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Chapter 14. Latinos in America: Historical and Contemporary Settlement Patterns
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C Ch ha ap pt te er r 1 14 4 Latinos in America: Historical and Contemporary Settlement Patterns MARK E. REISINGER INTRODUCTION In the year 2000, 35.3 million Latinos were counted by the U.S. Census. An additional 3.8 million Latinos were enumerated in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Latino population was approximately 12.5 percent of the U.S. total. Latino-Americans now represent the largest single minority population in 21st century America. They constitute many subcultures but are bound together by language and other shared characteristics. Mexicans represented 7.3 percent, Puerto Ricans 1.2 percent, Cubans 0.4 percent, and other Latinos 3.6 percent of the total population (Guzman, 2001). The sheer numbers of Latinos make them an important and visible segment of the U.S. population. Many other factors keep them in the news and high on public policy agendas. Latinos share a common Spanish heritage, an oftentimes disadvantaged minority status, and a public image as newcomers who are welcomed by some and resented by others. Their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are transforming America (Pinal and Singer, 1997). Geographically, Latinos are concentrated in a handful of states and cities, but also are dispersing to places unfamiliar with Latino cultures. The settlement patterns of Latinos have significant historical dimensions and exhibit important spatial patterns. In addition, the rapidly increasing and dispersion of the Latino population in the United States has resulted in growing economic and social inequalities, increased political participation and power, and antiimmigrant movements that border on racism. This chapter has several purposes. First is an examination of the past and present spatial patterns of Latino settlement in the United States. The chapter focuses on the three main groups of Latinos in the United States: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans. Following an examination of the settlement patterns is a look at the economic and social bifurcation between Latinos and whites, as well as between various Latino groups. The growing political power of Latinos in the United States is also investigated. Finally, this chapter tackles the issues of illegal migration and anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. MEXICAN-AMERICANS The history of Latino settlement geography has been documented by Haverluk (1997), who reported the importance of the historical legacy between the U.S. and Mexico. The ancestors of Mexican-Americans were the first Europeans to settle in what is now the borderland region of the southwestern United States stretching from Texas to California. Four major areas of settlement evolved by the extension of successful colonies in northern Mexico. The initial settlement of the borderlands region was in New Mexico. Santa Fe was founded in 1610 and served as the provincial capital and principal center of the region. Albuquerque was founded in 1706 following a Pueblo Indian revolt that temporarily forced the Spanish out of the northern settlements. At the close of the Spanish period in 1821, most of the borderlands’ population lived in New Mexico (Nostrand, 1979). 184 Mark E. Reisinger A second region of Spanish settlement in the borderlands region was southern Arizona. Texas was the third area of Spanish settlement in the borderlands. By the late 1700s, San Antonio had become the major provincial settlement in Spanish Texas. Other settlements followed and by 1850, some 14,000 Mexican-Americans lived in the region (Meinig, 1971). California was the last of the borderland areas to witness Spanish and Mexican settlement. The threat of Russian and British intrusion into California led to its settlement in 1769. In that year a mission/presidio complex was built at San Diego. Within twenty years, additional settlements were built. By 1850, over 9,000 Californios inhabited this part of the borderland region (Nostrand, 1979). In the 1850s, after the Mexican-American War, there were perhaps 80,000 Mexican-Americans living in the five southwestern states that have become known as the Latino-American borderland (Nostrand, 1975). Today , the greatest numbers of the Mexican-American minority live in the borderland region. Parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas are the major cores of this area, but a portion of southern Colorado is also part of the region. These areas represent the early nuclei of Spanish and Mexican settlement as well as expanded areas of the earliest colonizations (Nostrand, 1970). Many of the Mexican immigrants who have entered the United States since the early twentieth century also live in parts of this region. Mexican Labor Migration Mexican labor migration to the United States dates to the...