How Latino Immigration Has Impacted the United States

Latino immigration has been a much discussed topic for many years. Some people are against the immigration of Latinos while others support it, but it is something that has been occurring for a long time and can be viewed in a negative or a positive way. The immigrants are often from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. The Mexican immigrants are often economically motivated, mostly low wage or agricultural workers, and mostly male. These immigrants come to America for jobs which are sought out by expanding industries for cheap labor. The Puerto Rican immigrants are also economically motivated, mostly low wage or agricultural workers, and mostly male. These immigrants have U.S. citizenship. The Cuban immigrants are politically motivated, highly educated, and came to America with the whole family. These immigrants are refugees. In 2013, it was recorded that approximately 11.6 million Mexican immigrants lived in the U.S. and that they accounted for 28 percent of the country’s 41.3 million immigrants. This number is huge compared to 1980 when the number of Mexican immigrants was 2.2 million. One thing that they all have in common is that they come to America to start a new life. For Mexican immigrants, they are offered visas to come to the United States and work for big companies. Because of this there has been an increase of immigration to the United States. Some people would say this is a negative thing because they are taking jobs away from people within the U.S. The United States currently has an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent. That means there are roughly 8.7 million people unemployed at this time. This is not to say that immigrants are taking away jobs from Americans, but causing less of an opportunity for them since more people are searching for work. Mexican immigrants also come to the United States in search of a better education for their children. Latino immigration has also brought on many changes to American culture. One major change is that many employers often look for people to hire that are bilingual. This is because there is a big amount of Spanish speakers in this country that do not fully understand the English language and need someone who knows their native language to help them in any way they need. This is something that also affects education because kids have to learn a second language, often Spanish, so they can have hopes of finding a job. Due to this I am actually majoring in Spanish so I will have an easier time finding a job. Being bilingual is very helpful for the workplace and outside of it. Another culture change brought to the United States would be food. Many restaurants have some sort of food on their menu that was influenced by the Latino culture. To conclude, people will always have their own opinions about immigration. There are positives and negatives to it, but overall it seems to have impacted the U.S. in a positive way.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states 

http://www.nps.gov/latino/latinothemestudy/immigration.htm