Test Questions: Hispanic and Latino American Diversity

Points:  5 questions at 40 points each for 200 points for 25% of your grade (all will be sliding scale).

Many workers work in jobs that pay them under the table or in horrible conditions. “Latino households can expect to earn 70 cents to a dollar less than the average white person makes. Hispanic households make 12 cents to a dollar less than white non-Hispanic people” (Schaefer, 2012, P. 224). With Latinos and Hispanics working under the table, they are not making as much as they would make if they were earning a paycheck legally. Since they are also sending money home to their families they have very little left of what they do earn for themselves. “Out of the last quarter century, the proportion of Latinos in poverty has been two or three times that of white non-Hispanics” (Schaefer, 2012, P. 224). With the average American battling to stay above the poverty line, more of the Latino and Hispanic communities are below it because of the financial obstacles in the way. Latino and Hispanic populations have been rapidly growing in the United States. “In 1975 congress addressed citizens with multilingual backgrounds” (Schaefer, 2012, P. 226). Many Latino and Hispanic Americans want to become legal so they can participate in the political position of being a United States citizen. Latino and Hispanic Americans want to be able to vote in upcoming elections. Since the increase in their population and the decision of congress in 1975; more ballots are being made to be English and Spanish depending on the particular country, city or state (Schaefer, 2012, P.

1. Short Answers: Each answer is worth 3 points. Answer all 15 questions. Total: 45 points.

Section A: Answer all questions. Total 42 points – each question in this section carries 3.5 points. Write the responses to ALL questions in your answer sheet.

Throughout this first chapter of Latino Americans the key points in my opinion were the following. Starting with the origin story of the Americas, the book mentions there might not be a definitive starting point because there “500 nations in North America before a European ship ever dropped anchor off the Eastern Seaboard” (Suarez 3). The book from this point on chronologically starts narrating, first about 55 years before Protestant refugees from Mayflower ever stepped on American soil, a Spanish sailor Pedro Menendez de Aviles forced French protestants from their Florida coast settlement to then stablish St. Augustine. From this point the book continues to tell the stories of Juan de Oñate, from witnessing the founding of Santa Fe, the oldest capital of North America, to exploring more than half a dozen of American states, he is one of the most fundamental conquistadors who is the least

The following discussion and statements are done so such that they incorporate the ideas and struggles of the Latino races regarding certain subjects down upon chapter 3 “Latinos in the united states” and chapter 4 “borders, immigration and citizenship”. This discussion is about the oppression that people Latinos and Native Americans and other ethnic groups have gone through. Some points in the discussion are oppression towards Mexican American and Native Americans, how they were treated and the impact they had.

According to statics; 50.0% percentage of Asians, age 25 and older, who have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education. Moreover, Asians have the high proportion of college graduates than any race or ethnic group; such as Mexican Americans. On the contrary, as far educational attainment for Mexican Americas; only 9% of Mexicans ages 25 and older have obtained at least a bachelor’s degree. Not to mention 21.2% of percentage of Asian Americans, also ages 25 or older, have an advanced degree; such as, PH.D, M.D, or Master’s. Alternatively, the median annual personal earning for Mexican American ages 16 and older were $20,000 in 2010, the same as for Puerto Ricans.

Immigration has changed a lot throughout the years in American history, not only in laws about immigration, but about places where immigrants came from, and the different races that immigrated. These factors have changed throughout history by shaping the social and economic aspects of the United States. Immigration has changed for the better and for the worse. It has gone to as far as making camps for Japanese Americans and deporting them and taking their belongings, to as low as giving immigrants papers and letting them stay.

Question #1 is worth 5 points – all others are worth 1 point each. Either type your answers directly onto THIS sheet OR create a new file and number your answers 1, 2, 3, etc.

Currently within the United States one of the fastest growing minority population (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) is the Latinos. In 2010 Census Bureau Brief ( Ennis, Rois-Vargas, & Albert, 2011) it stated how an estimated 15 million Latino individuals were living within the United States, which is approximately about 16% of the entire U.S. population. There is one big problem with addressing the Latino population, and that is the family patterns are either misrepresented or not properly understood, due to the label of Hispanic and Latinos being placed together. These two groups may share the same spoken language of Spanish and have similar cultural ancestry but the diversity among Hispanic and Latinos (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) make generalizations about their lifestyles difficult. The term Hispanic came to be used in the 1970’s by government officials (cdc.gov, 2011) in trying to provide a diverse label on this population that had connections to speaking Spanish and the Spanish culture. Latino became more of a termed to be used when distinguishing between Mexican (Hispanics) and Latinos who descendants from Latin America such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Hispanics have been arriving in the United States since the late 1800's, but it was not until the 1950s that a great surge of Hispanics immigrated to the United States. They arrived during a time where racial tensions in the United States were at an all-time high. The discrimination facing African Americans who were fighting for their civil liberties interfered with Hispanics' adaption to a new country. To differentiate themselves from the White Americans and from the bigotry against African Americans, the term Hispanic was coined. This allowed them to have their own

Hispanic immigration to the United States stems primarily from uniquely developed push-pull migration mechanisms in which “interplay of national, regional, and global economic developments, the history of U.S. military and foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, the checkered history of international border enforcement and interdiction efforts, and, not least, the aspirations of Latin American migrants and potential migrants themselves” (Gutierrez). In other words, migration from Latin American to the United States shouldn’t have been consistent, however, there are several factors that triggered massive waves of such.

Immigration is the process of entry of individuals into a new country (23). Throughout past centuries, immigration has been a means of discovery and exploration of new lands. In today’s culture, immigration to the United States is an avenue for individuals who wish to start new lives and take advantage of the capitalistic, entrepreneurial system. People from many countries have migrated into the United States. Most recently, the migrants have come from Central and South American countries. These Latin American countries influence America’s society culturally and economically through their language, traditions, and workforce. From the 1990s to the present time, immigration from Latin American countries has more than

That answer was sufficient when the United States did not possess the power to stave off a potato famine affecting an entire populace and could only open its ports to the people coming to the United States to escape its ravages or when the California Gold Rush of the late nineteenth century attracted multitudes of Chinese immigrants(2.), but it does not hold up to the scrutiny of current times as the United States is no longer experiencing a singular, uncontrollable driving force of immigration that it cannot curb or hope to control. Instead, the problem faced by the United States in terms of immigration currently is the largely illegal immigration of various peoples stemming from the Central and South America area. The question again arises of why. Closer examination reveals that the massive amounts of both legal and illegal of immigrants coming from these areas is fueled by a multi-tentacled beast having its roots in the over-arching problems of poverty, instability, and recessions faced by the peoples inhabiting these

Immigration involves the movement of a group of people from one country to another where they do not possess citizenship. There are many reasons in which people may leave their country such as employment, lack of resources, family, fear due to violence, exile, the American dream. In 1965, Congress changed immigration law in ways that allowed much more intake from Asia and Latin America than earlier. Before 1965, the intake was mostly from Europe. Since then, over half has come from Latin America—28 % just from Mexico. The share of population composed of non-Hispanic whites plunged from 84 % in 1965 to only 62 % in 2015 while Hispanics soared from 4 to 18 %. (Mead, L.M., 2016)