How Latinos Are Shaping America’s Future | National Geographic | BY HÉCTOR TOBAR| JULY 2018

As per this great story in National Geographic 
(July, 2018), Latinas and Latinos are definitely 
shaping our country's future. Link to the actual 
article to view the gorgeous photos.

My friends, there is nothing to fear about this and much 
to celebrate, too.  This is a community that prides itself 
on being hard-working, family- and community-oriented, 

happily bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural.  We also have 
a long history of intermarrying with people of diverse 
cultures, races, and nationalities.  We are indeed 
amorphous:

"Among the major ethnic or racial identities in the United States—white, black, Asian, Native American—Latino is the most amorphous. Latino people can be African, Mesoamerican, Asian, or white." 

And we come with perspectives that come from our own literary, intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual traditions that 

are positive for this nation.  Plus, we've been here in the 

U.S. and before that on this continent for so very long that 

we are on familiar ground regardless of whether 
we are immigrant or U.S.-born.  That said,

"Every day the rest of the United States becomes a little more like Wilder [Idaho]."

This column advances this "dramatic reordering 
of the nation’s demographics" in positive terms.  

As well it should... 

-Angela Valenzuela

How Latinos Are Shaping America’s Future

They’re the focus of the immigration debate. But across the nation, Latinos 

are rising to power and offering a glimpse of what’s ahead.

BY HÉCTOR TOBAR| July 2018 | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KARLA GACHET AND IVAN KASHINSKY

ISMAEL FERNANDEZ GREW up in Wilder, Idaho, a town of 1,700 
souls surrounded by tall hop plants and stubby alfalfa fields.

He lived with his grandparents in a home built on land where his 
grandfather, a Vietnam War veteran, once picked beets and onions.

When Fernandez was 19, he was elected to the city council. On his first 
day in office, in 2015, he stepped up to the short dais in Wilder City 
Hall and sat alongside the four other council members. A local reporter noticed something no one else had: There were five Spanish surnames 
on the council members’ nameplates. Almazan. Rivera. Godina. Garcia. 
Fernandez. The story soon went national. For the first time ever in Idaho—a state where non-Hispanic whites make up 82 percent of the population—voters had elected an all-Latino city council.

Wilder

IDAHO

UNITED STATES

NGM MAPS

Wilder is 76% Latino.

The town of 1,700 made headlines for its all-Latino city council in 2015.

Continue reading here.