Aprovecho

Leo R. Chavez writes on Latinas and how they are viewed and judged on their reproduction rates in his book Latino Threat. Americans see Latinas as a group of women that have a lot of children. The mothers often, if not majority of the time are undocumented and have come to the U.S. for better opportunities, they now have U.S. born citizen children, that cannot be stripped away of their citizenship to the U.S. and there is this idea of anchor babies. Where the child is an anchor to the mother, hold her down in the United States, undocumented, until the U.S. born citizen child is 18 and can file a claim for their mother, so she can obtain residency and work her way to citizenship. However this is still tricky and takes a very long time for the paperwork to go through and for the parent to gain residency. In other cases sometimes the mother is caught driving or doing something illegal, and is automatically noticed for being undocumented and this puts them at risk for deportation, and them having to leave their children here in the United States, or worse, the whole family returns.

This is interesting because this is a view of Latina women and how they are viewed and antagonized. These are kind of threats that the U.S. makes on Latinos and especially those that are undocumented. These threats also include rights, where these people are entitled to certain human rights but lose them all just based on their legal status. They also lose out on the bill of rights entirely. These include simple rights that any other citizen takes for granted but these Latinos who are undocumented wish to have these rights but that reality is never reached unfortunately. This is an image of the struggle these individuals have to go through every day while others live freely. These undocumented people have marched and made stands for their government to allow them some rights, but very little has been done. Finally in Illinois, undocumented individuals can obtain a drivers license and drive with no worry of getting stopped and deported. This is helpful and a big gain for these people who have struggled so much.

A strong point among the Latino community is communication and mobilization. The importance of this, is the circulation of education on certain laws or current events regarding Latinos and legal status. If one considers in the past with immigration marches against Sensenbrenner and politicians like him who are against undocumented individuals in this country. Or in Alabama with the tomato pickers, who were also undocumented fled Alabama in fear of being deported. But when the tomato farms began to waste product and pay expensively to those who could not pick tomatoes like the undocumented workers who earned cheap labor. That is when these farmers began to complain and beg their state to remove the threats on the undocumented workers. Sad that the only good Latinos and undocumented Latinos do for the U.S. are the jobs that Americans do not want to take.         

Cuban Cigars! ..oh wait are those missiles?

Fidel Castro is known as the Cuban nationalist revolutionary who lead the Cuban Revolution, negotiated with Russia for Cuba and started the Cuban Missile Crisis and ultimately is responsible for the U.S. Cuba embargo.

In the late 1950s, the U.S was feeling threatened by Communism lurking at its doorway. The U.S knew that Castro was not close with the communist party, marxist inspiration for his proposals were clear. However, Castro began to negotiate with Russia, arranging an alternative Russian market for Cuban sugar and also bought Russian oil at a cheap price. U.S refineries refused to process the Soviet Oil and therefore lead Castro to expropriate the refineries. This all lead to the U.S stopping all purchases of Cuban sugar, which lead to Cuba expropriating more U.S property such as sugar mills, mines, telephone and power companies.  In 1960, the U.S declared an embargo on Cuba.  In 1961, just one year later, the U.S had formed a small army for what we know today as the “Bay of Pigs invasion”, which was quickly defeated by castors newly created army as well.  After this invasion from the U.S, Cuba formed strong alliances with the Soviet Union. One year after the invasion, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.  U.S spy planes photographed nuclear missile installations in Cuba and demanded Russia to remove the missiles or there would be war.  Russia agreed to remove the missiles only after the U.S agreed to never invade Cuba. After the missile crisis, the U.S issued complete embargo blocking all trade between Cuba and countries allied with U.S crippling Cuba’s trade network.

After the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis in Cuba, the U.S and Cuba have not been on good terms politically or economically. Cuba’s population is split primarily between whites, mestizos and afro-cuban (blacks and mulattos), with the percentage of afro-cubans varying between 62% and 33% depending on the source. When Castro first came into power in Cuba, the afro-cuban population was disproportionately poor, lacking sufficient medical care, social services and educational opportunities. Castro believed that such overt racism was a direct conflict with his commitment to social justice and equality and passed policies to desegregate beaches, parks, work sites and social clubs. He outlawed all forms of legal and overt discrimination. 

