Though the Mexican population in the contested territory declined immediately after the conquest due to forced relocations, it increased again during the early twentieth century when US farmers actively encouraged an influx of Mexicans across the border as an inexpensive source of agricultural labor. Since then, political and economic conditions in Mexico have fueled a steady stream of immigrants to the United States.15
While people of Mexican descent are often stereotyped as undocumented immigrants, the fact is that most Mexican-origin Latinxs are legal residents. Most Mexican Americans continue to live in the West and Southwest, particularly California and Texas. According to the most recent census data, Mexican-origin Latinxs are the youngest of all Latinx subgroups. Among Latinxs younger than eighteen in 2014, 69 percent are Mexican.16 Educational attainment and family income remain below the US average. Only 9 percent of Mexican Americans age twenty-five and older have earned at least a bachelor’s degree (compared to 13 percent of all Latinx adults and more than 30 percent of all US adults over twenty-five).17 In 2014 the median household income in the US was roughly $51,400, but it was only $38,000 for Mexican families. The median income for Puerto Ricans, the second largest Latinx group in the US, was even lower—$36,000.18
Like the conquered Mexicans in the Southwest, Puerto Ricans did not choose to become US citizens, it was imposed upon them. Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the United States in 1898, ceded by Spain at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. Puerto Rico, which had struggled to become independent of Spain, did not welcome subjugation by the United States. An active policy of Americanization of the island population was implemented, including attempts to replace Spanish with English as the language of instruction on the island. The attempts to displace Spanish were vigorously resisted by Puerto Rican teachers and students alike. In 1915, resistance to the imposition of English resulted in a student strike at Central High School in San Juan, part of a rising wave of nationalism and calls for independence. Rather than let the Puerto Rican people vote on whether they wanted citizenship, the US Congress passed the Jones Act of 1917, imposing citizenship and the obligation to serve in the US military but denying Puerto Ricans the right to vote in national elections. In 1951, Puerto Ricans were allowed to vote on whether to remain a territory or to become a commonwealth. Though there were those who urged a third option, Puerto Rican independence, commonwealth status was the choice. Commonwealth status allowed Puerto Ricans greater control of their school systems, and Spanish was restored in the schools.19
Economic conditions on the island have driven many Puerto Ricans to New York and other northeastern US cities. Many came in the 1940s and 1950s to work in the factories of the Northeast, but as industry left the region many Puerto Rican workers were displaced. Fluctuating employment conditions have contributed to a pattern of circular migration to and from Puerto Rico, which is made easier by US citizenship. However, since 2005, more Puerto Ricans live on the US mainland than on the island of Puerto Rico. By 2013, the number on the mainland had grown to 5.1 million, compared to 3.6 million on the island. Mainland Puerto Ricans (sometimes referred to as Nuyoricans or Diasporicans)20 are concentrated in the Northeast (51 percent), primarily in New York, and in the South (31 percent), mainly in Florida.21 A multiracial population descended from European colonizers, enslaved Africans, and the indigenous Taíno Indians, a significant number of Puerto Ricans are dark-skinned. Consequently, on the mainland they have experienced patterns of residential and school segregation similar to that of African Americans.22
Salvadorans and Cubans are the next largest populations of Latin American origin living in the United States. As of 2016, Salvadorans had surpassed the Cubans in population, representing 3.8 percent of the US population while Cubans are 3.7 percent.23 Of the two groups, Cubans have a longer history in the US. Although Cuban communities have existed in Florida and New York since the 1870s, nearly 60 percent of Cubans in the US are foreign-born, most having been in the country for twenty years or more.24 Cuban immigration to the United States increased dramatically following the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro. The first wave of immigrants were upper-class, light-skinned Cubans who left in the very first days of the revolution. They were able to bring their personal fortunes with them and established businesses in the United States. The second major group left after Castro had been in power for a few months and largely consisted of middle-class professionals and skilled workers. Though many were unable to bring possessions with them, they received support from the US government and charitable organizations.25
Cuba’s close proximity to the US mainland and the tense political relationship between the two countries has led to unique immigration policies specifically for Cubans escaping its communist regime. In 1966, the Cuban Adjustment Act was passed by the US Congress to provide an accelerated pathway to permanent residence for Cuban refugees.26 In 1980, another major group of Cuban immigrants arrived as part of the Mariel boatlift. These Cubans had lived most of their lives under a socialist government and were more impoverished, less educated, and darker-skinned than earlier refugees. Another surge of immigrants arriving by boat occurred in 1994, prompting an agreement between the United States and Cuba known as the “wet foot, dry foot policy,” whereby those Cubans who were intercepted on the water (“wet foot”) would be returned to Cuba but those who made it to the US shore (“dry foot”) would be allowed to remain and given permanent resident status after one year, putting them on a faster path to citizenship than most immigrants experience. As of 2013, 59 percent of Cubans living in the US were naturalized US citizens. In December 2014, US president Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raúl Castro, agreed to normalize relations between the two countries, opening the door for potential changes to the pattern of Cuban migration to the US.27 In fact, in January 2017, just a few days before the end of his term, with the encouragement of the Cuban government, President Obama announced an end to the wet foot, dry foot policy, stating, “Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with U.S. law and enforcement priorities.… By taking this step, we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries.”28
