Latino Immigration in the 21st Century: Latinizing the American Dream Introduction By Dan Vazquez

Transcription

1 Latino Immigration in the 21st Century: Latinizing the American Dream Introduction By Dan Vazquez If visitors to the United States were taken to Whittier Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, they would likely smell frying taco meat, hear people speaking Spanish, and pass by the Latino Walk of Fame honoring such luminaries as Cesar Chavez, an advocate for migrant workers, and Jaime Escalante, a Bolivian teacher who taught calculus to underprivileged students. Most of the people walking the streets would be Mexican- Americans and the visitors might wonder, Is this Mexico or the United States? A stroll down Whittier Boulevard with its accompanying smells and sights in 2009 is only one example of the increasingly significant Latino presence in the United States. A trip to parts of Southern Florida feels like a journey through Cuba, parts of Long Island resemble little El Salvador, and parts of North Carolina and Georgia have become more Puerto Rican than Southern. Most major companies in the United States have Spanish speaking employees to assist Spanish-speaking customers. Spanish-language radio and television stations, including Univision and Telemundo, outnumber the radio and TV stations of other non-hispanic cultures. Latin music, including salsa, reggaeton, and merengue, have become favorites among large groups of people, young and old. Presidents George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter and Governors George Pataki and Jeb Bush all have a working knowledge of the Spanish language and have used it when addressing Spanish-speaking voters. Signs of Latino language, culture, and presence are visible in many areas of the United States. But exactly how big is this Latino presence, how did it grow in the 1990 s, and where can it be found in 21st century America? Latino Immigration: Scope, Origins, and Distribution In 1960, most foreign-born people in the United States were European. But by 1990, the number of people born outside the United States from Latin America outnumbered foreign-born Europeans. In the 1990 s, this Latin presence nearly doubled from 8.4 million to 16.1 million. Not only are Latinos now the great majority of foreign-born residents, but they have also become a larger percentage of the total American population within the past two decades as seen by the table on the following page.

2 Year Percent Latino of the Total Population in the United States % % % % % % % % % If current rates of Latino immigration continue, by 2050, nearly 1 in every 4 Americans will be Latino. What accounts for this growth? The first source, as the table below shows, is immigration, as evidenced by the number of people from different Latin cultures living in the United States: Hispanic Origin by Type Country of Origin Number Percentage Total 44,252, Mexico 28,339, Puerto Rico 3,987, Cuba 1,520, Dominican Republic 1,217, Central American 3,372, South American 2,421, Other Hispanic 3,394, Mexico accounts for 64% of the Latino population in the United States almost seven times the percentage of the second most populous Latino group, Puerto Ricans, who constitute 9% of the nation s Latino population. Not only does immigration, mostly from Mexico, account for the growth of Latinos in the United States, but so does the group s fertility rate. In 2002, the fertility rate for non-white Latinos was 1.8, for blacks 2.1 and for Latinos 3.0. In 2003 for the first time since the 1850 s, the majority of newborn children in California were Hispanic. The Latino population growth rate in 2006 (24.3%) was more than three times the growth rate of the total population (6.1%). Latinos on average have more children than other groups. 1 The remaining values in the table are predictions based on current growth rates of the Latino population.

3 Latinos geographically concentrate in certain states as shown by the table below: Top Five States by Hispanic Population Size in 2006 Rank State Latino Population Size 1 California 13,074,156 2 Texas 8,385,139 3 Florida 3,646,499 4 New York 3,139,456 5 Illinois 1,886,933 However, since the 1990 s, Latinos have been spreading across the country, mostly to areas of the South as shown by the table below. Top Five States by Hispanic Growth Rate from 2000 to 2006 Rank State Growth Rate (percent) 1 Arkansas 60.9% 2 Georgia 59.4% 3 South Carolina 57.4% 4 Tennessee 55.5% 5 North Carolina 54.9% Whereas places like California and Texas may have the highest concentration of Latinos, places like Arkansas and Georgia are experiencing the highest level of growth with an increase of around 60% among those states Latino populations. Maps give an even clearer sense of how the Latino population has spread throughout the United States. See pages 6-9 of the following link for data from the Census Bureau that shows the geographic spread of Latinos over time: pdf Characteristics and Types of Migrants There are at least three general types of Latino immigrants: labor immigrants; entrepreneurial; and refugees and asylees. Labor Migrants The movement of foreign workers in search of menial and generally low-paying jobs has represented the bulk of immigration, both legal and undocumented, in recent years. Most of these migrant laborers come to the United States for some sort of economic gain. Despite its fast depreciation in real terms, the U.S. minimum wage of close to seven dollars per hour (as of May 2009) continues to be six to seven times more than that prevailing in Mexico, which is, in turn, higher than in most in Central American countries.

