Reject the Myths about Hispanics

A merica is home to 62 million Hispanics. That’s 19 percent of the entire U.S. population, and it’s still growing very fast. In fact, the number of Hispanics has almost tripled in just 30 years.

There are as many Hispanics in America as there are Frenchmen in France, or Italians in Italy. Yet far too many Americans have a simplistic notion of who Hispanics are. They see Hispanics as much more alike and unified than they actually are.

There are several different errors people make about Hispanic identity. I’ll shine the light on five of them.

Myth 1: “Hispanic” is a race.

Wrong! While “Hispanic” is considered an ethnicity, it is not a racial identity. In fact, a growing number of Hispanics in America tell the Census Bureau they consider themselves white, black, or of mixed race. A good example of this is the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas, the area in the southernmost tip of the state that touches the Rio Grande and borders Mexico. The population there is 93.5 percent Hispanic, according to government data, but 88 percent of the residents also describe themselves as white, with another 9 percent calling themselves “some other race,” and 1.4 percent saying that they are of two or more races.

If this feels confusing, don’t worry: Everyone is confused by it, including Hispanics! The government describes “Hispanic or Latino” as “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race” (emphasis added).

Myth 2: Hispanics are mostly Catholics.

Wrong! Although the Roman Catholic Church was the established state church of Spain and so held a virtual monopoly on religious expression in the Spanish Empire that settled most of Latin America, other faiths have been gaining strength in Latin America and among Hispanics in the United States over the past century.

A titanic 2014 study of religion among U.S. Hispanics conducted by Pew found that only 48 percent considered themselves Catholics, with another 25 percent belonging to a Protestant Christian church, most of these being Evangelicals. Additionally, 1 percent were Jewish. Twenty percent were unaffiliated with any religious group. Of these, 2 percent were agnostic and another 2 percent were atheist. The religious affiliations of Hispanics are important in predicting their political alignment. As is true for non-Hispanics, the more religious Hispanics are, the more likely they are to adopt conservative political views and to vote Republican.

Myth 3: All Hispanics speak Spanish.

Wrong! Fourteen million Hispanics, about a quarter of the total, speak only English in their homes. As of 2019, 47 percent of U.S.-born Hispanics spoke only English at home. Some Hispanic people speak no Spanish at all. Not surprisingly, the more time that passes between the original immigration experience of a family, the less Spanish is spoken.

By the third generation in America, fewer than a quarter of Hispanics can speak Spanish. But is knowledge of the Spanish language necessary to being Hispanic? No! According to a rule of thumb developed by the Pew Research Center, you’re Hispanic if you call yourself Hispanic.

Myth 4: Hispanic identity is permanent.

Even this is wrong! Since the government and all other data-gathering entities use self-reporting to determine whether someone should be termed Hispanic, it gets much trickier to keep track as immigrants become children and grandchildren of immigrants.

Already, some two-thirds of American Hispanics were born in this country. By the fourth generation here, only half of Hispanics are still willing to describe themselves as Hispanic, although some of them might answer that they are of Hispanic heritage. As assimilation does its wonderful work, many people just want to be known as Americans, just like most well-established immigrant groups before them eventually did.

Myth 5: Hispanics favor high immigration.

Wrong! Rasmussen Reports, for instance, polled 3,500 likely Hispanic voters during 2021 to learn their immigration views. Fifty-eight percent favored large cuts in legal immigration numbers, with 38 percent wanting to slash annual immigration by half or more. Only 15 percent of Hispanics said they wanted higher immigration. Even more surprising, 63 percent of Hispanic likely voters oppose the practice of chain migration. Instead, they favor allowing immigrants to sponsor only their spouse and minor children instead of an endless chain of relatives. The same poll found that 53 percent said the government was doing too little to stop illegal immigration at the U.S.–Mexico border.

The amazing thing about these views is . . . how much they resemble the views of non-Hispanic Americans.

Editor’s note: This essay is an excerpt adapted from Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters on the Move, published by NumbersUSA.