The Depiction Of 21st Century Latino Immigrants

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

Immigration has always been an issue in the United States, which is often portrayed as harmful and as major threat to American culture. As a result, various anti immigration policies have been aimed against immigrants in order to prevent and preserve the miscegenation of American culture, such as English only policies. Among the largest minority groups in the U.S, are Latinos who currently compose of 15% of the U.S population (Delgado and Stefancic 3). Unfortunately, Latinos have been accused of taking American benefits, jobs, and have wrongfully been depicted as a result of not assimilating to American culture. Latinos are often accused of resisting assimilation, but what has failed to be acknowledged is that there are obstacles set in

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

Immigration is a complex and multifaceted issue that faces the US. In his film, Sin Nombre (2009), director Cary Fukunaga aims to juxtaposition the issue of immigration with the issue of gang violence in Mexico, and show the difficulties immigrants face by giving his audience an insider’s perspective into the experience of immigrating to the United States from Honduras. He does this through a variety of characters; most notably Willie and Sayra. Fukunaga did extensive research on life in the Mara Salvatrucha gang and the process of immigrating to America, in order to make his film realistic and authentic. The result is a movie that not only shows immigration in a way that evokes empathy and enforces the humanity of immigrants in the viewer’s mind, but also gives the viewer a look into the realities of being in a gang. Through the use of strong characters, powerful dialogue and vivid imagery, Fukunaga uses pathos to put a human face to the issue of immigration, logos to inform and give his audience context about the issues the film addresses, and ethos to establish his credibility and make the film believable.

The 4th Episode of the documentary Latino Americans: The New Latinos, claimed that many latinos groups, such as Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Domicans, that migrated to the United States had made a huge impact in America's culture and Society. One of the evidence that lead to the the main claim of the video was the story of Rita Moreno. Rita Moreno and her family moved to New York City to have a better life than in their home country, which was Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was greatly affected by The Great Depression in the U.S, so many Puerto Ricans migrated to the U.S, which included Rita’s family. The young girl wanted to became an actress in Hollywood because that was every young teenage dream during The Depression. Eventually, she made it into Hollywood, but in her movies, she was portrayed as a typical woman from

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.

Using the language of the moving image, which includes cinematography, editing, sound, music and mise-en-scene, this essay will investigate the ideology of Racism in film. OxfordDictionaries.com describes racism as “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.” When we, the audience think of racism in film, we traditionally think of movies for adults and often overlook the sinister aspect of racism in children’s films. I have chosen to contrast a recent R-rated film with a G-rated Disney movie from the 1990s. Disney films, even up until the 1990s have persistently reinforced the image of blacks or latino and asian races as being below whites. The

Author Scott L. Baugh has examined the role of Latino Americans in the movies, and he explains that there "…remains the uneven balance of power among characters," in particular with reference to Latino "subordinate characters" that tend to be portrayed as "stereotypes" (Baugh, 2012, p. 259). Early films (in the late 19th century and early 20th century) depicted a very "simple hierarchy," in which the heroes and main characters were white and held positions of "leadership and agency" (Baugh, 259). Latino characters were "secondary" to those main white characters, and Latino characters tended to be the villains, Baugh explained.

A diverse minority group of Latino and Spanish-speaking peoples has played an important part of what it means to be American and what it means to be a citizen in the United States today. Moving into the future, in order to analyze the trajectory that this group is in, we must first understand the group’s history in the United States and in territories that would become the United States. In addition, we must look at the origins of the most recent wave of Latino immigration in order to understand their current effect on American society and the intersection between both minority and majority groups. Finally, we get to the apex of this investigation: what lies in the future for Latino Americans in the United States? Although Latino

Immigration policies have had a tendency to violate human rights. These immigration policies, along with others, resulted in the global apartheid in the U.S. Some policies required more patrol enforcement at the border which made the journey for immigrants to the U.S. more rigorous. This enforcement has caused for immigrants to actually not look into migrating to the U.S. Also, with the local law enforcement working together with the border patrol has resulted into a huge problem, racial profiling. In racial profiling, even though there are immi-grants from all over the world, Latinos are mostly targeted. The policies, while they have in-creased deportation rates, they have affected the deportee’s U.S. citizen children.

From there on movies shifted from their portrayals of Latino males as "Latin lovers" to "urban banditos". Films changed from problems involving women, sex, and love to delinquency, drugs, and gang fights. Movies such as West Side Story, Scarface, and Fort Apache, the Bronx, all use Latinos as "scapegoats" to focus the problems of society to the immigration of Puerto Ricans to the U.S.

actually address the historical legacy of slavery, Lin Manuel Miranda’s casting brought light to the misrepresentation of non-whites in media and history. Throughout history, minority races, specifically African-Americans and Hispanics, are often whitewashed into stereotypical themes; thug life, segregation, or the “bad guy”.

I am a PhD student at the California University, Merced studying Sociology. This is my first year and my two-year paper will be on the birth experience of black and Latinx mothers in the Central Valley of California, where the health of minority infants, especially the infant mortality of black infants is 4 times higher than other developed nations.

[1] Before I start this essay, I feel the need to remind the reader that I find slavery in all its forms to be an oppressive and terrible institution, and I firmly believe that for centuries (including this one) bigotry is one of the most terrible stains on our civilization. The views I intend to express in the following essay are in no way meant to condone the practices of slavery or racism; they are meant only to evaluate and interpret the construction of slavery in film.

Films have the power to both influence and reflect society. The stereotypes prevalent throughout American culture are reflected in most films. While the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse country, this diversity is not portrayed within American cinema. Minority figures often occupy