Hispanic Community Excerpt Analysis

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

Hispanics or Latinos are defined as a people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish speaking culture. This term “Hispanics” was created by the U.S. federal government in the early 1970’s to refer to Americans born in a Spanish speaking nation or with ancestry to Spanish territories. Hispanics people are vibrant, socializing, and fun loving people. Among various facts associated to this culture is that they have a deep sense of involvement in their family traditions and cultures.

Today, the Hispanic population has grown tremendously over the years. We have watched the Hispanics community growth rate grow faster than any other racial and ethnic group in the nation. The Hispanic culture and community has populated all around the United States, introducing new traditions and customs. I was traveling to different to city in the States, I notice the wide spread growth of Hispanic communities, For Instance in Miami the Cuban and El Salvadoran culture is heavy populate in the area. In New York the Puerto Rican culture is dominating through out the several boroughs. I have come around town and Hispanics are known for their good food, which tends to have more diverse people try new cultural customs. Hispanic or Latino

The Latino/a experience within the racial system in America was similar to that of Indian immigrants from Asia. In the early 1800s, Indians were granted free access to immigrate to America and naturalize as American citizens because they were perceived as whites. However, as social tensions between Indian and Anglo men began competing for jobs, housing, and women, Members of Congress racialized Indians. They justified that Indian men were no longer privileged to be white because Indians left Europe and traveled backwards to the East, making them inferior (Aoki, and Takeda). These examples of racialization are important to understand how Latino/as have been unwanted in the job

One of the major issues Hispanics encounter is acculturation. Acculturation deals with a merging of cultures or even borrowing traits from another culture. Akins, Mosher, Smith and Gauthier (2008) explain that “acculturation stress refers to societal pressures that force immigrants to alter their lifestyles, behaviors and the way they think about themselves”. When treating Hispanics, one must be careful not to push one’s ideals as to how one believes, pressing the client to act or change their

Overall, the chapter, which focuses on “Hispanicity”, impacted me because I began to formulate ideas which opposed those that had been hammered into my mind all my life. For so long I had heard that minorities were victims to oppression by whites and for that reason minorities should strive to do more than what is expected from them. In reading Rodriguez’s claim, questions that had never been explored in my development arose in my mind such as “Are Hispanics really the victims?”, “Do Hispanics truly strive to their fullest to accomplish things that have never been done?”, and lastly, “Are Hispanics committing acts of hypocrisy?”. If a Hispanic

Latino/Hispanic Americans cover a much wider demographic then believed. Latino/Hispanic Americans consist of; Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatemalan American to name a few. Latino/Hispanic Americans are the largest ethnic group in the United States. The Latino/Hispanic culture is very different than ours. Their culture differs in economics, politics, family traditions, family structure, religion, education, language, fashion, art, music, dancing, and food. As natural born Americans in the United States it is important for us to learn about the different cultures migrating into the United States. Many United States citizens have a hard time understanding other cultures; being culturally insensitive is a common theme in the United

On “Dia Sin Latinos” on February 18 in 2016, along with about 20,000 people, I marched around the Wisconsin State Capitol, in Madison, in protest against the proposed “AB 450”. Assembly Bill 450, known as the “sanctuary cities bill” wanted a fine on cities that did not allow police officers to ask people about their immigration status, Allowing police officers to come up to random, innocent people and ask to see their papers. While Scott Walker and republicans say that “AB 450 is about making communities safer,” It clearly promotes racial profiling and would create a sense of fear of the police within a major part of the latino community. I do not see at all how it would make

The United States of America is considered a melting pot of heritages and nationalities from all around the world. There is no official language, and no one culture all citizens abide by. Despite the fact that everyone in this country is different from one another, there is still a constant uniform citizen that has a more favorable position. This citizen is white, English-speaking, and somehow always in the front of the public sphere. In the recent years, there has been an increasingly dominant Latino presence in America. Their strength in numbers challenges there being a poster American citizen, and that that citizen will remain white. When working to assimilate to America’s “culture,” Lations seem to believe that there is one America, within which people speak a singular language and experience one culture. The pressure to assimilate stems from the white citizens of the country feeling threatened when there is a new culture and language, which they do not understand. As a result they feel personally threatened by the people who can speak both Spanish and English, and their response response involves marginalization and the obvious exclusion of Latino groups in the United States. There is a phenomenon, cultural citizenship, where Latinos perform their cultural practices to stretch their identity into the states, and practice their right to be authentic members of their community.

