If you’ve been around for a few decades, you might remember the old stereotype of Hispanics. They were depicted as a lethargic people, often dozing beneath sombreros.
These days, however, when you think of Hispanics, what image comes to mind? They’re the ones doing the tough jobs. (I recently asked one of the Anglo crews remodeling my house to remove some concrete. The foreman shook his head, chuckled and said: “That might kill us. You need Hispanics for that.”)
Speaking of Hispanic workers, when I formed a market-research company back in the 1980s, my partner was of Cuban descent. We ended up doing research in the Hispanic market — it was “discovered” by advertisers after the 1980 census — and so nearly all of the staff was Hispanic.
As I observed my co-workers and studied the market we were hired to research, I discovered they possessed attitudes that were more than useful; they were admirable.
I had a recent conversation with the man who replaced me when I left the company, Carlos Garcia. He has since formed his own research company, Garcia Research, in Burbank, Calif. He does a provocative presentation about stereotypes as they apply to marketing to the Latino community, and does it with good-natured charm, disarming any audience prepared to take offense.
Here are some samples from his lists of stereotypes, beginning with some observations on “Latinos as seen by Americans” (Hispanics often refer to Anglos as “Americans”):
Religion: slavish, vaguely pagan
Food: hot and fattening
Money: not enough
Children: too many
Pets: cruelly treated
Homes: loud, crowded
Elders: omnipresent, weird
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However, it gets even more interesting when Carlos turns the tables and gives us, with a wink, his stereotype of “Americans as seen by Latinos:”
Religion: Sunday only
Food: boring, shelf stable
Money: highest priority
Children: treated like pets
Pets: treated like children
Homes: antiseptic, cold
Elders: disposable burden
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Finally, he gives us “Latinos as seen by Latinos:”
Religion: spiritual, social center
Food: exuberant, rich
Money: functional
Children: glorious
Pets: functional
Homes: for heart, not investment
Elders: revered
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Having spent much of my life and career around Hispanics, my own “Latinos as seen by Dauten” lines up with Carlos’s last set, and I suspect that’s true for almost anyone whose worked alongside them.
However, I know that in some parts of the country, encountering large numbers of Hispanics is something new and unsettling. Are Hispanics going to change America? I hope so.
Look again at the three lists, and I believe you’ll see that Hispanics aren’t trying to undermine American values, but they’re here to remind us of what they were and should be. Hispanics are changing America by helping to bring us a culture that circles back to the best of what we already are.
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Dale Dauten is the founder of The Innovators’ Lab. His latest book is “(Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success.”
