LATINOS AND HOUSING POLICIES

BY AMANDA

While reading “Tierra y Libertad” by Steven Bender my eyes were opened to all the policies, judicial decisions, and pure xenophobia that Latinos are faced with presently and have been facing for hundreds of years.  When learning about different aspects of Latino culture you often hear about policy that prohibited Latinos from certain aspects of life, and policy that blatantly oppressed Latinos, but when you sit down and grasp the amount of policies that have been placed it is very easy to become angered.  The disgust that many people have for immigrants is appalling and the steps they go to keep them from owning homes, obtaining jobs and seeking the “American Dream” by making crazy restrictions is both shocking, disturbing and ironic because xenophobes want Latinos to assimilate but then put every obstacle in front of them so they can only be welcomed by failure.  

           

The United States used immigrant labor to create this country to provide equal opportunities and freedom but it denies those very aspects to the minorities that help create it in the first place.  The United States opened their doors with programs like the Bracero Program, but then the U.S. turned their backs when they were done using the latino’s involved in these programs.   When they got what they needed through policies like the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.  The United States has exploited not only Latinos but also other minorities like the Chinese, Native American and African Americans. 

People, both policy makers and the public who put pressure on their legislative representatives, from the United States feel this sense of entitlement that enables them to place restrictions on immigrants.  The saddest part of ‘Tierra y Libertad” was the exclusionary acts being placed on not only Latinos but other minorities as well.  Many Latinos come to the United States to seek employment and create a better life for themselves and their families but they face so many obstacles; zoning laws created as a weapon to exclude minorities by placing restricting multi-family dwellings, trespassing laws were created to discourage immigrants from entering the United States or quicken their departure, and racially restrictive covenants which ensure segregation between Anglos and minority groups.  All of these restrictions are hard to understand because the United States promotes itself as a place where opportunities can be taken to create the ideal life.  In regards to these restrictions another hard thing for me to believe is Bender’s reasons for why it is no longer useful to turn to courts to expose the wrongdoings of these restrictions because even if immigrants hold a victory they are short lived because they are just confronted with another restriction.

LATINA/OS TAKE CENTER STAGE: CENSUS 2000

BY LYAM            

Extra credit

Being a Latin American/Caribbean Studies major has changed my perspective on a lot of things. The way I view politics, economy, and world development, among other important things have changed for me.  But there is one area, which I’ve paid special attention to, and that is education.  At first, I sought things from a logical prospective. I thought that because we, the Latino community, were constantly increasing our population rate, so will the rate of successful and educated people. But becoming an ALCS major taught me that this isn’t always the case. Growing up in a predominantly Latino neighborhood and school, I see that somehow, although we were the majority minority, we were the group of people that always tend to fail at things.  I, however, thought that it had to do with the bad neighborhood and that this only happened at my school. As I began my studies in college, I realized I was wrong. Coming to Albany University, I felt happy and proud because I would see faces that looked like mine. I got to hang out and share my college experience with my Latino peers, who had the same traditions and cultures as mine. But then I realized, that not only do most of them don’t make it, but that those that do, don’t always have the same success rate as majority groups.
            Now, I do realize that my last blog concentrated on education and professionalism among Latinos. But this one is different. Because now I don’t want to talk about what happens after they graduate, I want to talk about those who don’t graduate, why, and how they got there.  Now I realize that today, in this country, some colleges look at diversification as an investment. When it comes to their enrollment process, they set out a certain amount of acceptance strictly for minority groups. At first, I was happy about this, and made sure that I was to put Hispanic/Latina when I was applying for college. But after our class discussion, I began to wonder, (and I raise this question among you all) is this necessarily a good thing? Does this mean that we are looked upon as an investment and a bragging tool? Or are we actually working for and deserving these spaces we get at these big shot universities? I tried to look at it as a good thing, because many of the Latino youth who are lucky enough to finish high school don’t always make it to these universities, and so the fact that they are guaranteeing a spot means that they want our successful rates to increase. But then again, why are the numbers of enrollment increasing, but not the number of graduates? In Mike Davis ‘Magical Urbanism’ we see that between 1980 and 1990, the Latino enrollment increased about 8.7%, and it is still on the rise today.  And as we mentioned before, Latinos are now the largest minority group in the nation’s colleges. 
            Now, given this information, let’s look past the numbers of enrollment and focus on the after effect, which is graduation. Why does the graduation and successful rate remain the same, but the enrollment goes up? According to the National Deparment of Labor, the unemployment rate among Latinos with an Associate’s degree or higher is above 5%. Does the fact that schools tend to open up special seats for Latinos and other minorities have something to do with the graduation rate? Maybe Latinos don’t work hard enough because they never had the tendencies of being good and dedicated hard working students since before beginning college, and it was therefore more difficult to keep up with the amount of work given in college. So does this mean that colleges reserving special seats, specifically for those of Latino decent, is a bad thing?
            I, personally, think that maybe it is just because we face already too many challenges entering, making it through to graduation, and sucking after. Thus, causing a lot of these college enrolled Latinos to drop out.  I don’t think that the special reserved seats have much to do with it, but due to our strong class discussion, I wanted to know more on your opinion. For I am forever open minded and fond of other peoples’ opinion. So what is yours?