After the 1959 Revolution, made by Castro, 300,000 Cubans fled to Florida any way they could. Miami was considered a sort of mecca for refugees coming from Cuba, later leading to bilingual strikes and riots from whites feeling threatened by the infringing hispanic culture. Castro denounced keeping Cubans on the island, “if they can’t rise to the Revolution, we don’t want them, we don’t need them.” (Latin Americans PBS Episode 6) Many Cubans felt they were fleeing from Communist hands, seeking just economic opportunities and shelter. U.S President Carter encouraged U.S people to house these Cuban refugees, which were later discovered to be partially made up of released psych ward patients and prisoners that Castro shipped off. Although some of the Cuban migrants were prisoner and psych patients, many of them were light skinned families with higher levels of education.  

I am not Spanish, not Hispanic, not Cuban or anything like that

        At present, Brazil has a population of about 190 million people. Of these, more than half are white (which includes Portuguese, Italian, Polish etc... individuals), just fewer than 40% are mixed black and white and less than 10% are black. Approximately 80% of the population ascribes to the Roman Catholic faith. This is due to the intense Portuguese occupation of centuries ago. These European settlers taught the indigenous tribes Catholicism, built churches and established traditions and customs that originated in this church. Also due to the mass Portuguese settlements during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Portuguese is the official language of Brazil. With such a heavy european influence in Brazilian culture, they can have light skin, hair and eyes. Mixed with the indigenous tribes genes, the Brazilian peoples can have an appearance ranging from white skin, brown skin to black skin and eyes from blue, hazel and brown. Their hair also varies since african hair is distinctly different from european hair. 

Brazilians in the U.S typically identify themselves with white or black races, rather than hispanic or latino. Researchers note that Brazilian immigrants tend to identify according to their pre-migration ethno-racial schemas. Mirroring 1990 census data, when asked to identify racially, Brazilians largely report that they are ‘Brazilian’ or ‘white’. (marrow 440) In Brazil your race is determined by your socioeconomic standing, so a black man who is a politician and very wealthy would most likely be considered white despite his skin color.

Brazilians are very reluctant to be considered hispanics, or to be associated with Mexicans or mestizos in any way. Indeed, the prevailing sentiment shared by most Brazilian immigrants in the US mirrors that of 17-year old José: ‘I am not Spanish, not Hispanic, not Cuban or anything like that. I am Brazilian’.  (marrow 440)  Many Brazilians avoid the american stereotype of the mestizo, dark skin and dark eyes because they do not want to be associated to being Mexican. Brazil’s heritage is very different from Mexico’s, Brazil has more of a european influence and has a very diversified culture. Brazilians take such a strong stand again being called hispanics because of what hispanic stands for: “Congress’s inability to state what it means by terms such as ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Spanish origin’ has been well documented in the legislative history behind the Civil Rights Acts. When enacting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even Chicano representatives used multiple terms to describe the same group in a single paragraph. Nonetheless, a thorough appraisal of the legislative history leads to the conclusion that members of Congress usually meant ‘Mexican American and Puerto Rican’ when they discussed ‘Hispanics’ or ‘Spanish speaking’ people. (1998: 57)” (marrow 455) Today, Brazilians are generally referred to as Latinos, or Latin Americans. However, ‘Latino’ identifications rest on the demand that ‘Latino’ not be homogenized or reduced to ‘Hispanic’ (which respondents believe is someone who speaks Spanish or comes from a Spanish-speaking country).  (marrow 443) Brazil is part of Latin America, hence the acceptance of the  “Latino” label among Brazilians in the U.S. 

