Throughout history, humans always had the urge to move into new geographical territories with many motivations. Starting from earlier motivations of discovering new lands, extending rule over foreign countries, or people entering new countries all together. The movement for economic development is known as immigration in present day context, and there are a couple economically developed countries that obtain high number of immigrants. This immigration experience is one of the continual events of American life, as people from all over the world view America as the land of massive opportunities. Many people enter America both legally and illegally. This view about America was extremely thought out by Juan Gonzales in his book titled, Harvest of Empire. He …show more content…
Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzales is a must-read book for anyone who wants to know about the history of Latino immigrants. In America, Latino immigrants are now considered as the fastest growing ethnic group. Gonzalez started off by talking about the history of Latinos in America. He talked about from the times when Spain and Britain made territorial conquest of America and all the way until the present day. He divided the book into three sections calling the sections “Roots”, “Branches” and then “Harvest”. The first section of “Roots” gives the historical background of the Latino immigration by talking about the earliest connections between the Latin American countries and the United States of America. In “Roots”, Gonzalez was very critical of America’s diplomacy and foreign policy and its tendencies of imperialism earlier on in history. According to Gonzalez while he was writing this book, America tried to force its will and influence over many other countries and even over some ethnic or cultural groups. “…a vicious and relentless drive for territorial expansion,
This paper will be exploring the book The Vanguard of the Atlantic World by James Sanders. This book focuses upon the early 1800 to the 1900 and explores the development of South American political system as well expresses some issues that some Latino counties had with Europe and North America. Thus, Sanders focus is on how Latin America political system changes throughout this certain time and how does the surrounding countries have an effect as well on Latin political system. Therefore, the previous statement leads into some insight on what the thesis of the book is. Sanders thesis is, “Latin American’s believed they represented the future because they had adopted Republicanism and democracy while Europe was in the past dealing with monarchs
The Latino community is a very varied community each with its own unique past and circumstances. In the book Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez the readers can learn and appreciate some of the experiences and history that the different Latino groups had. This book does this with a special emphasis on immigration trends. These points of emphasis of the book are explained thoroughly in the identification of the key points, the explanation of the intersection of race, ethnicity, and class, in addition to the overall evaluation of the book.
Traditionally history of the Americas and American population has been taught in a direction heading west from Europe to the California frontier. In Recovering History, Constructing Race, Martha Mencahca locates the origins of the history of the Americas in a floral pattern where migration from Asia, Europe, and Africa both voluntary and forced converge magnetically in Mexico then spreads out again to the north and northeast. By creating this patters she complicates the idea of race, history, and nationality. The term Mexican, which today refers to a specific nationality in Central America, is instead used as a shared historic and cultural identity of a people who spread from Mexico across the southwest United States. To create this shared identity Menchaca carefully constructs the Mexican race from prehistoric records to current battles for Civil Rights. What emerges is a story in which Anglo-Americans become the illegal immigrants crossing the border into Texas and mestizo Mexicans can earn an upgrade in class distinction through heroic military acts. In short what emerges is a sometimes upside down always creative reinvention of history and the creation of the Mexican "race (?)".
Mexican Lives is a rare piece of literature that accounts for the human struggle of an underdeveloped nation, which is kept impoverished in order to create wealth for that of another nation, the United States. The reader is shown that the act of globalization and inclusion in the world’s economies, more directly the United States, is not always beneficial to all parties involved. The data and interviews, which Hellman has put forth for her readers, contain some aspect of negativity that has impacted their lives by their nation’s choice to intertwine their economy with that of the United States. Therefore it can only be concluded that the entering into world markets, that of Mexico into the United States, does not always bring on positive outcomes. Thus, one sees that Mexico has become this wasteland of economic excrement; as a result it has become inherently reliant on the United States.
The Latino Generation: Voices of the New America is a book written by Mario T. Garcia. This book tells the individual life stories of individual Latino Americans all attending the same class at University of California, Santa Barbra. The book discloses stories and events told by 13 students each who narrate from first person and give us a brief description of their life. The book is composed of 13 sections with an additional introduction and conclusion (Garcia, Kindle). Within this reflection I will describe the key points within this book and compare the stories within this book not only to each other, but also to additional stories of Latino Americans and how Garcia’s book rids the general public of misconception of Latinos.
Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire a History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2000.
Print. The. Fernandez, Lilia. "Introduction to U.S. Latino/Latina History. " History - 324 pages.
Immigration can be defined as passing foreigners to a country and making it their permanent residence. Reasons ranging from politics, economy, natural disasters, wish to change ones surroundings and poverty are in the list of the major causes of immigration in both history and today. In untied states, immigration comes with complexities in its demographic nature. A lot of cultural and population growth changes have been witnessed as a result of immigration. In the following paper, I will focus on how immigration helps United States as compared to the mostly held view that it hurts America.
America the land of opportunities, millions of people have left their countries to look for a chance to start a new life, a new beginning. Over the last 400 years, immigrants from different parts of the world left their countries for different reasons, some for war in their homelands others for economic and social reasons. Mexican community was one of the first group of people that stablished a strong presence in the country; therefor had and still has big influence in the development of the United States economically and industrially. Besides the contributions of the Mexican Community to America, Mexican decedents had faced challenges of acceptance from the American society, in a land that once was Mexican territory.
Crouch, Ned. Mexicans & Americans : Cracking The Cultural Code. NB Publishing, Inc., 2004. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Nov. 2011.
Albeit the politics of immigration target cultures of the highest population at a given time, these laws and politics can often affect immigrants of other cultures in a different way virtually having an inversion positive result. The lives of the immigrant Latina women seeking opportunity and education in California compared to the immigrant Iranian women seeking liberation from traditional oppressive life of Iran proves an impeccable example of this. The politics on the immigration of Latina women have i...
As long as civilizations have been around, there has always been a group of oppressed people; today the crucial problem facing America happens to be the discrimination and oppression of Mexican immigrants. “Mexican Americans constitute the oldest Hispanic-origin population in the United States.”(57 Falcon) Today the population of Mexican’s in the United States is said to be about 10.9%, that’s about 34 million people according to the US Census Bureau in 2012. With this many people in the United States being of Mexican descent or origin, one would think that discrimination wouldn’t be a problem, however though the issue of Mexican immigrant oppression and discrimination has never been a more prevalent problem in the United States before now. As the need for resolve grows stronger with each movement and march, the examination of why these people are being discriminated against and oppressed becomes more crucial and important. Oppression and Anti-discrimination organizations such as the Freedom Socialist Organization believe that the problem of discrimination began when America conquered Mexican l...
Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumbaut, “Immigrant America: A Portrait.” Kiniry and Rose 336-337. Print.
another country were coming into the United States of America not only to take away their jobs. but to use up valuable resource’s. What was so disturbing to them is that they were coming over. at such a staggering rate. At this time Americans resorted to nationalism, which is as Merton E. Hill stated in 1931....