1WangMYTHS OF LATINO IMMIGRATION Wang .docx

1
Wang
MYTHS OF LATINO IMMIGRATION Wang
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Dear Jenny,
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.
Myth Outlining Worksheet
What is your myth?
“Latino” are a homogeneous naturally existing, easily
identifiable group. They aren’t not a heterogeneity.
What is your argument about your myth? (Should be two to
three concise sentences.)
What pieces of evidence are you using to prove your argument?
1.
a. Evidence:
i.
b. Explanation – how does this evidence support your thesis?
i.
c. Sources:
2.
a. Evidence:

i.
i.
c. Sources:
3.
a. Evidence:
i.
i.
c. Sources:
Notice: This material is protected by copyright law and may
only
be used for personal, non-commercial and educational use. It
may not be copied or shared with others.

Latin America: What’s in a Name?
Thomas H. Holloway, University of California, Davis
[This is the first section of my introductory essay in A
Companion to Latin American
History. Waltham, MA: Wiley/Blackwell, 2008.
<http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-
1405131616.html>
It provides a historical answer to one of those questions that
isn’t a question
until someone asks it: “Why is Latin America called ‘Latin’?”]

What constitutes “Latin America” and its “history”? All three
of these words merit some
consideration, to trace parameters for both the place (Latin
America), and the topic (history). It
is not the result of some teleological process by which what is
today commonly termed Latin
America came to be, for which we can identify a starting point
and visualize a neat and discreet
evolutionary trajectory. And history itself needs to be
distinguished from other fields of
scholarly inquiry. To begin such a discussion, it is as useful as
it is obvious to recall that these
and similar descriptive labels are the products of human mental
activity, and did not emerge from
natural phenomena or processes. The region of the world now
commonly referred to as Latin
America existed long before the term emerged as the mental
construct that it is. And in the
recent past the validity of the label has come under fundamental
question (Mignolo 2005),
despite the fact that it continues in academic and public
discourse as a shorthand label of
convenience. It is thus appropriate to sketch both the origin and

evolution of the label, and what
constitutes the history of the region of the world so designated.
We can assume that the indigenous peoples who lived in what is
now called Latin
America in ancient times, whatever cosmological and
descriptive notions they developed to
locate themselves in time and space, probably did not have a
conception of territory and peoples
stretching from what we now call Mexico to the southern tip of
South America. They located
themselves in relation to other culture groups they were aware
of and the landforms and bodies
of water they were familiar with, as well as in relation to how
they explained how they came to
be—their origin myths, in the condescending terms of Western
anthropology. Indeed, the same
could be said for other peoples of the ancient world, including
those who lived in what is now
called Europe, right through to the Age of Discovery roughly in
the century from 1420 to 1520,
the external manifestation of the European Renaissance. In the
imagination of Europe, people
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-
1405131616.html

Latin America: What’s in a Name?—T. Holloway p. 2
2
and places in the rest of the world only began to exist when they
entered the European
consciousness. That consciousness then proceeded to categorize
and compartmentalize regions,
“races,” and cultures in ways convenient for the purposes of
European hegemony (Wolf 1982).
One of those compartments has become Latin America, which
we need to define more
explicitly. Following the informal consensus among most
historians, and most of the
historiography they have produced, there are several parts of the
Western Hemisphere which are
not normally included in the rubric Latin America. Most
obviously, these are Canada and the
United States, despite the fact that a considerable proportion of
the population of the former
speaks French, a neo-Latin language; and despite the relevance
of the latter in discussions of
Latin America’s international relations, particularly in the 20th
century. Through the colonial era

and up through the taking of about one third of Mexico by the
U.S. as of 1848, what is now
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California, plus
some territory beyond, figured on
maps as part of we now call Latin America. The European-
descended populations in those
regions spoke primarily Spanish. In the more recent past
immigration and cultural assertion by
people who trace their origins to former Spanish- or Mexican-
held territories makes the U.S.-
Mexican border less relevant in distinguishing Anglo America
from Latin America (Acuña
1972).
Also not usually included in Latin America are the three
Guianas (French Guiana,
technically decolonized by being designated an overseas
department of continental France in
1946; Suriname, formerly known as Dutch Guiana; and Guyana,
known in the Colonial era as
British Guiana and before that as Demerara), as well as Belize
(formerly British Honduras).
Their historical trajectories have more in common with the non-
Spanish Caribbean islands than

with Latin America, and historically they were never effectively
occupied by either Spain or
Portugal. Haiti comes into the historical narrative of Latin
America especially because of its
importance as a sugar producing colony of Saint Domingue in
the 18th century, as well as the
resounding message sent to other slave societies by its
independence process, following an
uprising of the slave majority and Haiti’s establishment of the
second independent nation in the
Western Hemisphere, after the United States of North America
(Trouillot 1995; Fischer 2004).
Similarly, Jamaica and all of the Lesser Antilles, from the
Virgin Islands just east of Puerto Rico
to Trinidad just off the coast of Venezuela, as places eventually
colonized by European powers
other than Spain and Portugal, do not figure in the conventional
definition of Latin America as
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such. These omissions hint at the usual informal definition of
what constitutes Latin America

historically: Those areas of the western hemisphere originally
claimed (even if not completely or
effectively occupied) by Spain and Portugal, and where the
dominant national language today is
either Spanish or Portuguese.
Geographers, it should be noted, giving priority to contiguous
landmasses and bodies of
water rather than to historical processes or cultural
commonalities, traditionally divide the
Americas into two continents and two regions. The continents
are North America (from northern
Canada to the isthmus of Panama) and South America (from the
Panama-Colombia border to the
southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, an island south of the straight
of Magellan). The sub-regions
are Central America (from Guatemala to Panama) and the
Caribbean (the islands from the
Bahamas and Cuba in the northwest to Trinidad and Tobago in
the southeast). These different
approaches to regional divisions and groupings have led to
confusion as frequent as it is
superficial. For example, Mexico might be placed in North
America by geographers (and in the

names of such economic and political arrangements as the North
American Free Trade
Agreement, NAFTA), but it is definitely part of Latin America
for historians. And Puerto Rico,
an island of the Caribbean, is politically attached to the United
States, but is historically and
culturally part of Latin America.
These considerations lead to a question central to the label
itself: What is “Latin” about
Latin America? There are several historical and cultural issues
that, in fact, make the term quite
problematic. The language of the Iberian groups engaged in
conquest and colonization was not
Latin, despite the roots of the Spanish and Portuguese languages
in the Roman occupation of
Iberia in ancient times. While Latin remained the language of
the Roman Catholic Church so
central to the Iberian colonization project, there is no apparent
connection between Church Latin
and the label “Latin America.” Christopher Columbus himself,
mistakenly insisting until his
death in 1506 that he had reached the eastern edge of Asia, used
the term Indias Occidentales, or
the Indias to the West. That term lingers today, after being

perpetuated especially and perhaps
ironically by British Colonials, in the West Indies, the
conventional English term for the islands
of the Caribbean Sea eventually colonized by Great Britain,
France, the Netherlands, and
Denmark.
It is commonly known that the more general term “America”
derives from the name of
Amerigo Vespucci (1451?-1512), another navigator of Italian
origin who made several voyages
4
to the Caribbean region and along the coast of northern Brazil
from 1497 to 1502. Unlike
Columbus, Vespucci concluded that Europeans did not
previously know about the lands he
visited in the west, and he thus referred to them as the New
World. In a 1507 map by German
cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, America appears for the
first time with that name. While
the protocol of European exploration usually gives primacy to

the first “discoverer,” there would
seem to be some justification for naming the newly known land
mass after the navigator who
recognized it as separate from Asia (Amerigo Vespucci) rather
than for the first European to
report its existence, but who subsequently insisted that he had
confirmed a new way to reach
Asia (Christopher Columbus) (Arciniegas 1990).
In subsequent centuries, Europeans and their colonial
descendants applied the term
America to the entire western hemisphere (which half of the
globe is called “western” and which
is called “eastern” is itself a convention of European origin).
That usage continues today in
Latin America, where it is commonly taught that there is one
continent in the western
hemisphere: America. The Liberator Simón Bolívar famously
convened a conference in Panama
in 1826 to work toward a union of the American republics. He
included all nations of the
hemisphere in the invitation, and it would not have occurred to
him to add “Latin” to the
descriptors, because the term had not yet been invented. When
in 1890 the United States and its

commercial and financial allies around Latin America
established the Commercial Bureau of the
American Republics, which became the Panamerican Union in
1910 and the Organization of
American States in 1948, no terminological distinctions were
made by culture or language. In
the modern era “America” has of course become the common
shorthand name of the nation that
developed from the thirteen English colonies on the eastern
seaboard of North America. This
apparent appropriation by one nation of a label that traditionally
refers to the entire western
hemisphere has been a recurring source of puzzlement and
occasional resentment among Latin
Americans (Arciniegas 1966).
Historically, the first use of the term Latin America has been
traced only as far back as
the 1850s. It did not originate within the region, but again from
outside, as part of a movement
called “pan-Latinism” that emerged in French intellectual
circles, and more particularly in the
writings of Michel Chevalier (1806-79). A contemporary of
Alexis de Tocqueville who traveled

in Mexico and the United States during the late 1830s,
Chevalier contrasted the “Latin” peoples
of the Americas with the “Anglo-Saxon” peoples (Phelan 1968;
Ardao 1980, 1993). From those
5
beginnings, by the time of Napoleon III’s rise to power in 1852
pan-Latinism had developed as a
cultural project extending to those nations whose culture
supposedly derived from neo-Latin
language communities (commonly called Romance languages in
English). Starting as a term for
historically derived “Latin” culture groups, L’Amerique Latine
then became a place on the map.
Napoleon III was particularly interested in using the concept to
help justify his intrusion into
Mexican politics that led to the imposition of Archduke
Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico,
1864-67. While France had largely lost out in the global
imperial rivalries of the previous two
centuries, it still retained considerable prestige in the world of
culture, language, and ideas

