As a professional Latina in Madison, I’ve seen firsthand the two forces that shape our cultural climate: the bullying that lives within our own Latino community, and the tokenism that greets us from the outside. Together, they create a cloak of insecurity that our city drapes over us.
Tokenism is dangerous. It gives false hope. It tells us we are included while still keeping the doors locked. In a polarized Wisconsin—north versus south, east versus west—the divide is real. In my family, it has taken two generations for someone to go to UW–Madison. That is not coincidence. That is intentional marginalization.
We only have to look at the recent mayoral race. There was an impression that Gloria Reyes lost by a landslide, but she didn’t. She lost by just 11 percentage points. For the first time in our history, we had a Latina, a Chicana, a Mexican American woman running for mayor. And she was not well supported by our own community. That’s the danger of tokenism. Gloria was tokenized early in her career as a police officer. She was celebrated for that, but never embraced for her full leadership by our local Mexican/Latino/Chicano community.
And yet, the problem is not just outside. We also have to look inside. There is a bullying culture in our Latino community that people don’t want to talk about. But we know it. It lives in colorism. It lives in accent. It lives in how we treat Afro-Latinas. It lives in the way we dress, where we hang out, where we eat. It’s classism, and in Madison, it cuts sharply through our city and our community.
Comparison is one of the oldest tools of bullying. In our community, we were raised with it. Who did better in school? Who drives the better car? Who married the light-skinned man? These comparisons keep us small. They keep us from seeing each other as allies.
Meanwhile, the systems around us are shifting against equity. Milwaukee Area Technical College is restructuring its multicultural office, eliminating four student service specialist positions and closing the office—sparking concern about support for students of color. UW–Madison closed its central DEI division and redistributed programs, part of a broader push that reduced and rebranded many DEI roles into “student success” positions. And across the state, at least 13 Wisconsin sheriff’s offices now have formal cooperation agreements with ICE, including new 287(g) agreements signed in 2025. And every day, nonprofit and social-work burnout is severe, with studies noting heightened strain for Latina bilingual social workers and immigrant-serving providers.
Madison loves to showcase our culture. Our art, our food, our language, our dances. But after 40 years of supposed multiculturalism, supposed liberalism, supposed equity—I cannot tell my daughter with certainty that she belongs here. She doesn’t believe it. And I don’t have evidence to prove her wrong.
Her dreams came at the expense of her grandmother, who scrubbed UW–Madison’s floors for nearly 20 years. That sacrifice should have opened doors. It should have created not just opportunity, but a recognition that our families’ labor is a cultural value and a living history tying us to this city. Instead, it is clear that it is not enough. The work, the sweat, the loyalty—none of it has guaranteed belonging. It has made things harder. Now my daughter has to work twice as hard to prove she belongs.
This is what tokenism does: it robs us of integrity and pride. This is what bullying does: it makes excuses for exclusion and elitism. Together, they erode our community from within and without.
I am not afraid to say this out loud. But I am angry. Because after all these years, our community still cannot rest in the truth that we belong. Madison has left us with a cloak of insecurity.
But maybe it’s time we stop wearing it.
Let’s take off this cloak of shame and trade it in for a bowl of posole in winter. Let’s exchange it for fiery convictions, pointing to our rich history in Wisconsin. Our identity and our courage to fight back is what will save us in the years to come. They say we’re spicy, they say we’re hot—let’s give them everything we’ve got. Because we’re machines built in a Mexican way: to last, to endure, to outdo the competition.
Our pride, our community, our culture—our very identity—will carry us through the blizzard of tokenism, bias, prejudice, and hate. Madison may leave us with a cloak of insecurity, but we can wrap ourselves instead in una cobijita stitched by our abuelas. Amor a la Mexicana is enough to melt the iciness of tokenism and soften the hearts hardened by bullying and internalized racism. Proximity to whiteness will never pave the road to success. Success, and being Mexican, is not measured in money, but in how wide we smile in the face of adversity.
About the author
Araceli Esparza is a poet, nonprofit consultant, and founder of Midwest Mujeres Inc. She serves as a Commissioner of Equal Opportunities for the City of Madison and is the author of Healing from Racial Discrimination: ¿Ahora Qué? Now, What?.
