Cultural Deprivation: The Hispanic Challenge Why do some groups not succeed in academic settings? One theory brought up in “Understanding inequality” suggests that the gap in the socioeconomic status drives the inequalities in the school system. The low and working class have less time and income to intervene with schooling. This means they have less time to meet with teachers, hire tutors, and provide continuous transportation. Therefore the lower class can’t possibly compete with the middle and upper classes. Angela Valenzuela gives the accounts of some Hispanic students’ experiences in school. These students feel that it is the inferior nature of the schools in the US that contribute to the low success …show more content…
According to Huntington, unlike previous immigrants, Hispanics wish to retain a dual culture. This presents them with the culture clash of two varying views on culture as well as education. There are several factors that have made this culture of immigrants assimilations’ so much different than the past immigrants that America has so fondly welcomed with open arms. These include contiguity, scale illegality regional concentration, persistence and historical presence. The fact that the US shares such a large boarder with Mexico is enhanced by the great economic differences on each side. “The income gap between the United States and Mexico is the largest between any two contiguous countries in the world” (Huntington). The incentive to immigrate is obvious, and allows Latinos to remain in contact with their family and friends while making a living in the US. Because the passage between these boarders is so accessible, it has lead to immigration on a grand scale. The persistence of Hispanics in migrating has lead to having Mexicans account for nearly half of all immigration to the US and has changed Mexican’s standing from the minority to the majority in many areas. This regional concentration has slowed assimilation because “dispersal is essential” for this to take place. An example of regional concentration slowing this process down to almost a halt is in Miami in
Immigration of Latinos has long caused cultural conflict, especially when it comes to the illegal immigration of Latinos. Unfortunately, the issue has long been debated and there seems to be no clear cut answer on how to resolve the problem. Many Americans often overlook the struggles that Latinos endure and place stereotypes upon this group of people that are untrue. Furthermore, most Americans are misinformed or uninformed about the other side of this hot issue. The purpose of this essay is to give the reader a better understanding of Latino immigration from a cultural perspective and what these immigrants, both legal and illegal experience when relocating to a new country as well as a brief discussion on the issue of immigration reform.
Unfortunately, these children cannot complete their education because they have to travel with their family and learn to manage at a young age a life of hard labor. This however does not diminish their dreams of completing high school and some day attending a university so that they will not have to live the life of struggle their parents did to sustain the household. In cities like Detroit, MI there is a large population of low income Hispanic and African American families. The public school system unfortunately cannot potentially promote a high-quality education. The majority of these students do not receive an entrance level education simply because of living standards. Income plays an important role in education opportunities regarding the quality education each student can pertain. Since the minorities in that area are low-income they cannot afford to attend a private high school that can better prepare them for college. According to a research done at the University of Texas-Pan American, “certain racial or ethnicity factors should play a role in the admissions decision.” (Marklein)
Many Mexican Americans have been able to accomplish their own versions of the American dream by attending a 4-year college, owning businesses, and taking on political and public service careers. However, Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants continue to face the hardships that their ancestors went through in the 20th century. The ethnic Mexican experience in the United States has been a difficult one for Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans of the first generation. Two key factors that continue to shape the lives of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants are labor laws and the citizenship process. Focusing on the research, statistics, and information provided by Mai Ngai “The Architecture of Race in American Immigration”, Natalia Molina’s, “In a Race All Their Own": The Quest to Make Mexicans Ineligible for U.S. Citizenship”, and George J. Sanchez, “Becoming Mexican American” will provide the cause and effect of labor laws and citizenship laws that made an impact on the lives of Mexicans during the 20th century.
Immigrating to a new country is difficult. One of the largest groups of immigrants that migrate to the United States are the Hispanics. There are approximately 11.7 million immigrants in the United States as of January 2010, and the amount continues to increase at a rapid rate (Warren, 2013). On average there are approximately 300,000 Hispanic immigrants entering the United States each year (Warren, 2013). Hispanics come from all Latin America including Mexico, the islands of the Caribbean, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, Central and South America (Warren, 2013). The United States has represented liberty and freedom to these individuals, and they often make critical decisions and take chances in the hope of a better future. Individuals often, leave their home country in hopes of a new beginning. The aim of this paper is to provide an extensive research on the current literature on immigration and acculturation among the Hispanic population.
Hispanic immigration to the United States stems primarily from uniquely developed push-pull migration mechanisms in which “interplay of national, regional, and global economic developments, the history of U.S. military and foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, the checkered history of international border enforcement and interdiction efforts, and, not least, the aspirations of Latin American migrants and potential migrants themselves” (Gutierrez). In other words, migration from Latin American to the United States shouldn’t have been consistent, however, there are several factors that triggered massive waves of such.
