Hispanic Discrimination In The US
Introduction
Hispanics are considered a single minority group arising in the United States which certainly as the name suggests being a product of the Spanish. It is evident that Spanish environment is dominated in such territories hence the high level of discrimination against them the American people are afraid of such small tribes to being very strong communities not only in politics but also power and economic development which directly poses a threat towards their growth as a nation. There are those intense factors that have facilitated discrimination of this community in the US, for instance Media presentations, Linguistic point of view and residence legality. As a result of this, the type of discrimination being embraced by this small community includes lack of proper health care, victims of hatred and oppression, lack of proper rental-housing and lack of health insurance.
Catalyzing factors in racial discrimination
Media and Hispanic oppression
In every issue arising facing the human kind, the media is always there as a facility of creating awareness to the general public. Media can therefore be a very sensitive channel of communication and public awareness. With media broadcasting all the live events occurring in the general public, politicians and prominent people, there are very high chances of transmitting cases of hater speeches from different speakers which can bring forth tension among different people as a reaction, either positively or negatively(Cummins and Gordon, 2006). News broadcasting is considered to be a rapid-fire technique of delivering the real world in terms of cultural, economical and political issues. Some media stations tend to employ animation technology to portray sarcasm regarding a certain community hence creating the same expression in many of the viewers who later practice such actions but now in the real world and ends up hurting one another socially. With the media being interested mostly in transmitting the bad news for instance cases of illegal immigration being emphasized more upon as compared to the legal migration of the small communities particularly the Hispanic community as asserted by Lee (1998). This therefore reveals the role of media and the kind of information the media people transmitting the general public, which counts for negativity in most of the cases. News paper articles with very eye catching headlines such as illegal migrants, foreign drug dealers and such information is usually taken seriously and the initial blame befalls the small communities, with Hispanic being among the suspected group due to lack of proper understanding and like of love for one another. According to Lester(1996), the media is always very effective in framing issues since the initial intent is to give the public what they would like to hear, all about hate for the one not related with, for example the small community being blamed for each and every form of negative issues arising.
Residency Illegality assumption
In the United States, approximately more than 42 million legally migrated residents are believed to have Latin origin as noted in a statistical abstract (2007). About 16 million of these residents, an approximate of 39 percent, are born as foreigners. According to US immigration statistics, certain fraction, about 11 million people, of this population are estimated to have illegally migrated with 8.7 million migrants being believed to be of Hispanic origin as supported by Therrien and Ramirez (2001). This therefore asserts that more than 85 percent of Hispanic migrants have legally obtained their US residency with majority of them having been born in the United States. This therefore justifies the Hispanic community living in the United States from being discriminated against and they should hold their grounds while fighting for their residency rights, since by balancing the legal versus illegal migrants it clearly points the great difference favoring the legal migrants and the mere fraction that represents the illegal migrants should not earn such level of discrimination against the whole community. According to Jorgensen (1996), the US politicians are the leading people passing such complaints against what they term to be “illegal aliens”. Reports have proven that Hispanic employees have really experienced very unfair job mistreatment from their employers both in public and private sectors. Despite their hard work in jobs, no credit or appreciation is accorded to them for instance wages raise, no chances for ideas sharing since their ideas are considered unworthy towards bringing forth development. (Jennifer, 2007)
Language barrier
In the United States, there is a very strong bond connecting language and racism. The main group tends to discriminate the minority groups which certainly reflect on the hatred towards the Hispanics by the United States majority group (or rather the whites) residents. For instance the use of mal mot “wetback” is a clear example of sarcasm characterization used to classify the Hispanics who cross the Rio Grande boundary to the United States illegally. Now, the problem comes in where all the Hispanics suffer this oppression having legally or illegally migrated to the United States, hence being considered a high level of misunderstanding where even the innocent have to suffer on the account of the illegal migrants. The minority groups that cannot speak the dominant language are restricted from participating in the dominant culture and this has brought forth a two-side culture of living with those speaking native language (English) oppressing the alien language speakers for instance the Hispanic community. The English language community has realized the linguistic threat posed by the Spanish language speakers in the United States since they seem to multiply as time passes on. As a reaction to this linguistic threat, native language heritage has started a campaign towards supporting English as the immediate language that should be embraced by each and every resident in the united states, being an American, Asian, Spanish or black American. With respect to this, a form of US bilingual education has been highly documented and debated about as asserted by Rothstein (1998). To many people, this form of education was more of a confusion situation than a solution, since each and every ethnic group concentrated in learning in their own language, but the English language conquering the rest, hence the alien natives being forced to embrace the English learning since they could not meet the standards to bring forth the level of education needed to code with the American way of learning.
Effect of this discrimination
Victims of hatred
In the united states, majority of federal hate crimes target crime victims with respect to ethnicity or basic race initiated programs, according to the UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting)program, there is a huge number of hate speech white victims as compared to the other groups. According to research carried by New Century Foundation organization, it is worthy to claim that hate crimes towards the minority groups are committed mostly by the black Americans as compared to the white Americans. Among the minority groups, the Hispanics are more prone to being victims of hate speech. Referring to practical examples, quoting a previous case of racial hatred that took place back in the year 1992 whereby an Asian American and being of Chinese descent was beaten to death by an angry mob believed to be white assailants as a result of unemployment level hence blaming Japanese and Chinese US invasion.
