Latinos In America: We Are Here Because You Were There
As Marie Arana, a Peruvian-American author and journalist, explains in her book titled LatinoLand: A Portrait of American’s Largest and Least understood Minority, “We were Americans long before the founders dreamed of a United States of America. Our ancestors have lived here for more than a half millennium, longer than any immigrant to this hemisphere, and still we come.”[6] It was not until the European explorers arrived to America did an overpowering encounter between cultures ensue. This era of first contact and colonization spans from 1492 through the1500s, and it was England and Spain that had the greatest impact.[7] Both imposed their cultures over vast native territories, and established colonial empires. Arana reframes the arrival of Europeans as a brutal colonization that brought immense force and "genocide of historic proportions" over Amerindian civilizations such as the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas.[8] This process involved populations that were already a blend of European, African, and Arab influences, creating a unique demographic shift. However, as Juan Gonzalez explains in Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, “racial mixing did not mean racial equality."[9] Mestizaje (racial mixing) served as a form of control and assimilation. The Spanish developed a strict, legally enforced caste system based solely on the percentage of Spaniard lineage a person possessed, and deterred away from a harmonious, colorblind society. Inherently, this “whitening” notion became almost the social objective; the closer an individual could get to Spanish ancestry, the more legal right and social status they could potentially secure. In other words, it was designed to sustain racialism, not dismantle it. Subsequently, this led to a historical domino effect that has shaped modern American history.
In the early 19th century, Latin American nations fought for independence from Spain and won. Though, they essentially inherited the disassembled social structures left behind by the colonizers. Unlike the United States that grew into a single, wealthy, expanding nation, the Spanish viceroyalties split into dozens of separate, smaller countries. Furthermore, these new nations were at a disadvantage due to internal civil wars, lack of economic progress, huge foreign debt, as well as racial and class divisions born from the previous colonial caste system.
Additionally, as Gonzalez notes, between 1810 and 1898, the US aggressively expanded southward and westward.[10] Through wars and obliged treaties, they took control of Florida, annexed Texas, and seized half of Mexico’s territory. Rapidly, Mexicans found themselves under US sovereignty, and although some might have been granted citizenship, they would find themselves being treated as foreigners in their own land. This was also said to be true for Puerto Ricans despite their US citizenship. Gonzalez explains, “The contradiction of being at once citizens and foreigners, when joined with the reality that ours was racially mixed population, has made the Puerto Rican migrants experience in America profoundly schizophrenic.”[11] They, too, faced a control of land, lower-caste social status, and undeniable racism. Progressing their involvement into the 20th century, the United States transitioned toward economic dominance. U.S. military interventions in nations like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama were often driven by strategic and economic interests. Some historians would argue that these long-standing political and economic connections have indirectly influenced the broader historical context behind today's demographic shifts in the United States.
Comments: