Latinos number at least 60 million in the U.S. We surpassed African Americans as the largest minority long ago. There are a lot of us, but in the eyes of our compatriots, those people we call “Anglos,” we’re still mostly invisible. Contrary to what those who fear us believe, we don’t have real power.

When you pick up the newspaper, watch the TV news, or as most of us do now, check the headlines on your cellphones, you will see news about so-called Latinos (I don’t like the term “Latino” because it hides some very important distinctions among us). But when you dig a little into news reports what you see is not about the people. It’s mostly about the reactions of white people to a small segment of the brown population. The news is about the loathing that comes with the fear of this group. I’m speaking about the immigrants, of course. The effect of the media coverage is to make the vast majority of us even more unknown, more invisible.

We’ve been here forever, but we still get lumped together with the immigrants. Some of us have family roots that go back hundreds of years in what is now the United States. My family, for instance, has roots in south Texas that go back to the founding of the colony called Nuevo Santander in the 1740s. I have ancestors both from among the Spanish Mexicans and the local Campacuaz Indians.

On the Indian side, my blood lines go back so far that they are lost in the mists of time, as they say. In Colorado, those of us descended from the New Mexicans have ancestors going back at least to the Spanish reconquest of New Mexico in 1692 after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Once resettled in New Mexico, just like in all the Mexican regions, los hispanos (this is the correct term, not the adjective “Hispanics”) intermarried and assimilated with local Indian peoples. DNA genealogical research makes the Native American blood lines evident. But this ancient history doesn’t count. It doesn’t give us our rightful place in U.S. society.

The historical record describes the Anglo reactions to Mexican people when the U.S. invaded and occupied Mexican territory during the Mexican War of 1846-48. It was hard for most of the newcomers to distinguish between Indians and Mexicans.

So they quickly gave up and treated both Mexicans (even those who claimed Spanish descent) and Indians pretty much the same way. This meant that descendants of Spaniards, and the Indians with whom they intermarried, very quickly lost their lands, same as the Indians. It seems that Anglos still can’t distinguish between different subgroups in our population. So we still get treated the same as those who just arrived yesterday.

Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Latinos, Hispanics — whatever you want to call us — are still stuck on the bottom rungs of the economic and social ladder. In the Trump economy, most of us have found jobs, which is the upside of this troubled epoch. Some of us have even managed to climb higher on the ladder. This is good news, but most of us who have succeeded have forgotten where we came from and have abandoned our less fortunate brethren. I don’t exaggerate when I say this. If those of us in the position to become leaders would only act like leaders, then we would come close to achieving equality.

What I’m saying is that I wish that we had parity in society. I wish we had professionals who remember their roots. I wish we had elected officials, doctors, nurses, college professors, business people, skilled tradespeople, agency directors, actors, entertainers, media personalities, Army officers, teachers, police and firefighters in the same proportion to our percentage of the population. It’s not for lack of trying. But only a few of us manage to crack the glass ceiling that holds us down.

Yes, there is a glass ceiling for Latinos, much, much thicker and harder to break than the glass ceiling for another disenfranchised group — white women. But you never hear about “our” glass ceiling. What can change the situation? I have one wish for change. Above all, I wish we had powerful politicians who actually looked out for us, rather than selling out, going along to get along.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera