The Historical Construction of Latinidad

Historians of Latinos in the United States have yet to amply examine the historical emergence of Latinidad, the sense of a shared cultural commonality, destiny, and unity among Latinos.  To date, scholarly investigations of Latinidad typically emanate from anthropology, literature, and cultural studies.   The importance of uncovering the histories of single ethnic/national origin groups, as well as the limited number of localities with a multi-ethnic Latino population prior to the 1980s, have engendered this development.  Latinidad can nevertheless begin to be historicized by turning to those few cities that have housed a heterogeneous Latino population for generations.

This presentation explores the construction and expansion of Latinidad in San Francisco, a city in which Latinos traced their heritage to various Latin American nations, including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Peru, and Chile.  It uncovers the aims, messages, and activities of five community institutions across five decades: 1) Spanish-language newspapers from the 1930s, including Hispano América and Lucha Obrera; 2) United Latin Americans of America, a civic organization established in the late 1940s; 3) the Catholic Council for the Spanish Speaking organized in the early 1960s; 4) the Mission Area Community Action Program created during the War on Poverty era; and 5) the Gay Latino Alliance founded in the 1970s.  Collectively, the work and aspirations of these bodies reveal that Latinidad was neither the product of one single group nor a single historical period.  Rather, multiple community institutions, with manifold objectives, participated in its production, definition, and deployment.