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Axios Latino is published every Tuesday and Thursday.
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1 topic to highlight: The complex lives of Afro-Latinos
More than 6 million Americans identify as Afro-Latinos — a higher number than previously known — according to a Pew Research Center study published this week.
Big Picture
: The survey results show how diversity in the country continues to evolve, especially in the face of the complex ethnic and racial variety that exists within the Latino community itself.
In the Pew study, nearly 30% of respondents who identified as Afro-Latino also said they consider their race to be white.
The Intrigue
: The Pew Research Center asked people directly if they identified as Afro-Latino, a different approach than other surveys.
For example, the Census first asks people if they are Hispanic and then, in another section, if they are black.
As a result, there were fewer people (1.2 million) identified as Afro-Latinos in the decennial count, according to Ana González-Barrera, a Pew researcher.
In figures
: Afro-Latinos represent 2% of the adult population of the United States, according to the Pew study.
The center surveyed more than 68,000 adults between November 2019 and June 2020.
The Afro-Latino population, meanwhile, makes up 12% of Latino adults in the US.
Between the lines
: The history of slavery and colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean plays a big role in how Latinos and Afro-Latinos think about their identity, according to experts.
Fifteen times as many enslaved Africans were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the hemisphere as were taken to the United States, data collected from slave ship journeys show.
Today there are around 130 million Afro-descendants living in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In her own words
: To a large extent, Latino identity "is understood in the United States as non-black," said Janvieve Williams Comrie, founder of the nonprofit Afro Resistance and a professor at New York University.
Williams believes that's due to gaps in education about what blackness means and black heritage throughout the hemisphere.
"As a result, there may be white Latinos who self-identify as Afro-Latinos, but that is a form of appropriation," the scholar said.
Comrie indicated that she has stopped using the term Afro-Latino in recent years, choosing to identify as both Latina and Black.
2. Disinformation that reaches more Latino men
Latino men are more exposed to manipulated or false information about immigration, according to a new report.
Why it matters
: That kind of misinformation could radicalize views on immigration among young Latino men especially, according to an analysis that studied the media consumption habits of 20,000 Hispanics.
Those changes in opinion could, in turn, have an impact on the upcoming midterm elections and other future votes in the United States as the Hispanic electorate continues to grow.
Study reveals troubling trends about Latinos and their information habits
April 18, 202203:06
More details
: The study was commissioned by United We Dream, an immigrant advocacy group, and was conducted by Harmony Labs, a nonprofit organization that researches the effects of how news media and social media are consumed.
Latino men over the age of 36 are more likely to watch their news on YouTube channels, some of which feature anti-immigrant rhetoric in both English and Spanish, according to the analysis.
Latinos under the age of 35 do not typically seek information on immigration, but they are heavy consumers of social media and video game channels where suggested ads or videos may contain polarizing perspectives on migrants.
Latinas tend to see more varied media options, mainly on television, and seek information that is more focused on the life stories of immigrants than on immigration policies per se.
Beyond
: Social media companies are facing increased scrutiny related to how they monitor disinformation in Spanish.
Various studies have found that networks do not stop misinformation in Spanish at the same rate as in English.
In his own words
:
We have to be thinking about this great content gap and creating opportunities to communicate with our young people, who are constantly at risk of consuming false narratives about the migrant experience that dehumanize "
Juanita Monsalve, Creative and Marketing Director at United We Dream
"It is important to understand how this information is affecting the way we vote or how we understand the community, given the many new Latinos who are becoming voters," Monsalve said.
3. The fight to compensate those affected by radioactive tests
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) is about to be extended for two years, as US lawmakers work to also include Hispanic and Native American families who lived near where it detonated. the first atomic bomb in history.
Why It Matters
: The law provides financial reparations to people affected by the Trinity test in Nevada, dubbed
downwinders
because atomic particles scattered in the wind reached their communities.
For now, RECA, in force since 1990, was scheduled to end on July 15, 2022.
When RECA was approved in 1990, Hispanic Downwinders
were not included or benefited
, nor were members of the Mescalero Apache tribe who lived nearby.
Many descendants of these communities have suffered from rare cancers, a sign of radioactive damage, without being compensated.
The mushroom cloud from the Trinity Atomic Test in 1945CORBIS/Corbis / via Getty Images
Quick Count
: On July 16, 1945, the United States Army detonated an atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert, developed through the Manhattan Project by scientists from the then-secret community of Los Alamos.
