Illegal Latino American Immigrants: Article Analysis

Jicy Mathew
11/14/13
Professor Kahn
SP0868
The Struggles of Illegal Latino American Immigrants The rapid growth of immigration to the U.S. from Latin America has increased the overall Hispanic population of the U.S. Immigration from Latin American and the growth of Hispanics are one of the most important and controversial developments in recent history of the United States. In 2005, there were nearly 40 million Hispanic immigrants and descendants of Hispanic immigrants living in the U.S (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). It is true that there are many push and pull factors that play a role for immigrants to come to the United States such as to leave poverty and unemployment in their homelands in search of better living opportunities
in the United States. People often do not realize the struggles illegal immigrants undergo and what their circumstances are to reach a better quality of life. They leave their homelands in search of job opportunities, leaving poverty behind and getting away from the dangers that lurk their homelands. It is important to note the struggles Latino Americans undergo to come through the border, and also when they do the struggles they face as undocumented immigrants. Hispanic immigration in the United States has been the largest minority ethnic group after the African Americans in the year 2002(Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). That same year, the US Census Bureau estimated that there were 37.1 million Hispanics when compared to 36.1 million African Americans (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). Samuel Huntington, author of Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s Identity describes the feelings Americans have to say regarding the large number of Spanish immigration. Huntington says, “The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages.” He argues that Spanish-speaking immigrants are less likely than other immigrants to grasp the English language as quicker and gain a sufficient amount of income even compared to those born and raised as Americans. The immigration of Hispanics seems to bring forth a decline in attitude for immigration in the US. One concern for the Hispanic immigration in the US is that there is a higher concentration in certain states such as California, New York or Texas compared to other states which have less concentrated Latinos. It is still unsure if this large dispersion of Latino immigrants would create some regions of the country more aware of the immigration or it would reduce the mixed feelings of creating a parallel culture in the US. Another concern that is depicted from Latino Immigration is that most third generation Hispanics find themselves with low earning incomes that are below US averages. Studies show that second generation Mexican Americans only catch up to US averages of income in a partial rate, while third generation Mexican Americans show no progress in catching up (Davies, 2008). In general, Hispanic assimilation is slower than other immigrant groups whether it comes to income, education, or to grasp the English language itself. It is noted that assimilation leads to less discrimination where it shows that immigrants are trying to grasp the American culture, but many do not because it is difficult to assimilate to the new country. The economic status of Hispanic immigrants in the United States shows that they earn low incomes when compared to Native-born Americans and other races. This may be to lack of education, not being able to afford for school, or household reasons to not carry high-income jobs. Latin American immigrants often find themselves working in job conditions that are perilous and depicts occupational segregation. In the journal article of Alejandro Canales, Canales describes that even if the Latino immigrants are well educated and qualified to work in similar careers as their American peers, they are often neglected and are put in lower positions. It is true that Hispanic immigrants receive lower wages or incomes than the average US worker who works in the same field. This defines inclusion of labor and other forms of exclusion from society itself. There are many push and pull factors that play a role in the illegal immigration of Hispanics. Better economic opportunities, more jobs, and the promise of a better life often pull people towards a new country. Economic push factors tend to be the accurate reversal of the pull factors; a deficiency of job and economic opportunities have the intention to push people to look out of their area of origin for their future and wellbeing (Borjas, 1994). An example of this migration would be the migration of Hispanics into the United States, where low-wage jobs are offered, long-hour jobs in farming, construction and domestic labor. Most research that is conducted suggests that undocumented workers earn less than other workers. Having fewer skills than other workers, or discrimination and inequality within the workforce itself generally depicts this reduced labor market. Many migrants, especially from Mexico, Central American, the Caribbean, and Colombia, decide to leave their country all together. The usual destination is El Norte, which is the United States, where there is said to be plenty of job opportunities and hope to get a coveted green card, or work permit. In the film El Norte directed by Gregory