10 outspoken Latinos and Latinas to follow on Twitter

Roughly 54 million Latinos live in the United States, but they are seldom represented in mainstream media, which doesn't accurately reflect the country's diverse population. 

Social media, on the other hand, has provided a platform for an endless array of minority voices.

So to help introduce more diversity to your timeline, we’ve compiled a list of 10 badass Latinos to follow on Twitter, ranging from media personalities to activists.

Marlena Fitzpatrick, whose talents span both the editorial and literary worlds, covers art and music for Latino Rebels, a growing media organization that explores Latino issues with an equal dose of seriousness and humor. She is also co-founder and CEO of Editorial Trance, a digital publication that aims to “broaden the literary margins of Latino and Latina perception and representation.”

A fixture on lists such as this one, Jorge Ramos is one of the most prominent Latino journalists in the U.S. In fact, a 2010 National Survey of Latinos found that Ramos was the second most-recognized Latino leader in the country, following U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Ramos, whose career spans 30 years, hosts Univision’s Noticiero Univision and Fusion's America with Jorge Ramos.

As digital media director for NPR's Latino USA and founder of Latino Rebels, Julio Ricardo Varela​'s work stems from a BBC Top Gear video in which host Richard Hammond disparaged Mexican cars, calling them “lazy,” “feckless,” and “leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat." Although the BBC removed the video from YouTube, Varela uploaded a copy to his own website. 

Los Angeles comic Chris Garcia got his start in the San Francisco comedy scene, before heading back to his hometown in 2012. Garcia was a writer for the 2015 CBS Diversity Sketch Showcase, and was featured on an episode of NPR's This American Life, in which he recounts a moving story about his father, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

In her vlog, TheeKatsMeoww, Kat Lazo dishes out real talk on the intersection of race and feminism. Lazo often calls out mainstream media on their BS, and has worked with Race Forward, Bustle, Everyday Feminism, and more.

Junot Diaz doesn’t tweet, but is pretty active on Facebook. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz explores racial identity, which is informed by his experience as a Dominican immigrant in the United States. He is currently a professor of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and wrote “MFA v POC,” a scathing critique of the lack of diversity in Master of Fine Arts programs across the U.S.