A funny thing happened in Idaho over the last decade. Despite a rise in bigotry toward America’s Latino community over the last several years, it turns out they are exactly what most of us think they are: a hard-working immigrant group looking for a piece of the American Dream and the desire to roll up their sleeves and take it. This is not some liberal scree either. The proof is in the numbers. A report by the Latino Donor Collaborative and Wells Fargo shows an 82-percent rise in Idaho Latino incomes between 2011 and 2021. That’s a massive change, even if the actual incomes are still somewhat small. They went from an average of $16,929 in 2011 to $30,088 just two years ago. This rise in income among Idaho’s Latino community is the eighth-highest in the country and surpasses that of California, New York, Texas and Florida over the same time period. Granted, those states have a longer-standing Latino community than Idaho, but still. The progress is unmistakable.

Idaho’s progress mirrors a national trend where Latino incomes have grown at an annual rate of nearly 5-percent since 2011. A catalyst for this rise, according to the report, is education. The number of Latinos holding a bachelor’s degree or higher increased over the last decade by 6.8% annually. This is yet another data point to show how investing in post-secondary education pays dividends well beyond the actual money our state and federal governments appropriate. Far from being “lazy” or “untrustworthy” or whatever pejorative some people have used over the years to describe America’s Latino community, this report shows that “hard-working,” “determined,” and “ambitious” are far more accurate terms to describe the 100,000+ Latinos in Idaho’s labor force.

Latinos are, literally, on the global map. According to this report, the American Latino population is the fifth largest economy — in the world! That’s based on estimated expenditures “made by and on behalf” of America’s Latino community. That’s made them bigger than the economies of India, the United Kingdom and Italy, just to name a few. Far from being a laggard on our economy, they are a driver. In fact, when you look at GDP growth between 2011 and 2021, the American Latino is third in the world behind only China and India. This community’s GDP growth actually surpasses the United States as a whole.

These numbers are not surprising, at least not to me. A line of my family has lived this trajectory over the last century. I recently had occasion to pull out a copy of the ship manifest documenting my Grandfather Gugino’s journey to this country 118 years ago. He came over in September of 1905 from Valledolmo, Sicily by way of Palermo. He and his family settled in Buffalo. Along with his twin brother Salvatore (my great-uncle “Sam”) he attended pharmacy school at the University of Buffalo. Together, they eventually opened the Saratoga Pharmacy in Rochester, which is open to this day. My grandfather’s son became a teacher for over 30 years. His grandson and granddaughter became a lawyer and college administrator respectively. Over the years, we have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, collectively, in taxes and not spent a single day in jail. All this, despite the common refrain of the day that Italians were “lazy,” “untrustworthy” or just plain criminal. Today, an estimated 75% of Italian-Americans hold white collar jobs.

Funny how those stereotypes didn’t pan out.

The common theme seems to be that ambition, love of family and community will outlast bigotry every time. That’s been the story of America’s immigrant communities for nearly 200 years. Whether it was the

Irish, Chinese, Italians, Jews, Latinos, or whatever, each group has endured hatred and lies at each step of their journey. However, the numbers never lie. More importantly, the progress each immigrant group has made doesn’t lie. It’s in plain sight.

And that’s something bigotry will never take down.