Women discrimination
Hispanic Women in the United States are more exposed to discriminations compared to their male counterparts particularly when it comes to the job and labor sector. Female Hispanics’ wages do lag behind as compared to their fellow men colleagues it is evident that in the united states of America, the wages to Hispanic women are much less as compared to the white men, women and Hispanic men of the same level. According to a research carried out on the month of March back in the year 1998, it was known that males embracing Hispanic ethnicity earned an average of $ 11.75 in an hour whereas women earned an average of $ 9.40 for the same work type. White Non- Hispanic males and females earned on average $ 15.75 and $ 11.29 respectively. This difference in wages was claimed to have been as a result of education level, work experience, occupation type, language and lastly discrimination against women. According to Oaxaca (1973), Hispanic women wages discrimination is as a result of differences from each individual’s characteristics subtracted from the total wage required to be paid hence coming up with a new calculation factor which is more of corruption and somehow reflects to discrimination also.
Health care inequality
The government had failed to provide better health facilities plus other requirements towards one’s good health for instance poor services, in adequate insurance, complete lack of health insurance and reluctance towards health seek and care (Woolf, 2004). Systematic bias is also reflected much in the way inequality is handled in health care while delivering health services to the Americans where personally I feel that these people are yet to be treated like rest of the Americans else such discrimination will bring a bad reputation towards the Americans in the near future. Though there are developments of anti-racism organizations for instance the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, American-Arab anti-Discrimination committee, the National Italian American Foundation and the National congress of American Indians among others.
Sabotaged health conditions and deaths rate
In the US, there is a wide range of racial differences in delivering health services appropriately. The migrants are treated in a negative way as compared to the US white residents. With reference to an article published by the public health sector in the US, it is worthy to assert that more than 880,000 deaths could have been avoided back in the year 1991 to 2000, if proper health care had been given to the foreign residents, inclusive of Hispanics. These deaths occurred as a result of much sabotaged health facilities given to the non-natives, if these people had received the same level of health services as the white Americans, such loss could not have occurred. It is worthy to claim that currently in the United States of America, racial bias has also infected the health sector with the minority communities facing very harsh condition due to low level of response from the health officers, particularly the public health sector. Referring to a previous study carried by Hope and Elizabeth (1996) it is evident that lifetime effects of fascinating conditions like being psych comes as a result of lack of attendance from the medic al officers to the patients who end up suffering some brain and mental conditions that could have been prevented in one way or the other given the issue of community discrimination support was avoided at all cost. It is believed that the minority communities cannot receive some donations for instance blood, and other body organs transplant from the American people which shows the level of discrimination being faced by these people and the importance of immediate reforms being embraced pertaining the same. Majority of Americans from these minority communities face inadequate insurance, poor medical services, and very low level of medical centers. Patients are forced to queue in some specific medical institutions that they can afford to pay rather than trying to scramble in a health facility where they are not welcome.
Housing discrimination
Despite of earning low income, the living standards of the Hispanics cannot be justified by such income. The poor housing conditions have left this community to face housing discrimination where high charges are given but with very minimal maintenances being employed whereby tenants suffer roofs leakages and rats become part and parcel of the house living. Some landlords go to the level of refusing to refund security deposit in the case where a Hispanic tenant wants to move in into another house. Such landlords also violate the US landlord-tenant laws that protects both the tenant and the landlord, for instance the 1998 Congress- passed Fair Housing Act which was meant to eradicate housing discrimination, but the landlords seem to be very mean with the lust for money but less worried with the housing conditions and its influence on the tenants. Most of the landlords practiced the following unlawful housing discrimination:
Employing other forms of lease or contract provisions when dealing with Hispanics as compared to non-Hispanics.
Having minimum maintenance and repair practices to the houses rented by the Hispanics which was not the case for the natives.
Having minimal laundry and exercise facilities to the Hispanics which was not the case for the rest of tenants.
Forcing Hispanics to provide very high security deposits as compared to non-Hispanics.
Having the Hispanics evicted from the houses due to late payment of rent.
Religion discrimination
Today in the United States, when interviewed on how they feel about the status of their religious belief, 19 percent of Americans claim to consider being minority whereas 78 percent do not consider themselves being minority. This explains that 19 percent of the Americans are being discriminated against with respect to their religious beliefs. This has enhanced the prejudice by the Native Americans against other races as supported by Lincoln (2006). With US having the white evangelicals representing the highest percentage in terms of religion, about 24% of them refer themselves as constituent of the minority religious group whereas an equivalent of 11% of protestants and 13 % of Catholics claiming the same.
Conclusion
From this research, it is evident that Hispanics are being ill treated by the white in United States of America, courtesy of various published reports and scenes as discussed in the body of this research paper. The level of discrimination against Hispanic community living in the US is very serious with immediate measures worthy to be employed to counter it. From job discrimination, housing, freedom of expression, educational rights, and other rights have been denied to the Spanish residents living in the United States. “Studies have found that nearly three in every ten Hispanic workers feel they have been discriminated against in their employment. Some reports being referred to with racial slurs at work while one in four feel they are paid less and have reduced career advancement prospects than their Caucasian counterparts”( Sebastian, 1995).
It is therefore the high time that Civil right Act, under the federal law that covers discrimination towards a particular race, color or sex comes into real action and performance. It is worthy to claim that the Hispanics have been deprived from their human rights to enjoying their freedom of expression, speech and movement. The non-governmental organizations enhancing campaigns against racial discrimination should also continue without fear or threat from authority or other people whatsoever. The Hispanic community should recognize their rights and carry a strict campaign against being discriminated. The local government should protect these minority communities from racial discrimination as a posed method towards enhancing well-being of each and every citizen.
