Pew Research Found That the Further Latinos Are From Their Immigrant Roots the Less Central Their Latino Identity Becomes

A new Pew Research Center study published on July 9th, 2026, has found that Latino identity in the United States means something very different depending on how far a person is from their family’s immigrant experience. Based on a national survey of 4,923 Hispanic adults conducted in October 2025 in both English and Spanish, the report reveals a community that has nearly doubled in size over the past two decades, growing from 35.3 million in 2000 to approximately 68 million in 2024, while remaining genuinely divided on questions of identity, belonging and whether being Latino in the United States is an advantage, a disadvantage or simply a neutral fact of daily life.

The findings reveal a community that is unified in size and growth but genuinely divided on what it means to be Latino in the United States today.

The Generational Divide That Shapes Everything

The central finding of the Pew study is that the closer a Latino adult is to their family’s immigrant experience, the more central their Latino identity tends to be to how they see themselves. Among Latino immigrants, 71 percent say being Latino is extremely or very important to how they think about themselves. That figure drops to 57 percent among second-generation Latinos, those born in the United States to at least one immigrant parent, and falls further to 51 percent among third-generation and higher Latinos, those born in the United States to U.S.-born parents.

A similar pattern emerges around country of origin. Among Latino immigrants, 70 percent say their country of origin or heritage is extremely or very important to their self-conception, compared to 57 percent of second-generation Latinos and 47 percent of those in the third generation or higher. Each generation that passes in the United States produces Latinos who are somewhat less likely to organize their identity around their heritage and somewhat more likely to describe themselves simply as American.

The label people choose to use for themselves tells the same story. While 67 percent of Latino immigrants most often use labels tied to their country of origin or heritage, that figure drops to 49 percent among second-generation Latinos and 34 percent among those in the third generation or higher. Meanwhile, only 5 percent of Latino immigrants most often describe themselves as American alone, compared to 22 percent of second-generation Latinos and 40 percent of those in the third generation or higher. The pattern is consistent across every measure the survey applied, and it reflects something that many Latino families already understand intuitively from watching their own children and grandchildren navigate identity differently than they did.

Whether Being Latino Helps or Hurts and Why the Answer Is Complicated

On the question of whether their Latino identity helps or hurts their ability to get ahead in the United States, the survey found that Latinos across generations are genuinely divided, and that immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos are closer in their views on this particular question than the generational identity data might suggest.

Among Hispanic immigrants, 24 percent say being Hispanic helps their ability to get ahead, while 36 percent say it hurts and 40 percent say it neither helps nor hurts. Among U.S.-born Hispanics, 29 percent say it helps, 31 percent say it hurts and 39 percent say it makes no difference either way. The distributions are close enough to suggest that this question cuts across generational lines in a way that identity salience does not, with roughly similar shares of immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos landing in each category.

The survey also found that whether respondents consider themselves a typical American or very different from one follows the same generational arc as everything else. Among Latino immigrants, only 27 percent consider themselves a typical American, a share that rises to 60 percent among second-generation Latinos and 72 percent among those in the third generation or higher. Conversely, 72 percent of Latino immigrants say they are very different from a typical American, a figure that falls to 39 percent among second-generation Latinos and 27 percent among those further removed from their immigrant roots.

What Connects the Community Across All of It

The most striking finding in the Pew study is not where Latinos diverge but where they converge, and that convergence is around the sense that what happens to other Hispanics in the United States affects their own lives. Among Latino immigrants, 65 percent say this. Among second-generation Latinos, the figure rises to 67 percent. Even among third-generation and higher Latinos, 55 percent agree.

That shared sense of linked fate persists even as identity salience declines across generations, suggesting that the emotional and practical connection to the broader Latino community does not dissolve simply because someone is further removed from their family’s immigrant origins. A third-generation Latino who primarily identifies as American may still feel the consequences of what happens to Latino immigrants as personally as someone closer to the immigrant experience would, and the Pew data reflects that distinction clearly.

The survey also found that the sense of responsibility toward other Hispanics is somewhat lower than the sense of linked fate. Among Latino immigrants and second-generation Latinos, 38 percent each say they feel a responsibility to look out for other Hispanics extremely or very often, while 29 percent of third-generation and higher Latinos say the same. The gap between feeling affected by what happens to other Latinos and feeling actively responsible for them is a data point worth sitting with, because it reveals something honest about the difference between solidarity as a lived experience and solidarity as a deliberate ongoing commitment.

The U.S. Hispanic population now accounts for a substantial share of the country’s recent population growth, and the community it represents is neither uniform in its self-conception nor consistent in its relationship to American identity across generations. The Pew study confirms what many Latino families already know from their own dinner tables: the question of who we are and what that means in the United States does not produce the same answer twice, and the data suggests it probably never will.