Even though some Brazilians have accepted the title as a Latino, many are still Brazilian with white or black heritage and aren’t as much indigenous, latin american as others. These peoples have a hard time classifying themselves in the U.S, many times they will just choose white or black and bypass the hispanic/latino section altogether. Thus, the generational picture of Brazilians’ self-identifications supports a trend in which Brazilians become less rather than more Hispanic/Latino as time passes, precisely by becoming more rather than less American. (marrow 448) 

The term, Hispanic, refers to persons of Latin American, Chicano or Puerto Rican descent who live in the United States. It is important to note that the Hispanic label does not explicitly imply belonging to a particular racial group. In fact, Hispanics in the United States are a racially diverse group of people (Rodríguez 2000). Most Mexicans identify with the label Hispanic or Latino, rather than black or white, because they are typically Spanish speaking and of Chicano decent. In Mexico, the predominant faith is Catholicism and has been since the Spanish brought the idea from Europe. The official language in Mexico is Spanish.

Many Mexicans that immigrate to the U.S remain Spanish speaking and have caused some issues with English speaking citizens. Near Miami, FL we saw strikes in a bilingual town, to reestablish English as the single official language in the town. Many of the workers that come up are dark skinned, dark haired, have dark eyes, and speak only Spanish, all of which characterize the Mestizo stereotype. Due to the prevalence of unauthorized entry into the U.S from Mexico, the Mexican appearance has been associated with low wage agricultural workers, and a lower standard of life. The Mestizo stereotype has caused a lot of anguish for Mexican-Americans who have immigrated into the U.S legally and have obtained decent jobs and learned English. Intra group issues arose when well educated Mexican-Americans started getting discriminated against for having an appearance similar to a mestizo; It became the legals vs. the illegals. (Jimenez) Whiteness (anglo) is somewhat ranked by socioeconomic standing based on the premise that blacks are considered to be anglo because of their U.S citizenship. Many Mexicans favor white features, such as blue eyes over brown eyes, so that they can be less stereotypes into being a mestizo and more associated with the anglo race.

While Mexicans are battling with being classified as a mestizo or a mexican-american, the Brazilians are battling being classified with a culture on a completely different continent. Brazilians are from South America, yes it is an America, yes they can technically be considered Latinos, but are they really that similar to Mexicans? In Mexico you have the heritage from indigenous tribes mixing with european heritage, but in Brazil you have a large mixture of european (many countries, not just spain), african and indigenous. The Brazilian people can look like they are white, mestizo, black, or any combination between. Their culture is also vastly different because they speak Portuguese, not Spanish. Brazilians do not like to be called Hispanic because they are not a Spanish speaking country, which partially defines being Hispanic. Mexicans, being from a Spanish speaking country, are inherently accepting of the label Hispanic or Latino. Although, there will always be the issue of Mexican-Americans trying to americanize themselves and distance themselves from Hispanic and Latino roots. Brazilians differentiate themselves from Hispanics/Latinos using the same three logics of Hispanic/Latino identification that often group them together with Hispanics/Latinos – linguistic, geographic, and racial.  (marrow 450) One similarity between Brazil and Mexico is that they both are predominantly Catholic, a relic from the european immigrants.

Prometo que la hierba es más verde allí

        On December 8th, 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Under NAFTA, the United States, Canada, and Mexico became a single, giant, integrated market of almost 400 million people with $6.5 trillion worth of goods and services annually. On January 1, 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was put into effect, allowing the U.S., Canada and Mexico to start trading goods freely. This made Mexicans vulnerable to wealthy companies in the U.S looking to use them for cheap labor on government issued Visa Cards. 