4 The actual wage that many U.S. employers pay their foreign workers exceeds the legal minimum and is significantly higher than that available for skilled and even white-collar work in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Given the choice of stagnation and permanent poverty versus an opportunity to economically succeed abroad, many Latinos attempt to migrate to the United States. Once in the United States, Latino labor migrants tend to do a variety of unskilled jobs such as working in restaurants, construction, farming, janitorial services, landscaping, gardening, and other services. Part of the reason for this is that Latino immigrants on a whole do not have formal education compared to other immigrant groups. Because of the kind of work they perform and their lack of education, many labor migrants live below the poverty line and are commonly uninsured. For example, the poverty rate among the U.S. native-born population in 2002 was 11.1%, but among Mexican immigrants, it reached 24.4% and among Dominicans 25.8%. While 12.2% of the native-born population was without health insurance, 53.4% of Mexicans, 53.7% of Salvadorans, and 55.8% of Guatemalans lacked this coverage. Yet, despite this economic situation, many labor migrants still send money back home to their families. From , an average of 60% of Latino immigrants sent money home to their families at an average of about $49 billion dollars a year. In 2008, Latino immigrants in at least 10 states sent a billion dollars per state: California, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York. Not only do families and governments back home receive the money these migrants make, U.S. employers benefit from the relatively cheap labor. Entrepreneurial Migrants In Miami, along a narrow strip of about five miles called Little Havana, one will see grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, liquor stores, construction firms, insurance and real estate offices owned and operated by Cuban-Americans. Cuban-owned firms in the Miami metropolitan area increased from 919 in 1967 to 8,000 in 1976 to 28,000 in 1990 to 72,639 in Most are small, averaging 4.5 employees. Many of these immigrant-entrepreneurs maintain heavy ties to their native countries for business purposes either importing goods and services or hiring other immigrants as their staff. A 2002 study of entrepreneurial activity among Latin American immigrants in the United States found that up to 58% of firms in these communities relied on these transnational ties for their continued viability and growth.

5 Refugees and Asylees The Refugee Act of 1980 signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, aimed to eliminate the former practice of granting asylum only to escapees from Communist-controlled nations. Instead, it sought to bring U.S. policy into line with international practice, which defines a refugee as anyone with a well-founded fear of persecution or physical harm, regardless of the political bent of his or her country s regime. In practice, though, during the 1980 s, the United States granted refugee status to more escapees from Communism, primarily those of Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, than those fleeing right-wing regimes, such as from Guatemala and El Salvador. The end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989 brought about a more diversified orientation to American refugee policy, in which the U.S. has granted refugee status. However, data indicates that it was still more difficult for Latin American immigrants to obtain refugee and or asylee status. During the 1990s, 195,000 Salvadorans, 165,000 Guatemalans, and 16,000 Nicaraguans filed or refiled asylum requests because of violent civil wars in their home countries. Only one-fifth of these applications were approved in the case of Nicaraguans and less than one-tenth in those of Guatemalans and Salvadorans. This is compared to the acceptance rate of 25% of asylum applications as a whole. Politics of Immigration End of Cold War and 1990 Immigration Act Now that we have a better sense of who these immigrants are, why they come, where they settle, and what they do in the United States, we can better understand the context in which the story of immigration politics has unfolded in the 1990 s and into the first decade of the 21st century. America has always been a melting pot of cultures, but in 1989, with the fall of the Communism and the end of the Cold War, America became even more influenced by globalism and the ideas of other cultures. In late 1989, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced a bill to repeal a provision of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Immigration Act that barred foreigners from visiting the United States because of their political beliefs. Similar bills were introduced in 1987 and 1988, but the State Department objected to the repeal of the provision at that point because it could compromise the foreign policy of the United States a policy dominated by Cold War politics of protection from Communist infiltration. In late 1989 and early 1990, advocates for immigrants who benefit from the relative economic opportunity of working in America and the business groups that benefit from the cheap labor immigrants provide, pushed for changes in immigration policy. Bruce A.

