“LatinoLand: A Portrait of American’s Largest and Least Understood Minority,” by Marie Arana. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024. 523 pages. $32.50 (paperback).

“LatinoLand” chronicles the rise and perplexities of Latinos in the United States exposing through historical markers how Latinos came to be its largest ethnic minority. Arana takes readers through a detailed depiction of the early arrivals, settlers, those conquered and then eventually those pushed out of their own lands and describes what shapes us and gives us the ganas to keep going amid all the adversity.

She unravels the tightly wound web of misconceptions that often plague Latinos in the United States without shying to uncover the harsh realities of our gente – we are not a race of people but rather we are all races (White, Black, Asian, Mestizo and Brown) and an ethnicity united perhaps by a single language: Spanish.

Arana aims to deconstruct our mindset, our beliefs, how we operate, what makes us tick, how we work, while proclaiming in the same sentence that we continue to be the most misunderstood minority. Her depiction provides an eye-opening and painful validation that even we, Latinos, get lumped into the same category and crammed into the same societal construct that tries to give us a name and an identity. In reality, most Latinos continue to closely identify with the countries where we initially immigrated from while also wishing our niños could learn our mother tongue and that we could gain back our lost identity.

Many assertions ring true in her text, one of which being our collective will to work. Arana states “we have the highest employment rate – higher than any other race or ethnicity in the nation – precisely because many of us are willing to do the work that no one else wants to do.” I do not have to read the book to know this is so – I look around my own city daily and see it with my own eyes. We were, and continue to be, the workers who during COVID were deemed “essential.” We build your houses, clean and maintain your facilities, keep restaurants moving, and grow the food you feed your family. Despite projections that in less than six years Hispanics will “account for 80 percent of all new workers in the country,” we remain mostly an unknown, unrepresented and often-ignored sector of the American populace.

Carefully crafted portraits of Latinos are highlighted throughout the text, including the author’s own story of immigration to the United States from her native Peru. This masterful storytelling, of mostly unknown and unseen Latinos, is brought to the spotlight through mini biographies carefully detailing one main characteristic that makes these protagonists shine. Readers may be most fascinated to read such stories like the college student from Wichita, Kansas, Isabella Do-Orozco: “She is Asian Latina, the child of a Vietnamese father and a Mexican mother,” both medical doctors who permanently settled in Wichita and “on their way to successful careers and financial security the likes of which neither had enjoyed previously – in Mexico or Vietnam.” Isabella is part of a small “1 percent of the Hispanic population – a tiny subset amounting to a scant six hundred thousand people,” that identifies as Asian Latinos. This is an example of how every story in every chapter is carefully backed up with statistical data validating each statement Arana makes about Latinos in the United States.

The most poignant call to action comes toward the end of the book. Arana recalls with gratitude the influence Donald E. Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post, had in her personal life and career. Being born into one of the most influential media families in the world, not only did Don Graham have access to the most prestigious educational institutions in our nation, he also had “every privilege a member of America’s East Coast cultural elite could boast.” Don Graham sold his family’s business to Amazon titan Jeff Bezos and founded an organization called TheDream.Us to provide scholarships to underserved, undocumented, yet promising young students.

The question that recurs to me all through these last chapters of the book is simply: Why? Why would someone with so much power and privilege even care about this issue or seek to help “Dreamers” – a term coined for those young, mostly Latino, youth who were brought by their parents to the United States without documentation and have been essentially raised most of their lives on American soil.

The author does not leave readers wondering for very long. After interviewing Don Graham about his motivation for helping, Don’s answer is simple: “They are the kids most discriminated against in the United States right now.” Arana brings attention to an issue that hits close to home, as a former Dreamer and one who advocates for other Dreamers alike, it is hard not be moved by Don Graham’s commitment as expressed in the book.

“LatinoLand” gives us the optimism to hope and know that there is still space in this world to dream, that “what’s best for you, in other words, is what’s best for me. And best for everyone else … can there be a greater agent to change – a greater promoter of better outcomes – than education itself?” It is notable to point out that locally, Latino students combined comprise the largest minority in our local school districts.

Therefore readers, today more than ever, should take a close look at “LatinoLand.” The book makes a great starting point towards increasing awareness, and apart from our tightly-woven complexities its depiction of Latinos is right on target.

— Reviewed by Leyda Becker, International communities liaison, City of Bowling Green.