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Latina power is one of the most remarkable stories of upward mobility in America today. But not everyone even knows what it is.
U.S. Representative Brandon Gill (R‑Texas) recently asked Dr. Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, “What is Latina power?” and whether it was appropriate to sell pink merchandise with the phrase “Latina power.”
As a Latina myself, I couldn’t help but think: the answer is all around us.
According to the Pew Research Center, the share of Latinas ages 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree has nearly doubled over the past two decades — from 12% in 2003 to 23% in 2023.
Educational gains extend well beyond undergraduate education. Between 2000 and 2021, the number of Hispanic women earning graduate, professional, and doctoral degrees increased by 291%, the fastest growth of any major racial or ethnic group in the United States.
Growing up, I never met a Latina scientist or physician until my fourth year of college. That experience was not unusual; it reflected the persistent underrepresentation of Latinas in STEM and medicine.
Today, I am a fourth‑year medical student, a published researcher, and I have led research to improve neurological care for Spanish‑speaking patients. I have presented my work at national scientific conferences and developed a curriculum that trains medical students to provide language‑concordant care for Spanish‑speaking communities.
Yet despite these accomplishments, I often find myself the only Latina on medical teams, in research groups, or among presenters at scientific conferences.
My experience reflects both the extraordinary progress Latinas have made and the barriers that remain. More Latinas are earning advanced degrees, leading innovative research, and transforming medicine than ever before. We are proving every day that talent has never been the barrier. The challenge is ensuring our institutions recognize, support, and advance that talent into positions of leadership.
That same story is unfolding across the American economy.
Latinas are among the fastest‑growing groups of entrepreneurs in the country. Stanford University’s State of Latino Entrepreneurship report shows that Latina‑owned businesses grew by 87% between 2007 and 2019, generating more than $97 billion in revenue and employing nearly 600,000 workers.
That momentum has continued.
The 2026 Wells Fargo Impact of Women‑Owned Businesses report found that Hispanic and Latina women‑owned employer firms grew by 37.2% between 2022 and 2025 — nearly five times the growth rate for women‑owned employer businesses overall.
Today, Latina entrepreneurs own approximately 2.9 million businesses, representing nearly one in five women‑owned firms in the United States.
Yet progress should not be mistaken for equality.
Despite these gains, the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute reports that Latinas face intersecting wage disparities, earning less than both Latino men and white women. Their median hourly wage of $17 falls short of the $20 earned by Latino men and the $23 earned by white women.
In California, home to the nation’s largest Latina population, Latinas earn just 49 cents for every dollar paid to white male workers — the widest gap of any state.
They remain underrepresented in executive leadership, boardrooms, academia, medicine, law, engineering, and scientific research.
The corporate world illustrates the problem. Although women have reached a record share of Fortune 500 CEO positions, that progress has not translated into sustained Latina representation.
Several Fortune 500 CEOs — including Oracle’s Safra Catz, Fannie Mae’s Priscilla Almodovar, and Hershey’s Michele Buck — left their leadership roles. Almodovar’s departure left the Fortune 500 without a single Latina CEO for the first time since she assumed the position in 2022.
Even as Latina‑owned businesses are among the fastest‑growing in the nation, that entrepreneurial success has yet to translate into representation at the highest levels of corporate leadership. Structural barriers — including unequal access to mentorship, sponsorship, networking opportunities, and implicit bias — continue to limit advancement.
This matters because representation isn’t about appearances. It determines who leads research, who develops new technologies, who sits in corporate boardrooms, who writes public policy, who teaches future generations, who cares for patients, and whose perspectives shape decisions.
America loses talent when leadership doesn’t reflect the diversity of its workforce.
Because I am in medical school, the overwhelming gap of Latinas in medicine is stunning. Latinas comprise only about 2% of practicing physicians despite being a much larger share of the U.S. population.
In my home state of California, where Latinos make up nearly 39% of the population, Latina physicians account for fewer than 3% of practicing doctors. That stark disparity has changed little over the past several years, highlighting how slowly representation in medicine has progressed despite the growing number of Latinas pursuing higher education.
The consequences extend far beyond workforce statistics.
Latino communities continue to experience significant disparities in health care access and outcomes.
Latino adults are more likely to be uninsured than white adults, creating barriers to preventive care, specialty referrals, and treatment for chronic diseases. Latinos also experience disproportionately higher rates of diabetes and diabetes‑related complications, while Latinas continue to face disparities in cervical cancer screening.
Latinas and the broader Latino population remain significantly underrepresented in clinical trials, comprising less than 8% of participants despite representing nearly 20% of the U.S. population.
Increasing representation among Latina physicians, scientists, and clinical investigators is one way to help close that gap. It moves beyond optics — it means understanding the lived experiences and structural factors that shape Latino health, from access to care and geography to language and socioeconomic barriers.
Diverse researchers and clinicians are also more likely to ask questions that have historically been overlooked, including barriers to specialty care, language access, environmental exposures, and occupational health risks affecting Latino communities.
Representation changes not only who delivers care, but also which questions are asked, which problems receive attention, and ultimately whose lives are improved.
The issue extends far beyond medicine.
We need Latina engineers designing AI, Latina scientists leading discoveries, Latina CEOs running companies, Latina professors training future physicians, teachers, and lawyers, Latina judges interpreting the law, and Latina elected officials shaping policy.
The question isn’t whether Latina power exists — the data demonstrates it. The question is whether America is fully harnessing it and recognizing it. The progress Latinas have made deserves celebration, not questioning. The barriers that remain demand action.
That means investing in education and mentorship, expanding pathways into leadership, building workplaces where hiring, pay, and promotion are equitable, and electing leaders committed to removing — not reinforcing — the barriers that limit opportunity.
These investments benefit everyone by strengthening innovation, improving health care, and ensuring our institutions reflect the communities they serve.
Karina Morales is a Latina fourth‑year medical student and a Public Voices Fellow on Public Health with The OpEd Project and the Blue Shield of California Foundation.