6 Morrison, Connecticut, and others took up the cause and introduced a bill that would eventually become the Immigration Act of The Act called for an increase in the number of legal immigrants from 500,000 to 700,000. It also increased the number of visas granted to skilled workers from 54,000 to 140,000. In the negotiations for the bill, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus convinced the bill's sponsors to remove a section permitting several states to assert more secure means of identification. Hispanic-American groups generally oppose the idea of a national identification card and resist steps that might lead to such a document. In particular, many illegal immigrants have feared that their identification would lead to deportation. Early in the negotiations then President George H.W. Bush objected to an earlier version of the bill because it allowed for too high a quota for immigrants. But later, influenced by the business lobby, the White House backed the bill citing the economic benefits of immigrants. Michael J. Boskin, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said: "Numerous studies suggest that the long-run benefits of immigration greatly exceed any short-run costs. With projections of a rising demand for skilled workers in coming years, the nation can achieve even greater benefits from immigration by augmenting the traditional emphasis on family reunification with policies designed to increase the number of skilled immigrants." Perhaps Representative Robert T. Matsui, California, best summed up the rationale behind passing of the 1990 immigration bill: ''If this country is to continue to advance, we must not fear the talents and intelligence of those who want to come to this country and contribute their skills. All Americans owe their citizenship to immigration.'' Proposition 187: Exclude Immigrants Now While on the national level, politicians were advocating for a fairly pro-immigrant stance, on the state and local levels there was a different story. Since its founding, America had always been a nation of immigrants a nation which accepted foreigners from other lands. Nativism arose again in 1994 in a state that has long been home to many Latino immigrants, California. California, one of the states that borders Mexico, has been a main artery through which Mexicans migrated. By the early 1990 s, Mexican people and culture were heavily entrenched in Southern California. Many Mexican enclaves were sprouting in the outskirts of Los Angeles and had long been growing in the South-of-the-border feel of East Los Angeles. Population maps show that huge swaths of Southern California were 25%-75% Latino. The school system had received a large influx of Latino students as well. Many of these Latinos entered the United States without permission and were remaining in California illegally.

7 Against this backdrop there was also an economic recession occurring in California in the early 1990 s. Personal income growth from 1990 to 1994 for the nation was 22 percent (5.2 percent annually), compared to 12 percent (2.8 percent annually) for California. California had significantly fewer jobs in 1994 than in 1990, compared to a 4 percent increase for the nation (See and scroll down). People were losing jobs and undocumented Latino immigrants became targets. California Proposition 187, also known as the Save Our State initiative, was a 1994 ballot initiative designed to prohibit illegal immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education in the state of California. Many politicians and immigration reform groups maintained that since many illegal immigrants do not pay taxes, they should not benefit from social services funded by tax dollars. Dick Mountjoy, Assemblyman, from Monrovia, California introduced the bill, which was co-authored by the California Coalition for Immigration, a group founded by former police-clerk Barbara Coe and dedicated to reducing the amount of undocumented immigration. For major provisions of the bill see, Pro-immigrant advocates such as state senator Art Torres called Proposition 187 the last white gasp of America. On October 15, ,000 people, many immigrants and others sympathetic to their cause, marched in Los Angeles. Despite the protests, Proposition 187 was passed by the electorate by a 58% to 42% margin on November 8, The next day several lawsuits were filed in California state court by the Mexican- American Legal Defense/Education Fund (MALDEF), League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC), ACLU, and others. On November 11, 1994, federal judge Matthew Byrne issued a temporary restraining order against instituting most of it. Multiple cases were consolidated and brought before Judge Mariana Pfaelzer, who in November of 1997 found the law to be unconstitutional. Governor Wilson appealed the ruling, which brought the case to the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1999, newly elected Governor Gray Davis sent the case to mediation, and then dropped the appeals process before the courts, effectively killing the law. Proposition 227: The Fight for English-only Instruction Proposition 227 was a proposition that would require English-only instruction in public schools. The ballot initiative, proposed in 1998, was conceived, financed, and directed by Ron Unz, a software developer and former candidate for governor. He entitled it English for the Children. He explained his support for it as follows: As a strong believer in American assimilationism, I had a long interest in bilingual education. Inspired in part by the example of my own mother who was born in Los Angeles into a Yiddish-speaking immigrant home but had quickly and easily learned

