Before there was the Wild West, there were vaqueros – the cowboys of Mexico – who taught Hawaiians how to ride, and rope horses and cattle. Few people know the history of the first Hawaiian vaqueros or that Hawaii still has a thriving cowboy culture to this day.…
In recent years, a growing number of wealthy outsiders have moved to Puerto Rico to take advantage of significantly lower tax rates. This wave of gentrification has caused a dramatic increase in the cost of living on an island where 43% of the population lives below the federal…
Literacy Tests 1920s — Arizona law required voters to pass an English literÂacy test in order to register to vote. The authors of the 1909 law stated their intenÂtion plainly: to block the “ignorÂant Mexican vote.” In the 1920s, pioneers across the country like Antonia Denis, a Puerto…
Immigrant workers make up around 17% of the U.S. workforce according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For immigrant workers, the road to entrepreneurship and career advancement is full of many obstacles compared to nonimmigrants. Language barriers, lack of funding to start a business, adapting to U.S.…
The 2022 midterms are coming up. At stake are the balance of power in Congress, in addition to how states are governed and what laws get passed, both nationally and locally. Key decisions that will affect Latinos now and for future generations — including reproductive justice, gun safety,…
While queer Latinxs have been at the forefront of fighting for equality, they often go unrecognized in history. From JosĂ© Julio Sarria, who became the first openly gay person to run for office in the U.S., to Jennicet GutiĂ©rrez, a transgender immigrant who’s calling out injustices suffered by…
Darleny Suriel is a Dominican woman who identifies as Afro Latina. She knows all too well what it’s like to experience colorism, even within her household. “Colorism has always felt to me like an elephant in the room that would not be directly addressed or acknowledged, but its…
More than half a century after the social justice movements of the 1960s, the fight for civil rights and social justice continues to this day. Still, the grassroots movements of that era brought about sweeping changes across the U.S., and Latinos contributed on the front-line at marches, teach-ins,…
On June 15, 2012, President Barack Obama stood in the White House Rose Garden and announced a new program that would transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. The program was called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals…
June is National Cancer Survivor Month, and one of the most survivable cancers — if caught early enough — is colon cancer. However, communities of color, including Latinos, aren’t getting screened for colon cancer as often or as early as we should. Thankfully, some organizations are working to…