Earlier this week, PBS Newshour’s John Yang interviewed Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC) co-founders Henry Cisneros and Sal Trujillo about U.S. Latinos and the misperceptions surrounding them. For a full transcript of the interview, click here.
Cisneros, a Democrat and former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Trujillo, a Republican and “the first native-born Latino CEO of a Fortune 150 firm,” recently wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece called “How Latinos Power the American Economy.” In that piece, the LDC co-founders wrote the following:
Instead of looking to the Latino community as a pillar of national economy, however, one of the main issues of this campaign has been immigration and the fear that immigrants are taking U.S. jobs. What is going on?
It turns out that many Americans tend to hold strong but mistaken impressions of our community. This is the conclusion of an independent survey conducted in January for the Latino Donor Collaborative, a group we have founded to make sure Americans understand the full contributions of the Latino population. The survey showed that most non-Hispanic, white Americans with moderate views of the Latino community do not believe that Latinos share their American values. The survey also uncovered that many Americans believe that nearly half of us are undocumented immigrants, when in fact only 16% are, according to the 2014 Hispanic Trends report by the Pew Research Center.
The Pew report also made clear that Latinos in this country are just as likely as non-Latinos to say ‘the U.S. is the best country in the world, and are more likely to believe “most people can get ahead if they are willing to work hard.” American values are Latino values.