Mexican American’s are one of the largest ethnic group in America today average of more than half of the populace; nearly reaching more than 30 million in the United States alone. Compassed by these immigrants more than half are here illegally that migrated over to the United States in search of a better living. Moreover, others are here as original citizens, or of the group that was given naturalization. Thus, taking place in deliberation of the colonial era, in the mid 1920’s, where increasingly moor Mexican’s foreigners have crossed our
Various details, like teachers giving up on students, or teachers easily removing a student from class can attribute to the success young Latinos will have with their education thus impacting the surveys taken on education levels of Latinos as shown in Latinos in the United States. Many individuals had the knowledge of what education can lead to and what high standards were and part of the problem of why they do not follow it is their economic situation, as discussed in class. During class, we watched a documentary called “The Graduates” and undocumented students feel that education may not be a possibility and that reminds me how
The author points out that, immigrant group such as Canadian, Cuban, and Filipinos have excellently absorbed economic measures, but Mexicans, and Salvadorans have failed to do the same. According to her, the researcher used earned income, educational attainment and others in computing economic assimilation. Even though, Canadian, Cuban, and Filipinos could not be identified due to that fact that they were doing so well, Vietnamese immigrants on the other hand, had the highest score in terms of economic, cultural, and civic assimilation while other group such as Mexican and Salvadorans performed badly. The reason was that many of them came to the State unlawfully. She continued by saying that those immigrants with high score probably might have had an encounter with the American military. Furthermore, she explains that, congress should redefine and consider the immigrants law. Several states did suffer the consequences for hiring illegal immigrants, and are now trying to amend their
After reading Chapter Three of Valencia’s “Chicano School Failure and Success,” I was surprised about how unsupportive the data was regarding Chicano/a and Hispanic student success and their family’s socioeconomic status. Valencia does note there is some data that supports how big a role socioeconomic status has in student dropout rates, yet there is also data that suggests it does not play as large of a role as previously thought or even is a factor altogether. This really took me back, as I am a big supporter to the theory that socioeconomic status is directly tied to modern student success, and that race is a subsection of the socioeconomic struggles people face which has arisen over time.
C. Thesis Statement – The Us education system is alarmingly promoting the Hispanic achievement gap with segregation, discouragement and discrimination.
In a study conducted Rosenthal and Jacobson they examined the exceptions of teachers from their students and self-fulling prophecy. They believe the central problem of so many kids failing school is because of kids with disadvantages. They are lower class children who live in poverty and being taught by middle class teachers. They are the Mexican American, Puerto Ricans and African Americans. These teachers are white females who are middle class and teaching the “disadvantage” which leads to the teacher expectations for them to fail. (Apa)
Latino immigrants have always had many obstacles when coming into the United States, the difference between the American and the Latin cultures is what has caused a huge hurdle that immigrants have found hard to overpass. This obstacle has caused many generations to go through cultural assimilation. Mize et al. (2012) explain that cultural assimilation is the adaptation of immigrants to unfamiliar cultural patterns, which include language and the value systems of other cultures. In order for immigrants to be successful in another country, which is not of their origin; they need to learn how to assimilate to their new homes. Immigrants have learned that they need to adapt in order to get to experience new opportunities and also to learn from new cultures that are not theirs (Mize et al., 2012). Immigrants have learned that they are not leaving behind their own believes and norms, but mixing their norms, this gives them the opportunity to create and mix their culture with the new. Cultural assimilation can be hard to achieve because in one hand it is important to change in order to live within a different culture, but on the other hand it is important for a person to maintain their identity regardless of where they live. At times immigrants find it difficult to achieve a balance and for many families it is a struggle over generations. There are different levels of assimilation, some immigrants come to the
There are some, however, that do not agree with this assertion. Samuel Huntington, a political scientist, disagrees with the idea that immigrants are assimilating. He thinks that out nation is becoming “two peoples and two cultures” (Huntington pg. 1). Huntington claims in his article “The Hispanic Threat” that immigrants are not assimilating language and do not have patriotism. He focuses on the majority immigrant group in the United States, Hispanics, and explains how “in 2000, more than 28 million people in the United States spoke Spanish at home, and of those 28 million, 13.8 million spoke English worse rather than very well” (Huntington pg. 5). Huntington, and others who share his beliefs, think that as Spanish culture and language increases in the United States, the more committed Hispanics will be to their ethnic identity, not assimilating to the Anglo-Protestant culture America was built on (Huntington).
When Huntington stated how the problem was that Mexican immigrants were not dreaming in English stirs up the fact that they are obligated to assimilate into the Anglo-Protestant culture. So Huntington’s statement wants Mexican immigrants and other Hispanic groups to lose touch with their own culture? But it was not the case for most Latino students who would want to identify their Hispanic background and ancestry at school. In Paul Gorski’s article, A Brief History of Multicultural Education, found the importance to identify the historical roots of not only the Hispanic community but other race communities as well. Such as saying the equality in learning about other countries instead of the traditional American History in a classroom setting
Education is a universal principle, no matter an individuals lifestyle they have had a fair amount of learning in their time. Education is also a cultural process in that it reflects the culture of the area and imitates society. Therefore educators are in charge of enculturation (spreading culture) and the public school system in America is inherently biased towards the majority white middle class, just as society is. That could explain why the middle and upper class white students (encultured) outperform, and have lower dropout rates than lower class or minority students (accultured). It is an alarming trend within the American Education system because the rich are staying rich and the poor are staying poor. The accultured students are not striving for success in schools and in turn they have fewer opportunities in life. At times home life is to blame for underachieving students. In the case of the accultured, there may be a negative view toward schooling, and work that makes money may be favored. If an individual’s parents were not educated they could feel that education is less important. Yet some would argue that the school systems are not doing enough to show the importance of the curriculum and motivate these students. There is an enormous amount of misunderstanding between teachers and the accultured students. Teachers may see them as delinquents who do not live up to their potential or repeatedly slack off, but without