When compared to other Latinx communities in the US, Cubans are more concentrated geographically—77 percent live in Florida.29 They also have the highest education levels—approximately 25 percent of Cubans over age twenty-five are college graduates. A majority (60 percent) of Cubans over the age of five speak English fluently, but despite the longevity in the United States, more Cubans speak Spanish at home: 79 percent, compared to 73 percent of Latinxs as a group.30 Perhaps because the early Cuban immigrants viewed themselves as people in exile who might return to Cuba when the government changed, they have worked to keep Spanish an integral part of their lives in the United States.31
In the wake of civil war and natural disasters, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans have fled El Salvador to come to the United States. The first wave came between 1980 and 1990, resulting in a fivefold increase in population—from 94,000 to 465,000.32 In the two decades that followed, the number of Salvadoran immigrants continued to grow as families sought to reunite and to escape the aftermath of additional hurricanes and earthquakes. As of 2016, approximately two million Salvadorans were living in the US. More than half live in California and Texas, but they are also concentrated in New York and the metropolitan DC/Maryland/Virginia area. Nearly two-thirds of immigrants from El Salvador (64 percent) arrived in the US in 1990 or later. Only 29 percent of Salvadoran immigrants are US citizens. Almost half (48 percent) of Salvadorans ages five and older speak English proficiently, compared to 66 percent of Latinxs overall.33
Like the four groups described here, those Latinxs who do not trace their family background to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, or El Salvador are an extremely heterogeneous group. They include South Americans as well as other Central Americans,
well-educated professionals as well as rural farmers, those who immigrated for increased economic opportunities as well as those escaping civil war and other violence. Venezuelans are the most likely to have a college degree (51 percent) while Guatemalans and Salvadorans are among the least likely (7 percent). Argentineans have the highest annual median household income ($55,000) while Hondurans have the lowest ($31,000).34
Just as the White settlers in the nineteenth century were initially uncertain how to classify the Mexicans racially, the US Census Bureau has also struggled. The term Hispanic was used by the Census Bureau as an ethnic label and not to denote a “race,” because Hispanics are a racially mixed group, including combinations of European White, African Black, indigenous peoples, and, in some cases, Asian. It is possible for an individual to identify as ethnically Hispanic and racially Black, White, or Asian at the same time.35 As in African American families, there can be wide color variations in the same family. Racismo within Latinx communities is akin to colorism in Black American communities, advantaging lighter-skinned individuals.36 Although a majority of Latinxs share the Roman Catholic faith and speak Spanish, not all do. Researchers Gerardo Marín and Barbara VanOss Marín argue that cultural values—not demographic characteristics—help Hispanics self-identify as members of one panethnic group.
All in the Family: Familism in Latinx Communities
In particular, the cultural value of familism, defined as “a set of normative beliefs… that emphasize the centrality of the family unit and stress the obligations and support that family members owe to both nuclear and extended kin,”37 has been identified as a characteristic shared by most Latinx families independent of their national background, birthplace, dominant language, or any other sociodemographic characteristic.38
In a carefully designed comparative study of four groups of adolescents—Mexicans living in Mexico, immigrant Mexicans in the United States, US-born Mexican Americans, and White Americans—researchers Carola and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco investigated the nature of familism among the four groups. In particular, they examined perceptions of the degree of emotional and material support provided by the family, the sense of obligation to provide support to one’s family, and the degree to which families served as one’s reference group (as opposed to peers, for example). They predicted that the three Latinx groups would demonstrate more familism than White American adolescents and that Mexican immigrants would demonstrate the highest level of familism, because immigrants frequently turn to the family for support and comfort. They found that the Latinx groups were indeed more family oriented than the White American group but that there was no significant difference among the three Latinx groups. All the adolescents of Mexican ancestry had a strong family orientation that expressed itself in a variety of ways.
For example, achieving in school and at work was considered important by Latinx teens in the study because success would allow them to take care of family members. Conversely, White American teens considered education and work as a means of gaining independence from their families. The researchers concluded that “in Mexico the family seems to be a centripetal force; in the United States it is a centrifugal force.”39 Because both immigrant and nonimmigrant Latinx adolescents expressed this value, the researchers also concluded that familism is related to enduring psychocultural features of the Latinx population, not only the stresses of immigration. Similarly, Fabio Sabogal and his colleagues found that Mexican Americans, Central Americans, and Cuban Americans all reported similar attitudes toward the family, this familism standing in contrast to the rugged individualism so often identified with White Anglo American culture.40 Researchers have found that the values of familism support positive academic outcomes for Latinx students and mitigate against the negative influence of peers engaged in delinquent behavior.41
Though familism is not caused by immigration, it is reinforced by it. The ongoing influx of new Latinx immigrants and the circular migration of some populations (Puerto Ricans, for example) help to keep cultural values alive in the US mainland communities. The Suárez-Orozcos write, “For many second- and third-generation Latinos the immigrant past may also be the present.… Among Latinos the past is not only kept alive through family narratives but unfolds in front of our very eyes as recent arrivals endure anew the cycle of deprivation, hardship, and discrimination that is characteristic of first-generation immigrant life.”42 In this context, perhaps the most critical task facing the children of immigrants is reconciling the culture of home with the dominant American culture.
