I couldn’t be more tired of hearing the term “Latino vote”. Who are these amorphous Latinos? Where did they come from?

Just to be clear, here is a little something about my family background:

My mother is an immigrant from Peru. She was educated in a convent school and came here when she was 18 to work as a nanny for a family in Marin County, CA.

My father was born in Upland, CA, the fifth of ten children to a mother from Michoacan who walked across the border in El Paso, TX when she was six years old in 1909.

I check the box marked Hispanic/Latino/Chicano.

I am proud of my heritage and the legacy that has allowed me to earn a college degree.

So, back to my original question: Who are these amorphous Latinos? And when did they start voting with one mind? I don’t have to look beyond the confines of my own family to realize how foolish it is to categorize Latinos as some kind of monolith.

I’ll spare you the suspense. I voted for Obama. If I had to guess, I’d say my mom voted for Hillary, but to tell you the truth I don’t really know. (I’m tempted to call her right now.) My dad probably voted for McCain. I have cousins who are Republicans and uncles and aunts who are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. My point here is that we are a family. We share grandparents and direct history. We were raised in much the same way with a strict work ethic and a belief in family. My father and two of his brothers are veterans. Between the 25 or so of us who share blood ties across two generations – add another handful for my cousin’s kids who are eligible to vote – you probably have a fairly representative scope of the spectrum of politics in this country.

So please, spare me the platitudes and stereotypes of the “Latino vote”. Spare me the single voter issue crap about immigration. Spare me the insult of imagining that I am a demographic and not a full-fledged human being.