Diversity at Work

By Sally Lehrman

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Which term do you use -- Hispanic or Latino? --Associated Press style is to use Hispanic when referring to people whose ethnic origin is in a Spanish-speaking country. "Latino" is acceptable, AP says, for Hispanics who prefer that term. --The National Association of Hispanic Journalists has a resource guide, "Latinos in the United States," which includes a chapter of glossary terms associated with the Hispanic community. Which style does your newsroom go by?

When we report about "Hispanics" or "Latinos," who are we really talking about? Roberto Suro, for one, thinks journalists may not have a clear idea.

Suro, a professor at the University of Southern California and former director of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., says first and foremost, remember the main characteristic about this population: It's diverse, dispersed, and growing and changing all at the same time. "It reminds me of my two children when they were adolescents," Suro joked at a forum on multicultural reporting organized by the Society of Professional Journalists in Los Angeles last week.

About 12 percent of the U.S. population now marks "Hispanic" on Census forms. But journalists shouldn't assume these folks share the same background, comfort with the Spanish language or even connection with their native countries, Suro says. Los Angeles has a strong Mexican-American presence, while Miami has a long heritage tracing back to Cuba. New York is home to many Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and a fast-growing population of Mexicans -- a good number from the state of Puebla, according to Hispanic Magazine. As many as one-quarter of immigrants have little connection to their ancestral land, with their time in the United States, age of arrival and native country all influencing this pattern.

It helps to think about Hispanics by generation, Suro suggests. Consider language. Not surprisingly, first generation Hispanics are most comfortable conversing in Spanish. But for the third generation, English by far is the language of choice. About half of second-generation Hispanics -- the group poised to become the fastest-growing segment of the population -- are bilingual.

To highlight the distinctions among these groups, Suro pointed to a few results from a Pew Hispanic Center opinion poll of nearly 3,000 Hispanics. More than half of Spanish speakers agreed that "it doesn't do any good to plan for the future because you don't have control over it." But only one-third of bilingual and one-quarter of English speakers agreed. About 95 percent of Spanish speakers thought that children should live with their parents until marriage; but a little over half of English speakers felt that way. Just 16 percent of Spanish-dominant speakers in the survey said that sex between two adults of the same sex was acceptable, while 27 percent of bilingual and 38 percent of English-dominant Hispanics agreed.

It's often our habit to lump "Hispanics" in one group when reporting about health, politics, or any other subject. Our sources often do the same thing. Suro's data forces us to think twice and ask a few more questions. As he emphasized last week, "it's dangerous to generalize."