8 English as a young child, I had never understood why children were being kept for years in native-language classes or why such programs had continued to exist or even expand after decades or obvious failure. Californians of all backgrounds were dissatisfied with the public schools, following two decades of funding constraints that began with another ballot initiative, Proposition 13, a property-tax limitation adopted in From one of the most generous states in per-pupil spending, California had slumped to 41st place. By the mid-1990s, students' reading and mathematics scores were among the lowest in the nation a trend that produced feverish media coverage. Unz noted this general discontent as well as a special concern about immigrant students: Why were the schools so slow to teach them English? Why did it take English learners four or more years to enter the mainstream? Bilingual approaches are often counterintuitive, not only for members of the public, but also for the parents of English learners. Yet these were questions that school officials had rarely addressed. On June 2, 1998, voters decided to institute Proposition 227 by a 61% to 39% margin. As a result, new policies and programs were implemented such as the Structured English Immersion Program (SEI) program in which students are given a one-year intensive course in English before being mainstreamed into English-only courses. This represents a shift away from bilingual education in which students were transitioned more slowly into English-only courses. Before Prop 227, 30% of English Language Learners were enrolled in bilingual programs. The year after Prop 227 took effect, 12% of English Language Learners were enrolled in bilingual programs. There is still a debate on whether or not Prop 227 has benefited English Language Learners. On one side, Unz and other point to the increase in test scores. Between 1998 and 2002, standardized test scores in reading and language of those who received the Structured English Immersion Program doubled, while the scores of those who remained in a traditional bilingual education program remained the same. On the other side of the debate are researchers and educators who say that test-score data is misleading. Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California who specializes in bilingual education and is a proponent for repealing Proposition 227, maintains that those who are taking the English-only courses are already better at English. A better way to understand the data is to look at groups of children with similar language proficiency and background, with one group receiving bilingual education and the other with "English-only" instruction. That kind of research, according to Krashen, has concluded that students in bilingual education programs generally acquire more English than children in all-english programs. On a political level, Proposition 227 spurred other English only movements in the United States. Voters in Arizona approved an English immersion education law in 2000 and

9 Massachusetts approved one in However, an initiative to eliminate bilingual education in Colorado failed in 2006, and Oregonians voted in 2008 to oppose Measure 68, an English immersion initiative Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act The 1990 Immigration Act and the propositions in California showed two things. Legal immigration, by and large, seemed to be favored by most Americans and seemed to be a politically feasible enterprise. Second, illegal immigration or immigrants who enter and stay in the United States without permission elicited the opposite reaction from many Americans. The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IRIRA) supports this view. Originally, there were two sets of immigration bills in each house of Congress one covering illegal immigration and one covering legal immigration. The legal immigration bill would have slashed the number of family and employment immigrants permitted into the U.S. The illegal immigration bill primarily covered border enforcement and deportation. The bills were later combined in each house but then split again after a grass roots lobbying effort by business groups. The logic behind combining the bills was that the more controversial legal immigration bill would have an easier time passing if tied to the much more popular illegal immigration bill. Finally, the legal immigration bills in each house were defeated. After numerous delays including a threatened Senate filibuster and presidential veto over the issue of barring illegal immigrant children access to public schools, the bill was bundled with a crucial budget bill needed to prevent a shutdown of the government. Last minute compromises over some of the most controversial provisions including deleting the provisions affecting school children and the bill became law when, on September 30, 1996, President Clinton signed the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 ("IIRIRA 96"). See the following for a summary of the bill: The law provided that immediate deportation was triggered only for offenses that could lead to five years or more in jail. Under the Act, minor offenses such as shoplifting, may make an individual eligible for deportation. In an effort to curb illegal immigration, Congress voted to double the U.S. Border Patrol to 10,000 agents over five years and mandated the construction of fences at the most heavily trafficked areas of the U.S.- Mexico border. Congress also approved a pilot program to check the immigration status of job applicants.