Drawing on the work of social identity theorist Tajfel and others, Phinney describes four possible outcomes for coping with this cultural conflict: assimilation, withdrawal, biculturalism, and marginalization. Assimilation is the attempt to blend into the dominant culture as much as possible, distancing oneself from one’s ethnic group. Individuals using this strategy may actively reject the use of Spanish. Withdrawal results in an emphasis on one’s ethnic culture and an avoidance of contact with the dominant group. This strategy is seen in highly segregated communities where English is rarely spoken. Someone with a bicultural identity incorporates selected aspects of both the home culture and the dominant culture, often achieving bilingual fluency in the process. The bicultural strategy can be a very positive one, but it is not easily achieved. For some, the attempt to bridge two worlds may result in alienation from both. Having rejected the “old country” ways of the family yet unable to find full acceptance in the dominant culture, these adolescents often experience marginalization. These alienated young people, relying on their peers for a sense of community, may be at particular risk for gang membership. School programs that help bridge the gap between the culture of home and the culture of the dominant society can reduce the risks of alienation.43
“Who Are You If You Don’t Speak Spanish?” Language and Identity Among Latinx Youth
As is suggested above, language is inextricably bound to identity. Language is not only an instrumental tool for communication but also the carrier of cultural values and attitudes. It is through language that the affect of mi familia, the emotions of family life, are expressed. Richard Rodriguez, in his classic memoir, Hunger of Memory, describes what happened in his family when the nuns at his parochial school told his Mexican parents to stop using Spanish at home, so their children might learn English more quickly. Gradually, he and his parents stopped speaking to each other. His family was “no longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.… The family’s quiet was partly due to the fact that as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words.”44 What did it mean to his understanding of familism and other aspects of ethnic identity when he relinquished his Spanish?
For Jose, a young Puerto Rican man, the answer to this question is clear.
I think that the only thing that Puerto Ricans preserve in this country that is Puerto Rican is the language. If we lose that, we are lost. I think that we need to preserve it because it is the primordial basis of our culture. It is the only thing we have to identify ourselves as Puerto Rican. If you don’t know your language, who are you?… I believe that being Puerto Rican and speaking Spanish go hand in hand.45
This sentiment was echoed repeatedly by other young Puerto Rican adults who were interviewed by Maria Zavala as part of a study of language and ethnic identity among Puerto Ricans.46
However, these young people had also learned that their language was devalued by the dominant culture. Those who had spent their childhoods in the United States in particular recalled feeling ashamed to be bilingual. Said Margarita,
In school there were stereotypes about the bilingual students, big time. [Since] they don’t speak “the” language, they don’t belong here. That’s number one. Number two, they were dumb, no matter what.… Everyone said “that bilingual person,” but they didn’t realize that bilingual means they speak two languages. To them bilingual was not a good thing. There was a horrible sti
gma attached to them and I think I fell in the trap sometimes of saying “those bilingual people” just because that was what I was hearing all around me.47
A common coping strategy in childhood was to avoid the use of Spanish in public, a strategy akin to the “racelessness” adopted by some African American students, particularly in a predominantly White environment. Said Cristina, a young woman raised in the United States, “I remember pretending I didn’t know how to speak Spanish. You know, if you pretended that you were that American then maybe you would get accepted by the White kids. I remember trying not to speak Spanish or speaking it with an [English] accent.”48
However, avoiding the use of Spanish does not guarantee acceptance by the dominant society. A growing awareness of this reality and the unfolding process of adolescent identity development led these students to reclaim their Spanish, a process integral to their exploration of Puerto Rican identity. Cristina was able to do that as a college student, explaining:
I’m a lot more fluent with English. I struggle with Spanish and it’s something that I’ve been trying to reclaim. I’ve been reading a lot of literature written by Latinos lately,… some Puerto Rican history. Before [college] I didn’t even know it existed. Now I’m reading and writing more and more in Spanish and I’m using it more in conversations with other Puerto Ricans. Now I have confidence. I don’t feel inferior any more. I used to in high school, I did. People don’t want you to speak Spanish and before I was one of those that’s very guilty of not speaking it because I didn’t want to draw attention to me, but now you can’t tell me not to speak Spanish because for me that’s the biggest form of oppression. My kids are going to speak Spanish and they’re going to speak it loud. They’re not going to go with the whispering stuff. As a matter of fact, if a White person comes by, we’re going to speak it even louder. I am going to ingrain that in them, that you need to be proud of that.49
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Page 27
