The Problem of Discrimination Towards the Latino Community Inside the USA

Introduction

The issue of discrimination has been existence for decades not only in America but other countries as well causing vehement negative effects in the world. People undergo discrimination as per their religion, skin color, race and other aspects. It comprises destructive actions, in most cases based on prejudice towards people of given nationalities, groups denying the members a right to opportunities and resources. The social-political climate around immigration can be used in legitimizing the inadequate treatment of immigrants, irrespective of their ideal legal status, mainly because the target of people is dependent on language abilities and ethnicity. At the same time, immigrants who are being discriminated upon especially those that are unlicensed will stay away from authority interaction because they are afraid of deportation or detainment. America is one country that has paramount issues of discrimination against particular ethnic groups. People have been fighting against discrimination for quite a long time applying various measures on the issue, but even so, the United States is among the countries in the frontline of ethnic discrimination. The Latino Community in the USA is one such group facing discrimination in America, and this paper is going to explore the issue, bringing out the effects and solutions that can be applied.

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Definitions

Prejudice - This is a groundless and typically having a negative attitude towards members of a particular group of people. It can strongly influence the behavior of people and their interaction with other individuals. Some of the typical characteristics of prejudice comprise stereotyped belief, negative feelings and propensity to discriminate against members of a particular group.

Segregation - It is the separation of a given category of people from other groups based on race, skin color or other qualities. If segregation occurs by race, then this can be referred to as racial congregation.

Discrimination - It is the unfair treatment of people and judging them base on a specific characteristics. It comprises destructive actions, in most cases based on prejudice towards people of given nationalities, groups denying the members a right to opportunities and resources.

Latino Community

These are individuals in the United States of America who descended from nations of Spain and Latin America. Another such group is the Hispanic Americans, and the most significant population of the two groups outside Latin America is found in the United States.

Problem Description

Just like several other ethnic minorities in the United States, Latinos have been through noteworthy discrimination in various ways. Visualizing this as a modern issue is easy, but anti-Latino discrimination has its origin early in the history of America. The earliest types of anti-Hispanic discrimination became evident in the 1840s in the Mexican territory acquisition by United States (Gill 120). Laws preventing the participation of Mexican in voting and unlawfully tax-Spanish-speaking employees regardless of their U.S citizenship were passed. From the 1840s, Latino discrimination has become more multifaceted because of the diversity and augmenting size of their population. To this day, labor discrimination goes on affecting the Latino community. In spite of the attempts by significant leaders such as Cesar Chavez, the Latinos are still holding several undesirable jobs and tend to be subjects of illegal and unsafe working environments. They are holders of less managerial positions, and their pay is not that high. Latino discrimination is not only limited to the unfair working conditions, but fields such as healthcare, education, housing, and voting display heightened levels of incongruent treatment.

Conditions That Caused the Problem

The discrimination has been known to emanate from the professed or the actuality of immigration status. In most cases, the community is visualized as foreigners attempting to discover their way in the United States and inaugurate themselves at the expense of tax-paying citizens. As a result, there are lots of critics of Latinos snatching employment from the citizens of America and exhausting money for social service programs even though several of them are tax-paying citizens. According to the FBI statistics, there is an upsurge in anti-Hispanic abhorrence crime with the growth in population. In accordance with the 2000 Census, the Latinos or Hispanic of any races comprise 12.5% of the entire populations. And the Mexican encompassed 58.5% of the Latino population. The Latino community is one of the fastest developing ethnic minority in the nation, and this has resulted in an increase in anti-immigrant worries of several Americans.

The fast- pace of the migration of Latino has resulted in issues connected to language barriers and cultural integration. Numerous Hispanic immigrants live in nearly knit societies that preserve cultural identity and the same time reserve adaptation of American culture. This frequently results in friction between the Latino community and the population of U.S. The segregation is however not a substance of the personal decision. Latinos exist in comparable environments because these are the only reasonable choices or rather because they are prevented from moving to the other neighborhood by discriminatory housing practices. The segregation continues to support more misunderstandings about Latinos that caused discrimination. They are habitually featured as unlawful immigrants who are not able to speak English even though they have been living in the United States for decades and are citizens by birth. Given statistics exhibit the slow assimilation pace for Hispanic citizens. For example, the rate of intermarriage for Hispanic is much lower than that of Asian Americans. Most of the Latinos support groups are battling for bilingualism in classes and other public places which may be visualized as a deterrent to assimilation or building deference and reception of diverse cultures.