Simultaneous changes in the U.S also accelerated the migration. The Immigration Reform and Control Act, passed by Congress in 1986, expanded the existing H2-A visa program, creating the current H2-A program, which allows U.S agricultural employers to bring in workers from Mexico and other countries, giving them temporary visas tied to employment contracts. Growers in North Carolina became large users of the program, especially through the North Carolina Growers Association. In 1993 Carroll Foods (bought by Smithfield in 1999), a giant hog-raising corporation, partnered with Mexican agribusiness enterprise to set up a huge pig farm known as Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) in Veracruz’s Perote Valley. (Bacon 1) With big companies, like Smithfield, moving in to Mexico and taking over the economy, we see smaller farms and families thrown into extreme poverty. Mexican’s began to migrate to the U.S on work Visas to gain economic advantage to help their families back home in Mexico. The growth of poverty, in turn, fueled migration to the U.S.

In 1990, 4.5 million Mexican-born people lived in the United States. A decade later, that population had more than doubled to 9.75 million, and in 2008 it peaked at 12.67 million. About 5.7 million were able to get some kind of visa; another 7 million couldn’t but came nevertheless. (Bacon 2) The migration numbers pay tribute to the saying “the grass is greener on the other side,” many Mexican migrants come to the U.S. seeking employment for a better life than their previous situation. Many migrants come to the U.S. looking for work when specific crop seasons are happening, and return to Mexico and to their families in the colder months with their saved wages. 

The typical Mexican migrants are male, young/strong, agricultural workers with heavy economic motivation. There are higher concentrations of Mexican workers in the midwest and the southwest because of proximity and because of warm conditions for growing crops. Ethnic Replenishment is one interesting fact that scholars have pointed out recently; Migrants will replenish more quickly in California than say Kansas due to the ease of traveling up the coast verses into the heart of the U.S. (Jimenez) The United States has “beefed up” its border patrol and deportation laws since Obama came into office in 2008, setting the quota at 400,000 deportations per year. (Latin Americans PBS Episode 5) Even though the U.S. deports illegal immigrants back to their home country, they still come back because of the original cause, extreme poverty in Mexico and money to be made in the U.S.

In Cuba, things were a little different with Cuban politician and revolutionary Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz as Prime Minister from 1959 - 1976, and President from 1976 - 2008. After the Bay of Pigs crisis in Cuba, the U.S and Cuba have not been on good terms politically or economically. Cuba’s population is split primarily between whites, mestizos and afro-cuban (blacks and mulattos), with the percentage of afro-cubans varying between 62% and 33% depending on the source. When Castro first came into power in Cuba, the afro-cuban population was disproportionately poor, lacking sufficient medical care, social services and educational opportunities. Castro believed that such overt racism was a direct conflict with his commitment to social justice and equality and passed policies to desegregate beaches, parks, work sites and social clubs. He outlawed all forms of legal and overt discrimination. 

After the 1959 Revolution, made by Castro, 300,000 Cubans fled to Florida any way they could. Miami was considered a sort of mecca for refugees coming from Cuba, later leading to bilingual strikes and riots from whites feeling threatened by the infringing hispanic culture. Castro denounced keeping Cubans on the island, “if they can’t rise to the Revolution, we don’t want them, we don’t need them.” (Latino Americans PBS Episode 6) Many Cubans felt they were fleeing from Communist hands, seeking just economic opportunities and shelter. U.S President Carter encouraged U.S people to house these Cuban refugees, which were later discovered to be partially made up of released psych ward patients and prisoners that Castro shipped off. Although some of the Cuban migrants were prisoner and psych patients, many of them were light skinned families with higher levels of education.  

While Mexico was in full blown business with the U.S. after NAFTA took effect, the U.S. embargo on Cuba was instituted (1961) to overthrow Fidel Castro and neutralize the threat his regime posed by blocking all trade, except in food and medicine. The embargo was aggressively tightened in the 1990s with the enactment of the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996. All trade with Cuba was blocked, including food and medicine. Some of the migrants still had family back home in Cuba that needed assistance, similar to the millions of Mexicans living in the U.S on temporary work visas. Remittances are transfers of money into Cuba from Cubans living and working abroad. Remittances primarily benefit white Cubans, because the majority of Cubans who emigrated after the Revolution were white or lighter-skinned mestizos. Statically speaking, 83.5 percent of Cuban immigrants living in the U.S identify themselves as whites. (coha.org) The complete removal of trade with Cuba slowed migrants coming to the U.S as well as U.S peoples visiting Cuba.

