https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986317754080
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
2018, Vol. 40(1) 3–21
© The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0739986317754080
journals.sagepub.com/home/hjb
Article
Latino Millennials—The
New Diverse Workforce:
Challenges and
Opportunities
Donna Maria Blancero
1
, Edwin Mouriño-Ruiz
2
,
and Amado M. Padilla
3
Abstract
There are a variety of trends that are enabling and forcing organizational
change. A crucial trend that has implications for a changing and growing
demographic workforce includes Millennials and in particular Latinos/
Hispanics as the world and particularly the U.S. workplace continues to
have an increased aging workforce. Yet, while Latinos are members of the
largest and also the fastest growing minority group in the United States,
they are disproportionately underrepresented in more highly compensated
professional and leadership roles across corporate America. The majority of
existing career development and acculturation literature in the United States
has focused narrowly on Anglo-oriented acculturation as a linear process.
Unfortunately, as society has evolved so has the form of prejudices and
biases. This is supported by the fact that well more than 50% of Hispanics
experience discrimination through a variety of means including micro-
aggressions. We believe that developing and maintaining an overlapping
and compatible bicultural identity might not be enough and that we need
to rethink what acculturation and biculturalism means for millennials and
broaden our thinking to include cosmopolitanism as more encompassing of
the millennials and their place in the world. We believe this article begins
1
Bentley University, Waltham, MA, USA
2
Rollins College, Orlando, FL, USA
3
Stanford University, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Amado M. Padilla, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, 203 CERAS, Stanford,
CA 94305, USA.
Email: apadilla@stanford.edu
754080HJB XX X 10.1177/0739986317754080Hispanic Journal of Behavioral SciencesBlancero et al.
research-article 2018