The Exclusion of Latinos from American Media and History Books

Castro, pictured at the U.S. Capitol in 2019, criticized news media this week, including The New Yorker, for underrepresentation of Latinos. Photograph by Patrick Semansky / AP

National Hispanic Heritage Month begins each year on September 15th, and for many Latinos is both a celebration of identity and a reminder of a painful, long-standing truth: that the power of the community is incommensurate to its role in society. Last week, President Biden kicked off this year’s celebration by declaring that “Hispanic heritage is American heritage,” a statement which echoed the words of Lyndon Johnson, who created the annual observance in 1968 and described Hispanic heritage as “ours.” More than half a century later, it is worth considering why there continues to be such a disconnect between rhetoric and reality.

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