Is speaking Spanish necessary to be Latino? Most Latinos say no

*Here’s what’s cool and annoying about this, at the same time. It’s annoying that Latinos have been bickering about Spanish being required to be Latino thing for generations, and it’s cool that someone bothered to study it with statistics. Why hadn’t they done this before? Ninety-five percent of Latinos surveyed say Spanish is important, 71 percent say it’s not necessary to be considered Latino, 28 percent it is. What do you say? VL


pew fact tankBy Marak Hugo Lopez, Pew Research Fact Tank (2 minute read)

During Saturday’s Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, Marco Rubio questioned (in English) whether Ted Cruz speaks Spanish. Cruz responded in Spanish with a challenge to Rubio to discuss their views on immigration in that language.

Rubio’s confrontation with Cruz, who recently became the first Hispanic to win the Iowa caucuses, was interpreted by some as a challenge to how much Cruz belongs to or identifies with the Hispanic community in the U.S. (It’s worth noting that this is not a new tactic. Hispanic Democrats have been confronted before by fellow Latinos in a similar way.)

But what does the Hispanic public think when it comes to the question of whether it is necessary to speak Spanish in order to be considered Hispanic?

Click HERE to read the full story.


[Photo by NewsTaco, courtesy of Max GoldbergGage Skidmore/Flickr]

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