Human Targets : Schools, Police, And The Criminalization Of Latino Youth By Victor Rios

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

Howard (2010) quickly changes gears in Chapter two, Changing Demographics, to look at the differences in language, ethnicity, race issues, culture and classism when regarded and compared to those who achieve on level and those who fall in the achievement gap. Howard examines the quickly changing face of America with the increase in Latino populations across the nation. Positing that teachers must adapt to understand and connect to students of diverse populations or there will be a great disconnect and divide that could be disastrous for the growing number of students that are part of the achievement gap, as well as the negative ramifications that could come from not evaluating the needs of those in the achievement gap. Howard (2010) also speculates the long term negative aspects that could come to the United States, especially in global market, if we as a country do

In New York City, an average of seven Latin Americans were killed a year, between the years 1986 to 1989. In 1990 that number increased greatly.  In that year, twenty-three Latin Americans were killed by police gunfire. When

In addition to the problems associated with acculturalization, Hispanics are faced with high levels of poverty. Poverty is correlated to academic and linguistic failure of all races of students. According to the National Education Association (NEA), Hispanic students face unique challenges in student achievement (“Hispanic Students Face Unique Challenges”, 2007). Factors such as poverty directly impact the level of achievement although they have made gains since 1980. Duvall (2011) stated, “Although

Sociologists have been studying the effects of education on Latino Americans and to their findings there are physical and conceptual issues which include: language barriers, issues with educators and peers which cause issues within their identity development and ultimately creating this separation of cultures which can effect Latino Americans success in school. While there are other factors that may be

Many ethnic groups have the fear that their children will lose their culture. Many countries have the fear that the immigrants will destroy their country. White Teeth reminds me of the book The Latino Threat by Leo Chavez that wrote about how the Latinos are a threat to the United States but at the end Latinos actually assimilate to the country and its culture. The more a person assimilated to the culture of others the most prosperous the person is, studies have showed. Samad and Alsana are are afraid their children will assimilate to the english culture and have different religious beliefs. Samad sends one of his sons back to his home country so he can live in a religious based community. Samad does not want his children to do mistakes as

Despite their better standing, the research has surprisingly found that they are “only slightly more likely than those whose parents were first-generation immigrants to have had some education beyond high school or to report household or personal incomes above $25,000” (28). These differences in educational and occupational attainment may be attributed to the overcrowded, underfunded inner-city schools second and third generation Latinos attend or to the fact that young Latinos feel economic pressure to drop out of school to get a job and financially assist their families; thus, keeping them in lower occupational ranks since the well-paid professional positions require a higher educational standard. These results are a bit disheartening, but nonetheless, the educational attainment of Latinos is still in a positive trend since we are seeing a slow, yet gradual increase of educational attainment.

Poverty among the Latino community has converted into an endemic predicament in the development of children living in the United States. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) indicated that poverty is uppermost with children making up 21.6% living below the poverty line in comparison to young adults (19.0%) and elders (18.1%). The California Poverty Measure (CPM) by PPIC analysis concluded that 7.5 millions of Californians lacked resources and made an income of about $30,000 a year. That is just above the poverty line which is to earn $24,000 a year. Although Latinos are constantly operational in the work field, they have a higher scarcity rate than any other ethnic group due to their association with lower education and deficiency of income (PPIC, 2017). In addition, according to The Pew Research Center, many Latino families are experiencing economic hardship as a result of moribund financial wealth, increased mortality rates, and higher birth rates among the Latino immigrant population (Lopez, Velasco, 2011). Poverty has produced several obstacles to Latino children in regards to their shifting family dynamics, learning, and development, but there are wide-ranging solutions that aid children of limited income households to prosper. This essay will scrutinize and discuss the assorted effects of poverty for Latino children living in the United States in the context of family dynamics, education, and development, as well as propose a solution to

Gangs have been a point of concern for states and societies around the world for centuries. Youth gangs are not exempt from that same categorization and have operated for the same amount of time worldwide. Over the last century however, a proliferation of youth gangs has been witnessed, especially among Hispanic youths immigrating into the United States. Researchers and scholars have offered multiple theories as to why youths, and Hispanics youths in particular integrate themselves into gang organizations. Three schools of thought arise when conducting gang integration research. Rational Economics Theory1 proposes that youths, and all individuals, join gangs for financial and material benefit. Cultural Deviance Theory considers youth gang

In Punished: policing the lives of Black and Latino by Victor Rios Oakland boys are studied in an ethnography. The purpose of the ethnography was to examine the how the boys interacted with themselves, the education system and the justice system. The purpose of this essay is to review what Rios has witnessed and recorded, in his book, and look through the lens of different sociological theories and theorists. These Theories and theorists Rios himself used when describing the behavior.

The concept of hypercriminalization specifically leads Rios to question how punishment, surveillance, and the criminal justice system affect minority adolescent males. Additionally, Rios wanted to know how the roles of authority figures such as police, school teachers, parents, and probation officers influenced or hindered adolescent male’s lives. For the study, Rios decided to shadow and conduct in-depth interviews with forty adolescent males, both Latino and African-American between the ages of fourteen and seventeen at the time of recruitment, from neighborhoods around Oakland, California. Additionally, Rios observed and informally interviewed seventy-eight other adolescent males that were friends or acquaintances of the boys Rios selected to study in-depth.

When one thinks about Hispanics, all too often the image of a field full of migrant workers picking fruit or vegetables in the hot sun comes to mind. This has become the stereotypical picture of a people whose determination and character are as strong or stronger than that of the Polish, Jewish, Greek, or Italian who arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Then, the center of the new beginning for each immigrant family was an education. An education was the "ladder by which the children of immigrants climbed out of poverty into the mainstream." (Calderon & Slavin, 2001, p. iv) That ideal has not changed, as the Hispanic population has grown in the United States to large numbers very quickly and with little fanfare. Now, the

The book: “Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys” was written by the author Victor M. Rios who was also a gang member in Oakland, California. He selected a total of 40 young men for this investigation, 30 of them had been previously arrested in the state of California. This book has two main sections. Over the first section we find Chapter 1 which sets the different methods and some of the experiences the author lived when he was working on this project. This chapter also deals with the punitive system developed in the city of Oakland, CA. If we turn pages to chapter number 2 we will find a brief description of Oakland along with its high level of poverty and reduced opportunities. Victor emphasizes that Latinos and Blacks have had a strong trajectory in criminal acts and punitive social control.

Mexican Americans in the education system have been treated unfair. From the Mendez v. Westminster to the low number of students graduating from high school and moving to a higher institution shows that the system has done nothing to help these students. By the help of the community wealth theory many of the few numbers of scholars who have been able to reach these higher institutions have been able to put families, schools, peers, and other influences for their benefit and for helping them enter these systems which are not welcoming to them. Various aspects of these systems need to be change from the diversity of teachers and desegregation in and within schools around the US which would influence the communication and thoughts that Mexican

Writers Jon Swaine a senior reporter as well as the lead director of the reporting team “The Counted” for The Guardian newspaper and Ciara McCarthy a journalist for the Guardians newspaper and The Counted team, delivered an article based on their project “The Counted” that is focused on analysing and recording the deaths caused by police and making it known to the public. In this article, contains a study on the death rates of americans in the last year it has been found out that young black males are far more likely to be killed by the police than white males, according to their research “Black males aged 15-34 were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by law enforcement officers last year ”(Swaine McCarthy).There studies