Marie Arana’s sprawling portrait of Latinos in the United States is rich and nuanced in its depiction of the diversity of “the least understood minority.” Yet LatinoLand is regrettably old-fashioned and out-of-date. For starters, Hispanics aren’t really misunderstood anymore; our stories are told frequently and insistently in the news media and literature, on television and film, and have become an integral part of school curricula all over the land. Nor are we without political representation, although our leaders, less numerous than they should be, are generally a sorry bunch. Just look at George Santos.
The inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress, Arana