Essay On Latinos In America

Over the past decade, the Latino population in America has grown over 3% per year or about 400,000 new immigrants a year. As of 2003, there were 39.9 million Latinos in America, making them the largest minority group in America. These statistics do not reflect all the undocumented and illegal immigrants that enter America every day, so the actual statistics cannot be truly known. Although the Latino population in America is large, this group of people have little access to political and economic power. In the more recent years, Latino’s have been having more political power, due to the fact that more individuals are becoming citizens to avoid social oppression. Latino’s in America face severe social oppression that comes from the laws, like
Mexicans. Puerto Ricans and Columbians are the three largest Latino groups in America. The term Latino also includes people from central America, South America, Dominicans, etc. The chapter further goes into explaining how the terms Latino and Hispanic are adjectives that describe people from different countries, but those people would never describe themselves by these terms. The term Hispanic refers to the influence of Spanish culture and language and then Latino/ Latina refers to former colonies of Spain. Nationality is very important to Latinos because it helps make up their identity and brings them pride, so by grouping every country into these terms can be considered offensive. Part of the reason why America groups these individuals together is because they do have some similarities: they speak Spanish, are mostly Roman Catholic and have common values or beliefs. Even though most individuals of these groups do not like these terms, they still will refer to them to show defiance against White Supremacy. In these individual’s history, they have faced oppression, defeat and a struggle for liberation. Many of these people moved to America as a place to be free, but then are met with discrimination and negative attitudes from non-