Nuestra Música: Music in Latino Culture
Over forty million people of Hispanic descent make the United States their home. One out of eight Americans uses such labels as hispano, Latino, tejano, Chicano, mexicano, Nuyorican, Cuban, nuevomexicano, salvadoreño, and colombiano to point to their Spanish-speaking heritage in Latin America or the United States. Front-page news proclaims Hispanics the largest minority group and the fastest-growing segment of the population, having more than doubled since 1980 and accounted for half the total population growth since 2001. In the past decade, the highest rates of Hispanic growth have been not in California, Texas, New York, Miami, Chicago, and other long-time Latino strongholds, but in states such as Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Hand in hand with the burgeoning Latino population has come an equal infusion of Latino music, usually called música latina in the windows and bins of record stores.