One of the main reasons people dislike illegal immigrants, and therefore Latinos so much is because they think that most Latinos want to come to America to receive free health care, a free education, and jobs without having to give anything back to America. ie. paying taxes, etc. Is this true for some Latinos? Maybe, but is it true for all?
This picture shows pure hatred towards illegal immigrants. It shows that murder is ok if it is used to get illegal immigrants out of America.
I think that this comic is portraying the message that if a person loves illegal aliens then they are considered a Gringo, or uneducated. Does it really mean a person is uneducated if they care about illegal aliens?As I continued to search YouTube videos, not only were Latinos considered illegal immigrants, but they were portrayed as being gang members. I know that America has a problem with gangs in general, so I decided to research why Latinos were specifically considered gang members instead of other nationalities. I decided to find out if Latinos were more involved in gangs and that was why they were portrayed as gang members in videos or if it was just an astigmatism that America put on them. I came across this video on Google. It is a news report on Latin Gangs. It's only about five minutes long, so you can take a look if you'd like. Just click on the link bellow.
Gang Video
In this news report on gangs they report that there are 800,000 gang members in the USA and 1/2 of them are Latinos, 30% are African American, and the rest are Caucasians. This was the answer to my question. Although the majority of the Latino population may not be a gang member, half of the current gang members are Latino. This is probably why the media portrays all Latinos as being gang members. After watching this video I really think that several Latinos participate in gangs because of the resistance theory. This theory states that people who have been rejected by the dominant culture try to create a sense of belonging that contrasts the dominant culture, a lot times this is done through gangs. The following picture is what the media portrays most gang members to look like.
If Latino children are being fed the message that Caucasin Americans do not want them here, because they associated them with illegal aliens and they must be a member of a gang and participate in violence, what are these children going to become? How will the other students treat them? There are enough negative stereotypes that Latino children could possibly be growing up with learned helplessness, and the deficit theory only because that is all they have been shown from the media.
Now that I knew how the media portrayed Latinos, I wanted to see how the people of America viewed Latinos. I finally came across this news video taken in Wisconsin. This video is really long, but the important part that I want you to see is from 1:00-5:00 (minutes). He discusses how there seems to be a Labor shortage in jobs such as farming, food manufacturing, meat packaging, and several other "blue collar" jobs. He attributes this to the fact that either Americans do not want to do jobs like anymore, or we just aren't going into fields such as that anymore. Instead, we just look down the socioeconomic ladder for people to take the job. This is why almost all the behind the scene jobs are done by people who speak Spanish. Farms and different companies may be owned by Caucasians, but they are completely run by Latinos. This is obvious. If we would just open our eyes, we would see that the person cooking our hamburger at the fast food restaurant is Latino, the person packing our meat in the back of a grocery store is Latino, the person selling food from a small cooking stand on the side of the road is Latino.
Take a look at this picture bellow of Wendy's workers.
I don't know if so many Latinos are working such jobs because they want/like to or if it is because we as Americans refuse to. Here is the video explained up above. It explains even more in-depth the things that I have just written.
Wisconsin Video
I still wasn't satisfied, I needed to see both sides of the issue, so I researched specifically for positive information about Latinos. Then I found several videos of Latinos in high, prestigious positions. One particular political group is called Latinos on the Hill. This group is sponsored by MATT.org which stands for Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together. I was really excited about this website, so you should check it out. I watched a video of one of Latinos on the Hill's conferences and learned that there are Latinos serving in political positions, but still not enough considering how widely their population has spread in America. However, this proved that there are several very successful legal Latinos in America that want to succeed and make a difference in the world.
Bellow are two pictures of famous Latino people. Of course everyone must know Mario Lopez also known as Saved By the Bell's Slater. He is extremely famous and successful.
Here is a picture of a few Latino politicians. They are very active in politics and involved in the country.
Along with the negative lime light that is given to Latinos, there are also several successful Latinos that lead the path for many others. As teachers we need to know how Latinos are portrayed in society so we can help our students to see and focus on the positive messages that are being sent about them. People need to be more educated on such issues so they can see the success and contribution of every nationality. I found a video clip that helped educate me about Latinos, so I hope you can learn something from it as well. This video is 10 minutes long, but gives a quick background of Latinos. It discusses where they came from, some of their culture, and then spends several minutes showing several people who are Latinos and are very successful and even famous! I hope you enjoy.
Background Video
To recapitulate, there are several Latinos in America and Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the world, so their population is going to continue to grow in America. There are several negative astigmatisms associated with Latinos such as illegal immigrants and gang members, but there are also several positive astigmatisms. You can choose to see them the way that you would like, but as for me, I am always going to try and focus on the positive and all that Latinos can contribute to America! As teachers we need to be away of each students socioeconomic status and the astigmatisms associated with that specific class so we can defeat racism in our classrooms.
Resources
Gang member http://www.dctvny.org/productions/latin_kings/11_ig_tat_chest.jpg
Politicians http://www.gothamgazette.com/graphics/latinos.jpg
Head in the ground http://www.conservativetimes.org/Photos/Illegal_Immigration.jpg
Bush Comic http://www.peterthehermit.com/images/Aztlan-politicians.jpg
Free stuff comic http://blog.puppetgov.com/wp-content/2008/03/immigrationq-768063.jpg
Mario Lopez http://evilbeetgossip.film.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/eva2.jpg
Gangs Video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-782362335193174914&ei=SCPVSZCHK52wqAOWwfDXAQ&q=latino+gangs+site%3Agoogle.com&emb=1
Wisconsin Video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4223139073024362465&ei=12PVSdX0CYr-qAOChdSSBg&q=latinos+site%3Agoogle.com&emb=1
Gang Video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-782362335193174914&ei=IGTVSdaUJ4r-qAOChdSSBg&q=latino+gangs+site%3Agoogle.com&emb=1
MATT.org http://www.matt.org/english/index.html
Wendy's workers http://farm1.static.flickr.com/11/14999803_3a674567a4.jpg
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