Latino Heritage Month Is the Perfect Time to Talk About What Happens Inside Our Own Community

Latino Heritage Month is a time I hold close to my heart every year, and after almost a decade of working in Latino media, I can tell you with absolute certainty that this industry is the greatest love of my professional life. It is my pride, my soul and the work I wake up grateful for every single morning. There are days when I sit with the weight of how lucky I am to do this, to tell our stories, to speak to our people, to exist in a space that was built with us at the center. But love does not require silence, and this month I want to talk about something that has sat heavy on my chest for a long time, something that does not get said enough in the spaces where Latinas gather to celebrate themselves and each other.

There is a nastiness that lives inside this community, and pretending otherwise does not serve anyone we claim to love.

The Idea That There Is a Right Way to Be Latino Is a Problem

I have spent years in this industry watching people use intellectualism as a weapon against their own community, and every single time it has left me heartbroken. There are Latinas in this space who have made it known, not so subtly, that they considered themselves superior because they had bylines at the Washington Post or other publications deemed prestigious by the general market. A Latina writing for a Latina-led or Latina-owned publication carries as much merit, if not more, because we are speaking directly to our people, pouring ourselves into work that sees them, names them and refuses to shrink them down to fit a narrative that was never built with us in mind. That work matters and it has always mattered, and the fact that some people in our own community need to be reminded of that is something I find genuinely painful.

The same arrogance shows up when people look down on Latinas who listen to reggaeton or engage with popular culture in ways that are not considered sufficiently intellectual. Our community is vast, layered and deserving of celebration in all its forms, and anyone who uses their platform to reduce the everyday experiences of regular Latino people is not serving the community. They are performing for an audience that was never ours to begin with, and there is something deeply painful about watching a Latina do that to another Latina, about watching one of our own turn the tools of our marginalization against the very people she claims to represent.

Intellectualism is absolutely part of our Latina experience, and it should be celebrated. Latinas are among the most educated demographics in the United States, and that is something to be proud of collectively, not wielded as a badge of superiority over the women standing next to us. Education is a privilege, and not everyone in our community had access to the same opportunities, the same schools, the same financial stability or the same circumstances that make higher education possible in the first place. There are so many factors that shape what a person’s educational journey looks like, and being mindful of those factors is not a lowering of standards. It is a basic acknowledgment of the reality that most Latinas in this country are navigating. I believe in meeting people where they are, in finding the brilliance in someone regardless of where they studied or whether they studied at all, because intelligence and wisdom show up in forms that no degree can fully account for, and some of the most extraordinary women I have met in this industry never set foot in a university classroom.

The Financial Reality of This Industry Is Not Something to Judge

Let me be honest about something that does not get discussed enough, something I feel in my bones every time I meet a Latina in this space who is holding two or three jobs to keep her platform alive. Latino media is a hard niche in which to earn a living wage, and those of us who do are already operating from a place of privilege that we should name out loud and hold with humility. I have met Latinas in this industry who pour everything they have into this work while quietly struggling to make ends meet, and I have nothing but profound respect for every single one of them because they chose this community even when this community could not fully choose them back financially.

I know this firsthand in a way that still stings when I think about it. I made the decision to expand into marketing for the general market because I wanted to grow in corporate, because I am the child of immigrants who grew up in a low-income household as a first-generation American for whom financial stability has never been a given but a dream I have fought for with everything I have. When I shared that decision with someone who called herself my mentor, the response I received broke something in me. She reduced my ambition to wanting a corner office in a large corporation, as if that were something to be ashamed of, as if a first-generation Latina from a low-income home wanting to build a stable life was somehow a betrayal of who she was supposed to be. It was another Latina woman who said that to me, and I have carried that moment with me ever since, not out of bitterness, but because it reminded me with painful clarity of exactly the kind of woman I never want to become.

Kindness in This Industry Is Not Optional It Is the Work

There are Latinas in this space who will tear apart the writing of other Latinas without offering a single word of guidance, without a single moment of generosity, and that causes me genuine grief. None of us arrived here fully formed. None of us write perfectly today. The question of why someone with experience and a platform would choose to diminish someone who is still finding her voice is one I keep returning to, because the answer usually has more to do with insecurity than with standards, and insecurity dressed up as criticism does real and lasting damage to women who deserve better from their own community.

This industry is one where there is often a singular vision of what Latino media should look like, and very little room for the nuanced, complicated, overlapping experiences that actually make up our community. It is either one way or the other, when the truth is that most of us are here to grow and many of us are here to survive, and both of those things deserve to be honored without condition or judgment.

My hope is that the Latinas in this space, all of us, continue to choose each other in the fullest sense of that word. Not because we agree on everything or come from the same background or took the same path to get here, but because we understand what it costs to show up in this industry and we choose to honor that cost in one another. I have met women in this space who have changed my life with their generosity, their patience and their willingness to extend a hand without asking what was in it for them, and those women are the standard I hold myself to every single day. This community is capable of so much beauty when we lead with kindness, and Latino Heritage Month feels like the right time to recommit to that, without condition and without keeping score.