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Author cites cultural baggage' as wealth killers for Latinos

Are Latinos different from other Americans when it comes to creating wealth?

There's a recent book that says yes, Latinos are different in the ways that we think about making money and acquiring assets. This publication also discusses how our philosophies about money play into our concepts of self identity.

The book is Think & Grow Rich: A Latino Choice, (Ballantine Books) by Lionel Sosa. Sosa is a founder of Sosa & Associates, the San Antonio-based Hispanic marketing firm that grew to the largest agency in the U.S. before he sold his percentage and got rich. In 2005, Time magazine named him among the top 25 most influential Hispanics in America.

Sosa asserts that Latinos think about wealth and success in unique ways because their "cultural baggage" is different from Anglos.

For example, one of our common attitudes of respect for authority we interpret as a good thing, while Anglos interpret the same attitude as being subservient. What this means financially is that Latinos are more apt to not question someone drawing up our mortgage, because that could be seen as disrespect. Many of these attitudes come from our family's country of origin, even if we have lived here for three, four or five generations. The attitude is a handed-down tradition that could keep us from getting rich, Sosa says.

The downside of this respectful silence is that more Latinos end up with sub-prime (higher) rates and unexplained clauses that later may cause them to foreclose. In the fiercely competitive U.S. economic system, it is caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware. So ask questions, questions, questions.

Sosa offers up other such examples, comparing Latinos with Anglos in terms of financial expertise. The good news is that Sosa offers a system to toss overboard the cultural baggage that may hold us back. His solution is based on financier Napoleon Hill's philosophy of success. In the book, Sosa shows how he and other Latinos have used these principles to achieve their financial and life goals.

His important message is that we can unlearn habits that are bad for success, and replace them with good habits, while not losing our strong cultural identity. We can still keep positive Latino attributes, such as our willingness to work hard, our sense of innovation and our limitless optimism.