Socio-Political Factors Encountered by Hispanics/Latino-americans

Socio-Political factors encountered by Hispanics/Latino-Americans

Challenges facing Latinos in America today

When identifying the unique challenges faced by the Latino community, one of the first questions that must be asked is: who are Latinos? The demographic category of 'Latinos' embraces a wide range of socioeconomic and geographical areas. Latinos can be recently naturalized Mexicans who may work in manual occupations and are only beginning to learn English; wealthy and politically conservative Cubans who have lived in America for generations; Puerto Ricans who are American citizens; Spanish-speaking Dominicans; and Portuguese-speaking Brazilians. Latinos may be aliens who face unjust working conditions because of their undocumented status and individuals who are established in their own businesses.

Cultural and economic diversity is part of the richness of this ethnic group's Central and Latin American heritage. But Latino's lack of group cohesion can make political mobilization difficult. Latinos have fewer cultural similarities than one might initially assume. There are often profound differences in terms of policy and legislative needs between Latinos who work in rural areas as migrants and those who live in urban areas. The political sympathies of Latinos who came to the U.S. fleeing persecution from right-wing dictatorships (in El Salvador) versus those fleeing left-wing dictatorships (in Nicaragua) are quite distinct. Finally, the strong influence of Catholicism in many Latin American nations has made Latinos reluctant to ally with politically and socially liberal Democrats who might represent their economic interests but support gay marriage and abortion rights. All of these factors have conspired to create a lack of a coherent sense of what a 'Latino agenda' might be as a voice in politics, despite the fact that the 44-million-member community is "the fastest growing minority group in the United States, accounting for as much as half of the total population growth" (Kaufman 2007).

Latinos account for only 10% of new U.S. voters. Even though Latinos constituted 15% of the U.S. population in 2004, they composed 6% of the voting population. About 25% of Latinos are ineligible to vote because they are not U.S. citizens; many are also too young to vote given that the demographic 'skews' very young. But even amongst eligible voters, there is little civic culture of voting: In 2006, for example, only 5.6 million of the 17.3 million eligible Hispanic voters cast a ballot (Kaufman 2007).

The language barrier might be yet another reason that Hispanics struggle to find a foothold in American society. ESL programs often fail to address Latino's needs in schools. Latinos have the highest high school dropout rate of any ethnic group in America, and there is no statistically significant difference between drop-out rates for immigrants or the native born, indicating that intensive ESL programs are necessary to supplement the education in English teens receive at home and in informal social contexts. Poverty and an inability to acclimate to the school environment because of inadequate language education in the early grades are two possible reasons that "at 21%, the national Latino high school dropout rate is more than twice the national average of10%" (Pew Center, 2004).

Despite the centrality of the family in Latino culture, many Latino teens lack social support for their education: almost 10% of Latino teens do not live with a parent, at twice the rate of white teens. Even when parents are present, parents may lack the English proficiency to reinforce what students are learning in school. Hispanic children often do not have role models of high school graduates: given that "only 51% of Hispanic children have mothers who themselves have finished high school, in comparison to 93% of white children" (Pew Center, 2004).