Deconstructing stereotypes surrounding Latinos

Now, Arana has written a new book that deconstructs some of the most pervasive stereotypes surrounding Latinos. The book is called “Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority.” The book is driven by a single question: How can we move past what is considered to be Latino 101? “This book is about Latinos,” WISH-TV contributor Gloria Jimenez said. “We’ve been growing the community.” Jiminez described the stereotypes. “One,” she said, “is that all Latinos are recent arrivals (to the United States). We’ve been here forever.” “When Latinos move to Florida, most people think they are Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans,” she said of another common misnomer. “In California, they think Latinos (are) Mexicans.”

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There’s a Mexican restaurant in nearly every US county

“Mexican food exists exactly where you would expect it to, but also pretty much anywhere else you might care to look in the United States that has any significant number of people in it,” says Aaron Smith, Pew’s director of data labs research. “In the middle of Oregon somewhere, out between the Pacific Ocean and the Rockies, there’s this little moderately sized community where over a third of the restaurants are serving Mexican food, which is kind of fascinating.”

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