Latino as a cultural term is a very big Umbrella. It encompasses the Hispanos from Southern Colorado down to Argentina. Many of these communities share a language in Spanish or Portuguese for Brazil. Roman Catholicism is the predominant faith in most of these countries. One should also consider religious diversity and recognize that there are Protestant, Secular, and Indigenous religions.
In Western Culture, we often take the time to recognize the cultural diversity of Europe, so I think we should be able to do the same with Latin America. There are 33 Latin American countries in total, so given that number, expect there to be differences in cuisine, political, and cultural outlook.
People often stereotype that Latin Americans are doctrinaire conservatives because they are Roman Catholic and speak Spanish. This could have been true for the generation of the 1920s, the decade my grandparents were born in. My grandmother, for example, thought that divorce was a societal tragedy and intervened when a 2nd cousin of mine declared that he wanted to divorce! However, even their views started to shift.
Sometime in the 1980s, one of my 1st cousins became pregnant before marriage, and my uncle and aunt were upset at her. My grandparents told my 1st cousin that if she needed a place to stay, she could stay with her grandparents. Three decades later, the same uncle and aunt who were upset at their daughter for having a child out of wedlock were now attending the same-sex marriage of their niece.
Latin Americans are simply products of their time. Today in North and South America, 85 percent of countries have legalized same-sex marriage. That’s a fact that would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago. Many people don’t realize how fast Western societal views have shifted. Obergefell v. Hodges only happened eight years ago. That’s a very fast blip in terms of human history. I grew up in the United States in the early 2000s, and even in English media, there would often be jokes about homosexuals that would now be considered inappropriate and politically incorrect.
Abortion Laws are now more Liberal or Left Wing in Mexico than in Texas. Texas passed a six-week abortion ban and an Abortion Bounty Hunter law. Mexico went in the opposite direction that Texas went. The Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 2021 in a unanimous 10-0 ruling. It declared that the Mexican States can’t punish or prohibit a woman to get an abortion because it violates Article 4 of the Mexican constitution. It effectively put Mexico on the path to legalizing abortion. Also, in 2020, Argentina relaxed its abortion laws from near abolition to allowing abortion within the first 14 weeks.
Given the legalization of same-sex marriage and the relaxation of abortion laws, I think the stereotype of Latin Americans being fundamentalist Catholic conservatives will break someday. While some Latinos are still conservatives, even their values are shifting. The Latino conservatives of today are not the conservatives of yesterday.
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