ABSTRACT
As much as Latino groups are an ever-present component of the educational discourse on academic variability, there is a predominant situating of the Latino population as a monolithic group. Yet recent data have documented the vast diversity within this population. According to Census 2000, over 35 million Latinos were living in the United States at that time. By mid-decade, this number rose to 42 million. The rapid and dramatic growth of the Latino population represented 51 percent of the change in racial/ethnic groups between 2000 and 2005 (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). Given our shared border, the majority of the 42 million were Mexican (64 percent), followed by Puerto Ricans (9.1 percent), Cubans (3.5 percent), Salvadorans (3.0 percent), and Dominicans (1.7 percent). In Census 2000, over 900,000 Latinos (2.7 percent) self-identified as Black Hispanic and 17.6 million (47.9 percent) as White Hispanic; another 15 million (42.2 percent) identified as “some other race” (Logan, 2003). The descriptor of Black Hispanic as an identification marker was most prominent among Dominicans (12.7 percent), followed by Puerto Ricans (8.2 percent), Cubans (4.7 percent), and finally Central Americans (4.1 percent) (Logan, 2003). On the other hand, identification as White Hispanic was most prevalent among Cubans (85.4 percent), followed by South Americans (61.1 percent), Mexicans (49.3 percent), and Puerto Ricans (49 percent).