NEW LATINO/A MIGRATIONS

BY ANNA 

extra credit blog

Today in the United States, there has been an influx of Hispanics moving to big cities, but more so to the suburbs now. This increase has mixed reviews. Businesses that can profit from an increase in Hispanics are happy, such as Hispanic oriented stores, or other places that attract Hispanics. Some companies increase their businesses to accommodate to the Hispanic’s needs as mentioned in the Medill Report-Chicago story, As Latino population blossoms, suburbs expand resources  regarding the building of a Nuestro Center which is funded by a company called Family Service. This company has focused on increasing culture connections between Hispanics and the people who already live there. “Since 1997, Family Service has offered the Nuestro Center program, which provides afterschool homework help for Latino families. Dean said local government has played a major role in projects for the Hispanic community.” However, there are those who do not like this increase in Hispanics. Who was so against the expansion of Hispanics to suburbs?

As seen in the film watched in class, “9500 Liberty”, people of Prince William County, Virginia were not so in favor of this expansion. This was obvious through they’re numerous speeches, rallies and meetings that all degraded the Hispanic community in the county and protested why they should not be there. The lead activist of the activist community against Hispanic suburbanization was Greg Letiecq, who created the “Help Save Manassas,” was radically against illegal aliens entering the county and went on a platform to force all of them to leave. Though this did not end up happening because the bill was not passed in court, many dilemmas were created and the community of non-Hispanics and Hispanics was very divided.

There is no real way to solve this issue to make everyone happy. Some people are against immigrants because they think that they are invading the U.S. and are all illegal. This of course is not true, but not all people are open- minded to understand this. The Hispanic population in the suburbs has increased and still is increasing according to the Medill Reports-Chicago story As Latino population blossoms, suburbs expand resources. “While in the city the Latino population grew by about 3 percent, in the suburbs it has grown between 40 and 50 percent…” This quote shows that, while Hispanic population in the cities is increasing, Hispanic population in the suburbs is increasing even more.

The rise of Hispanic population increase in the suburbs has affected entire communities. Some people are happy about this, others are not. The people in the activist group “Help Save Manassas” in “9500 Liberty” were not happy about this. But, people will always have different views on Hispanic expansion to suburbs. Do you think people will ever completely accept Hispanics into their suburban communities?

NEW LATINO/A MIGRATIONS

BY CARLOS

Lately in class we have been talking about the movement of Latinos from the inner cities to the suburbs and, more recently, the population of Latinos in the American South. The topic of Latinos moving from traditional barrios and ghettos to other areas has always been of interest to me. The neighborhoods of Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant in the Washington D.C. area are particularly interesting. These two places have attracted many Latinos over the last few decades, especially Salvadorans. However, because of gentrification and the rise in housing prices/costs, they have steadily started to move to other parts of the metropolitan area. Even though technically these neighborhoods such as Georgia Ave are still within the city limits, they are getting closer and closer to leaving the city itself. I bet this had led to or will lead to culture clashes and potential violence between the previous dwellers and the newer Central American arrivals. The article District's Hispanics leaving Mount Pleasant for Georgia Ave from the Washington Examiner talks about specifically about Georgia Ave. According to the article Georgia Ave hasn’t had much of a Central American population until recently.

  

The main reason why there are so many Salvadorans to begin with is because of the civil war which occurred there.  The U.S. backed a right-wing regime which was putting down an armed rebellion by left-wing revolutionaries. Especially in the 80’s a large number of them came to the U.S. and a large portion of them settled in the D.C. area. Recently the movement of former guerrillas has been elected to government in El Salvador. Another issue which heavily involves Salvadorans and other Central Americans is that of gang violence. This is also one issue, so-called “concerned citizens” speak of when complaining about the immigrant communities.

