![]() ![]() At the same time, Puerto Ricans were doing almost the exact same thing, just on the other side of the country. Mexican Americans in the Southwest tried to draw attention to the fact that children in their communities were segregated in lower performing schools, that there were high rates of poverty, joblessness and discrimination in labor markets. Your birth certificate would say “white.”ĭuring the ‘60s, the gains of the African American civil rights movement inspired several groups to organize. They would say, “No, I’m Puerto Rican.” If you were of Mexican descent in Texas, you might think of yourself as Mexican. In the early ‘60s if you would have gone to Spanish Harlem and said, “Are you Hispanic?” a good amount of people would not have known what you were talking about. How did the concept of a single identity emerge? It was interesting to me, because how can just corral everybody in one sort of label, given we’re so different? I started exploring the question of, “How did this happen?” And not just the words, the music, sights and politics were different, too. When I moved to the East Coast to do my graduate work, Spanish was spoken differently - different accents, connotations, different meanings sometimes. ![]() I used to say diversity in my high school was about what part of Mexico your parents came from! When I was growing up in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, being Latino in L.A. How did you get into studying this topic? We asked her to walk us through the evolution of these identities and how they have influenced politics and culture. Cristina Mora explores how these designations came about and were eventually embraced by communities from a wide array of cultural and geographic backgrounds. In her book “Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Constructed a New American,” UC Berkeley sociology professor G. ![]() It may surprise you to learn that these labels, as we know them today, are a relatively new invention, popularized as part of an effort to reflect a changing population on the U.S. In fact, there is no one label, much less a “right” one. September 15 through October 15 marks Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the varied contributions and cultural backgrounds of over 58.9 million people in the United States of Hispanic origin. ![]()
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