10 Post September 11: Immigration Politics in the 21st Century Public attitudes about immigration to the U.S. were heavily influenced by the September 11, 2001 attacks. The number of Americans who told a Gallup poll they wanted immigration restricted increased 20 percentage points after the attacks. Half of Americans said tighter controls on immigration would do a great deal to enhance U.S. national security, according to a Public Agenda survey. It is against this backdrop of the War Against Terror spawned by the events of September 11 that James Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) and Peter King (New York) authored and introduced the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (House of Rep. 4437) in The bill would make it much harder for immigrants, specifically illegal immigrants, to enter the United States. Among its provisions were the intensification of the border patrol and construction of up to 700 miles of fence; increased penalties for employing undocumented workers to $7,500 for a first offense, $15,000 for a second offense, and $40,000 for all subsequent offenses; minimum sentences of 10 years for carrying fraudulent documents; and the elimination of the Green Card Lottery program. For full scope of the bill see: The bill was passed by the United States House of Representatives on December 16, 2005 by a vote of 239 to 182. In response to this bill, millions of immigrants and their supporters protested the legislation that would criminalize unauthorized migrants, as well as those who would assist them, and fence the country. Hundreds of thousands of laborers marched in public, often accompanied by their American born children. The largest national protests occurred on April 10, 2006, in 102 cities across the country. Some of the largest demonstrations were in Los Angeles with an estimated crowd of about 500,000, 350, ,000 in Dallas, and around 300,000 in Chicago. Almost all of the protests were peaceful and attracted considerable media attention, although there was also controversy over what many people considered anti-american symbolism at some of the protests. One particular incident involved a protest at Montebello High School in California, where a Mexican flag was raised on a flagpole over a United States flag flying in the distressed (or upside-down) position. Because of the controversy, organizers of the protests encouraged protesters to leave their Mexican flags at home, with Cardinal Roger Mahony telling Los Angeles protesters not to fly any flag other than the United States flag because, "...they do not help us get the legislation we need. As a result of this controversy, later protests featured fewer Mexican flags and more protesters carrying American flags. In the end, the proposed bill died. The companion bill in the United States Senate, S. 2611, never passed conference committee. Later, the House leadership

11 stated that it rejected S and would pass legislation that only addresses border security. The end of the 109th Congress marked the death of this bill. The Children and Grandchildren of Latino Immigrants The political history above could create concern among immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, in the U.S. However, as with previous generations of immigrants, it is the children of immigrants that often make the American Dream a reality. The table below shows this: Characteristic Immigrants (Foreign Born arrived 13 years or older) Second Generation (U.S. Born with one foreign born parent) Own a home (%) Poverty Rate (%) High School graduate or more (%) College degree or more (%) Second Generation (U.S. Born with two foreign born parents) The children of immigrants tend to be much more educated and have lower poverty rates than their parents. Stories of notable Latino immigrants illustrate the drive to succeed, to make something beautiful out of the materials of one s life. Sandra Cisneros was born as the only daughter of seven children to a family of poor Mexican immigrants in Chicago. Her father, an upholsterer, moved between Mexico and the United States throughout Cisnero s childhood until he finally settled the family in Humboldt Park, a mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Chicago. Cisnero s English teacher encouraged her talent in writing and story-telling. This talent developed and led her to apply for creative-writing programs. She graduated from the Iowa s writer s workshop in 1978 and published the critically acclaimed best-seller, House on Mango Street in She continues to publish to this day and is a key figure in American literature her books being taught in many universities and schools nationwide. Joe Baca, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, also shows that America is a land of opportunity. He was born in Belén, New Mexico in 1947, the youngest of 15 children in a house where little English was spoken. His father was a railroad laborer. When Joe was a young boy his family moved to Barstow, California. Baca worked shining shoes at age 10, delivered newspapers, and later worked as a laborer for the Santa Fe Railroad, until he was drafted in He served in the U.S. Army until 1968.

12 Following military service, Baca earned his bachelor's degree in sociology from California State University, Los Angeles. He worked for 15 years in community relations with General Telephone and Electric. In 1979, he was the first Latino elected to the Board of Trustees for the San Bernardino Valley College District. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1992, and to the State Senate in Since 1999, he has been a member of Congress. The stories of Cisneros and Baca show that the opportunities, especially through education, that second generation immigrants receive enable them to lead successful. This dream that of giving children a better life than one s own is a dream of all parents and a dream that has proven to be possible for many immigrants in America. Conclusion The United States has a long history of immigration and it is part of what makes this nation culturally vibrant and makes its politics complicated. Despite resurfacing nativist tendencies, a healthy flow of immigrants remain intact. American business will continue to rely on the labor of immigrants and immigrants families in native countries will continue to rely on the money they send back. In the meantime, America s culture becomes all the more richer for its Latino rhythms and flavors. In the words of Bill Clinton, New immigrants are good for America. They are revitalizing our cities building our new economy strengthening our ties to the global economy, just as earlier waves of immigrants settled on the new frontier and powered the Industrial Revolution. They are energizing our culture and broadening our vision of the world. They are renewing our most basic values and reminding us all of what it truly means to be an American.