Castro: ‘Americans for the most part do not know who Latinos are’

ASPEN, COLO. — Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) on Wednesday lamented that Hispanic history and culture are not routinely taught in the United States.

“I fundamentally believe right now, unfortunately, that Americans for the most part do not know who Latinos are,” Castro said.

“Because our stories and our histories have not been told in American history textbooks and state history textbooks. And being unknown is not just culturally inconvenient. It’s also dangerous,” he added.

Castro made the remarks, framed around remembrance of lives lost, in his keynote speech for the Raizado Festival, a three-day congregation of Hispanic leaders in the arts, politics and advocacy in Aspen, Colo.

In his speech, Castro recognized the advances Latinos have made in the United States, using his own grandmother’s immigration story as an example.

“My grandmother entered a state of Texas where there were still signs that said, ‘No dogs or Mexicans allowed,’ where Spanish was still illegal to be spoken in Texas schools. There’s so many similar stories like that,” he said.

“Our parents, our grandparents, who faced these very difficult challenges in American society and didn’t give up, persevered, resisted and ultimately, I believe, prevailed. And so we say to them, thank you.”

But Castro also focused on the disproportionate effects on Hispanic communities from crises like COVID-19, gun violence, disinformation and racial persecution.

“I read a statistic today that made me stop in my tracks. It said that the life expectancy had dropped a few years during the pandemic for Latinos in the United States. Because in many places in our country, Latino communities were the most affected. We were almost two times as likely to die from COVID 19 as the majority community,” he said.

“We also remember the people … in our community, in this new media age that we live in, who were victims of disinformation, who resisted getting a vaccination because they were given bad information, because they were preyed upon by some people,” added Castro.

Closing his remarks, Castro was joined by Raizado Festival co-host Mónica Ramírez to lead a procession in remembrance of attendees’ dead friends and relatives.

Festival organizers handed out marigolds — a flower traditionally symbolizing the spirit of the dead in central Mexico — and a mariachi band followed Castro and Ramírez, who led the procession in depositing the flowers in a decorative pond.