Without NAFTA taking effect, cheaper outsourced trade would not have temped U.S. farmers and businessmen to expand their companies in Mexico specifically. Mexican males would never have been forced to migrate to states like North Carolina, California and Kansas for laborious jobs to send money home to their impoverished families. Cuba was not as accepted into NAFTA due to the rise of communism by Fidel Castro and the threat the U.S felt. Many Cubans left Cuba after the Revolution as refugees, not as immigrants looking for better work like Mexicans. One thing is shared though, they are all coming to the U.S for a better life, a more free and just society. Are they getting it? Not really, but my guess is that things will smooth out as races start to blend more and more through the generations and it become harder and harder to classify someones race.

Establishing A Free World

Establishing a Free World

During the Cold War the United States was in high alert. With the Cuban Missile Crisis adding to the mix the U.S. couldn’t trust anyone, even its own neighbors. With this in mind the United States started investigating the south to determine the “domino theory” doesn’t impact the neighboring states. However, what is the U.S. historically known to do when there is an ultimate threat to the nation? They invade it some sort of way and deactivate the threats. 

Throughout the Cold War the U.S. has invaded: Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and Nicaragua. During those years the U.S’s believed at the time that any nation that seemed to be turning “Red. How? Does one ask? They intervened in many notorious rebellion that occurred during those time periods. The most notorious manipulation that the U.S. has applied is the National Security Doctrine. Ultimately, this doctrine was used to suppress and destroy the Marxist beliefs that have arisen throughout the world. Through this doctrine the creation of Alliance of Progress was soon created which allowed the United States military to essentially conduct Marshal Law on any Latin country that they seemed to think was beginning to turn “Red”. JFK was quoted stating “Those who make reform impossible will make the revolution inevitable”. (Born in Blood and Fire, pg. 187)

Unfortunately, this doctrine did not work, so the United States governments created other strategic ways to infiltrate neighboring countries. The CIA was were infamous for conducting many heinous crimes that could be considered against the Geneva Convention. These crimes included secret kidnappings of individuals who were leaders in the rebellious groups, torture, raping, and murder as tactics used to create a “Free World”. The CIA has also been linked to the many guerilla organizations that have taken out leaders of that nation and they have installed a leader that they believe they can control.

A great example of the United States installing a leader they believe they can control is Saddam Hussain. During the 1970’s Iran was extremely close to expanding the theory of communism to the Iraqi people. In which Saddam Hussein began to create a chemical weapon similar to mustard gas and began using it on Iran. To stop the Iranians from infiltrating the Iraqi borders. However, the CIA was fully aware of these actions that Saddam was causing and did not do anything about it. (http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/) They even gave Iraqi classified information that the United States held to help defeat the Iranians. This information include satellite photographs, and high grade military weapons. They believed that with Sadam’s help the Iranians would cease fire. Evidentially, after all the knowledge the United States held on Saddam Hussein they have left him in power until 2004 when the U.S. invaded Iraq one last time.

Furthermore, it is evident that although the United States at the time can be labelled as “Terrorist “. It is believed that the impact communism had on the nation justified the actions the nation had to take. Unfortunately, though these actions that the nation took during these times are still being shown today. For example the attacks that took place on 9/11.

                                                                                   

We Are All Equal

We Are All Equal

The 1960’s have been considered the most crucial years of the United States. During this time period the United States was going through the Cold War as well as the Civil Rights. Evidentially, race was the large issue at hand during those times.  With this in mind, Fidel Castro utilized this information and began to help the black community. Some famous individuals that have associated with Castro are W.E.B. DuBois and a New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell.  

According to many historians it is believed that the 1960’s were the most crucial times for Cubans and Blacks. Castro helped the Black community in the American government because, they both believed they had a common enemy. Which was the United States government. Fidel Castro helped the Black community by addressing the racial issues the United States have emplaced to the United Nation’s committee.

