The largest anti-Latino racial massacre in recent history took place on August 3, 2019, when a 21-year-old believer in the white supremacist conspiracy theory the “Great Replacement” walked into a Walmart in the Texas border city of El Paso with an assault-style rifle and began shooting, intending to target Latino, specifically Mexican, people, according to a federal affidavit. Twenty-three people died, most of them Latino.
I cannot help but feel the million cuts of micro-aggressions whenever I ask myself this question. If my dollar is worth as much as your dollar, then why do you spend so much less reaching out for my business? I write today as much a Hispanic consumer as I am a marketer to my community.
The term LatinX that purports to describe Latinos in a gender-inclusive, non-binary way, has become commonplace in some quarters – but certainly not among Hispanics.
So, who is using LatinX? Opponents of transphobia and sexism and those who embrace the latest lingo. The term appears in academic research papers; liberal politicians, social scientists and civil rights litigators use it. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci uses it. In fact, in 2018 Merriam-Webster officially added it to the dictionary.
A quick look at our infographic this month and you cannot help but come to one conclusion – Hispanics are vaccinating for COVID-19 at an alarmingly low rate relative to the US population in general. Ironically, there is research out there that Hispanics want to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
US Hispanics have historically been linked to cannabis, but until recently that association was marked by racial inequality. In fact, cannabis was referred to as “marijuana” “because anti-cannabis factions wanted to underscore the drug’s ‘Mexican-ness,’ meant to stoke anti-immigrant sentiments,” according to Matt Thompson from NPR’s Code Switch blog. It’s also the reason why some cannabis advocates today consider “marijuana” a derogatory term.
Most of the debate related to people of color in the media comes down to two subjects — how are we portrayed and do we see ourselves enough on-screen. The topic of on-screen representation seems to get more politicized with every award show, much like everything else in our increasingly polarized society today.
Almost one year ago, I wrote about Hispanics being essential to the well-being of the U.S. economy. This economic essentiality has cost our community dearly and yet the resiliency shown by Latinos is what makes us an unequivocal economic growth engine in this country.
The last time we took on the subject of authenticity in Spanish language advertising campaigns, we outlined at least 12 red flags. To those of us in the multicultural marketing business this may come as second nature, but this issue is somehow still generating discourse among advertisers.
Spanish is not going away, especially when there are 46MM Spanish-speaking consumers in the US today.
While the topics of acculturation and the growth of the Hispanic market coming from US-born Latinos, have been used to undermine the belief that Hispanics continue to use their native language, the truth is that Spanish language media and advertising continue to thrive in this country.
Now that we are well into the 2020s, we may finally be coming to terms with racial and cultural unrest in our society. What is not so clear is what this reckoning – along with upcoming census data – will mean for multicultural marketing in general and Hispanic advertising in particular.
Many corporations have been making well publicized efforts to diversify their workforces in order to better reflect the perspectives of their customer bases.