(McGuinness 2003). Being included in the pan-Latin cultural
sphere was attractive to some
intellectuals of Spanish America, and use of the label Latin
America began to spread haltingly
around the region, where it competed as a term with Spanish
America (where Spanish is the
dominant language), Ibero-America (including Brazil but
presumably not French-speaking
areas), and other sub-regional terms such as Andean America
(which stretches geographically
from Venezuela to Chile, but which more usually is thought of
as including Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, and Bolivia), or the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina,
Paraguay, and Uruguay) (Rojas Mix
1991).
Not until the middle of the 20th century did the label Latin
America achieve widespread
and largely unquestioned currency in public as well as academic
and intellectual discourse, both
in the region (Marras 1992) and outside of it. With the
establishment of the Economic
Commission for Latin America (ECLA, later adding Caribbean
to become ECLAC) under

United Nations auspices in 1948, the term became consolidated
in policy circles, with political
overtones challenging U.S. hegemony but largely devoid of the
rivalries of culture, language,
and “race” of earlier times (Reid 1978). The 1960s saw the
continent-wide Latin American
literary “boom” and the near-universal adoption of “Latin
American Studies” by English-
language universities in the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada.
This trend began with the
establishment of the Conference on Latin American History in
1927 and was consolidated with
the organization of the interdisciplinary Latin American Studies
Association in 1967. Despite
the widespread and largely unproblematic use of the term in the
main languages of the western
hemisphere since that era, regional variations remain: In Brazil
América Latina is commonly
assumed to refer to what in the United States is called Spanish
America, i.e., “Latin America”
minus Brazil.

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While discussing the spontaneous creation of such collective
labels, we need to recognize
that the terms “Latino” or “Latina/o” now widespread in the
United States have no basis in any
specific nation or sub-region in Latin America. Like the latter
term, from which it is derived
linguistically, Latina/o is an invented term of convenience—a
neologism built on a neologism
(Oboler 1995; Gracia 1999; Oboler & González 2005;
Dzidzienyo & Oboler, 2005). Whatever
their origins, Latino or Latina/o have largely replaced the older
“Hispanic” or Hispanic
American” within the United States, although that English-
derived term, problematic on several
counts, lingers in library subject classifications.
But there are other questions that need to be posed, in the age of
identity politics and the
assertion of alternative ethnicities and nationalisms. By its
historical and intellectual origins and
the claims of pan-Latinism, the term Latin America privileges
those groups who descend from
“Latin” peoples: Spain and Portugal (but not, ironically enough,

the French-speaking populations
of Canada or the Caribbean). By another set of criteria, what is
now commonly called Latin
America might be subdivided into those regions where the
indigenous heritage is strong and
native identity has reemerged to claim political space,
especially in Mesoamerica and the Andean
region; Afro-Latin America, especially the circum-Caribbean
region and much of Brazil; and
Euro-Latin America, in which relatively massive immigration
from 1870 to the Great Depression
of the 1930s transformed the demographic and cultural makeup
of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and
Argentina (Rojas Mix 1991). In other words, Latin America as
a term ignores or claims
dominance over other cultures in the region, which have
recently come to reassert their
distinctive traditions, including a plethora of languages spoken
by tens of millions of indigenous
people—none of which have any relationship to Spanish or
Portuguese (or Latin) beyond a
scattering of loan words. The current condition of peoples of
indigenous and African heritage
has a historical relationship to conquest, colonialism,

subjugation, forced assimilation,
exploitation, marginalization, and exclusion. Those are not
processes to celebrate and use as the
basis for national or regional identity challenging the hegemony
of the Anglo-Saxon “race,” as
was the thrust of pan-Latinism of yore. But they are basis for
claiming cultural and political
space—as well as territory and access to resources—within
Latin America, today and into the
future.
7
Bibliography
Acuña, R. (1972) Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle
Toward Liberation. Canfield
Press, San Francisco.
Arciniegas, G. (1966) Latin America: A Cultural History.
Knopf, New York.

Arciniegas, G. (1990) Amerigo y el Nuevo Mundo. Alianza,
Madrid.
Ardao, A.(1980) Génesis de la idea y el nombre de América
Latina. Centro de Estudios
Latinoamericarnos Rómulo Gallegos, Caracas.
Ardao, A. (1986) Nuestra América Latina. Ediciones Banda
Oriental, Montevideo.
Ardao, A. (1993) América Latina y la latinidad. Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México,
Mexico City.
Barker, N. N. (1979) “The Factor of ‘Race’ in the French
Experience in Mexico, 1821-1861,”
Hispanic American Historical Review, 59:1, pp. 64-80.
Dzidzienyo, A. & Oboler, S. (eds.) (2005) Neither Enemies nor
Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-
Latinos. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Elliot, J. H. (1972) The Old World and the New, 1492-1650.
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Espinosa, A. M. (1919) América Española, o Hispano América:
El término “América Latina” es
erróneo. Comisaria Regia del Turismo y Cultura Artística,
Madrid.

Fischer, S. (2004) Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the cultures
of slavery in the age of
Revolution. Duke University Press, Durham.
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Publishing, Malden, MA.
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Corp., London.
Marras, S. (1992) América Latina, marca registrada. Grupo
Zeta, Mexico City.
McGuinness, A. (2003) “Searching for ‘Latin America’: Race
and Sovereignty in the Americas
in the 1850s.” In Appelbaum, N., Macpherson, A. S., &
Rossemblat, A. (eds,) Race and
Nation in Modern Latin America. University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill.
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Publishing, Malden, MA.
Oboler, S. (1995) Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the
Politics of (re) Presentation in
the United States. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

8
Oboler, S. & González, D. J. (eds) (2005) The Oxford
Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the
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México, Mexico City.
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descubrió Colón. Lumen,
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Page 1 of 7
ANTH 3333 Writing Assignment:
“Debunking Immigration Myths”
Assignment Summary:
For this assignment, you will be tasked with writing a
persuasive essay in which you debunk three

common myths or misconceptions about Latino immigration.
For the purposes of this assignment, a myth is “a widely held
(or commonly-cited) belief or idea
that is false.” A myth could be 100% false – with no factual
basis. Alternatively, a myth can be
generated when facts are misinterpreted or misrepresented.
Myths can also be based in
opinions or experiences that do not reflect factual reality. A
myth may also have multiple parts;
some parts may be true, while others are false.
To complete this assignment, you will choose three myths about
Latina/o immigration. Which
myths you choose to write about are up to you – but each myth
you choose must address a
different UNIT of course material (there are 4 units in the
course). Your myth may overlap
multiple units.
The myths you choose should be somewhat commonly-known.
Whatever myths you choose, be
sure to pick things that have enough substance to them so that
you can write three to four pages
about each. Please note: This assignment does not include any
outside research. You must
choose myths that can be debunked using only the materials we
have used in class.
Then, using only our course materials (which may include
readings and/or in-class materials), you
will “debunk,” or “expose the falseness of,” each myth. You
may do this by providing statistical,
historical, ethnographic, or other empirical evidence drawn
from your course materials that
refutes the notion expressed by the myth. Is it 100% false?

