"NEW" LATINA/O MIGRATIONS: LATINA/O MOVING TO SUBURBS

BY STUDENT

Latinos/as living in the United States often confront racial slurs and stereotypes. It might be heard by Latinos living in the United States, “Go back to your country! You’re just here to steal our jobs!” This is just one among the many accusations made about Latinos and are directed especially and specifically to Latino/a immigrants. Even if a Latino is not an immigrant they are made to face stereotypes. In addition to being accused of “stealing” jobs from U.S. citizens, Latinos are also made to face insults and stereotypes such as not knowing English, being accused of defacing America with their “immigrant status”, and bringing crime with them wherever they go. On the contrary, these are statements are ignorant and wrong and can be disproven through use of new Latino/a immigration statistics. Some of these statistics and facts can be derived from the Prince William County incident .  

Firstly, the accusation that Latino immigrants are taking jobs that more-deserving American citizens deserve is unjustified. The well-known argument against this is that Latino immigrants are taking the jobs that Americans don’t actually want to do. According to the Pew Research Center (PRC), “About half of Hispanic workers are employed in just four industries—construction; eating, drinking and lodging services; wholesale and retail trade; and professional and other business services” (Kochhar 2014). Most of these aren’t lucrative jobs. The fact that Latino immigrants are taking U.S. citizens’ jobs is quite untrue. In studies done by the PRC, Latinos have actually experienced an overall increase in wages. The reason for this is “Because Hispanic immigrants earn less than U.S.-born Hispanics, their retreat from the U.S. workforce raises the estimated earnings of Latinos overall” (Kochhar 2014). Basically, the jobs that Latino immigrants used to do are now actually being done by Latinos who are, in fact, U.S. citizens. With this being said, the argument that Latinos are defacing the U.S. with their immigrant status and populating the U.S. with tons of children can also be opposed. In 2011, the birthrate of the United States dropped to the lowest ever recorded “led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession” (Kochhar 2014). Also, there is no “defacing” being done with immigration status because there are more Latino citizens now than there are Latino immigrants. Often times, the argument is made that unauthorized immigrants, are the ones populating the U.S.’s immigrant population. However, according to the PRC, from 2009 to 2012, the unauthorized immigration population decreased in 14 states and only rose in seven (Cohn 2014). 

The last two stereotypes to be battled in this blog post are the accusation that Latinos don’t know English and therefore don’t belong here and also that they bring crime to the streets. These two problems can be cited from the Prince William County incident. Accusations that Latinos do not know English may be true in some cases, but that’s the case for a majority of immigrants and America is a melting pot of immigrants. English is not even the national language of the United States. Thus, to argue the point that Latino immigrants are not even assimilating to the American culture because they don’t know English is a fruitless argument. Studies by the PCR have also shown there has been a gain in English proficiency by Latinos born in the U.S. by 17% from 1980 to 2013 (Krogstad 2015). Finally, when Prince William County was questioned by the government about the rise of crime in their streets, it was shown that the county could not provide any factual evidence supporting their statement. Thus, crime is not something that should be blindly associated with the Latino population and therefore should not be an argument made against Latinos staying in the United States as are the other arguments and stereoypes.

References

Cohn, D., & Livingston, G. (2012, November 29). U.S. Birth Rate Falls to a Record Low;

Decline Is Greatest Among Immigrants. Retrieved November 17, 2015, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/29/u-s-birth-rate-falls-to-a-record-low-decline-is-greatest-among-immigrants/

Crogstad, J., Stepler, R., & Lopez, M. (2015, May 12). English Proficiency on the Rise Among

Latinos. Retrieved November 17, 2015, from http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/05/12/english-proficiency-on-the-rise-among-latinos/

Kochhar, R. (2014, June 19). Latino Jobs Growth Driven by U.S. Born. Retrieved November 17,

2015, from http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/06/19/latino-jobs-growth-driven-by-u-s-born/

Singer, A., Wilson, J., & Derenzis, B. (2009). Immigrants, Politics, and Local Response in

Suburban Washington. Survey Series for the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. Retrieved November 11, 2015.