Have you ever been degraded by others and try not to let it tear you down? Within the short text “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” this idea is explored in numerous ways as the various groups of Hispanics and women attempt to gain more rights within their community and society as a whole. They come to the realization that the ways in which they are treated is in an unjust manner, making them feel insignificant and powerless. Therefore, in Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she confronts how many Hispanic minorities, especially women, are marginalized within society by presenting many of the difficult obstacles these groups face, and how they attempt to overcome them.

The history of the African Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans contains an infinite variety of experiences. To the Native Americans who founded these lands, slavery, and the waves of migration. What all minority groups have experienced is the

There are currently 150 million Afro-descendants in Latin America who make up nearly 30 percent of the region’s population (Congressional Research Service, 2005). Out of the fifteen Latin American nations that have recently adapted some sort of multicultural reform, only three give recognize Afro-Latino communities and give them the same rights as indigenous groups (Hooker, 2005). Indigenous groups are more successful than afro-descendent groups in gaining collective rights and development aid from international NGO’s. Collective rights important because are closely related to land rights and can become a tool to fight descrimination .I will attempt to uncover the causes for the discrepancy. This study relies heavily on ethnographic

While reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Gloria Anzaldua’s two articles from Borderlands and This Bridge We Call Home many concepts were discussed that caught my attention. Freire and Anzaldua offer great, shocking revelations that focus on change in the oppressed and the oppressors, as well as bringing to attention the false sense of altruism, the seven stages of conocimiento and moving away from cultural assimilation to enculturation. Throughout the readings there were also an abundance of connections made to concepts within community psychology such as first order vs second order changes, the relationship between power and oppression and meaning focused coping. Reflecting on the reading material made connecting to the concepts presented effortless as much of what is talked about is easy to understand and relatable to people of color, both authors intended audience. I personally connected my life experiences to Freire’s theory of how the oppressed are portrayed and its effect on the oppressed as well as Anzaldua’s seven stages of conocimiento.

Prior to this challenge I did not have an understanding of the challenge they faced of trying to keep their culture while growing into the American culture. I mean, living in Arizona it looks as though a vast portion of their culture is strong in this city but that is just the part that America permits them to show and share. As I looked through one of the books it told of the history of Hispanics in America which is different from the Hispanics I see every day. I have noticed now that daily in the school system their children are becoming less and less like their Hispanic background. Students are forced to speak English. Even in my school library at work we have books in Spanish but the students are not allowed to check them out and if they do happen to have a teacher that allows them to check out the book the students cannot read them at school. They can only take them home in hopes that their parents will read the books with them. They cannot read the book at school which has always confused me. Why do they have the literature available for the students, in a school library, in the Spanish language that they can read in but not allow them to check it out or read it at school? It is a discriminatory disadvantage in my

In the 1920s and 1930s intellectuals and statesmen in Latin America began to adopt ideologies of race mixture in an effort to advance nation-building projects based on notions of inclusion and racial equality. These notions which where said to promote racial inclusivity included mestizaje. The ideology of mestizaje often times enabled exclusion through racial terms and marginalization. In order to grasp how such an ideology has created a paradoxical and contradictory outcome politically, economically, and socially for black communities in Latin America one must draw from real world examples. Two examples of Latin American countries that have experienced marginalization of their black communities are Columbia and Mexico. Before one can enter a conversation on the process through which black communities are marginalized in Latin America it is essential to define a few terms. First one must define what Latin America encompasses. Latin America’s dictionary definition is that it is the part of the American Continents South of the United States in which Spanish, Portuguese, or French is officially spoken. However, Latin America also has an ideological meaning that was defined in lecture by Professor Campos as “as an idea thus signified a “restoration” of western civilization in the Americas”. The next term that one must define is mestizaje is ideologies of national identity that celebrated race mixture as an important component of regional and national culture. Race is a way to