Partly true? Another helpful way to
debunk immigration myths is to illuminate the origin of the
myth. Where did it come from? How
did it get created, and for what purpose? How does the myth get
perpetuated, and why? Does
the myth have a grain of truth to it, or is it utterly baseless?
Was it generated by a willful or
accidental misrepresentation of the facts? You must use at least
six academic sources (articles,
books, book chapters, etc.) from the course materials (two per
myth).
Submissions:
The paper will be submitted in phased “submissions,” including
three outlines (graded), three
drafts (ungraded), and a final paper (graded). You will get some
feedback at each stage of the
process – some will be individualized, and some will be
generalized. If at any time you would like
more feedback on your submissions, please come see me during
office hours. Submissions must
be saved as Microsoft Word documents an uploaded through the
Turnitin system on Canvas. Do
not use Google Docs or any other file sharing service for
writing assignment submissions.
Guidelines for outlines are below. Each draft submission should
include progressive/cumulative
revisions to previously submitted text, as well as a cover letter
(template below).
Page 2 of 7

Submission schedule:
• Fri, 9/13, 11:59 pm: Outline 1 (graded)
o This includes the outline for your first myth. If you would
like, you may also
submit outlines for myths 2 and/or 3, but this is not required
and will not be
evaluated.
• Fri, 9/27, 11:59 pm: Submission 1 (ungraded)
o This includes the draft text of your first myth and a cover
letter. 3-4 pages.
o This includes the outline for your second myth. If you would
like, you may also
submit a revised myth 1 outline and a new outline for myth 3,
but this is not
required and will not be evaluated.
• Fri, 10/25, 11:59 pm: Submission 2 (ungraded)
o This includes the REVISED text of your first myth, the draft
of your second myth,
and a cover letter. 6-8 pages.
o This includes the outline for your third myth. If you would
like, you may also
submit revised versions of outlines for myths 1 and 2, but this is
not required and
will not be evaluated.

• Fri, 11/22, 11:59 pm: Submission 3 – FULL DRAFT
(ungraded)
o This includes the REVISED text of your first and second
myths, the draft of your
third (and final) myth, **an introduction and conclusion** and
a cover letter. 9-12
pages.
• Mon, 12/9, 11:59 pm: Final Submission (graded)
o All submissions must include tracked changes in Microsoft
Word and cover letters
(see assignment handout for more information).
o 12 page minimum, 15 page max. This submission must also
include a cover letter
describing your final revision process.
All submissions must include tracked changes in Microsoft
Word. Cover Letters do not count
toward the page count, but they should be included in the same
document (as the first page of
your submission).
I recommend that you mark these deadlines down in your
calendar as soon as possible.
Details:
• Final paper will constitute 50% of your final grade in this
course.
Writing Assignment Grade Break-down:
Outlines 1-3: 20%

Final Paper: 80%
• Final submission should be 12-15 pages long, in 12 pt Times
New Roman font, double-
spaced, with standard 1-inch margins. I will check this – please
do not mess around with
the font size, margins, etc. to manipulate the length of your
document.
• Drafts must be COMPLETE DRAFTS. Each drafted myth
should include at least 3 pages of
fully-written, proof-read text (no bullet points).
Page 3 of 7
• With each submission, students must include a cover letter
following the attached
template. The Cover Letter should be submitted as the first page
of your submission
document – please do not submit two separate files.
• All submissions should be free of grammatical errors.
• Please ensure that Track Changes are visible in all of your
submission documents.
Learning Objectives:
• Think critically about current public debates about Latina/o
immigration
• Learn to deploy empirical evidence to refute commonly-held

beliefs and assumptions
• Learn how to construct and articulate a robust (well-
evidenced) but concise (direct
and “to-the-point”) persuasive essay
Suggestions for how to get started:
1. After reading through this handout, review the syllabus and
assigned readings. Think
about the topics we will be addressing in each unit of the
course. Jot down some ideas
about which myths you are most interested in investigating for
each unit.
2. Brainstorm a list of potential sources (from course materials)
that might contain
information relevant to the task of debunking each myth.
3. As you read, write down notes and page numbers where you
find evidence you can use
to refute each myth.
4. Depending on how much evidence you find, consider if the
myths you chose will provide
sufficient material for a 12-15-page paper, or whether or not
you have enough evidence
to debunk them.
5. Start by making a draft outline of your first myth.
6. Jot down a few sentences concerning the ideas about which
you feel most confident.
(Start anywhere in the main body of your essay, explicitly

avoiding the introduction and
conclusion.)
7. Think, write, repeat! Use the class materials from writing
workshops to guide you along
the way. We will be doing several activities in class that will
help facilitate your thought
process for this paper.
Evaluation:
In the best papers, the authors will:
• Clearly and concisely describe each myth.
• Provide ample relevant evidence to refute each myth.
• Draw extensively from course materials to construct the
argument. (Do not draw from
outside sources unless you think it is absolutely necessary and
have gotten permission
from me to do so.)
o Use a minimum of six academic sources from the course
materials (two per
myth).
• Finish with a strong conclusion that does more than reiterate
the main points addressed
in the rest of the essay (ie. provides a strong take-home message
that reinforces the
overall message).
Page 4 of 7

• Develop their own voice – demonstrate originality and higher-
level thinking through
their writing
• Use varied sentence structure and construct interesting prose
that engages the reader
• Present ideas in an organized way. The argument should
progress logically and smoothly.
• Demonstrate mastery of the rules of Standard English – papers
should be free from
grammatical, spelling, and other copy-edit errors.
Good writing in this assignment will be direct, active, clear, and
concise. A good way to check for
these characteristics is by reading your paper out loud to
yourself or to others to check for flow.
See sample rubrics for more details about how this assignment
will be evaluated.
Cover Letter Template
Please answer the following questions in a cover letter for each
submission. Feel free to copy
and paste the phrases below as a model for your cover letter.
Please submit this as the FIRST
PAGE (in the same document, in other words) of your
submissions.

Dear Jenny,
In this submission I am trying to…
(For draft submissions 2, 3, and final submission: In my last
draft I….. Given the feedback I
received on that draft, I decided to… because….)
For this submission I concentrated most of my efforts on…
because…
What I struggled with most was…. (AND/OR) If I was given
more time, I would work on….
I think the strongest parts of this submission are…
A question I have for you is…
Sincerely,
[Your Name]

of 7
Myth Outlining Worksheet
What is your myth? What is your argument about your myth?
(Should be two to three concise
sentences.)
What pieces of evidence are you using to prove your argument?
Evidence Explanation – how does this evidence support
your thesis?
Sources
1.
2.

3.
Page 6 of 7
Sample Outline Rubric
Name:
Myth:
Criteria
Points
Avail.

Score Comments
Myth statement is present, and is written
clearly and concisely. (ie. “A common myth
about immigration is…” or equivalent)
2
Myth is not too broad, nor too narrow – topic
will provide sufficient opportunity for length
requirements
1
Author’s argument about the myth is present
and clearly stated. (ie. “This is wrong/mostly
false because…”)
1
A) Outline includes at least three piece of
evidence that will support the argument.
B) Each piece of evidence is accompanied by a
statement by the author indicating HOW
this evidence supports the argument.
6
Outline lists at least two sources that will
provide evidence to support the argument.
2
Professionalism – Appropriate formatting, full

sentences used where necessary. Outline is
neat and easily legible to professor.
2
TOTAL
Page 7 of 7
Sample Writing Assignment Rubric
Name:
Criteria
Points
Avail.
Score Comments
Introduction clearly and concisely introduces
the four myths that will be discussed in the
paper and adequately informs the reader of the
direction the paper will take.
4
Myth 1: Described clearly and concisely, backed
up by sufficient evidence from at least 2
academic sources from course. Debunked
effectively.

4
Myth 2: (See above) 4
Myth 3: (See above) 4
Sources are cited correctly throughout the
paper through the use of parenthetical
citations. Bibliography is present and formatted
correctly, includes all sources cited in the paper.
3
The paper has a strong conclusion, which does
more than reiterate the main points addressed
in the rest of the essay. It provides a strong,
convincing take-home message that reinforces
the overall argument.
3
Overall, the paper is organized in such a way
that the ideas progress logically and smoothly.
2
The paper contains no (or minimal) grammatical
or mechanical errors.
2
The writing in the paper is direct, active, clear,
and concise. Tone is appropriate for the
prompt, paper satisfies length requirement.
2

