**The purpose of this site is to explore, resource, and understand the lives of Latino Youth and the generations that have shaped their existence. Our goal is to create an extensive resource that can inform leaders that serve this population.
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Emerging Latin@ Generations
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Notes
Dr. Victor M. Rodriguez
Department of Chicano and Latino Studies,
California State University, Long Beach
Since the publication of the Latino National Political Survey in 1992, most social science work on Latinos failed to systematically and consistently account for the significant differences between and within Latino sub groups. For the first time, this major survey, funded by the Ford Foundation, dis-aggregated Latinos on the basis of national origin, foreign-born and native-born and found significant differences that were hidden by processes of racialization. In other words, since the popular culture stereotypical notions of Latinos where not challenged with empirically based knowledge, people and institutions, whether political or religious developed policy and programs based on those assumptions. 1 This survey, carried out from August 1989 and April 1990 found that contrary to popular opinion Latinos are patriotic and have significant differences amongst themselves based on national origin and whether native-born or foreign-born.
But it has not been until recently, when the focus has shifted toward understanding the generational changes that are occurring as young Latinos emerge as a target for the nation’s marketing organizations. In 1996, Bill Teck a Cuban American founded Generation Ñ, a magazine that targeted the second generation Latino who straddled the Latino and Anglo cultures. The magazine opened a door in the media about the need to have a more complex understanding of the Latino community.
In the last few years there are a number of path breaking studies that are filling our knowledge gap about how the various generations of Latinos are performing in the United States. Many of these studies are also focused on regions of the United States because regional cultures tend to have a significant effect in the identity, interests, social mobility, achievement that young Latinos are experiencing. Also, given that 44.2 per cent (2002) of all Latinos live in the west, many of the studies tend to focus on this region, especially in California where close to one third of all Latinos in the nation reside. Also strategic to consider is that since 2001, more than half of all babies born in California are Latino. So this region is becoming an interesting laboratory that could be reporduced throughout the nation. It is also important not to neglect the large immigration flow into the South, not only of Cubans in Florida but also of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans into non-traditional receiving areas of the deep south.
Since the pioneering work of Mario Garcia, social scientists have found that the receiving regional cultures, national and local political moods, time spent in the United States, mode of incorporation, regional economies,, cultural capital, all tend to shape the identity of the new generations. Particularly influential and strategic is the longitudinal survey of “Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study” (CILS) which is a major source of information for most of the studies and articles referenced below. A primer on the issues shaping these “emerging generation” are:
- Use of language (bilingualism, full linguistic assimilation) The problem is not whether Latinos learn English, they do, the challenge is are they trading leanring English at the expense of educationala achievement, self-esteem, internalization issues.
- Identity (intensity of racialization tends to shape sense of self, e.g. trend toward less identification with pan-ethnic labels like Latino/Hispanic and more identification with national origin labels, Mexicano, Mexican.
- Educational achievement (some progress but significant obstacles are still prevalent, where are Latino males going?)
- Social mobility (some progress during second generation and then reaching a plateau during the third generation “brown ceiling”?).
- Spirituality (very little is known)
- Role of gender in Latin@ life (beginning to be understood)
How can the church provide an environment that is both hospitable and nurturing of a cultural and spiritual sense of self that celebrates their cultural background and ancestry?
How can the church provide a social ministry that addresses the seemingly intractable problems caused by internalization in Latino youth (Rumbaut 1997; Hayes-Bautista, 2004). Epidemiologist and UCLA Medical school professor has found that the longer Latinos stay in the United States the more social pathologies they experience (gang membership, at risk behavior, gang membership, health problems, rise in infant mortality among Latinas etc.)
How to connect the church’s outreach to the kind of culture that young Latino express in their daily lives. Not fully Latina not fully anglicized. How can the church support Latino families to insure that these strategic social support networks continue to provide the foundation for a healthy cultural and spiritual life for young Latin@s.
Selected References
Mario Garcia. Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology and Identity, 1930-1960. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1989.
Lisa Garcia Bedolla. 2000. “They and we: Identity, gender, and politics among Latino youth in Los Angeles ,” Social Science Quarterly, (March) Vol. 81, Issue 1.
Rodolfo O. de la Garza et al. 1992. Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican & Cuban Perspectives on American Politics . Boulder , CO : Westview Press.
Jeffrey Grogger and Stephen J. Trejo. 2002. “Falling Behind or Moving Up? The Intergenerational Porgress of Mexican Americans.” San Francisco , CA : Public Policy Institute of California .
David Hayes-Bautista. 2004. La Nueva California : Latinos in the Golden State . Berkeley : University of California Press.
David Lopez and Ricardo D. Stanton Salazar. “Mexican Americans: A Second Generation at Risk” in Ruben G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes. Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America . University of California Press, 2001.
Alejandro Portes. “Language and the Second Generation Bilingualism Yesterday and Today” in The Second Generation. New York : Russell Sage Foundation, 1996.
Alejandro Portes. 1996. The New Second Generation . New York : Russell Sage Foundation.
Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut. “Who am I? Patterns of Ethnic Self-Identification,” in Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. University of California Press, 2001.
Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. University of California Press, 2001.
Ruben G. Rumbaut. “The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-esteem, and Segmented Assimilation Among Children of Immigrants” in The New Second Generation New York : Russell Sage Foundation, 1996.
Ruben G. Rumbaut. “Assimilation and Its Discontents: Between Rhetoric and Reality,” in The International Migration Review Vol. 31, Issue 4 (Winter 1997) pp. 923-960.
Ruben G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes. Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America . University of California Press, 2001.
James P. Smith, “Assimilation across the Latino Generations,” American Economic Review, May 2003 (Vol. 93, No. 2): 315-319.
Robert Smith. 2002. “Gender, Ethnicity and Race in School and Work Outsomes in Second Generation Mexican Americans” in Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Mariela M. Paez, Eds. Latinos Remaking America . Berkeley : University of California Press, pp. 110-125.
Carola and Marcelo Suarez Orozco. 1995. Transformation: Migration, Family Life, and Achievement Motivation Among Latino Adolescents. Stanford , CA : Stanford University Press.
Footnote 1: The LNPS sample included 1,546 Mexicans, 589 Puerto Ricans, 682 Cubans and a 456 non-Latino white sample which is representative of the whites in the area where they were surveyed but not representative nationally.
