LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority

LatinoLand is a sweeping, celebratory history of the diverse Latino contributions to American life. Arana begins with a terrifyingly bleak assessment of the genocidal racism of the early Spanish conquistadors and the biased colorism that continues to plague the Western Hemisphere. But as the captivating narrative progresses, it pivots to a festive, impressionistic appreciation of Latino success stories across professions, even if in the United States, in the author’s view, Latinos too often remain underrepresented. At the core of the book are the complex tensions between the imperatives of assimilation and maintaining one’s cultural identity—epitomized by Arana’s own deep loyalties toward both her motherland, Peru, and her adopted home, the United States. Arana struggles to extract distinctive, enduring Latino traits from the vast multiplicity of Latino national, ethnic, and class backgrounds beyond the commonplace values of “family, work, and joy.” As the over 200 interviews reported in the book faithfully document, the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party no longer bind Latinos together, and many third-generation Latinos are no longer fluent in Spanish.