How do Latinos view the American Dream?

Latinos are in doubt about the American dream.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that most Latinos still believe in the American dream, while a sizable minority don’t think it exists anymore.

Sept. 4, 2026 9 AM PT

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The American dream.

It’s the ultimate cornerstone of United States propaganda.

Anyone can come to the U.S. from any country and — through hard work and determination — achieve any goal they’ve ever hoped for, essentially be whoever they want to be.

The specifics of that dream vary from person to person, as some perceive it as a financial ambition while others consider it a matter of political, religious and social freedom.

According to a new Pew Research Center poll, 59% of U.S. Latinos view the American dream through the lens of financial or economic factors. Nearly 40% said the dream revolved around having a “good life;” 18% noted that freedom or being free was key to their interpretation of it; 11% pointed to equal treatment of others as a key factor and 8% placed a premium on “the opportunity to live without fear.”

Overall, the American dream remains alive for the majority of U.S. Latinos, as 53% of those surveyed said they had either achieved the dream or were on their way to achieving it. Nearly a fifth continued believing in the dream but felt it was out of reach for them, while 27% responded that the dream doesn’t exist.

Even among those who held on to a belief in the American dream, 43% acknowledged that it’s become harder to accomplish compared with their parents’ generation. Alternatively, 30% of the respondents stated that it’s easier for them to attain the dream than it was a generation ago.

For Cynthia Temblador, the millennial co-owner of the West Hollywood coffee shop Fan Girl Cafe, the American dream is still alive, but it now requires “a little privilege” to be realized.

“I used to have a green card, so in that situation I couldn’t have the American dream; it was through my partner,” she said, noting that her marriage aided her in getting U.S. citizenship. “Now that I’m able to have that freedom, I am able to be seen as equal as my partner.”

While Temblador acknowledged that her concept of the American dream is closely tied to economic opportunity, she said she also sees her dream realized through having the chance to build community through her business, which openly celebrates the Mexican American and queer experience.

She added that she felt duped about how attainable her U.S. ambitions were and how simply working hard isn’t enough to make dreams come true.

“It was like a bit of a lie. You meet people and they all tell you, ‘It’s not as easy as it seems,’” she said. “The American dream is good marketing, but now social media allows you to see what’s the real deal here.”

Temblador has no regrets about emigrating to the U.S. from Mexico but said she would “think twice” if she was considering the move in 2026, due to the ongoing economic downturn and the political climate.

Betsy Martinez, co-owner of Fan Girl Cafe and Temblador’s wife, had a more abstract idea as to what constitutes the American dream.

“It’s about making something of yourself; making your family proud; making a legacy; taking pride in something that you created; knowing that you’re surviving off your own creativity and having visions that people can relate to,” she said. “Money comes second, which is weird for a business owner to say, but I want to keep creating things and putting back into the community.”

Martinez, a third-generation Mexican American, also mentioned that a key part of the American dream for her is the ability to freely be queer.

When asked whether or not she’s accomplished the dream, Martinez said she was “getting there” — and that she feels proud of what she’s been able to accomplish, in spite of the many hurdles she’s faced.

“I do feel there’s a lot of obstacles for minorities and the queer community,” she said. “It’s harder than I thought to achieve the dream. I thought we were going to create this space and everybody would just flock to it, because it’s fun and it’s cute and everybody loves pop culture and music, but when you’re on limited finances, it makes it hard.”

Kevin Utrera sees himself as a product of the American dream.

“To me, it represents what my parents went through — all the sacrifices that they made for me to have a chance at a life that was better than what they had,” said the 24-year-old, who is a first-generation Mexican American.

And by many metrics, his parents succeeded. Utrera was the first in his family to graduate from high school, was the first to get a college degree and now works at a major cancer hospital as a clinical research coordinator.

But between the ongoing attacks on the Latino community and a widening wealth gap in the U.S., Utrera is having a hard time seeing the American dream’s attainability.

“I don’t necessarily think the dream is dead, because hope will always be there — it’s just that obtaining it has gotten extremely hard,” he said. “With the economy tanking, the job market isn’t necessarily great, so a lot of people, even though they’re more qualified than ever before for a job, are not achieving that.”

Growing up, the American dream always took on a financial connotation for Utrera. But as he grew into adulthood, he began to appreciate other aspects of what that dream might look like.

“Being a queer person myself, I probably would not have gotten to express myself the way I would have liked in another country,” he said. “Personally, I would not thrive in Mexico because they’re very machista. Being queer over there is not great.”

Utrera also noted that he believes the American dream is not strictly confined to the U.S. anymore.

“I feel like someone could definitely reach that goal in another country right now, because the U.S. is extremely unstable,” he said. “The American dream could be achieved somewhere else.”

By far the people most bullish on the American dream were the power couple I interviewed: Carmen Solano-De Carrier, 65, and John De Carrier, 59. As entrepreneurs and philanthropists based in the Chicago metropolitan area, the two spent decades as high-ranking employees in the corporate branch of McDonald’s.

Both come from humble beginnings and achieved great personal and financial success over the years. Solano-De Carrier came to the U.S. at age 19 from the Dominican Republic to get a college education; De Carrier was born in the U.S. and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, from birth until the age of 5, before returning to Chicago. Both of them worked their way from working-class realities into the upper class.

Solano-De Carrier noted that part of the American dream for Latinos is the ability to envision themselves as scholars, generational talents, or even power players in the economy.

When asked if they personally attained the promises made by the U.S.’s marketing, De Carrier said he “blew past the dream” into a position where he wanted to help others accomplish the dream.

“I would tell you 99% of our time now is trying to teach Latinos that they can have whatever portion of the dream they want to have,” De Carrier said. “We achieved the grand dream and just got right to ‘Oh my God, let’s give back.’”

Solano-De Carrier said she “100% achieved the dream” and that it wasn’t easy, but that she reached it through her hard work.

Both of them agreed that the American dream is more alive now than ever before, despite some obstacles that younger Latinos are currently facing.

“I think that the dream of owning a home has diminished a little bit because things are just out of hand,” Solano-De Carrier said.

De Carrier nodded to the current attacks on Latinos coming from the Trump administration and also called out how the wealth gap in this country is having an increasing effect on the youth population.

Yet, having worked alongside many younger Latinos through their philanthropic work, the couple have seen the talent present in the community and have full confidence in the future success of their mentees. In addition, they pointed out that young Latinos now have more prominent examples of successful members of the community in the mainstream.

“The options we had for success before were [slim],” De Carrier said. “The options that we have now are boundless.”

(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)

Remember This Banger: Don Omar and Hakim’s Arab-Latino jam “Tigi Tigi”

(Illustration by Natalia Agatte / For De Los)

Here at De Los we have an ongoing series titled “Remember This Banger,” in which our staff and contributing writers dissect some of the biggest and most genre-defining Latino hits. We’ve previously written about songs by Selena, Pedro Infante, Shakira, Ricky Martin and Luis Miguel.

This week, Danny Hajjar wrote about the 2007 culture-and-genre-crossing Don Omar dance floor sensation “Tigi Tigi.”

The single was a rare occasion when a Spanish-language artist at the peak of their powers melded their signature sound with Arab influence.

Hajjar documented the origin story of how Don Omar came into contact with the Egyptian singer Hakim at a recording studio in Cairo to create the hit single.

The piece encapsulated how the collaboration paved the way for other Latino artists to dabble in a more diverse array of sounds and opened the door for team-ups between Arab and Latin artists, including Gente de Zona and Mohammed Assaf in 2017’s “Baddek Enaya,” or Karol G and Lartiste’s 2019 track “Peligrosa.”

The crossover nature of the track also served as a symbol for unity between the two cultures, Hajjar noted.

“In the United States, the Latin American people have received many forms of discrimination,” Don Omar told the Arab News Agency during a press conference. “Finding comfort in Hakim, in his music, in Egypt — it takes us back to a moment where we no longer want to talk about discrimination. We want to talk only about unity.”

You can read the full article here.

Smithsonian’s Latino Museum finds a home

(Smithsonian Institution via Associated Press)

After a bit of hullabaloo about funding and getting congressional approval, the Smithsonian Institute announced Monday that the National Museum of the American Latino will get a permanent home inside the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building.

By moving the museum into an already-existing building on federal land, the Smithsonian bypassed the need to get approval by Congress to construct a new site for the museum.

Earlier this year, President Trump cut federal funding for the Latino Museum, in favor of creating a decentralized Smithsonian Latino Center that would place Latino exhibitions across the myriad Smithsonian museums, the New York Times reported.

The retrofitting process for the museum is expected to cost around $1 billion.

The creation of the Latino Museum was authorized by Congress in 2020 and it has been housed in the National Museum of American History since opening in 2022.

The roadblocks faced by the museum are emblematic of the Trump administration’s ongoing attack on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which have directly affected Latino institutions. In July 2025, the Justice Department said it would no longer defend the federal definition of Hispanic-Serving Institutions — universities and colleges with a student body made up of at least 25% Latinos. Additionally, the Department of Education froze more than $250 million in federal funds to HSIs last fall.

Last year, Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a national network focused on supporting Latino preservation efforts, conducted an equity study that reviewed how many of the 95,000 National Register of Historic Places across the U.S. were associated with Latino heritage. The results were grim.

