Latino American myth final draft

LATINO MYTHS 1 Xi Wang

LATINO MYTHS 2

Cover Letter

Dear Jenny, 


In this submission, I am trying to use three shreds of evidence to demonstrate common myths used to describe Latino in America.

For this submission, I concentrated most of my efforts to provide facts that refute the myths. The shreds of evidence that disregard the myths include the fact that Latino pay taxes, they work, and are restricted from using government support.

What I struggled with most was trying to differentiate between points that refute Latino taking the American economy and being lazy due to their closeness. If I were given more time, I would work on establishing more evidence. I would use the provided resources to build the evidence and ensure that their arguments are clear.

I think the strongest parts of this submission was the ability to internalize the information on the course and being able to include the knowledge in the essay.

Sincerely,

Xi Wang

In America, all Latino are considered immigrants who moved into the country from other nationalities. Besides the myths on their homogeneity, natural existence, and ease of identification, which were all refutes, there are other myths as well. Another common myth about Latino is that Latino immigrants came to take the US economic system. Moreover, they are also considered lazy and living on government benefits. These myths are wrong because Latino enhance the growth of the economy through payment of taxes and working.

Additionally, they encourage productivity and increase investment. Latino immigrants are not eligible for programs. This paper discusses three pieces of evidence that aim at showing that the myths of Latino coming to take the economy of the US, being lazy, and depending on government benefits are wrong.

Latino Immigrants pay taxes

Despite the claim of Latino Immigrants hurting the US’ economy, they significantly take part in the growing of the economy. They buy local products and at the same time, promote job development through business. For instance, immigrants who engage in entrepreneurial activities in Della are quite over-represented. Immigrants own a third of the business operations in the city, thus playing a significant role in developing the economy of the town. They pay taxes like any other citizens, including the property tax even for those in rental houses (Lima, 2010, p.6). More than half of the undocumented immigrants have government income. They incur deduction in the form of Medicare taxes, and Social security from their paychecks. Annually, immigrants in America contribute a total of $90 to $140 billion as taxes. The government of the United States received approximately $11.64 billion as revenue from undocumented immigrants alone.

In Della, immigrants pay $1.9 billion to the federal government and $ 591.1 million as state taxes (New Americans in Dallas, p.9). Precisely, immigrants do not negatively impact the American Economy. If anything, they make up 25% of the American engineering and technology organizations established in the last decades. 24% of the employees working in science, technology, math, and engineering in Della comprises of Latino immigrants. Companies like Google, which is co-founded by immigrants, play a key role in employing American citizens. New Americans in Dallas (p.9), 20,405 immigrants who are business owners in Dallas. They produce a total of $ 495.9 million as proceeds to the government.

Immigrants increase productivity and stimulate investment

On average, Latino immigrants in America raises the living standards of native people working in the country by raising their wages and lowering the prices. This way, they play an essential role in the development of the economy. Immigrants and natives in America have different levels of education. Nevertheless, their jobs are highly interdependent. Presence of an immigrant worker increases the efficiency of the native workers who are perceived as more competent than immigrants.

Suarez-Orozco, 2012, p 5) argues that a growth in production results in high income and, subsequently, increased pay. Immigrant workforces arouse new investments and consequently increase the labor demand. Work competition between new immigrants and native worker positively impact the wages of the later. Immigrants are perceived as cheap labor and with a low level of education. As a result, the majority of immigrants accomplishing casual and low-income jobs (Bacon, 2008, p.59). Generally, immigrants and Native American employees do not compete for positions at work. Instead, they often balance the work of US employees, thus increasing their efficiency. For instance, the availability of low-skill immigrant workers enable farmers born in the US to enlarge farm-related production hence growing employment opportunities and income for American laborers.

There are strict eligibility restrictions

There is a myth that immigrants dependent on public benefits from the federal government. The myth is untrue because undocumented immigrants are illegible for the benefits program. There were strict regulations that they require to fulfill for them to be legible for the programs, thus making it difficult for them to attain the services efficiently. The requirements are only applicable to the legal immigrants in America (Perea, 1997, p. 24). In this case, Latino immigrants work hard to obtain earning and meet their needs. Among the public programs and assistance that the undocumented immigrants are illegible for unless after documentation include: Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and food stamps. 

There are only a few instances that undocumented immigrants can be treated as an exception for the requirements and receive the support. For example, one can always receive help if they are victims of trafficking regardless of being undocumented immigrants. Besides, it is not a guarantee for all the legal immigrants to benefit from the support. One needs to have lived in America for at least five years (Suarez-Orozco, 2012, p.16). Immigrants are denied the services besides social security being deducted from those of them who are working in public offices.

Research indicates that fewer immigrant families are using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP as compared to the Native living in poverty (Hanson, 2009, P.11). According to Welcoming Dallas Strategic Plan that 12% of children from native families have access to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) than for immigrants children. 18% of children with native parents use NANF, while only 5% of kids from immigrant parents have access to the same.

From a study, ordinary immigrants acquire products and services at higher prices than average citizens. Essentially, Latino immigrants pay more taxes than the services they receive from the government in the form of education, law enforcement, and healthcare. Greenstone & Looney (2010, p.6) state that from a cost estimate conducted in 2007, the process of legalizing unauthorized immigrants in America increases federal income by $48 billion, while the government would only incur a cost of $23 billion from public services.

          Generally, Latino Americans are seen as those who come to the United States to take over the economy, lazy, and always dependent on government support. However, these are mere myths which are discredited by evidence that immigrants contribute to increasing productivity and stimulate investments, they pay taxes, and live on strict eligibility restriction that prevents them from using public resources. Latino immigrants contribute to the wellbeing of America as much as others.

References

Bacon, D. (2008). Illegal People: How globalization creates a migration and criminalizes immigrants. Beacon Press.

Greenstone, M. & Looney. A. (2010). Ten Economic Facts about Immigration. The Hamilton Project. Accessed from https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/ten_economic_facts_about_immigration

Hanson, G. H. (2009). The economics and policy of illegal immigration in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

Lima, A. (2010). Transnationalism: A new model of immigrant integration. The Mauricio Gaston Institute, University of Massachusetts, Boston.

New Americans in Dallas. Welcoming Dallas Strategic Plan: Plan for Civic, Economic, Linguistic and Social Integration & Inclusion 2018-2021. Accessed from https://dallascityhall.com/departments/wcia/DCH%20Documents/COD-WCIA-Booklet.pdf

Perea, J. F. (Ed.). (1997). Immigrants out: the new nativism and the anti-immigrant impulse in the United States. NYU Press.

Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2012). Everything you ever wanted to know about assimilation but were afraid to ask. The new immigration (pp. 81-98). Routledge.