*A guest post from Cheryl Lynn Cain

Growing up as a Colombian-American, I often remember people assuming that I liked spicy food, that I spoke "Mexican" and that Cinco de Mayo was "my holiday".   This confused me because Colombian food was not spicy at all and I didn't know any Mexican lingo.  But the Latino stereotype stuck, no matter how different politically, culturally, or linguistically the twenty different countries were.  It's funny because if you ask a Latino if there is a difference between Puerto Rican culture and Chilean or Bolivian culture, they emphatically answer, "Yes".  But in the media, the answer is...NO.  We are all latinos and, coincidentally, we all vote the same way. 

Huh?  What about the pro-Bush Cuban contingent who wants Fidel ousted?  What about the Venezuelan population that embraces leftist Chavez and his anti-American agenda?  What about the Colombians who are almost at war with the Venezuelans and would probably want a more conservative government in America? What about the Puerto Rican vote that has primarily stood with Obama, even authoring the "se llama obama" reggaeton ringtone?   And what about all those who disagree even with these stereotypes and boxes? 

I guess what I want to see clarified in the media is that, although Clinton apparently has the majority of the Mexican vote, this does not mean that she has the whole Latino vote, in the same way that no candidate has the whole american vote.  People are people.  Our national and personal issues are not all the same.  And, for the record, this Latina is for Obama.  I speak Spanish and don't like spicy food.