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5 percent of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives (Statistical Abstract 2011:Table 405).

The potential political power of Latinos is remarkable, and in coming years we will see more of this potential realized. As Latinos have become more visible in U.S. society and more vocal in their demands for equality, they have come face to face with African Americans who fear that Latino gains in employment and at the ballot box will come at their expense (Hutchinson 2008). Together, Latinos and African Americans make up more than one- fourth of the U.S. population. If these two groups were to join together, their unity would produce an unstoppable political force.

Comparative Conditions. To see how Latinos are doing on some major indicators of well-being, look at Table 9.2 on the next page. As you can see, compared with white Americans and Asian Americans, Latinos have less income, higher unemployment, and more poverty. They are also less likely to own their homes. Now look at how closely Lati- nos rank with African Americans and Native Americans. From this table, you can also see how significant country of origin is. People from Cuba score higher on all these indica- tors of well-being, while those from Puerto Rico score lower.

The significance of country or region of origin is also underscored by Table 9.3. You can see that people who trace their roots to Cuba attain more education than do those who come from other areas. You can also see that that Latinos are the most likely to drop out of high school and the least likely to graduate from college. In a postindustrial society that increasingly requires advanced skills, these totals indicate that huge numbers of Latinos will be left behind.

African Americans After slavery was abolished, the Southern states passed legislation ( Jim Crow laws) to seg- regate blacks and whites. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that it was a reasonable use of state power to require “separate but equal” accommodations for blacks. Whites used this ruling to strip blacks of the political power they had gained after the Civil War. Declaring political primaries to be “white,” they prohibited blacks from vot- ing in them. Not until 1944 did the Supreme Court rule that political primaries weren’t “white” and were open to all voters. White politicians then passed laws that only people who could read could vote—and they determined that most African Americans were il- literate. Not until 1954 did African Americans gain the legal right to attend the same public schools as whites, and well into the 1960s the South was still openly—and legally— practicing segregation.

Racial–Ethnic Relations in the United States 285

For millions of people, the United States represents a land of opportunity and freedom from oppression. Shown here are Cubans who reached the United States by transforming their 1950s truck into a boat.