Progressive revision (Student submitted each
draft on-time with cover letter, and
demonstrated an effort to revise and improve
the paper with each submission. 1 point per
draft submission)
4
Final revision (revisions are recorded in track
changes and the author made a significant
effort to improve the final submission)
2
TOTAL 34
[Pp. 15-36 in : How the U.S. Racializes Latinos: White
Hegemony and Its Consequences,
edited by José A. Cobas, Jorge Duany and Joe R. Feagin.
Paradigm Publishers (2009)]
Pigments of Our Imagination:
On the Racialization and Racial Identities of
“Hispanics” and “Latinos”
Rubén G. Rumbaut
“Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a
Colo ny of Aliens, who will

shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our
Anglifying them, and will never
adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire
our Complexion?”
—Benjamin Franklin (1751)
“‘Race’ is a trope of ultimate, irreducible difference.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1986)
I have been telling my students since the 1970s that “race is a
pigment of our
imagination.” The play on words of the definition is meant as a
double entendre, both to
debunk baseless biological pretensions and to focus attention on
the social, legal, and
political construction of categories meant to put people “in their
place” in hierarchies of
power and privilege. “Race” is a social status, not a zoological
one; a product of history,
not of nature; a contextual variable, not a given. It is a
historically contingent, relational,
intersubjective phenomenon—yet it is typically misbegotten as
a natural, fixed marker of
phenotypic difference inherent in human bodies, independent of
human will or intention.
What is called “race” is largely the sociopolitical accretion of
past intergroup contacts
and struggles, which establish the boundaries and thus the
identities of victors and
vanquished, of dominant and subordinate groups, of “us” and
“them,” with their attendant
conceits of superiority and inferiority and invidious taxonomies
of social worth or stigma.
As such “race” is an ideological construct linking supposedly
innate traits of individuals

to their rank and fate in the social order. Racial statuses and
categories (and the putative
differences that they connote) are imposed and infused with
stereotypical moral meaning,
all the more when they become master statuses affecting all
aspects of social life. The
dominant “racial frame” (Feagin 2006) that evolved in what
became the United States,
during the long colonial and national era of slavery and after it,
was that of white
supremacy. Benjamin Franklin’s words in the epigraph above
are illustrative; they were
written in 1751, a quarter of a century before he signed the
Declaration of Independence
with no hint of irony, back when not even Germans were
imagined to be “white,” mixing
nativism and racism in what would become a familiar, habitual
American blend.
Rubén G. Rumbaut 8
CREATING A “HISPANIC” AND “LATINO” CATEGORY IN
OFFICIAL
STATISTICS
Beginning in 1850, the U.S. Census relied on objective
indicators, such as country of
birth (or decades later, parent’s birthplace, mother tongue or
“Spanish surname”), to
identify persons of Mexican origin in its decennial counts.
Mexicans were coded as
“white” for census purposes from 1850 to 1920. They were then
classified as a separate
“race” in the 1930 census, amid the Great Depression. During

that tumultuous decade
perhaps a million or more were forcibly “repatriated” to
Mexico, including many U.S.
citizens (see Johnson, 2005; Kanstroom, 2007; Ngai, 2004); but
Mexican American civil
rights groups, with the support of the Mexican government,
demanded not to be so
designated. That racial usage was subsequently eliminated and
Mexicans were again
classified as “white” in the 1940 census and thereafter.
It was only in the 1950s, a decade in which more Puerto Ricans
came to the U.S.
mainland than did immigrants from any other country, that the
Census Bureau first
published information on persons of Puerto Rican birth or
parentage. Tabulations on
people of Cuban birth or parentage were first published in 1970,
following the large
flows that came to the U.S. after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
Efforts to demarcate and
enumerate the “Hispanic ” population as a whole, using
subjective indicators of Spanish
origin or descent, date back to the late 1960s. At that time—in
the context of surging
civil rights activism, new federal legislation which required
accurate statistical
documentation of minority groups’ disadvantages, and growing
concerns over differential
census undercounts—Mexican American organizations in
particular pressed for better
data about their group (Choldin, 1986). The White House
ordered the addition of a
Spanish-origin self- identifier on the 1970 census (in the “long
form” sent to a 5 percent
sample); to test it, the same question was inserted in the

November 1969 Current
Population Survey (the first time that subjective item was used).
Later analyses by the
Census Bureau, comparing the results nationally of the
(subjective) Hispanic self-
identification in the CPS vs. the (objective) use of Spanish
surnames, found wide ranging
differences between the two measures, raising questions of
validity and reliability. For
example, in the Southwest, only 74 percent of those who
identified themselves as
Hispanic had Spanish surnames, while 81 percent of those with
Spanish surnames
identified themselves as Hispanic; in the rest of the U.S., only
61 percent of those who
identified as Hispanic had Spanish surnames, and a mere 46
percent of those with
Spanish surnames identified as Hispanic (U.S. Census Bureau,
1975).
In 1976, the United States Congress passed a remarkable bill—
Public Law 94-
311—a joint resolution “Relating to the publication of economic
and social statistics for
Americans of Spanish origin or descent.” Signed by President
Ford in June 1976, it
remains the only law in the country’s history that mandates the
collection, analysis and
publication of data for a specific ethnic group, and goes on to
define the population to be
enumerated. The law, building on information gathered from the
1970 census, asserted
that “more than twelve million Americans identify themselves
as being of Spanish-
speaking background and trace their origin or descent from
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba,

Central and South America, and other Spanish-speaking
countries;” that a “large number”
of them “suffer from racial, social, economic, and political
discrimination and are denied
Rubén G. Rumbaut 9
the basic opportunities that they deserve as American citizens;”
and that an “accurate
determination of the urgent and special needs of Americans of
Spanish origin and
descent” was needed to improve their economic and social
status. Accordingly, the law
mandated a series of data collection initiatives within the
Federal Departments of
Commerce, Labor, Agriculture, and Health, Education and
Welfare, specifying among
other things that the Spanish-origin population be given “full
recognition” by the Census
Bureau’s data-collection activities via the use of Spanish
language questionnaires and
bilingual enumerators, as needed; and that the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB)
“develop a Government-wide program for the collection,
analysis, and publication of data
with respect to Americans of Spanish origin or descent ”
(Rumbaut, 2006).
In 1977, as required by Congress, OMB’s Statistical Policy
Division, Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs, issued “Directive 15: Race
and Ethnic Standards for
Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting” to standardize
the collection and

reporting of “racial” and “ethnic” statistics and to include data
on persons of “Hispanic
origin.” Directive 15 specified a minimal classification of four
“races” (“American Indian
or Alaskan Native,” “Asian or Pacific Islander,” “Black,” and
“White”) and two “ethnic”
backgrounds (“of Hispanic origin” and “not of Hispanic
origin”), and allowed the
collection of more detailed information as long as it could be
aggregated within those
categories. Since that time, in keeping with the logic of this
classification, census data on
Hispanics have been officially reported with a footnote
indicating that “Hispanics may be
of any race” (for usage rules, see U.S. Census Bureau, 2003).
Tellingly, however, the term led to the development of another
category, “non-
Hispanic white” (a catchall for persons who identify as white
but whose ancestry does not
include a Spanish-speaking nation), which has been typically set
against “Hispanics” and
the other racial minority categories, conflating the distinction.
In the news media,
academic studies, government reports, and popular usage the
“ethnic” constructs
“Hispanic” or “Latino” have already come to be used routinely
and equivalently
alongside “racial” categories such as “Asian,” “Black” and
“non-Hispanic White,”
effecting a de facto racialization of the former. It is now
commonplace to see media
summaries of exit polls tallying the “Latino vote” alongside
“white” and “black” rates, or
similar tallies “by race” of school dropout, poverty and crime
rates; or for local TV news

crime-beat reporters to quote police sources that “the suspect is
a Hispanic male,” as if
that were a self-evident physical description; or to read
newspaper articles which report
matter-of-factly that the country’s first “Hispanic” astronaut
was Franklin Chang-Díaz,
who is a Chinese Costa Rican; or that the first “Latina”
chancellor of a University of
California campus is France A. Córdova, a French-born
physicist who majored in English
at Stanford, whose mother is an Irish-American native New
Yorker and whose father
came to the U.S. as an 8-year-old from Tampico.
Later critic ism of the categories led to a formal review of
Directive 15, beginning
in 1993 with Congressional hearings and culminating in revised
standards which were
adopted in 1997 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997; see also
Snipp, 2003; Fears, 2003).
The changes now stipulated five minimum categories for data
on “race” (“American
Indian or Alaska Native,” “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific
Islander,” “Asian,” “Black
or African American,” and “White”); offered respondents the
option of selecting one or
Rubén G. Rumbaut 10
more racial designations (an option used for the first time in the
2000 census); and
reworded the two “ethnic” categories into “Hispanic or Latino”
and “not Hispanic or
Latino.” “Hispanic or Latino” was defined as “a person of