Other factors that have resulted in discrimination of Latin education include language barriers and immigrant status. The ESL programs in the public schools are usually not well funded thus promoting segregation of Latino students. Immigrant children are citizens, yet they do not have language skills that are necessitated in the job market and schools. The absence of support for English students causes differences in school achievement which later affects the type of jobs obtainable for Latino people. Test standardization has discovered a momentous attainment gap existent in Caucasian and Latino learners. For example, 42 percent of the white fourth grader's scores were at a proficient level or more on the math test in comparison to 15 percent of Latino students.

In combating discrimination, there has been the formation of distinct interest groups. The most protuberant groups include National Council of La Raza and The League of United Latin American Citizens. Th4re group serves in providing the Latino Americans with legal guidance and political organization so that the government addresses their issues. Mexican -American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) is another group that in spite of its connection to Mexican has battled significant cases in the American court structure in an attempt to fight discrimination associated with employment, immigration and labor impacting the Latinos (Saenz, Aurelia 178).

Impacts of Discrimination

As a result of discrimination, Latino immigrants suffer substantial adverse consequences. Generally, their self-worth, well-being, social life and esteem levels are brutally damaged. It results in mental health issues like anxiety, stress, and depression. Immigrant parents go through a heightened level of trauma due to lack of employment, lack of jobs and also the unauthorized people are afraid that their status could be discovered. The worries and detrimental alteration in socioeconomic status as owing to joblessness and theft of wages may lead to poor health. For the families whose parents have been deported, there are lots of behavioral as well as emotional glitches such as disrupted sleep, clinginess, withdrawal, anxiety, and anger. The whole of the Latino community is affected by detention and deportation of the family members. For this reason, people tend to live in fears of family separation because their documentation status does not guarantee that they are not going to be deported. Getting worried, depressed, and anxious each day may be short-term effects that later leads to emotional and mental damages that could be categorized as long term effects which in the end alters the physical health.

As mentioned earlier, the Latino community goes through workplace and housing exploitation. Institutional discrimination in the place of work leads to adverse effects on the economic status of immigrant families. When the discriminatory practices cause the parents to make less money, there is a high likelihood that their children will be reared in poverty. In this case, the role of discrimination is noteworthy since the immigrant family is more probable to be living in poverty when compared to the U.S born population (Malave, Esti 89). According to a recent study conducted in New York City, unsanctioned immigrant fathers from Mexico get a salary that is meaningfully low than other non-Mexican ethnic minorities (Fraga et al. 70). They are projected to work for more hours in a week in comparison to their non-Mexican corresponding people. Poverty is associated with poor growth, educational, health results for kids. The fact that parents are working long hours leads to poor developmental outcomes in children, especially in the authorized family.

Other than having adverse effects on people, latino discrimination in America also impacts the economy. As discussed above, wage decisions made by the employer are made of bias. This results in deadweight well-being loss. Workers are out of work or receive less wage than their marginal revenue product. When it comes to the competitive markets, companies will experience higher prizes due to discrimination thus high costs for customers. For instance, if a company in America required to employ to give employment to the white workers, this would mean that the wages for white employees have to push and raise the cost of production. However, the firm would later become vulnerable to another company new in the market and be giving jobs to ethnic minorities. Because the Latino people are discriminated upon, their average salaries are lesser. The Latin community does not have access to good education and health facilities, and this causes under development in some areas (Bejarano 38). Unequal distribution of resources leads to underdevelopment of in a country. Failure to prevent and deal with the effects of Latino discrimination in America will result in a weak economy and increase of poverty levels in the community.

Refutation

Not all people visualizes discrimination of the Latinos in America as a problem. Some people believe it is the right thing to do basing their argument on how they have overpopulated the country. The way they have increased criminal activities in the county and several other damages. Also, they have profoundly contributed to culture dilution.

Solutions

Hillary Clinton says that she can not agree that people are not able to find a conjoint ground when it comes to discrimination. She articulates that people should listen to one another and try to fit in the shoes of one another. Making the Latinos feel as though their life is disposable as terrible, and imagining what they go through or experience will help empathize. People should be able to rhetorics that strengthen stereotypes. Being sympathetic with others is a good thing when it comes to fi...