Latinidad

St. Patrick’s Day is very special in Mexico because it is a time when Mexicans remember the San Patricios, or the Battalion of St. Patrick.

During my travels and with many different endeavors, I have the privilege of meeting several bright and charismatic leaders from across the globe. As someone who has dedicated his life to developing positive, social change in a society where quantifiable progress comes slowly, we as Latinos often become tired of fighting, resisting and advocating for […]

For the last couple of weeks Holyoke, Massachusetts, has been at the center of a dispute over the place of Puerto Rican identity in its public art. The controversy started when Mimi Wielgosz objected to having David Flores’ mural, depicting a standard Puerto Rican license plate saying “Puerto Rico, Holyoke, Isla del Encanto” on her […]

We got the following video from a loyal Latino Rebels Facebook fan, along with this text: “In honor of Hispandering month are any of you old enough to remember this scene from Hill Street Blues with René Enríquez where he laid the smack down?” This scene needs no explanation. Watch. Now for all of you […]

Remember earlier this year when Nate Cohn of The New York Times let the world know that a significant number of U.S. Latinos were becoming more “white” by misrepresenting a study that had yet to be finalized? This week that study was finally published. Here it is: America's Churning Races: Race and Ethnic Response Changes […]

Bronx Writers Center director and Rebelde Charlie Vázquez sat with Daniel José Older at a Brooklyn restaurant to discuss —among other things— the spirit world in storytelling, the importance of building community and how the publishing industry needs to restructure its acquisitions and marketing strategies if it wishes to engage more Latino readers.   CV: […]

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this piece was published on Dr. Rodríguez’s blog. Nate Cohn in The New York Times opened a racial pandora’s box with his article on the whitening of Latinos. He received responses from a number of interested observers of Latino issues—from Latino Rebels to academics such as Amitai Etzioni and Manuel Pastor. Today […]

When I wrote an opinion piece on May 21 basically questioning an incredibly misleading piece by Nate Cohn of The New York Times’ “Upshot” blog, I never would have thought that 1) Latino Rebels would still be covering the story; 2) The Times would not yet respond to my emails about Cohn’s reporting; and 3) […]

Yesterday, The New York Times’ “Upshot” blog announced the following to the world: “More Hispanics Declaring Themselves White.” The piece, written by Nate Cohn, included the animated image of a figure shifting from silver grey to ivory white and this lede paragraph: “Hispanics are often described as driving up the nonwhite share of the population. […]

UPDATE, 8:15pmET, May 22, 2014: I had an email exchange with one of the study’s co-authors today, and she wrote me that Cohn’s inferences about the data were his and not her research group’s conclusions. She also wrote that the study was still not public, nor was it finalized. Read more here. In the ongoing […]

Latinas are one of the fastest growing and most dynamic demographic within the business community. These leaders are creating innovative tools, strategies and business models that are benefiting large and small businesses throughout the United States. According to the 2013 Women-Owned Business report, Latinas own nearly one million businesses in the United States, they employ […]

In an email obtained by Latino Rebels, José Santana, the Executive Director of the Dominican Republic’s International Advisory Committee on Science and Technology, an organization created by former president Leonel Fernández, lambasted author Junot Díaz for critical comments about current Dominican politicians, specifically in how they are using the current controversy surrounding Dominicans of Haitian […]

After writing a column for NBC Latino about the saturation of Latino brands, our founder @julito77 received the following letter from PETA Latino’s Renée Saldaña. She agreed to have her letter published online. Dear Julio, We caught your editorial about PETA Latino on NBC Latino’s website, as well as Latino Rebels‘ post on the same subject, and while we appreciate your discussing the news of PETA Latino’s launch, we […]

In the midst of a national tour (dates here) with internationally known reggae group SOJA, the Panamanian-born, Oakland-bred duo Los Rakas found time for a special May Day release called “Mi País.” The song is off their upcoming album, the double-disc “El Negrito Dun Dun & Ricardo” which will see release on their label, Soy […]

Here’s something you don’t see every day. A perfume that smells like a tamal. Yup, that is what one Latina is trying to capture as a way to “capture the culture” of Chicago’s famed Pilsen neighborhood. Here is what DNAInfo.com Chicago had to say about Zorayda “Z” Ortiz and her latest tamal-inspired scent: Part of […]

Today Al Jazeera's "The Stream" featured the recent events in Puerto Rico regarding the brutal murder of publicist José Enrique Gómez and the social media movements that resulted from recent events. The following video focuses on #TodosSomosJoseEnrique and #BoicotLaComay. "

In October, we ran a piece called "Now Ben Affleck Is Latino: Another Lost Opportunity for Hollywood." As we tried to stray away from the "we're offended" line that many of our critics tossed our way (because that was not the point of the piece, if people actually took the time to read it and not […]

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT JULIORVARELA.COM Last night the island of Puerto Rico experienced a historic election. Not only did Puerto Ricans go to the polls to vote for Governor, Resident Commissioner, and other legislative positions, they also voted in yet another non-binding plebiscite that tried to determine whether Puerto Ricans favored its current commonwealth relationship with […]

Last night, the presidential debate was all about the Middle East, Israel, mixed in with a little bit of China. All we really heard about Latin America was this from Governor Romney (oh yeah, he also mentioned that President Obama likes to cozy up with Castro and Chávez): Number two, we're going to increase our […]

Now THIS is news that matters, and we actually kind of serious about that. NBC Latino, which ran with a Disney Latina princess story last week that led to thousands of shares and comments about Latino identity, reported today that Disney has changed its mind about Princess Sofía, who originally was billed as Disney's first […]

It was a piece of art we found while doing a Google search about life on La Frontera. We are glad we did. Luckily for us, we were able to find out who the genius was this powerful piece—Felipe Galindo, a Mexican visual artist who lives in New York and is known as Feggo. We […]