By: Shalismar Nivar

   In this section, I will be discussing the discrimination against the Hispanic community. For starters, there is a large residency of Hispanics in the US. From 1990-2000 there was a rise in how many Hispanics resided in the US, about 57.9%. Numbers continued to increase, 37.4 million Hispanics living in the U.S in 2002 (Becerra, Androff, Cimino, Wagaman 2012).  As per the US Census Bureau, in 2006 Hispanics will make up 25% of population. A lot of Hispanics get labeled immigrants whether they are documented or not, they are harassed and mistreated due to how they look, or what people assume their citizenship status is, and are affected by immigration policies. 

According to, “The Impact of Perceived Discrimination and Immigration Policies Upon Perceptions of Quality of Life Among Latinos in the United States” a lot of Latinos have trouble with life after they’ve encountered a situation with the US immigration department. They become more anxious and frightened. Most don’t want to go outside; they want to have less interaction with the outside world. It is difficult for them to find jobs, and even when they do find jobs it’s not enough to help pay utilities. Most have to work two jobs. Some have to work off the books in fear of being in contact with ICE the immigration and customs enforcement.  Having difficulty with finding employment and experiencing discrimination ties into social psychology because these Hispanics start to view society different. They start to believe that everyone outside of their family is a potential threat. 

            Another aspect where Latinos experience institutionalized discrimination is through anti-immigration policies (Becerra, Androff, Cimino, Wagaman 2012). These policies have been around for years but have been heavily enforced for the past couple years. Both documented and undocumented Latinos where being arrested and detained by state and local governments. These agencies were permitted to start taking matters seriously (Hernandez 2005). This makes it difficult for these individuals seeking employment because of the number of raids that are taking place. There have been scenarios where ICE went to CUNY campuses in search for immigrant students. One campus that they visited was City College. The psychological affect that it does to a student is unbearable Trying to further your education and give back to the community yet having to be worried about the Immigration unit coming to campuses is bizarre. 

            Research has shown that Latinos come into the U.S healthy physically and mentally. Dealing with discrimination and in constant distress about deportation causes these individuals to develop negative health problems such as depression (Franzini et al. 2001; Mitchell and Lassiter 2006; Pumariega et al. 2005). Pere ́z et al. (2008). At minimum five million children are in the same household with one undocumented parent (Capps et. Al. 2007). This creates psychological distress as well because these children are in constant fear that one of their parents may be taken away, they are in constant fear that they may never see one of their parents ever again. Children end up developing a certain ideology against these different agencies and local law enforcement. These families are also unable to receive certain services that will help their financial situations because of how concerned they are about being taken away (Capps et al. 2007). 

            Discrimination is a risk factor and a hardship in many Latinos lives. Ecological risk and resilience theory were used for the following study that discrimination is a risk factor in Latinos lives. Results show that most Latinos live a stressful life and lose faith in finding a good career job (Finch and Vega 2003). The longer these Latinos live in the U.S the longer they endure a risk to their mental health. Being that undocumented immigrants are mostly Latinos, and they experience a lot of discrimination, there needs to be more research on how to reduce discrimination and “promote high quality in life amongst Latinos” (Furman et. al. 2008). As a community and to our peers, we need to develop more protective factors to help control this stigma. There needs to be a positive strategy to combat how these agencies handle Latinos in the U.S.

Citation

 H & R. (2017). DISCRIMINATION IN AMERICA: EXPERIENCES AND VIEWS OF LATINOS. DISCRIMINATION IN AMERICA: EXPERIENCES AND VIEWS OF LATINOS, 1-56.

Becerra, D., Androff, D., Cimino, A., Wagaman, M. A., & Blanchard, K. N. (2012). The Impact of Perceived Discrimination and Immigration Policies Upon Perceptions of Quality of Life Among Latinos in the United States. Race and Social Problems, 5(1), 65-78. doi:10.1007/s12552-012-9084-4

WELLE, B., & HEILMAN, M. E. (2005). FORMAL AND INFORMAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN AT WORK. THE ROLE OF GENDER STEREOTYPES.