Latinos in American Society

This paper studies the history and progress of Latinos in American society. Latino and Hispanic peoples are the fastest growing minority in the United States. Experts predict that in five years they will become the nation's largest minority group, outnumbering African-Americans. Many of their ancestors came to the New World before the ancestors of the nation's founders, yet history and social forces have made them America's newest minority and given them some of the greatest challenges to confront any racial or ethnic group trying to become part of the great American melting pot. Although Latinos are often viewed as a single group, in fact they include individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, cultures, and circumstances, bound together by a common language (which many no longer speak) and a common religion (which many no longer practice). Nevertheless, they remain linked by their commonalities, rather than divided by their differences, and they share a common future within American society.

The discovery of the New World by European explorers brought waves of speculators, settlers, adventurers, freedom-seekers, entrepreneurs, opportunists, and involuntary immigrants to the shores of the Americas. Although some European powers, including the French, the Dutch, the Germans, the Portuguese, and others, managed to carve out significant land claims, only two nations were able to exert lasting control over territories vast enough to mold new societies on the continent

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0 Spanish-speaking individuals immigrated to the United States from South America and the Dominican Republic, joined by 443,300 Mexicans and 256,800 Cubans; during this same period, by contrast, the nation admitted 200,000 German immigrants and 206,700 Italians (Gann, 1986, p. 114). Yet immigration levels are not as out of control as some critics would argue. Julian L. Simon (1995, December 11) observes, "The total number of immigrants per year (including illegal immigrants and refugees) nowadays is somewhat less than it was in the peak years at the beginning of the 20th century when U. S. population was less than half as large as it now is" (p. 1). Nevertheless, Latino presence continues to grow within the nation, characterized by a number of different and separate cultural identities. One of the most influential and oldest of these identities is derived from America's closest Latino neighbor, Mexico. From the moment that Texas was annexed, Mexicans have had an important impact on American society. Annexation meant that a significant number of Mexicans suddenly became American citizens; later historical forces within Mexico's own borders encouraged many others to head across the border for the promise of greater economi

Category: History - L