Latinos in the United States: Diversity and Change

Rogelio Sáenz, Maria Cristina Morales

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781509500161
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

As the major driver of U.S. demographic change, Latinos are reshaping key aspects of the social, economic, political, and cultural landscape of the country. In the process, Latinos are challenging the longstanding black/white paradigm that has been used as a lens to understand racial and ethnic matters in the United States. In this book, Sáenz and Morales provide one of the broadest sociological examinations of Latinos in the United States. The book focuses on the numerous diverse groups that constitute the Latino population and the role that the U.S. government has played in establishing immigration from Latin America to the United States. The book highlights the experiences of Latinos in a variety of domains including education, political engagement, work and economic life, family, religion, health and health care, crime and victimization, and mass media. To address these issues in each chapter the authors engage sociological perspectives, present data examining major trends for both native-born and immigrant populations, and engage readers in thinking about the major issues that Latinos are facing in each of these dimensions. The book clearly illustrates the diverse experiences of the array of Latino groups in the United States, with some of these groups succeeding socially and economically, while other groups continue to experience major social and economic challenges. The book concludes with a discussion of what the future holds for Latinos. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, social scientists, and policymakers interested in Latinos and their place in contemporary society.

1 Introduction

Despite common perceptions that Latinos are newcomers to the US, they have a long presence in this nation extending back nearly two centuries. Over this long period of time, countless numbers of Latinos have been born in the US while others continue to make their way to this country. Over their long history in the US, Latinos have made important contributions to this nation. In particular, Mexicans were initially incorporated into this country more than one and a half centuries ago, with Puerto Ricans becoming associated with the US more than a century ago. The US, especially in the Southwest, bears profound Latino – particularly Mexican – roots. Indeed, much of the land in the Southwest belonged to Mexico until 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War. As a result of this treaty, Mexico lost about 55 percent of its land to the US. Latinos living in the Southwest, then, exist in land that once was part of Mexico.

Over the last several decades, Latinos have played an important role in the changing demography of the US. The increasing prominence of Latinos makes them the engine of population growth in the US. The growing presence of Latinos in the US is having an impact on the nation’s culture and institutions. Population projections indicate that Latinos will increasingly drive the nation’s demography and future throughout the twenty-first century. Already we see the important role that Latinos played in the reelection of President Obama in November 2012. It is estimated that the Latino electorate will double by 2030 (Taylor et al. 2012a). This book provides a sociological overview of Latinos to help readers better understand the past, present, and future of the diverse groups that comprise the Latino population in the US. In the following section we will identify some of the major influences of Latinos on the US in the realms of history, culture, language, and cuisine.

The Deep Roots and Influences of Latinos on the US

The influence of Latinos on the US reaches far back in history. A testament to this historical presence are the many cities across the Southwest that bear Spanish names, including Casa Grande, Guadalupe, Mesa, Nogales, Sierra Vista in Arizona; Chula Vista, Fresno, Los Angeles, Merced, San Diego, San Francisco in California; Aguilar, Alma, Blanca, Dolores, Las Animas, and Pueblo in Colorado; Belen, Española, Las Cruces, Las Vegas, Raton, and Santa Fe in New Mexico; and Amarillo, Del Rio, El Paso, La Feria, San Antonio, and Zapata in Texas. In addition, the influence of Latinos on the US can be seen in the English language, as many Spanish words have come into use in the English language through the ranching past of Mexicans in the Southwest. The litany of Spanish words that are part of the English language includes arroyo, avocado, barbeque, buckaroo, burro, chaparral, conquistador, corral, desperado, dolly welter, junta, lariat, lasso, mesa, mesquite, patio, pimento, rodeo, salsa, savanna, sierra, tango, ten-gallon hat, tomato, and vanilla (Wikipedia 2013). Over the last several decades Spanish language instruction has increased dramatically in the US and became the most popular language studied by American students at the university level in the mid-1990s (Gearing 2010). For example, according to a study of college enrollment in foreign languages in 2009 by the Modern Language Association (Furman et al. 2010), 864,986 students in the US were enrolled in a Spanish language course, while the second most popular foreign language, French, had only a quarter of the enrollment of Spanish. In 2010 Spanish was the most common language among persons 5 years of age and older who spoke a language other than English at home in the US, with nearly 37 million persons speaking Spanish (US Census Bureau 2013b). Furthermore, approximately 2.7 million non-Latino individuals – three quarters of these being whites – spoke Spanish in 2010 (US Census Bureau 2013b) with the number nearly doubling between 1980 and 2010 (Ruggles et al. 2010).

