Latino American myth final draft

In this submission I am trying to use three different evidence to illustrate the common myth of Latin American.

For this submission I concentrated most of my efforts on explain why the three evidences has refute the myth.

What I struggled with most was trying to make differentiate explanation with my first evidence and the second evidence. If I was given more time, I would work on reading the class readings earlier to give myself more time to think and come up with more ideas or evidences for my myth.

I think the strongest parts of this submission are was connecting the class readings with my own thought and embed them into my essay.

Sincerely,

Xi Wang

Myths of Latino Immigration

There are several misconceptions used to define Latino in America. One of the common myth about Latino is that it is homogenous, naturally existing, and an easily identifiable group of people with distinct racial identity. This myth is wrong because Latino is not a homogenous group; they do not naturally exist, nor does it have racial features for easy identity. Latino is the group that is initially from areas with different ancestries. Latino population is consisting of many types, say, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban or Dominican, and they are not easily identified. The paper will be discussed the three shreds of evidence that shows that the myth of homogeneity, identification, and existence of Latino are wrong.

Latino comprises of several sub-groups with different ancestry

One of the typical stereotype and mentality regarding the Latinos in America is that they have a shared ethnic background. However, the reality is that Latino comprises of several sub-groups which are unique linguistically (Holloway, 2008, p.5). Even though nearly 60% of Latino are Spanish speakers, each subgroup has a way of speaking just as it is the case with the English.

Furthermore, the identity of Latino differs with the region they inhabit. In the United States, Latino is defined in terms of their nationalities or the countries that they originated. For example, in the case of Midwest and Southwest, Latinos are people who originally came from Mexico. In the eastern part of America, particularly New York and Boston regions, Latino is people who are considered to have limitations of communications with the Dominicans and Puerta Ricans (Meier & Melton, 2012, p.737). In this case, Latinos are defined by their inability to communicate with o people other in the region. In the case of Miami, Cubans, and Central America, Latinos are groups for interpreting Latin America. They are people who live in Latin America.

Latin America is considered a group of Latin people who originate from different nationalities. In chapter three, Social Polarization and Colonized Labor: Puerto Ricans in the United States, between 1945–2000 Kelvin Antiago-Valles & Jiménez-Muñoz assert that the idea of homogeneity is quite extensive to the extent of some politicians treating Latino Americans as culturally unified people. It is racially diverse, so making the ethnic category rather than a race (Gutiérrez, 2008, p.129). Technically, anyone from central, South America and the Caribbean can be described as Latino because the regions were previously empires of Spanish, Portuguese and French. Also, Latino as an ethnicity, has people from different races are comprised of the group.

Latino is made of People with Diverse Cultures

Generally, Latino has different cultures and background as they are immigrants from other nations. It is not easy to classify them as people from a particular region like South America due to specific culture and practices they uphold altogether. Latino as a group has a rich and diverse history from the indigenous culture, European colonization, African slavery, and global immigration. As a result, it is sophisticated and challenging to describe with a single identifier. Like the case of difference between the southern accent and east coast accent, the subgroups in Latino also have original dialects (Betancur, 2012, p34). For instance, the Spanish spoken by Latino in Chile is hardly recognized by those in Argentina or Peru. Besides, Spanish and Portuguese are not the only languages spoken by Latino. Others use Guarani, Haitian Creole, Quechua, and even Dutch. The difference in the dialect implies that they all have different origin and may also fail to understand each other due to the language barrier.

In chapter six of CHL, The Other “Other Hispanics”: South American–Origin Latinos. In the United States, Espitia states that Latino originated from different countries and had different cultures. Culture refers to the learned system of knowledge, beliefs, norms, attitude, values, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Each of the Latino nations has a unique way in which people tend to think, conduct themselves, and even practices. For that reason, they are tied between practicing their native culture and that of the country they live in. For instance, in the case of Mexican-Americans, they remain loyal to both the Mexican and American cultures (Gutiérrez, 2008, p.257). The desire to uphold their traditions in a foreign country promotes cultural diversity due to the uniqueness of each culture. Latin-Americans do not have universal practices shared amongst them that can be used to distinguish them from the rest of the people. Therefore, it is not possible to identify them from the community.

All Latinos do not look the same

In the United States, there is always a general assumption that Latino has particular characteristics that differentiate them from the rest of the Americans. Often, they are perceived to have dark-brown hair and eyes, as well as dark or tan skin. Nonetheless, as time goes, it has become difficult to distinguish a Latino by just looking at them. In the chapter on Latino Imagery, Flores (2004, p.184) asserts that not all Latinos are a mix of Spanish and Indian. Others look like Europeans; others look black, and other pure Indians. Over the years, Latino has been interacting with other people like black, whites, and Caucasians thus leading to diversity in color and appearance of Latino.

In America, based on the 2010 census, the number of Latinos who identify as whites continues to increase (Cuevas et al., 2016, p2135). In 2010, 53% of the Latino identified as white, while 2.5% were classified as black. In this case, one cannot identify one as a Latino based on their physical appearance. Some Latino people are Caucasians. They can either be white, black, indigenous America, Mestizo, as well as the Asian descents. In this case, Latino from the groups is considered different in their appearance and physical characteristics.

In conclusion, several assumptions are considered correct about the Latino. Among them is that they are homogenous, the first inhibitors of the country, and easily identifiable. However, these myths are incorrect as Latino is a group comprising people from different countries and especially those that were colonized by Spanish and Portuguese speakers. They are immigrants from other nations. Besides, they are diverse in appearance as they can also be identified as black, white, and even Caucasians.

References

Betancur, J. J. (2012). Critical Considerations and New Challenges in Black-Latino Relations. Reinventing Race, Reinventing Racism, 23-42.

Cuevas, A. G., Dawson, B. A., & Williams, D. R. (2016). Race and skin color in Latino health: An analytic review. American journal of public health, 106(12), 2131-2136.

Flores. J. (2004). The Latino Imaginary: Meanings of Community and Identity

Gutiérrez, D. G. (Ed.). (2004). The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960. Columbia University Press.

Holloway. (2008). T.A A Companion to Latin American History. Holloway, University of California, Davis Waltham, MA: Wiley/Blackwell, 2008.Gutiérrez, D. G. (Ed.). (2004). The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960. Columbia University Press.

Meier, K. J., & Melton, E. K. (2012). Latino Heterogeneity and the Politics of Education: The Role of Context. Social Science Quarterly, 93(3), 732-749.