Initial Research Response 2/4/13

From doing basic research about Hispanics/Latinos/Mexican-Americans it became evident to me that, much like the African American community, Hispanics/Latinos/Mexican-Americans have gone through struggles for equal rights and treatment. Several civil rights movements by this group have been inspired by African American civil rights events, such as the Chicano Movement. This group was never treated exactly the same as African Americans, but they faced similar struggles trying to gain civil rights.

I think it is important to note the definitions of each term. When beginning research we were confused as to who would be classified as a Latino, or Hispanic or Mexican-American. These definitions still remain unanswered, but hopefully we will be doing more research on that as the project continues.

After doing this research I realized there was a huge gap of information that we had not yet learned. This community has been in American for a great amount of time, and hasn't really been mentioned even though they are the fastest growing population in the United States. The immigration of the Latinos has impacted the country greatly by jobs, population and culture. People from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico etc. have been immigrating to the U.S for a very long time, and their impact has been substantial. Despite this, they have faced many problems such as discrimination, ill-treatment, and low wages.

There were many civil rights groups that supported the Latinos such as the LULAC, and the Brown Berets. People such as Cesar Chavez had helped support the Latino workers. The success of some of these groups has greatly impacted the voter participation in Latinos, but not very much before the 70s. During the 80s and 90s their participation in voting grew due to many political issues that were happening concerning them such as the issues in California about bilingual education in schools.

Overall, this community has been around for a very long time, and their impact from jobs to culture has been huge. Many topics such as Immigration, Labor, Civil Rights, Politics, Culture and Naming will be further researched as the project continues.