opportunities are limited.? To companies everywhere I urge you to make Hispanic Heritage month a meaningful time to engage authentically with your employees, your customers and suppliers and, most definitely, with the community.? We will succeed together.

Most of all, let us all celebrate this month with optimism, possibilism and factivism — believe in a better future, know the facts and build strong solutions. It is time for the Latino community to embrace our pride, own our narrative and embark on the next chapter of our progress.? In the end, Hispanic progress is American progress and we will succeed.