We Are Here

(Left to right) Maribel Moheno, Oscar Contreras, Alexander Guzman, Rafaela Torres, Erica Coffey, Tayna Gonzalez, Juan Santacoloma, Alexis Almon. (Photos by Michael K. Lease)

The U.S. Census estimates that as of July 2014, there were 60,000 Latinos in the city of Richmond, and Chesterfield and Henrico counties — about 7 percent of the population. “Which I think is a very, very low estimate,” says Michel Zajur, founder and CEO of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Zajur was born in Mexico and moved to Richmond when he was 2. That was in the early 1960s, and “there were virtually no Latinos,” he says. “The growth of the community has been astounding.”

Between 2000 and 2010, one in three new Virginians was Hispanic, according to a 2011 analysis by Qian Cai of the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Since 2010, the pace has slowed (to be surpassed by the Asian growth rate), she says, but between immigration and fertility rates, Virginia added another 105,000 Hispanics from 2010 to 2014.

Which brings us now to The Valentine where, in late February, a group of about 100 people, nearly all Latino, gathered for a discussion on the need to move Richmond’s social, cultural and political identity beyond black and white.