To be Latino in the United States has meant a fierce identification with one's roots, with the language, art, and food their people brought with them. America is a patchwork of Hispanic sensibilities -- from Puerto Rican nationalists in New York to newly arrived Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley -- that has so far resisted homogenization while managing to absorb much of the mainstream culture. In Living in Spanglish, Morales pins down a diverse community -- of Dominicans, Mexicans, Colombians, Cubans, Salvadorans, and Puerto Ricans -- that he insists has more common interests to unify it than traditions to divide it. He calls this sensibility Spanglish, "a feeling, an attitude that is quintessentially American."