However, this has not been the case with Blacks and Cubans. Before the Cuban Revolution, Blacks were considered as an issue in Cuba as that in the United States.  During those times the United States helped the Cuban government with addressing this issue.

Actually, during the intervention in 1898 the United States believed that the black community in Cuba were going to help rebel against the Jim Crow laws. So what did the U.S. do? Well, they helped suppress the blacks in Cuba by destroying their riots and the first and last black political party.

According to article : Comparative Perspectives on the African American Experience: What We Can Learn from Cuba states: “Speaking of races always leads to racism. In Cuba there never was a Martin Luther King Jr. because there were no segregated coffee shops, or rest rooms either. For want of a program of betterment for the entire population. Castro has maximized the racial problem in order to pretend that at least the blacks have been redeemed and have regained their lost dignity.  He is the most racist ruler that Cuba has endured” After looking at this quote one might address the issue that having the black community behind the revolution was believed to be the main reason they have won.

Unfortunately, racism is alive today in Cuba. According to the New York Times article For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun, the author identifies the common issues that are happening today. With Fidel Castro dead, it is believed that there will be a change in the political spectrum with his brother Raul in place. The article addresses the issue that although individuals are beginning to enter a free market. Afro-Cubans are still being discriminated through being poor and uneducated.  According to the article, not long ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele.Issues like this have been in placed to not only help the Cuban perspective but to not offend the other races perspective. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/for-blacks-in-cuba-the-revolution-hasnt-begun.html

 

Cubans however are beginning to adapt to American customs. For example, baseball is the most popular sport in Cuba. Many MLB players were originally from Cuba such as, Rogelio Álvarez, Bárbaro Garbey , Mariel Boatlift,  René Arocha, Rey Ordóñez , Rolando Arrojo , and  Orlando Hernández. Lastly, they have also helped with the creation of rap music and jazz.

             

All things considered, the main backbone to the Cuban Revolution and the reasoning behind Castro winning the Cuban Revolution was the black community within the United States. After the fail of the Bay of Pigs the United States was the main enemy to Cuba. However, during those times the Black community also were in a fight against the United States. Castro had a brilliant plan of having black community help him defeat the common enemy which was the United States government. Nevertheless, Cuba today has grown with the United States and race has begun to be address within the country.

The Time Has Changed

The Time Has Changed

During the 1920’s the United States received a large amounts of immigrants which was known as the Progressive Era. Due to the large volume of immigrants, the nation has created two ports to satisfy the amount of individuals. These ports were known as Ellis Island, located in New York City which hosted mostly European immigrants. The second port was called Angel Island which was located in Los Angeles, which hosted primarily all the Asian immigrants that entered the United States.  During those times it was much easier for an individual to receive their citizenship. However, during these most recent years immigration has begun to be a new era.  A large vast of immigrants are beginning to arrive from Latin nations. With this in mind however, many Americans are beginning to feel that these immigrants are here to destroy the nation. Unlike, there grand-parents or great grand-parents have done couple decades before. With this reasoning there have been a lot of new immigration policies. Most of these policies have been in the cause of undocumented immigrants. Ultimately, many individuals “undocumented immigrants” who have been for years mistakenly labelled as “illegal aliens”. Unfortunately, in today’s immigration policies are much different than those placed in the 1920’s. Many immigrants are brought into detainment centers around the nation rather than the sweet ports of Ellis Island and Angel Island.

            To begin we must first realize why there are a vast majority of undocumented immigrants and what are they doing in the U.S. The large amounts of undocumented immigrants arriving into the United States were primarily used for manual labor. Especially, in the agriculture and meat industries. The most well know employer that uses undocumented employees was Smithfield meat processing. They employed Latino employees because, one they are cheaper than a citizen as well as, they are very experienced in the meat processing and handling.