Cuban, Mexican, Puerto
Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or
origin, regardless of race.
The term, ‘Spanish origin,’ can be used in addition to ‘Hispanic
or Latino.’” The notice in
the Federal Register of these revisions to OMB Directive 15 (as
adopted on October 30,
1997) pointedly added that “The categories in this classification
are social-political
constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or
anthropological in nature…
The standards have been developed to provide a common
language for uniformity and
comparability in the collection and use of data on race and
ethnicity by Federal
agencies.” Nonetheless, Directive 15’s definitions of "racial"
and "ethnic" populations are
used not only by federal agencies, but also by researchers,
schools, hospitals, business
and industry, state and local governments—and are conflated,
abridged and diffused
through the mass media, entering thereby into the popular
culture and shaping the
national self- image.
ASSERTING IDENTITIES: NATION, “RACE” AND PLACE IN
THE 2000
CENSUS
Much has been made in the media and even in academic
discourse about “the browning
of America,” a misnomer based on stereotypes of phenotypes
presumed to characterize
peoples of Latin American origin. Does the Hispanic
population differ significantly from
non-Hispanics by “race,” as it does by place, socioeconomic

status, and national origins?
The American system of racial classification, employed
variously since the first census of
1790, has been the sine qua non of externally imposed, state-
sanctioned measures of
group difference, distinguishing principally the majority
“white” population from “black”
and American Indian minority groups, and later from Asian-
origin populations (Snipp,
2003). Yet as seen earlier, “Hispanics” were incorporated in
official statistics as an
“ethnic” category, and conceived as being “of any race.”
Moreover, prior to 1970
Mexicans were almost always coded as “white” for census
purposes, and were deemed
“white” by law (if not by custom) since the nineteenth century.
In addition, neither
“Hispanic” nor “Latino” is a term of preference used by Latin
American newcomers in
the United States to define themselves; rather, the research
literature has consistently
shown that they self- identify preponderantly by their national
origin. How then are racial
categories internalized by Hispanics? Are there intergroup and
intragroup differences in
their patterns of racial self- identification? The 2000 census
asked separate questions for
“Hispanic” or “Latino” origin and for “race,” permitting a
cross-tabulation of the two—
and thus an examination of how “Hispanics” or “Latinos” self-
report by “race” as well as
by national origin.
Despite growing diversification and accelerating immigration
from a wider range
of Latin American countries over the past few decades, persons

of Mexican, Puerto
Rican, and Cuban origin still comprised 77 percent of the 35.2
million Hispanics counted
by the 2000 census. Those of Mexican origin alone numbered
22.3 million—63 percent
of the U.S. total at the time. Puerto Ricans on the mainland
accounted for another 10
percent, and Cubans for 4 percent. [If Puerto Ricans living on
the island (who are U.S.
citizens by birthright) were added to the calculation, those three
groups would comprise
80 percent of the total.] Muc h of the remainder was accounted
for by six nationalities of
relatively recent immigrant origin: Dominicans, Salvadorans
and Guatemalans make up 7
percent of the Hispanic total, while Colombians, Peruvians and
Ecuadorians combine for
nearly 4 percent more. Hence, nine ethnic groups accounted for
nine out of ten (88
percent) Hispanics in the U.S. mainland. Their size and
evolution reflect both the varied
history of their incorporation in the United States and the
relative geographical proximity
of their source countries to the United States: Mexico, El
Salvador and Guatemala from
Meso-America; Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic
from the Caribbean;
Colombia, Perú and Ecuador from South America. Persons who
trace their ethnic
identities to the ten other Spanish-speaking countries of Central
and South America, plus

Spain, comprised only 4 percent of the Hispanic total. And only
8 percent self-reported as
“other Spanish, Hispanic or Latino” in the 2000 census, without
indicating a specific
national origin.
Hispanics as a whole are much more likely than non-Hispanics
to consist of
relatively recent newcomers to the United States: 45 percent of
Hispanics are foreign-
born, compared to less than 8 percent of non-Hispanics. Only
the “other Spanish,
Hispanic, Latino” is overwhelmingly a native-born population
(94 percent)—some with
ancestries that can be traced back many generations. Aside from
that special case, the
Mexicans and Puerto Ricans—the two populations of longest
residence in the United
States, and the largest by far—are the only ethnic groups that
consist mainly of natives
(58 percent of the Mexicans and 60 percent of the Puerto Ricans
were born in the U.S.
mainland). All others are primarily foreign-born populations—
from two thirds of the
Cubans and Dominicans to more than three- fourths of all the
other groups.
Intergroup Differences: Self-Reported Race among Latinos in
the 2000 Census
Table 1 compares Hispanics and non-Hispanics, as well as the
largest Hispanic
ethnic groups, by the main racial categories employed in the
2000 census. Of the 246.2
million non-Hispanics counted by that census, 97 percent
reported their race either as

white (79 percent), black (14 percent), or Asian (4 percent). In
sharp contrast, among the
35.2 million Hispanics, only half reported their race as white
(48 percent), black (1.8
percent), or Asian (0.3 percent). Most notably, there was a huge
difference in the
proportion of these two populations that chose “other race:”
while scarcely any non-
Hispanics (a mere 0.2 percent) reported being of some “other
race,” among the Latin
Americans that figure was 43 percent—a reflection of more than
four centuries of
mestizaje in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as
differing histories and
conceptions of “race.” In addition, Hispanics in the 2000 census
were more than three
times as likely to report an admixture of “two or more races”—
6.4 percent of Hispanics
vs. only 2 percent of non-Hispanics—although among Hispanics
who listed “two or more
races,” the overwhelming majority (85 percent) specified
“white” plus another race. Still,
the main divide among Hispanics was between the 48 percent
who racially self- identified
as “white,” and the 43 percent who rejected all the official
categories and reported “other
race” instead. [The Census Bureau is considering eliminating
the “other race” option in
the 2010 census in order to force respondents to choose from
among the five standard
racial options mandated by the OMB directive.]

Ethnic Identity % "Other" % Two or %
Total N race % White more races % Black % Asian Indigenous*
Total U.S. Population 281,421,906 5.5 75.1 2.6 12.2 3.6 1.0
Not Hispanic/Latino 246,217,426 0.2 79.0 2.0 13.7 4.1 1.0
Hispanic/Latino 35,204,480 42.6 47.8 6.4 1.8 0.3 1.1
Dominican 994,313 58.8 22.4 9.4 8.2 0.2 0.9
Salvadoran, Guatemalan 1,532,512 55.2 35.8 7.2 0.6 0.1 1.1
Mexican 22,293,812 45.8 46.8 5.2 0.7 0.2 1.2
Peruvian, Ecuadorian 697,798 41.7 47.9 8.5 0.6 0.4 0.8
Puerto Rican 3,537,351 38.1 46.9 8.1 5.8 0.4 0.7
Other Central American 903,574 37.7 44.7 9.5 7.1 0.2 0.9
Colombian 648,731 28.2 62.0 8.2 1.1 0.2 0.4
Other South American 494,186 20.6 70.0 8.0 0.8 0.3 0.4
Cuban 1,311,994 7.6 84.4 4.1 3.6 0.2 0.2
Other Spanish, Hispanic, Latino 2,790,209 34.7 49.2 10.7
2.5 1.0 1.9
Source: 2000 U.S. Census, 5% IPUMS.
Table 1
Hispanic/Latino Ethnic Identity by Self-Reported "Race," 2000
Census,
Race (Self-Reported)
* Includes American Indians, Alaskan and Hawaiian natives and
other indigenous Pacific Islanders.
Ranked by Proportion Identifying as "Other Race"
Examining these results for each of the main Hispanic ethnic
groups, the
proportions who identified racially as “white” ranged from a

low of 22 percent among
Dominicans to a high of 84 percent among Cubans. More than
half of the Dominicans (59
percent) and the Salvadorans and Guatemalans (55 percent)
reported “another race,” as
did 46 percent of the Mexicans, 42 percent of the Peruvians and
Ecuadorians, 38 percent
of the Puerto Ricans, 28 percent of the Colombians, and less
than 8 percent of the
Cubans. The most likely to identify as “black” were the
Dominicans (8.2 percent), while
the “other Spanish, Hispanic or Latino” were the most likely to
identify as multiracial
(10.7 percent). The meaning of “race,” however, is problematic
for a number of reasons.
Consider, for example, the importance of geographic context in
the determination and
variability of self-reported racial identities in the census.
Location, Location, Location: Intragroup Differences by Race
and Place
Self-reported “race” varies not only between Latin American-
origin groups, but
also within them—and over time and place as well. Table 2
presents 2000 census data on
self-reported “race” for the largest Hispanic groups, now broken
down by the largest
states: California and Texas in the Southwest (where Mexicans,
Salvadorans and
Guatemalans are most concentrated), and New York-New Jersey
and Florida along the
east coast (where the Caribbean groups are concentrated). The
differences are striking: In
California 40 percent of the Mexican-origin population reported
as “white,” but in Texas

60 percent were “white;” and 53 percent reported as “other
race” in California, compared
to only 36 percent in Texas. (Indeed, a 1998-2002 longitudinal
surve y in Los Angeles and
San Antonio found that Mexican Americans in San Antonio
were five times more likely
to identify as “white” than those in Los Angeles [Telles and
Ortiz, 2008: 272, 312]).
Similar if less pronounced patterns were observed for
Salvadorans and Guatemalans in
those two states: they were significantly more likely to be
“white” in Texas and “other”
in California.
Ethnic Identity Total N % Two or
% "Other" % White more races
Hispanic/Latino (U.S. total): 35,204,480
In California 10,928,470 51.6 39.7 6.4
In Texas 6,653,338 36.7 58.0 4.1
In New York-New Jersey 3,972,595 43.3 42.1 7.6
In Florida 2,673,654 16.6 75.0 5.4
Mexican 22,293,812
In California 9,025,952 52.7 39.7 5.6
In Texas 5,706,532 35.8 59.6 3.6
Salvadoran, Guatemalan 1,532,512
In California 667,273 61.1 30.2 7.2
In Texas 146,781 54.1 40.0 5.2