    In class we watched a documentary, 9500 Liberty, which detailed the hostility displayed towards many of the Central American immigrants.  Young children and even babies were labeled as “parasites”. I think as more and more Latinos move towards mostly white suburban areas more and more violent actions will be taken against them. I think so many people are afraid of losing the status quo, which is why armed vigilante groups are on the rise again, and so are militias. Newer KKK factions now focus more of their rage against Latinos and so-called “illegal aliens”. I think it will be interesting to see how the children of immigrants and the coming generations adapt to life in the ‘burbs and if things will get worse before they get better.

NEW LATINO/A MIGRATION

BY MOSES

Today's reading in class brought out facets in the Latinization of the Southeast that I have witnessed firsthand. The unfortunate treatment faced by Latino's of differing immigration statuses was in most cases less than stellar at best- at worst it was deplorable. The main areas that stood out to me growing up were highlighted very well in the article by the Souther Poverty Law Center from April 2009,; mainly in regards to the housing, mistreatment by unscrupulous business owners, and bigotry in local government and the population at large. Just as when I was growing up, I read this article and asked myself "why?  Why treat people this way?" and then one quote confirmed my own suspicions:. "The north won the war but us confederates won because we got to keep our slaves.;" That line in particular stood out because the underlying feel in moments when among any minority group in the south is the same feeling. The vestiges of bigotry are still visible in policy's enacted by local and state governments.‬

While I myself was fortunate to never catch the full brunt of any discrimination because my parents immigrated here before all this mess,. I have seen many families pass through  following work as it came with the seasons on the tobacco farms and in the factories on the outskirts of my town in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. The Mexican migrants worked the hardest and were the nicest people to anyone that was nice to them. Unfortunately nothing came easily to them, for the longest time there was no appointed translators in any of the hospitals and local courts, so my mother took it upon herself to handle most of the area's Latino population's translating needs. There were many, whether speaking with police officers trying to determine whether they had the proper paperwork to be in the country, or filling out paper work to receive medicare treatment for their children. It didn't stop, being in a small town there was a confluence of not having enough money to support the payroll for people able to translate the rules and regulations.and the local population not approving of them being there to begin with.

Another issue was the police in the area never leaving them alone, whether it was a "noise complaint" or "routine traffic stops" the Police were a constant presence. Not to say that every single Latino immigrant was a saint, but not enough to justify making an errand run feel like a slalom through a minefield. Despite all these factors the powers that be can not stop the tide of change that's sweeping the Southeast.

LATINA/O MIGRATION

BY MIKE

In the last century the Latino population in America has dramatically increased. Traditionally, Latinos have immigrated or migrated to barrios in or nearby huge cities such as Miami, New York or Los Angeles. While population has increased in the cities, because the population has increased as a whole, it does not compare to the population growth in the south. What are the implications of Latino’s heading South instead of traditional cities? I believe that the appeal of the south is high job availability in unskilled jobs but I wonder how major cities such as New York, as well as the south will deal with these migrations that will affect the economy.

            It is clear that in a major city such as New York there is a high demand for workers of all skill levels. I am concerned that the economy of a city like New York will begin to suffer because of the ongoing trend of higher immigration into the south. The reason I believe that the economy will suffer is that it will be increasingly difficult to find cheap labor. In New York, where the cost of living is through the roof, a decline in unskilled Latino workers could lead to a shortage of workers for some businesses that won’t be able to find others for low wage or hard labor jobs. The economic chain effect could be the loss of a lot of small businesses since labor is often the greatest expense of any company.

            Economically I believe the south is poised to benefit because of an influx in workers. According to Rakesh Kochar, "The New Latino Sout." The Context and Consequences of Rapid Population Growth, most of the Latinos currently migrating to the south are uneducated. Approximately 90 percent of them do not have bachelor’s degrees and do not speak English well. These workers will find themselves in service industries in the south. Another main draw is the growing need for construction workers. This is a sign of the overall health of the economy because people are comfortable to create new assets instead of saving up to protect their current assets. Additionally the cost of living in the south is significantly less so I believe the Latino population will do well in this area as they won’t be faced with high prices and won’t live in as bad of poverty.