The influence of Latinos – especially of Mexicans – can also be seen in the food that Americans consume. Indeed, the three most popular ethnic cuisines in the US are Italian, Mexican, and Chinese. A recent Mintel survey indicated that 70 percent of persons prepared an Italian dish within the last month, with 63 percent making a Mexican dish, and 46 percent a Chinese meal (Full-Service Restaurants 2012). These three cuisines in the same order were also the most popular among menu items in 2011 according to the Mintel Menu Insights (Full-Service Restaurants 2012). Moreover, Mexican/Latino foods accounted for 55 percent of the overall ethnic food market, which approximated $3 billion in 2011 (Meszaros 2012). The dethroning of ketchup by salsa for the title of the most popular condiment in 1991 is emblematic of the rising popularity of Mexican food in the US (O’Neill 1992). What’s more, tortillas outsold sliced sandwich bread in 2008.

Mexican businesses have also made important inroads into the US market. Bimbo is the largest baker, Cemex the top cement supplier, and Cinéplex is the most rapidly growing luxury movie theater chain in the US (O’Neil 2013).

In the world of music, Rolling Stone began a section on Latino music in late 2012 (Newman 2012). A significant number of Latino musicians have gained popularity as “crossover” artists who rank highly in Spanish and English language music charts. Historically, the list of leading Latino crossover performers has grown to include Marc Anthony, Raymond Ayala (aka Daddy Yankee), Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan, Jose Feliciano, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Carlos Santana, Selena, Shakira, and Richie Valens (DeVitt 2011).

The Diversity of Latinos

Before continuing, it is important to understand the population changes Latinos have experienced over the last half century. In the early 1960s, the Latino population largely comprised persons of Mexican origin alongside a relatively small Puerto Rican and an even smaller Cuban population with the vast majority (approximately 85 percent) being born in the US. A half century later the Latino population is much more diverse. While Mexicans still account for nearly two-thirds of the Latino population, Latinos today originate from the Caribbean, Central and South America, as well as Spain, with close to two-fifths born outside of the US.

The combination of an established population that has been in the US for many generations alongside newcomers contributes to a diverse Latino population. Latinos also differ significantly on the basis of language, physical attributes (e.g. skin color), families and household formation, socioeconomic status, among many other variations. Furthermore, as elaborated in chapter 2, Latino subgroups differ significantly in their histories and particularly in the ways that they were initially incorporated into the US. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans were initially incorporated into the US through warfare in the nineteenth century. In contrast, Cubans were embraced as “golden exiles” and granted refugee status when they began immigrating to the US in 1959 as they were fleeing communism and Fidel Castro. Dominicans were initially allowed to immigrate to the US as a form of safety valve guarding against the rise of dissension in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. Salvadorans and Guatemalans came to the US in large numbers beginning in the late 1970s to escape the ravages of vicious civil wars in their countries, but their pleas for refugee status were largely rejected despite fleeing brutal governments supported by the US. Finally, Colombians began immigrating to the US in the 1980s as they sought haven from the brutal cartel wars that devastated the country and its people. These varying histories of incorporation into the US led to diverse paths of inclusion with some groups enjoying easier paths than others. This leads us to ask, how can groups with varying histories and migratory trajectories at different time periods and disparate conditions all be labeled as “Latinos”?

The Making of Latinos in the US

The US government through its Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which oversees the Census Bureau has historically had difficulty in identifying Latinos. For example, in the 1930 census during the period surrounding the Great Depression and the Repatriation Program seeking to return persons of Mexican origin to Mexico, Mexicans were treated as a racial category – for the only time ever in the history of the US census. As the Latino population grew during the 1940s and 1950s, the Census Bureau tried to identify this population by defining people as “persons of Spanish surname” and “persons of Spanish language,” along with national origin and ancestry. Toward the end of the 1970s, the US government came up with the term “Hispanic” to identify the Latino population, although the 1980 census used the category “person of Spanish origin.” The mass media celebrated and glorified the “Hispanic” term during the 1980s. For example, Time featured a story on the Latino population and dubbed the 1980s as the “decade of Hispanics” with Hispanic Heritage Month initiated in 1988 (Dávila 2001). Nonetheless, certain Latinos were critical of the Hispanic term because they felt that it was imposed by the national government and that it celebrated Spanish rather than indigenous roots. By the 1990s, the Latino term began to be used increasingly in the mass media. Yet, some still expressed disapproval of this term because these individuals see it as neglecting their Spanish ancestry.