Puerto Rican 3,537,351
In New York-New Jersey 1,462,393 40.5 45.4 6.5
In Florida 496,122 22.9 66.9 6.2
Cuban 1,311,994
In New York-New Jersey 151,744 13.3 72.6 5.5
In Florida 878,289 3.9 91.6 2.5
Dominican 994,313
In Florida 92,785 33.9 45.5 9.2
Colombian 648,731
In Florida 192,397 14.5 77.8 6.4
Peruvian, Ecuadorian 697,798
In Florida 96,754 18.5 73.6 6.9
Source: 2000 U.S. Census, 5% IPUMS.
Table 2
"Race" Self-Reported by Largest Hispanic Groups in Selected
States, 2000 Census
Race (Self-Reported)
Even more striking are the differentials in the geography of
“race” among the
Caribbean groups: all were far more likely to be “white” in
Florida than in New York-
New Jersey. In Florida 67 percent of the Puerto Ricans reported
that they were “white,”

compared to only 45 percent in New York-New Jersey; the
respective percentages for
Cubans were 92 to 73 percent; for Dominicans, 46 to 20
percent; for Colombians, 78 to
46 percent. The gap was wider still for the Peruvians and
Ecuadorians, 74 to 43 percent.
In all cases, as Table 2 shows, the reverse obtained for self-
reports of “other race.” Those
systematic patterns across so many different nationalities are
unlikely to be explained by
selective migrations, but rather invite a contextual,
counterintuitive explanation: the more
rigid racial boundaries and “racial frame” developed in the
former Confederate states of
Texas and Florida, and the severe stigma historically attached to
those marked as non-
white there, may shape defensive assertions of whiteness when
racial status is
ambiguous; in states like California and New York, the social
dynamics have been more
open to ethnic options and a rejection of rigid U.S. racial
categories. If “race” was an
innate, permanent trait of individuals, no such variability would
obtain. Instead, these
data exemplify how “race” is constructed socially and
historically—and spatially as well.
These striking contextual differences are supported by other
relevant data. For
example, the 2000 census conducted in Puerto Rico found that
81 percent of the
population on the island self-reported as “white”—notably
higher than the 67 percent of

Puerto Ricans who self- reported as “white” in Florida, vs. 45
percent in the New York
region. A census conducted by the U.S. when it occupied the
island in 1899 found that
62 percent of the inhabitants were “white,” as were 65 percent
of those counted in the
1910 island census; but that proportion grew to 73 percent in
1920, and 80 percent by
1950—an increase attributed by Loveman and Muñiz (2007) to
changes in the social
definition of whiteness and the influence of “whitening”
ideology on the island, since
they could not be accounted for by demographic processes,
institutional biases, or other
explanations. Similarly, a study of racial self- identification of
Puerto Ricans surveyed in
the U.S. and Puerto Rico (Landale and Oropesa, 2002) found
that mainland Puerto Ricans
more strongly reject the conventional U.S. notion of race than
do their island
counterparts. Contexts shape the meanings of identity
assignments and assertions
(Rumbaut, 2005).
ASSERTING IDENTITIES: THE MALLEABLE MEANINGS
OF “RACE”
Varieties of Racial Identification among Dominicans
The meaning of “race” also varies depending on the history of
the group, on the
way questions are asked, and even on the response format
provided in conventional
surveys. In a survey of more than 400 Dominican immigrants in
New York City and
Providence, Rhode Island, the adult respondents were asked a

series of three questions
about their racial self- identification (Itzigsohn, 2004). First
they were asked, in an open-
ended format, how they defined themselves racially. Next they
were given a close-ended
question, asking if they were white, black, or other (and if
other, to specify). Finally they
were asked how they thought that “mainstream Americans”
classified them racially. The
results are summarized in Table 3. In response to the first open-
ended question, 28
percent gave “Hispanic” as their “race,” another 4 percent said
“Latino,” and still others
offered a variety of mixed “Hispanic” or “Latino” answers; 13
percent said “Indio,” and
another 13 percent gave their Dominican nationality as their
race. Only 6.6 percent chose
“black,” and 3.8 percent “white.”
How to you Are you: white, How do you think
define yourself black, or other? most Americans
racially? (if other, specify) classify you
Responses (open-ended Q) (close-ended Q) racially?
% % %
Black 6.6 16.8 36.9
White 3.8 11.6 6.4
Hispano/a (Hispanic) 27.5 21.1 30.4
Latino/a 4.1 2.8 3.2

Indio/a 13.1 18.8 4.0
Dominicano/a 12.8 2.0 0.2
Mestizo/a 4.7 8.0 1.0
Trigueño/a 4.1 4.5 2.0
Moreno/a 1.9 2.0 2.2
Mulato/a 0.3 1.5 0.0
Indio Hispano/a 4.1 1.0 0.2
Black Hispano/a 0.6 1.0 2.0
White Hispano/a 0.6 0.3 0.5
Mixed Hispano/a 0.6 1.3 0.2
Latino-Americano/a 0.6 0.5 0.0
Latino-Hispano/a 0.3 0.5 0.5
Java-India claro/a 0.3 1.3 0.2
Amarillo/a (yellow) 0.3 1.0 0.2
Oscuro, prieto, de color 0.3 0.8 1.0
American 0.6 0 0.5
Puerto Rican 0 0 0.2
Human race, other 6.9 1.5 0.7
Does not know 5.0 1.3 6.9
Table 3
Source: Adapted from Itzigsohn, 2004.
(Survey of Dominican immigrants in New York City and
Providence, N=418)
Dominican Immigrants' Answers to Three Racial Self-
identification Questions
The rest of their responses showed the extraordinary range of
racial categories and

labels common in the Spanish Caribbean—as well as the very
significant responses
obtained depending on the question asked, even though all three
were ostensibly getting
at the same thing: the respondent’s racial identity. When asked
to choose from the
closed-ended format of the second question, the largest response
remained “Hispanic”
(written in by 21 percent of the sample, in addition to 3 percent
who chose “Latino”),
though the catego ries “black” and “white” now more than
doubled to 16.8 and 11.6
percent, respectively. And when asked how they thought that
others classified them
racially, the category “black” dramatically increased to 37
percent—reflecting the reverse
way in which the “one drop rule” functions in the United States
vs. the Dominican
Republic—while “white” decreased to 6.4 percent. “Hispanic”
was still given by almost
a third of the sample (30.4 percent) as the “racial” category that
they perceived others
used to classify them. Indeed, “Hispanic” was the label most
consistently given by the
respondents to characterize their own racial identity, whether
asserted by themselves or
imposed upon them by others.
Intergenerational Differences: The “Race” of Immigrant Parents
and their Children

Another recent study found that, in addition to significant
change in their ethnic
self- identities over time and generation in the United States (as
measured by open-ended
questions), the offspring of Latin American immigrants were by
far the most likely to
define their racial identities in sharp contrast to their own
parents (Portes and Rumbaut,
2001; Rumbaut, 2005). During the 1990s in South Florida and
Southern California, the
Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) surveyed a
sample of more than
5,200 1.5- and second-generation youths, representing 77
different nationalities,
including all of the main Spanish-speaking countries of Latin
America. Their immigrant
parents were also interviewed separately. In one survey
(conducted when the youths
were 17 to 18 years old), the respondents were asked to answer
a semi- structured
question about their “race,” and were given the option to check
one of five categories:
“white,” “black,” “Asian,” “multiracial,” or “other;” if the latter
was checked, they had to
specify what that “other race” was. The results are presented in
Table 4.
Among the Latin American-origin youths, less than a fourth of
the total sample
checked the conventional categories of white, black, or Asian;
12 percent reported being
multiracial; and over 65 percent checked “other.” When those
“other” self-reports were
coded, it turned out that two- fifths of the sample (41 percent)
wrote down “Hispanic” or
“Latino” as their “race,” and another fifth (19.6 percent) gave

their nationality as their
“race.” The explicit racialization of the “Hispanic- Latino”
category, as well as the
substantial proportion of youths who conceived of their
nationality of origin as a racial
category, are noteworthy both for their potential long-term
implications in hardening
minority group boundaries, and for their illustration of the
arbitrariness of racial
constructions—indeed, of the ease with which an “ethnic”
category developed for
administrative purposes becomes externalized, diffused,
objectified, and finally
internalized and imagined as a marker of essentialized social
difference.
The latter point is made particularly salient by directly
comparing the youths’
notions of their “race” with that reported by their own parents.
The closest match in
racial self-perceptions between parents and children were
observed among the Haitians,
Jamaicans and other West Indians (most of whom self-reported
as black), among the
Europeans and Canadians (most of whom labeled themselves
white), and among most of
the Asian-origin groups (except for the Filipinos). The widest
mismatches by far (and
hence the most ambiguity in self-definitions of “race”) occurred
among all of the Latin-
American-origin groups without exception: about three fifths of