Nava describes the story of a brother and sister’s struggles of coming to the north, the United States via illegal immigration. The route to the United States is uncertain and perilous, and it involves the help of coyotes, or guides as well as the US Immigration Service patrols (Greene, 2013). They leave their homelands of San Pedro, Guatemala because of the uproars and seizing that occurs in their homelands. Rosa and Enrique, the two siblings head off to the US thinking it would be a land of plentiful opportunities and they will be wealthy. However they realize the struggles of being an unauthorized immigrant without documentation. In the film, Rosa explains to her brother, that in their own land, they have no home, and now in the US they are not accepted. It seems that they lack an identity. They realized that it is hard to live the “American dream” without having proper legal documents. In the research article, Unauthorized Immigration to the US, by Thomas J.
Espenshade, Espenshade describes the public opinion toward the unauthorized migrants. Americans in general always had a conflicting attitude to the idea of immigrants coming over to the United States. Although the United States is recognized to be a melting pot of immigrants from all over the world, many people are skeptics over the thought of having people coming into the country in recent years. Thomas Espenshade (1993) explains that there has been little change when it comes to the public’s opinion towards unauthorized migrants. The public views immigrants to take away low wage jobs from native-born Americans and they add to the poverty population, and that the public would have to compete with immigrants for health and other social services. In the California Proposition 187, was an initiative to create a screening followed by the state of California to disable undocumented immigrants from using services such as health care, public education and other services provided by the state of California. This shows that even though the country of the United States is known to be the land of opportunity, immigrants such as these were deterred from using public institutions, which deteriorated the education system, health system of these immigrants. They come to the US seeking a better life, but it turns out a lot harder than what it really
is. In the documentary, Farmingville we watched in class, it depicted the tension described between the community and the illegal immigrants of the small town of Farmingville in Long Island, New York.
More than a thousand Mexican workers moved to the suburban town of Farmingville seeking job opportunities in construction, landscaping and restaurant industries. The community of Farmingville started getting a rise in tension with the largest influx of Mexican workers. It came to the point where the community of Farmingville became tired and aggravated with the mass number of Mexicans, that they confronted with violence to push them out of the town. The violence of brutally stabbing and beating an individual shows the hate the community has on undocumented immigrants. There were immigrant activists who did take part to support the day workers to counter the harassment and fight for their rights. Co-producer Carlos Sandoval explains, “This is the latest battle over the American Dream, one that puts every American town on the front line of deciding just who shares-and who controls—the
dream.” Undocumented immigrants do not seem to have a decline on coming to the United States regardless the struggles they have to go through. Whatever the reason may be, they seek to come to the United States for more opportunity. Although there are tensions within the public and the immigrants itself, ameliorating the problems is essential to community resistance. The push and pull factors that play a role in the immigration of Hispanics play a vital role on the purpose of them migrating to the US in the first place, whether it is to get away from war, violence, persecution, poor quality of life, lack of educational opportunities. The pull factors that play a role in bringing emigrants to a country would be for safety and security, work and educational opportunities, improved quality of life. People often don’t realize that illegal immigrants come to the US for better opportunities and it could be a death or life situation where it is needed for them to come to US in order to survive. However, the life in the US as an undocumented immigrant is a lot harder than it seems due to difficulty of obtaining a job, education, health services, and discrimination against immigrants. It is essential to understand the perspective of immigrants and their daily struggles so there is a common line enforced.

Bibliography

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Caneles, I. Alejandro, Pérez, Carlos. (2007). Inclusion and segregation: The incorporation of Latin American immigrants into the U.S. labor Market. Volume 34(No. 1), 73-82.
Davies, I. (2008). Latino immigration and social change in the United States: Toward an ethical immigration policy. Volume 88, pp. 377-391.
Eig, Larry M. California 's Proposition 187 a Brief Overview. [Washington, D.C.]: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1995. Print.
El Norte. By Gregory Nava. Dir. Gregory Nava. Perf. Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, David Villalpando. 1983. DVD.
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