            According, to Immigration and Social Policy in the United States “The new immigration law gave priority to family reunification and to admitting those with skills needed for the American economy.” However, after there was no more use for the undocumented employees and the Great Recession hitting the United States. The media began labelling the issue of the economy on the undocumented immigrants. Soon after, they began to control the issue by deporting any individual who has not yet received there citizenship.  

            No one has thought about how this can impact the family aspect. Now with the government being able to deport any individual they see as a “criminals”. There have been countless stories of how the government would deport a mother or father while the other had to stay here and support the children. Or worse, they would deport the parents of the children and then they would be raised in foster care.

            Another reason the government has begun to deport individuals is because they are beginning to find that these immigrants affecting the political spectrum. And they are considering them as a “nuisance” to the American people.  Which ultimately means that the minority groups are beginning to increase. According to the 2005 census the following has been recorded. Latino/Hispanics have surpassed the black population at 14.5% while blacks are at a 12.1%. 40% of Latinos, 67% of Asian Americans were foreign born compared to only 4 % of those identified as non-Hispanic white. Mexico alone has greater than 30% of the population located in the US. Which is more than the population of Canadians in Canada.

            With this information in mind we can determine that Latin Americans have a great impact on the United States. According, to the New York Times article stated “Hispanics, in particular, who were not long ago courted by the Republican Party as a swing voting bloc”.  Unfortunately, however with recent immigration laws. The federal government has begun to decipher the responsibility to the state and local levels rather than addressing and creating new laws.

A great example of a state law that has impacted most American and undocumented immigrants alike is the Arizona SB1070. The implications this law has in that it allows any authority to enter and invade any individual’s property and harass them on the street to provide information that they are an American citizen. Ultimately, this means that every individual must carry some sort of identification card. If the individual does not have the card present at the time than they would be sent into detainment until some how they can determine their citizenship. Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona and creator of the law stated “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html#h[])

Historically, one might be able to determine that the Nazi’s placed similar requirements in place to determine if an individual is a Jew or not. Similarly, if the individual was not able to present any documentation indicating that they are not a Jew. They would be sent into detainment until someone was able to determine their religion.  

Immigration today is completely different from that of the Progressive Era. Most immigrants today are coming from Latin countries rather than Europe and Asia. Which ultimately makes the politicians a little scared. So, to fix there issue they believe that it is wise to give the responsibility of controlling immigration to the state and local levels. Which has been proven to be a huge mistake.

Voting Patterns: The Difference Between The First and Second Generations.

Voting. As an American citizen with a very political family, I have never had a doubt in my mind that I would vote. Even as a young child, I was always included in political discussions with my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. There was never a doubt in my mind that once I turned eighteen I would vote. As I've gotten older, I have realized that this is not the case for many people. Especially those who immigrated to this country. A few questions that have come to my mind while learning about politics in the Latino Community is, is voting something that all immigrants who become citizens want to do, if not why? And do the children of immigrants follow the political views of their parents? Do they vote, are they encouraged or discouraged to do so? These topics are what I want to cover while pondering the political ideas of the Latin American culture in America.

For a while, Latino immigrants who became naturalized citizens have been a mystery in the voting circuit. These people who have moved to large cities, often get lost in translation. A new article in the American Politics Research has decided to dig deeper into this topic. Most research done on this topic finds that naturalized citizens do not vote in as large of numbers as Latino's born in the U.S. This is attributed to many immigrants lack of knowledge on the American political system. This may have stopped some people from participating in the voting process, but many are still willing and eager to try and help change the political system from Latin Americans in the U.S. Another factor that causes some naturalized citizens to not vote as often is the process of moving. Many people move around to different parts of the United States that offer better opportunities. The reason this hinders voting is that people who do not have a thorough understanding of their political system in their community tend not to vote because they have no real ties or cares about that community politically. Something that would encourage naturalized citizens to vote is that when they decide to go through the process of becoming a citizen, they have to take classes to have a thorough understanding of the American political system. This might inspire these people to want to take part in the voting process. Many native-citizens are turned-off from voting because they have been witness to the political turmoil their whole lives and are often discouraged from voting.