Latin parents defined
themselves as “white,” compared to only one fifth of their own
children. More
specifically, 93 percent of Cuban parents identified as white,
compared to only 41 percent
of their children; 85 percent of Colombian parents defined
themselves as white, but only
24 percent of their children did so—proportions that were
similar for other South
Americans; two thirds of the Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and
Nicaraguan parents saw
themselves as white, but only one fifth of their children agreed;
and about a third of the
Dominican parents reported as white, more than twice the
proportion of their children
who did so.
National Origin Respondent White Black Asian Multiracial
Hispanic,
Latino
Nationality
as race
Other
(Parent/Child) % % % % % % %
Latin American: Parent 58.1 1.5 1.1 14.7 6.4 8.3 9.8
Child 21.9 0.8 0.0 12.1 41.0 19.6 4.6
Mexico Parent 5.7 0.0 2.1 21.6 15.9 26.1 28.5
Child 1.5 0.3 0.0 12.0 25.5 56.2 4.5
Cuba Parent 93.1 1.1 0.3 2.5 1.1 0.5 1.4
Child 41.2 0.8 0.0 11.5 36.0 5.5 4.9

Dominican Republic Parent 30.6 11.1 0.0 44.4 0.0 5.6 8.3
Child 13.9 2.8 0.0 13.9 55.6 8.3 5.6
El Salvador, Guatemala Parent 66.7 4.2 4.2 16.7 8.3 0.0 0.0
Child 20.8 0.0 0.0 12.5 58.3 4.2 4.2
Nicaragua Parent 67.7 0.5 1.6 22.0 5.4 0.5 2.2
Child 19.4 0.0 0.0 9.7 61.8 2.7 6.5
Other Central America Parent 48.0 24.0 4.0 20.0 0.0 4.0 0.0
Child 8.0 8.0 0.0 40.0 44.0 0.0 0.0
Colombia Parent 84.6 1.1 0.0 9.9 2.2 0.0 2.2
Child 24.2 1.1 0.0 9.9 58.2 1.1 5.5
Perú, Ecuador Parent 61.8 0.0 0.0 26.5 2.9 2.9 5.9
Child 32.4 0.0 0.0 11.8 55.9 0.0 0.0
Other South America Parent 87.8 0.0 0.0 6.1 2.0 2.0 2.0
Child 28.6 2.0 0.0 14.3 40.8 14.3 0.0
question on racial identity. "White," "Black," "Asian" and
"Multiracial" were fixed responses; all "Others" were open-
ended entries.
* Figures are row percentages. Interviews with immigrant
parents and their teenage children were done separately, using
the same
Source: Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS);
Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Rumbaut 2005.
Table 4
Self-Reported “Race” of Children of Immigrants and their
Parents, by National Origin Groups
Self-Reported Race*

The children, instead, largely adopted “Hispanic” or “Latino” as
a racial label (41
percent—the largest single response), whereas scarcely any of
their parents did so (6
percent); or they gave their nationality as their race (20 percent
of the children vs. 6
percent of their parents). Indeed, well over half of the
Dominican, Salvadoran,
Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, Colombian, Peruvian and Ecuadorian
youth reported their race
as “Hispanic” or “Latino.” Among the Mexicans, whose pattern
differed from all of the
others, the children preponderantly racialized the national label,
whereas Mexican parents
were more likely to use “other” and “multiracial” as descriptors.
These results point to
the force of the acculturation process and its impact on
children’s self- identities in the
U.S.—indeed, they provide another striking instance of the
malleability of racial
constructions, even between parents and children in the same
family, residing in the same
place. More fully exposed than their parents to American
culture and its ingrained racial
notions, and being incessantly categorized and treated as
Hispanic or Latino, the children
of immigrants learn to see themselves in these terms—as
members of a racial minority—
and even to racialize their national origins. If these
intergenerational differences between

Latin American immigrants and their U.S.-raised children can
be projected to the third
generation, the process of racialization could become more
entrenched still. It is indeed
ironic that in a nation born in white supremacy, where
citizenship was restricted on racial
grounds till 1952 and immigration until 1965, and where it took
a civil rights revolution
to overthrow the legal underpinnings of racial apartheid, the
children of Latin American
immigrants, historically “white by law,” should learn to become
“non-white” in the post-
Civil Rights era.
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THE COLUMBIA HISTORY OF LATINOS
IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1960
THE COLUMBIA HISTORY OF LATINOS
IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1960
EDITED BY DAVID G. GUTIÉRREZ
C O L U M B I A
U N I V E R S I T Y
P R E S S
N E W Y O R K

Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2004 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Columbia history of Latinos in the United States since 1960
/ edited by David G. Gutiérrez.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–231–11808–2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Hispanic Americans—History—20th century. 2. Hispanic
Americans—History—21st century.
3. Hispanic Americans—Social conditions. 4. United States—
Ethnic relations. I. Title: History
of Latinos in the United States since 1960. II. Gutiérrez, David
(David Gregory)
E184.S75C644 2004
973'.0468—dc22
2004041310

Columbia University Press books are printed
on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed by Lisa Hamm
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Preface ix
Introduction. Demography and the Shifting Boundaries of
“Comm-
unity”: Reflections on “U.S. Latinos” and the Evolution of
Latino Studies
DAVID G. GUTIÉRREZ 1
1. Globalization, Labor Migration, and the Demographic
Revolution:
Ethnic Mexicans in the Late Twentieth Century
DAVID G. GUTIÉRREZ 43
2. Social Polarization and Colonized Labor: Puerto Ricans in
the

United States, 1945–2000
KELVIN A. SANTIAGO-VALLES AND GLADYS M.
JIMÉNEZ-MUÑOZ 87
3. Exiles, Immigrants, and Transnationals: The Cuban
Communities
of the United States
MARÍA CRISTINA GARCÍA 146
4. Central American Immigrants: Diverse Populations,
Changing Communities
NORMA STOLTZ CHINCHILLA AND NORA HAMILTON 187
5. Transnational Ties and Incorporation: The Case of
Dominicans
in the United States
PEGGY LEVITT 229
6. The Other “Other Hispanics”: South American–Origin
Latinos
in the United States
MARILYN ESPITIA 257
7. Gender and the Latino Experience in Late-Twentieth-Century
America
PIERRETTE HONDAGNEU-SOTELO 281

8. From Barrios to Barricades: Religion and Religiosity in
Latino Life
ANTHONY M. STEVENS-ARROYO 303
9. U.S. Latino Expressive Cultures
FRANCES R. APARICIO 355
10. The Continuing Latino Quest for Full Membership and
Equal
Citizenship: Legal Progress, Social Setbacks, and Political
Promise
KEVIN R. JOHNSON 391
11. The Pressures of Perpetual Promise: Latinos and Politics,
1960–2003
LOUIS DESIPIO 421
List of Contributors 467
Index 471
vi
C O N T E N T S
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A S I S true with most anthologies, this collection of essays
took more time to
bring to press than I am sure any of its contributors had thought
possible
when they signed on to the project. I thank them all not only for
their excel-
lent contributions to the work but also for the patience,
forbearance, and good
will they showed the editor. James Warren at Columbia
University Press was
equally patient and encouraging, and I thank him for staying the
course long
enough to see the book come into being. I would also like to
thank all the au-
thors, as well as Roberto Alvarez, Bill Deverell, Jorge Mariscal,
James Warren,
and Michael Haskell for their excellent advice and editorial
input, and Tony
Grafton, Marc Rodríguez, Jennifer Houle, and the Shelby
Cullom Davis Cen-
ter for Historical Studies at Princeton for providing the
financial support and
rich intellectual environment that allowed me to complete work
on the vol-
ume in the 2002–3 academic year.
To the friends and colleagues who graciously invited me to take
parts of this
show on the road to share and debate some of the major ideas
that inform the
volume, I offer thanks. Tomás Almaguer at the University of
Michigan; Steve
Aron at UCLA, Roy Ritchie at the Huntington Library; Dean
Frantisek Deak
at the University of California, San Diego; Bill Deverell at the
Division of Hu-

