I was 16 years old when I first encountered anti-Latino racism. I was in high school, and a professor suggested that my family had ties to drug cartels. I froze, and without knowing what to do or say, I nervously laughed.
I was 18 years old when my family experienced anti-Latino racism. My mom had come home from the supermarket with my brother, looking distraught. I asked her if something was wrong. She explained that a man in the grocery store parking lot had yelled at her: “Go back to where you came from!”—words she never thought she would hear after having lived more years in Canada than in her hometown in Mexico.
Such blatant acts of racism often get dismissed as expressions of ignorance or, even worse, as tasteless humour. However, the profound effect that anti-Latino racism has on Latino identity and community is far from harmless.
These experiences are neither unique to me nor my family. In fact, they are a reality millions of Latinos in Canada and the United States know all too well. According to Statistics Canada in 2021, more than two in five Latinos described having experienced discrimination in the past six years. It is notably during this time, in 2016, that U.S. President Donald Trump was elected and began his first presidential term.
Only 100 days into Trump’s tenure, a coalition of 46 Latino organizations published a report outlining the devastating effects the Trump administration was having on Latinos—such as significant budget cuts across social assistance services and the mass targeting of undocumented immigrants. Nearly ten years later, racism against Latinos living in the U.S. and Canada has only escalated. According to the FBI, 2025 was a record year for hate crimes against Latinos in the U.S. In Canada, hate crimes targeting specific ethnic groups such as Latin American and South American populations increased by 23 per cent from 2023 to 2024.
What I, my family, and many Latinos across North America experience are not isolated events: They are a response to the increasing normalization of anti-immigrant sentiment driven by anxieties surrounding unemployment, housing shortages, national identity, and perceived failures in migration governance. Anti-Latino discourse from political figures like Trump conflates Latino communities with criminality and illegality, further allowing racial profiling and other race-based violence and discrimination to become quotidian for Latinos.
This process of vilification not only harms the way Latinos are perceived, but also negatively affects the way they perceive themselves. Latino youth who have left their native countries for Canada or the U.S. are torn between their Latino heritage and current citizenship. Growing up in a society in which Latino communities are consistently surveilled, detained, and deported creates a deep-seated fear of deportation. These fears fracture family bonds and leave youth struggling with mental health issues that can endure far into adulthood.
Social media further normalizes anti-Latino racism by disseminating dehumanizing content online. Videos of Latino families being torn apart by immigration officers and people pleading to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that they are legal citizens reach thousands of viewers within seconds. As content circulates, what initially sparks rage can begin to feel routine. Numbed by endless exposure to hatred and violence online, viewers become disconnected from victims shown in videos and habitualize racism as just another event. Therefore, challenging and redefining what is deemed as normal becomes a first step in ending anti-Latino racism.
The mass targeting and deportation of Latino citizens and immigrants is not normal, Latinos fearing violent and potentially fatal encounters with ICE agents is not normal, and wanting to hide one’s visible cultural traits to appear less suspicious in front of authorities is definitely not normal.
The realities across different Latino communities are not the same, and I am aware that growing up in Montreal has afforded me a certain safety and privilege that others do not have. But I also know what it feels like to be othered by public discourse surrounding my heritage. Even if my experience feels like an alternate reality to other Latinos in North America, I refuse to accept that Latinos must hide what defines their identity and connects them to their ancestors—simply to be seen as less of a threat or more of a citizen. Belonging is not conditional, especially not when it comes to heritage, and it is not something Latinos should have to earn.