Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies Hispanics and the American Future (2006) / Chapter Skim
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2 Multiple Origins, Hispanic Portrait
2 Multiple Origins, Hispanic Portrait
Pages 17-34
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From page 17... ...
Kathy Vargas Este Recuerdo (2001) Copyright by the artist; used with permission.
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Together, eight countries -- Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador -- plus Puerto Rico account for some 90 percent of all U.S. Hispanics.
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In fact, the sheer numbers of people of Mexican origin -- 22.3 million in 2000 -- render generalizations about the Hispanic population problematic as they may in fact be characterizing the experience of Mexicans -- a group dominated by large numbers of low-skilled, low-income immigrants.1 Excluded from the Hispanic rubric are Latin Americans who are not Spanish speaking, notably English- and French-speaking Guyanese and Dutch-speaking Surinamese. Brazilians also are not Hispanic -- and do not consider themselves to be -- although they are Latin American.2 In general, moreover, Portuguese-speaking people originating in Portugal and Brazil are excluded from the Hispanic category, which evolved from the Spanishorigin and Spanish-language population constructs used in 1970 by the U.S.
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From page 21... ...
By 2000, more than 22 million Hispanics of Mexican descent were living in the United States -- a striking increase over the 8.7 million counted in the 1980 census. Along with Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans formed the Hispanic mosaic in the United States until a few decades ago.
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From page 22... ...
As growing numbers of Central Americans and Puerto Ricans relocate to Florida, Cubans continue to enjoy political power and economic dominance and maintain a distinctive voice within the Hispanic community. A CONTEMPORARY PROFILE In the summer of 2003, the Census Bureau announced that the U.S.
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From page 23... ...
Sustaining the growth of the Hispanic population today are both the extremely high flows of Latin American immigrants into the United States and the traditionally high Hispanic birth rates. Among Hispanics in the United States, 1 in 2 was born abroad (compared with 1 in 13 nonHispanics)
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From page 24... ...
On average, immigrant Mexican, Central American, and Dominican women complete only primary or middle school, but most Cuban women hold high school diplomas or complete some college, which prompts many to postpone marriage and childbearing in order to begin careers. Over the past 20 years Hispanics have experienced the trend toward increased nonmarital childbearing that has been documented for the general U.S.
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From page 25... ...
Although in recent years immigration has edged out fertility as the chief component of Hispanic population growth, the reverse may soon be true because of the swelling second generation resulting from immigrant fertility. If it is assumed that immigration will continue its current gradual increase, births are likely to surpass immigration as the principal component driving Hispanic population growth because the number of Hispanic women of childbearing age will have grown significantly.11 This scenario is probable even with the declining birth rates of U.S.-born Hispanic women compared to immigrant Hispanic women.
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residents rather than 13 percent of 288 million. Immigration and birth rates vary among Hispanic subgroups and by social class, generation, and legal status.
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LEGAL STATUS A distinctive feature of Hispanic immigration is the large and growing number of undocumented immigrants. The best contemporary estimate is that close to 11 million undocumented migrants resided in the United States in 2005, 80 percent of them from Mexico and other Latin American countries.14 Mexicans alone account for 57 percent of the entire undocumented population, and more than 80 percent of all Mexican immigrants who arrived in the United States after 1990 were undocumented.15 For perspective, the number of undocumented residents in the United States is larger than the populations of some Latin American countries, such as Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, or Costa Rica.
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1996 Illegal Immigration Increased criminal penalties for Reform and Immigrant immigration-related offenses, authorized Responsibility Act increases in enforcement personnel, enhanced enforcement authority, and made immigrant sponsorship legally enforceable. 1998 American Competitiveness Increased H-1B visa quotas from 1999 to and Workforce Improvement 2002 for skilled information technology Act workers.
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Second, the 1978 amendment to the Hart-Celler Act that tightened requirements for legally authorized immigration from Mexico inadvertently increased pressure for undocumented entry into the United States to skirt the requirements. Finally, legislation designed to curb the flow of undocu
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From page 30... ...
. mented immigrants during the 1980s and 1990s actually had the opposite effect.19 Flows of undocumented immigrants peaked in the mid-1980s, declined briefly following the enactment of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
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Currently, undocumented immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the foreign-born population in 10 states.23 Clandestine crossings along the southern border involving Mexicans and Central Americans are responsible for more than half of the continued flow, but the remainder become undocumented by overstaying tourist visas. The key lesson to be learned from the persistent growth in the size of the undocumented U.S.
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From page 32... ...
A large and growing number of undocumented immigrants is another distinctive feature of the Hispanic population. Against the reality of the need for and supply of unskilled workers, the social question regarding undocumented migration is not about simply stopping the flow, for its course is dictated largely by intertwined regional economies.
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From page 33... ...
4 Montejano, 1987. 5 The 4 million Puerto Ricans living on the island are not considered in this report because their social, political, and economic circumstances differ in profound ways from those of their mainland counterparts.
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From page 34... ...
34 MULTIPLE ORIGINS, UNCERTAIN DESTINIES 17 Tienda, 2002. 18 Public Broadcasting Service, The Border.
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