LHC found that only 0.65% of the current registered sites in the U.S. reflect Latino history after analyzing survey data from state historic preservation offices as well as public information on the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund website.

Stories we read this week that we think you should read

Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.

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Ideas expressed in the piece

The article argues that the American dream for Latinos is neither fully dead nor fully thriving, portraying a community split between those who say they have achieved or are on their way to achieving the dream and those who feel it is out of reach or nonexistent, in line with national survey findings that show similar divisions among Latinos^[1]^[2].
The article emphasizes that many Latinos primarily define the American dream through financial stability, economic opportunity and homeownership, while also tying it to having a “good life,” equal treatment, freedom and the ability to live without fear, reflecting how Pew’s research finds that about six in ten Latinos link the dream to economic factors alongside quality of life^[1]^[2].
The article contends that for Cynthia Temblador, the dream remains possible but is conditioned on “a little privilege,” legal status and access to citizenship, as the experience of moving from a green card holder to a citizen revealed that hard work alone does not guarantee success and that social media has exposed the gap between America’s marketing and lived reality.
The piece suggests that for Betsy Martinez, the American dream is less about money and more about making something of oneself, building a creative legacy, sustaining a queer-affirming community space and taking pride in surviving off personal creativity, even as limited finances and the compounded obstacles facing minorities and queer people make the path to that dream far harder than anticipated.
The article argues that Kevin Utrera sees personal educational and professional achievements as proof of the dream’s promise, rooted in parents’ sacrifices, yet now views the dream as “extremely hard” to obtain because of economic downturns, a difficult job market, attacks on the Latino community and a widening wealth gap, while still valuing the ability to live openly as a queer person in the U.S. and suggesting that similar aspirations might now be easier to fulfill in more stable countries.
The piece suggests that entrepreneurs and philanthropists Carmen Solano-De Carrier and John De Carrier embody a more bullish perspective, describing how they rose from working-class beginnings into the upper class through hard work, claim to have fully achieved or “blown past” the American dream and now devote most of their time to mentoring other Latinos, while acknowledging that homeownership has become harder and that youth face wealth inequalities and political attacks even as examples of Latino success in mainstream culture have multiplied.
The article contends that these individual stories sit within a broader institutional landscape marked by cuts to Latino-focused cultural funding, political resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and the stark underrepresentation of Latino heritage sites in the National Register of Historic Places, suggesting that structural barriers persist even as some Latinos attain significant mobility and influence.
In keeping with these narratives, national surveys cited by the article show that Latinos both believe in core elements of the American dream and recognize its difficulty: Pew research has found that Latinos are more likely than the general public to believe that hard work pays off and that each generation can do better, yet a majority also say the dream is hard to achieve and a sizable minority believe it does not exist for people like them^[1]^[2]^[3]^[9].

Different views on the topic

At the same time, economic research paints a more sobering picture in which the American dream for Latinos is described as “deferred,” highlighting that even as many Latinos experience upward mobility and greater educational attainment, they still earn roughly two-thirds of what white workers are paid in the same occupations, hold only about one-fifth of white household wealth and receive far fewer and smaller inheritances, leaving true economic parity out of reach for large segments of the community^[4]^[5].
Similarly, some survey-based analyses underscore dwindling confidence in the health of the American dream, reporting that relatively few Hispanics and Latinos—especially second-generation residents—feel the dream is “alive and well,” with many instead believing it is merely “alive but not what it once was,” a framing that portrays the ideal as increasingly weakened rather than robustly attainable^[8].
In addition, recent polling highlighted by advocacy and policy groups finds that while a strong majority of Latinos still say they believe in the American dream, most also think it has become harder to achieve than in the past and worry that their children will have fewer opportunities, frequently citing inflation, rising cost of living and limited access to good-paying jobs as the top reasons the dream may be slipping away for future generations^[6].
Critics of purely individualistic interpretations argue that emphasizing hard work and motivation can obscure systemic constraints, pointing out that the very opportunities Latinos deem crucial for achieving the American dream—education, quality employment and fair access to capital—are undermined by persistent wage gaps, low wealth accumulation and institutional patterns that disadvantage Latino communities in hiring, promotion and investment^[1]^[2]^[4]^[5].
Moreover, detailed tables from recent national surveys show that, alongside majorities who say their standard of living is better than their parents’, a notable share of Latinos explicitly describe the American dream as out of reach or nonexistent, reinforcing the viewpoint that for many the dream functions more as aspirational rhetoric than a realistic expectation, especially in an era marked by economic volatility and entrenched inequality^[1]^[2]^[7].