manities and Social Sciences and the students in my
immigration and ethnic-
ity seminar at the California Institute of Technology; Susan
Johnson, Camille
Guerin-Gonzales, and Patricia Nelson Limerick at the
University of Colorado,
Boulder; Matt García and Peggy Pascoe at the University of
Oregon; the site
committee of the National Association for Chicano and Chicana
Studies
(NACCS)—especially Greg Rodríguez and Raquel Rubio-
Goldsmith—at the
University of Arizona; Elliott Barkan and the Immigration and
Ethnic Histo-
ry Society; Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., Joe Glatthaar, John
Mason Hart, Luis
Alvarez, and Raúl Ramos at the University of Houston; Becky
Horn at the
University of Utah; Christina Jiménez at the University of
Colorado, Col-
orado Springs; and Ramón A. Gutiérrez and the Department of
Ethnic Stud-
ies at the University of California, San Diego all provided the
collegial space
to air and debate many of the issues that are discussed in these
pages. And fi-
nally, to my nuclear and extended families—Mary Lillis Allen,
Luis Alvarez,
Steve and Lori Buchsbaum, Al and Susan Camarillo, Mort and
Maureen Dar-
row, Bill, Jennifer, and Helen Deverell, Susie Golden, Luis and
Rebecca Muril-
lo, Bill Perry, Pamela Radcliff, Raúl Ramos and Liz Chiao, and,

as always, my
compañero on the beaches and in the trenches, Stuart Swanson,
my heartfelt
gratitude for your warm hospitality, good criticism, and
spiritual support over
a particularly rough stretch. I owe each of you one, at least.
viii
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
PREFACE
AT T H E end of the last century and in the first months of the
new millennium,
newspapers and news magazines in cities across the United
States began re-
porting a remarkable phenomenon. “Nevada Jumps 66.3% in 10
Years: A
Tripling of the Number of Latinos Led the Increase” read one
headline. “His-
panics Drive State Growth” read another. “Census Reflects
Large Gains for
Latinos,” “Latinos Add State House Seats Nationwide,”
proclaimed others.
“Hispanics Reshape Culture of the South” and “North
Carolina’s Trade in
Foreign Farm Workers Draws Scrutiny” read two others.
“Mexicans Change
Face of U.S. Demographics” and “Racial, Ethnic Diversity Puts
New Face on
Middle America” proclaimed two more. And more recently, in a
news release
that was as stunning as it was understated, the Census Bureau

quietly an-
nounced that as of July 2001, the United State’s population of
Hispanic origin
or descent had surpassed the African American population as
the nation’s
largest aggregate “minority group.”1 Of course, one could cite
literally hun-
dreds more such headlines and taglines in the American mass
media of the
past five or six years, and, slowly but surely, it seems that the
message has
started to sink in. Print and broadcast media outlets may have
been slow to
pick up on a trend that has been building in momentum for
many years, but
it is clear that Americans are finally awakening to a
demographic revolution
that has transformed—and continues to change—U.S. society in
ways that
will powerfully influence the economic, political, and cultural
life of the Unit-
ed States for the foreseeable future.
The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States Since
1960 is among the
first major attempts to offer a comprehensive historical
overview of the as-
tonishing “Latinization” of the United States that has occurred
over the past
four decades.2 Bringing together the views of some of the
foremost scholarly
interpreters of the recent history of Latinos in the United States,
this collec-

tion was designed from the outset to be a collaborative,
interdisciplinary ef-
fort to ponder, analyze, and provide context for these dramatic
historical de-
velopments. More specifically, our intent was to provide a
broad overview of
this era of explosive demographic and cultural change by
developing essays
that explore the recent histories of all the major national and
regional Latino
subpopulations and reflect on what these historical trends might
mean for the
future of both the United States and the other increasingly
interconnected na-
tions of the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, as the essays that
follow amply
demonstrate, while at one point it may have been considered
feasible to ex-
plore the histories of national populations in isolation from one
another, all
of the contributors to this volume highlight the deep
transnational ties and in-
terconnections that bind different peoples across national and
regional lines.
Thus, each of the chapters on Latino national subpopulations
explores the
ambiguous and shifting boundaries that so loosely define them
both in the
United States and in their countries of origin. In addition, the
volume in-
cludes five important thematic chapters addressing political and
cultural
themes that transcend national and intercultural boundaries
while simultane-
ously revealing some of the more salient sources of internal
division among

persons of Latin American descent or heritage. These chapters
include explo-
rations of Latino religion and religiosity; gender and changing
gender systems;
politics, political mobilization, and political organization;
language, expres-
sive culture, and cultural change; and Latinos and the law.
Contributors were selected from a broad spectrum of scholarly
fields and
intellectual perspectives, and represent broad expertise drawn
both from tra-
ditional, established fields of academic inquiry like history,
sociology, law, and
political science, as well as emergent, more explicitly
politically contentious
interdisciplinary areas of study such as gender studies, religious
studies, cul-
tural studies, ethnic studies, and comparative Latin American
and Latino
studies. Contributors were given wide latitude regarding the
conceptual,
methodological, and interpretive approaches they brought to
their individual
assignments. Indeed, my hope as compiler and editor was to
bring together
the work of scholars in different fields and in different stages of
their careers
in an effort to create a kind of dynamic tension between and
among a variety
of different perspectives and points of view and thus to reflect
to the extent
possible some of the tensions that so obviously characterize the
social, cultur-
al, and political life of Latinos in the United States today. In
keeping with this

approach, authors were asked to develop in basic outline the
broad contours
of the history of their topical areas of study but also to depart
from historical
convention where appropriate by engaging in informed
speculation both
x
P R E FA C E
about contemporary trends and likely trajectories for the future.
Finally, all of
the contributors to the Columbia History of Latinos in the
United States Since
1960 were also strongly encouraged to frame their analyses and
write in a style
that would be engaging and accessible to both specialists and a
broader read-
ing audience. By giving all the authors or groups of authors free
rein in fram-
ing their studies while also encouraging them to refrain from
using the tech-
nical academic jargon typical of their respective disciplines, we
hoped to
produce a volume that provides cutting-edge interpretations of
the broad
contours of the recent history of Latinos in the United States
and one that also
provides readers with insight into the major areas of contention
and debate in
Latino scholarship in the early twenty-first century.
Thus, as should be clear, the tasks faced by the individual

authors in con-
ceptualizing and executing their individual assignments were
not as neat and
straightforward as they might at first glance appear. On the
most fundamen-
tal level, each contributor needed to address the challenge of
analyzing popu-
lations that have been, and continue to be, in the midst of
tremendous social
flux and transformation. For example, while each author was
charged with the
task of recounting the recent histories of populations that
currently constitute
the pan-Latino population of the United States, we all were
cognizant of the
many ways the extreme geographic mobility of these groups—
both within the
boundaries of the United States and across international
frontiers—raises
conceptual and analytical challenges of a kind usually not faced
by scholars
studying more sedentary populations. Hundreds of thousands of
Latinos con-
tinue to move between the United States and Latin America and
otherwise
maintain strong organic ties to their communities, and this
combination of
physical mobility and deep ties to places elsewhere in the
Western Hemi-
sphere represent unique and fundamental components of
Latinos’ social real-
ity. Consequently, as all of the chapters that follow demonstrate
in some de-
tail, it is impossible to situate Latinos’ experience within the
historical
tradition of a single nation-state, whether that nation-state is

their country of
origin or the United States of America. Of course, the
persistence of transna-
tional ties has always been a fact of Latinos’ lives in the United
States (and, to
a greater or lesser degree, of other migrant populations), but the
dynamism of
Latinos’ more recent history requires that interpreters employ
regional and
multinational perspectives in attempting to analyze these
restless and con-
stantly shifting populations-in-motion. Similarly, while each
author was
charged with developing an analysis temporally focused on the
last four
decades of the last century, each was forced to grapple in his or
her own way
with the long reach of American economic, political, and
military imperialism
in Latin America over a much longer stretch of time. Thus,
although each
xi
P R E FA C E
contributor employed different points of analytical departure
and emphasis,
the historical legacies and contemporary specter of the United
States’ ongoing
colonial relationship with Latin America can be seen in each
chapter.
On a related plane, it is equally important to emphasize from

the outset the
extent to which the history of racism in the United States and
the troubled his-
tory of United States–Latin American relations has colored and
continues to
influence scholarship on the subject under discussion. Each of
us has been
trained to aspire to professional standards of scholarly
objectivity, but we all
also recognize that the fields of Latin American and U.S.–
Latino studies have
always been arenas of intense intellectual and ideological
contestation and de-
bate around these and other areas of social hierarchy and social
conflict. The
essays that follow clearly reveal both the tensions inherent in
these areas of in-
quiry and the lack of consensus over conceptualization,
theoretical framing,
methodologies, and ultimate lines of interpretation that
currently exists in the
evolving field of Latino studies (an issue discussed in greater
detail in the in-
troduction that follows). Again, however, by juxtaposing our
different frames
of reference and lines of argumentation against one another, we
hope both to
help sharpen the ongoing academic debate about the recent
history of Latinos
in the United States and to provoke critical thinking and
discussion about this
rich and complex history among both academic and more
general readers.
Most of the themes discussed in this preface are touched upon
in chapter 1,

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