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Latino Leadership

    When it comes to people of color, we have a tendency to want to narrow our understanding. If we can identify leaders, we can look to them for a quick guide to the issues for that constituency. We can condense the complex needs of a large group of people into the needs deemed important by a small group of people. 

 

   At 47 million, more than 15 percent of the population, Latinos are the largest group of color in the United States.

    With the immigration debate, it seems natural that we would be cognizant of whose voice is at the forefront. However, to ask the question who is the most important Latino leader in the country today, implies that there should be one. Yet Latinos, as with other populations of color, are not so singular.

    If we were truly the colorblind society we claim to be, we would be concerned with identifying leaders from "x" communities to then ensure that we had proportionate representation.

      It was asked of Blacks during the Civil Rights Movement at a time when discrimination against African Americans garnered national attention as

it is being asked of the growing population of Latinos. Yet that mentality limits wide-scale progress regardless of who is in power. If you only allow one or two people who are designated as leaders from the marginalized group to the table, you do not automatically achieve equality. That is tokenism, and it has its limits.

    Perhaps Latinos can resist our desire to shortcut a full understanding of their diverse community by way of the designation of a spokesperson. Perhaps they will find a way to balance the need for collective action without being narrowly defined.

    We need to challenge ourselves to not cave to our default designations rather to do more than look at one person's talking points to wrap our minds around the needs and talents of millions of Americans.












Kira Hudson Banks, Ph.D.
Psychology Today