After the bomb went off at 5:29 am, the loud rumble near Tularosa and a nearby Mescalero Apache reservation drew several to the site, curious about what had happened.
Nobody warned them about the dangers.
For a while, locals from nearby sites went on picnics to the site to collect green, glass-like stones formed by the explosion, called trinitite, which are radioactive.
News Momentum
: The US Senate voted last week to extend RECA.
It is now in the hands of the House of Representatives, where the extension is expected to pass.
Yes, but
: The bill still needs to be amended to include residents of southern New Mexico (mostly Latino), as well as Navajo people who worked mining uranium and people in Idaho who were near other atomic test sites.
It is not clear when those groups would be added, although there is already a push for them to get the proper repairs.
"It is one of my priorities to preserve and expand the RECA program to provide justice to those who lived
downwind
and to the workers who handled uranium," Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico, said recently.
4. Training against the digital divide
The Hispanic Federation and Comcast Corporation have partnered to help community organizations in 20 US cities bridge the digital divide facing Latinos, and the one that puts Hispanics at a disadvantage in employment.
Why it matters
: Hispanics have significantly less digital literacy than white Americans, which means they're less likely to know how to use a computer or navigate the internet.
For this reason, more than half of Latinos in the US could be excluded from the active workforce in the country by 2045, as mostly digital jobs become more predominant, according to the Hispanic Federation.
Adults who don't often use a computer, who are unwilling or unable to take a computer-based test or who have failed a basic computer test are not digitally literate, according to a Department of Education report.
That report found that the rate of Hispanics who are not digitally adept is three times higher than that of whites.
Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
News Momentum
: The organizations announced Tuesday a $625,000 grant for 20 community organizations focusing on labor issues across the country.
Grant funds will be used for hands-on training for Latinos.
They also announced the launch of the Latino Digital Center of Excellence, a bilingual center that can be used by all workforce development agencies to teach people digital skills.
In her own words
: “We're so used to hearing all about 'tomorrow's economy,' 'tomorrow's workforce,' but that's already today,” said Diana Caba, assistant vice president for policy and community engagement at the Hispanic Federation.
"We believe that everyone should be able to participate in this increasingly digital economy."
5. Summary of key news in Latin America and the Caribbean
Drug trafficking and violence in a major Ecuadorian port
has become so rampant that the government declared a 60-day state of emergency in that area this weekend.
Soldiers and police patrol Guayas, Ecuador, on April 29, 2022Marcos Pin/AFP / via Getty Images
The armed forces took control of three coastal provinces surrounding the port city of Guayaquil.
16 tons of drugs have been seized in the port so far this year, more than in the same period in 2021, and 60% of the homicides this year have been committed in the three provinces, according to official data.
A caravan of mothers and fathers of
missing Central American migrants arrived at Mexico's southern border this weekend.
The 37 mothers and 8 fathers set up a small exhibition with photos of their missing loved ones in a public square in Chiapas in the hope of receiving information on where those people were last seen.
They plan to visit other states through May 10, Mother's Day.
About a tenth of the 100,000 people reported missing in Mexico come from Central America, according to official statistics.
"I keep the faith of finding him": mothers of missing migrants search for their children in Mexico
May 2, 202202:08
The Salvadoran government
has committed numerous human rights violations in its raids against suspected gang members, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report.
There have been arbitrary arrests and deaths in prisons since Nayib Bukele's government declared a state of emergency in late March, according to the group.
The US embassy in San Salvador warned Americans in the country not to go out at night last week, saying US citizens have been caught up in the mass arrests.
6.đźš— Mechanics get to work
Mexico City now has a first big
machine shop run and operated by women.
This mechanical workshop proves that women can do the same work as a man
April 1, 202201:41
Details
: The workshop, called Chiff, is owned by mechanic Patricia Guevara, who employs six other women to mainly repair wheels and tires.
The workers range from a young woman who aspires to study engineering to single mothers who can take their children to work whenever they need to.
They join a growing number of women in the predominantly male automotive industry in Mexico.
Recently, the first Mexican electric vehicle, Zacua, was also launched, which was mostly assembled by female engineers.
Thank you for reading!
We will be back on Thursday with a Pachanga, the space in which we highlight the small and large achievements of our readers.
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Do you want to see some of the most recent previous editions?
Losing religion: Many Latinos are turning away from Catholicism
First Latino Census Director Discusses Plans to Improve Count
How walking also improves mental health
Los GarcĂa, a program focused on a Latino family that had been canceled, returns to TV
Fintech apps to solve banking problems faced by Hispanics