Going with the idea of natural born citizens of the United States, comes the question of young Latino voters. Are their political views similar to their parents or are they branching out and trying to have different ideas. A study has shown that second generation Hispanic members of a family with one parent born outside of the U.S. Are identifying as very Democratic. While the vast majority of Latino voters identify at Democratic, parents who immigrated to the United States have a slightly more conservative view than their children. 71% of Hispanic young adults now identify as Democratic. The largest gaps between the parents and their children comes in their ideas on gay marriage and abortion. It seems that while children of immigrants tend to have similar ideas on political issues as their parents, they are adopting an overall more liberal view. This is affecting their voting pattern for politicians running for major offices.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/topics/political-party-affiliation/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/02/07/

http://apr.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/07/1532673X12461438.abstract

Latinas for High Office in the United States: Why not?

Women have achieved high office in Latin America for decades, starting with Isabel Peron, the wife of President Juan Peron of Argentina (http://thepolitic.org/our-team/). She served as his Vice President, and she succeeded to his office after his death in 1974(http://thepolitic.org/our-team/). But, although Isabel Peron was first, she was soon followed by others. These include Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the current President of Argentina, Laura Chinchilla, recent president of Costa Rica; and Presidents Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil (http://thepolitic.org/our-team/).

Given these examples of Latin American female presidents, why has the United States lagged behind its southern neighbors? Will 2016 be the year of a female president? Will she be a Latina? Or perhaps a Latina vice president? What are the chances a Hispanic American woman could run for high office with our two major political parties?

According to a recent article (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/2016-presidential-candidates.html), two Democrats are running for president, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with three more probable candidates, Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee. One is a woman, the rest men, but none are Hispanic. On the Republican side, we have three males who have declared their candidacy, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, with the latter two of Hispanic descent. There are ten probable hopefuls, with only one woman and no Hispanic in the group.

Given such presidential contenders, it seems likely the Democratic choice will be a non-Latina, and the Republican a man, Hispanic or not. If that occurs, how will each party appeal to the growing number of Latino voters, estimated at over 23 million in 2012 by the Pew Hispanic Center (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/30/rising-latino-stars-in-politics/14764069/)? Ignoring such an important group could likely lead to defeat in November 2016. This is especially a Republican problem, since Hispanics generally favor Democrats, 62% to 36%, with Latinas even more so, 66% to 32%, according to a 2014 election exit poll (www.pewhispanic.org/2014/11/07/hispanic-voters-in-the-2014-election/).

There are many rising Hispanic stars who could be considered for second place on the 2016 national party ticket. These include Democrats Leticia Van de Putte, Angel Taveras, and the Castro brothers, and Republicans Raul Labrador, Jaime Beutler, Susana Martinez, and Brian Sandoval (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/30/rising-latino-stars-in-politics/14764069/; http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-first-latino-president-no-heres-6-hispanics-who-might-be-one-day-1763385). Although only one Democratic and two Republican Latinas are listed, there are actually nine Latinas in Congress and four in state elected executive office (http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/women_of_color/FastFacts_LatinasinOffice.php). Of these, eight Congress women and one state executive are Democrats (http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/women_of_color/FastFacts_LatinasinOffice.php). Surely, any of these Latinas might be a good pick for vice president of either party!

Given that Clinton is the Democratic nominee, what are the chances she might pick a Hispanic woman? More likely, she will chose Julian Castro, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who gave the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic Convention ( http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-first-latino-president-no-heres-6-hispanics-who-might-be-one-day-1763385). If Rubio or Cruz is the Republican choice, his running mate would probably be a non-Hispanic woman. But, if Chris Christie gets the presidential nomination, he might very well select Susana Martinez to partner with, since she has campaigned for him before ( http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/chris-christie-susana-martinez-is-this-your-2016-republican-ticket/281360/). Only time will tell.

By John George Bauer-Buis

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