How Latino Americans Have Shaped the U.S. and Fought for Acceptance | PBS NewsHour | Sept. 13, 2013 | PBS: JUDY WOODRUFF: Now back to the U.S. for a significant, but often untold piece of our nation's history, how Latino Americans have shaped the country.
Our own Ray Suarez has written a book on the topic, and he sat down recently with Gwen Ifill.
Here's their conversation.
GWEN IFILL: From the first Spanish settlers who arrived in America decades before Plymouth rock or Jamestown, to the 53 million Hispanic Americans living here today, Latinos have helped form what is now the United States in ways we were often never taught in school.
From the Wild West to the civil rights movement to the current fight over comprehensive immigration reform, it has been a five-century journey, one that our own Ray Suarez chronicles in "Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation."
Ray, it's funny to have you on the other side of the table.
RAY SUAREZ: It is strange, but I think we're going to get through it.
GWEN IFILL: I think it's worthwhile.
You, as a Puerto Rican, Brooklyn-raised American, knew a lot about your heritage before you started doing this book, but you learned a lot more, didn't you?
RAY SUAREZ: And that's the thing that I think is really distilled by this book. Latinos who read it may go into it thinking, oh, you know, I know about the Alamo. I know about the war between the United States and Mexico. But you will constantly be saying, hey, I didn't know that, when learning about other national origins, like why and when the Dominicans started to come, details about the Cuban refugee crisis that accompanied the Mariel boatlift. There's going to be things you didn't know before, but also all other Americans will say, this meshes with the American history I already know in all kinds of unexpected ways.