We use the term Latino in this book. It should be understood that the terms Latino and Hispanic represent the same people, though people differ in their preference for the labels. For instance, a national survey of Latinos/Hispanics found that half of the sample did not have a preference for one label over the other; however, of those that favored one identity, Hispanic was more popular (Taylor et al. 2012b).

While Latino and Hispanic represent “pan-ethnic” labels, being umbrella terms that are made up of various subgroups, Latinos tend to prefer labels that describe their national origin, i.e., Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc. Indeed, slightly more than half of Latinos picked a national-origin label over the pan-ethnic Latino or Hispanic term (Taylor et al. 2012b). This is particularly the case for migrants from Latin America and Spain who view themselves not as Latino or Hispanic but as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatemalan, Bolivian, or Spanish. Indeed, people in, say, Colombia regard themselves as Colombianos or Colombians rather than Latino or Hispanic, as the latter terms are not even appropriate pan-ethnic terms in their home countries – that is, they are labels constructed in the US. Nevertheless, regardless of their own preference, when immigrants come to the US they become recipients of the Latino or Hispanic pan-ethnic identities. While gradually they may come to adopt the “Latino” or “Hispanic” labels, the preference for the national-origin labels remains.

Similarly, social constructions of race vary tremendously between Latin American countries and the US. For example, Latin American countries use a variety of designations along the racial color line and there is a common saying in Latin America that “money whitens,” suggesting that persons who are economically prosperous are treated as white. In contrast, the US has consistently featured a black/white racial dichotomy in which a single drop of black blood results in a person being considered and treated as black. Thus, dark-skin individuals who may be viewed as white in their home country are treated as black in the US. For example, people in the Dominican Republic, despite their historical ties to Africa, deny their African ancestry in favor of their Spanish and indigenous roots. Dark-skinned Dominican immigrants are surprised to learn that they are black in the US.

Racial Matters

While social scientists view race as a social construction, it is real in its consequences. Although there is greater variation in the genetic structure within racial categories than across racial categories, societies continue to place individuals into racial categories on the basis of physical features, namely skin color. Racial groups are then stratified on the basis of race along a variety of social, economic, and political dimensions. Given the long history of white privilege, persons who are white are at the top of the stratification system, while those with the darkest skin are situated at the bottom. Latinos vary widely on the skin-color spectrum. As such, some Latinos are dark while others are characterized by light skin. People who have populated Latin America as well as Spain have a wide array of features associated with different racial categories. The mixture of racial features stems from African, Arab, Asian, European, and indigenous roots.

According to the OMB and the US Census Bureau, Latinos represent an ethnic group rather than a racial category. Nonetheless, on census-related forms, Latinos are asked to classify themselves racially. Data from the 2011 American Community Survey can be used to assess the racial distribution of Latinos and to examine variations across specific Latino groups. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Latinos identified themselves as white with more than a quarter considering themselves “other” (table 1.1). Only 4 percent classified themselves as multiracial and 2 percent selected the black racial category.

Table 1.1 Racial Identification of Seven Largest Latino Groups, 2011

Source: 2011 American Community Survey Public-Use File (Ruggles et al. 2010).

Latino groups vary greatly on their members’ racial identities. For instance, Cubans (87.8%) and Colombians (75.5%) identified themselves solidly as white as did two-thirds of other South Americans (excluding Colombians) and Mexicans. In contrast, Dominicans were the least likely to categorize themselves as white with only one-third doing so. Upwards of 40 percent of Dominicans (45.9%), Salvadorans (42.7%), and Guatemalans (40.9%) labeled themselves racially as “other.” Three groups (Other Latinos, 9.2%;...