The Editor: The Editor has often cited the fight ongoing at the National Museum of the American Latino as a fight to be on the look out for in LULAC. The fight involves conservative Latinos versus progressive Latinos. At the Museum, not a tangible project yet, that is, no building, but hopes of one. the fighting involves telling the Latino story. Latinos come from different regions of the Western Hemisphere, Mexican Americans from the time of discovery until now, Puerto Ricans from political events on the island, including colonialization by the U.S., Cubans from the upheaval of body politic of Cuba by Fidel Castro and its revolutionary movement in the '50's, Central American communities from military and domestic upheavals in the countries of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala and South American countries and their particular political conflicts.
The Hispanic population in the U.S. numbers at
The Time article lays out a truth that Mexican Americans make up 61% of the Latino community in the U.S., with the rest of that community being made up of about 62 million, with Mexican Americans accounting for 62% of the number, Puerto Ricans on the mainland at 10%, Cuban Americans at 4.5%, El Salvadoran Americans at 4.2% and with another 20% comprising the rest of the Latino community in America.
The most active conservative political force in the political arena in the US are Cuban Americans, the 2.8 million in the community of 62 million Latino Americans. They are the force that tripped up the Latino agenda of the National Museum of the Latino American.
LULAC was facing a similar crisis, when the island of Puerto Rico attempted to take over LULAC in 2022, eclipsing 26 years of involvement in LULAC through the financial backing of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) of the island, funding the involvement of island Puerto Ricans in LULAC to the tune of $10.4 million in those 26 years.
It was an attempted take over assisted by mainland Mexican Americans who saw the PNP numbers as a way to elect a more conservative body as the leadership element of National LULAC.
The takeover was halted in 2022, and failed to materialize in 2023, but the doors can always open in the future if mainland Mexican Americans, the bulk of mainland LULAC, are not on guard to prevent that from happening.
Much of LULAC's national leadership trended more conservative than the overall membership of LULAC, this made possible by the PNP's influence in the coalition with mainland LULAC'ers that made this more conservative leadership possible.
2022 and 2023, saw an end to that trend.
LULAC on the mainland is a progressive organization. It's mainland members have the scars of civil rights fights they have waged on the mainland since the founding days of LULAC in 1929 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Major civil rights battles that involve Latinos have always had LULAC members in the mix. If we look at advances made by Latinos in America, look to Mexican Americans in the lead:
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