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Young Latinos and the American Dream

by Rachel Campos-Duffy 

As an American of Hispanic decent, the recent Pew Hispanic Center study on young Latinos was of particular interest to me, since too often, depictions of Hispanics on the news, television shows and movies rarely reflect my own experience as a second generation Mexican-American.

As it turned out, this study was no different. 

Young Latinos, according to the study, are optimistic about their future in this county, but they face serious obstacles to advancement when it comes to social ills like teen pregnancy, gang violence, and depressing high school dropout rates. My own father was the son of a Mexican immigrant who came to Arizona to work in the copper mines. But despite being born into poverty and a family of fifteen children, my father, and subsequently his children, managed to dodge the pitfalls so many of today’s young Hispanics face.

What has made my family’s immigrant experience so different? My dad would say that it is faith and patriotism.

I am the daughter of a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Though my father is bilingual and possesses all the food, music, and cultural affinities that one would expect of the son of an immigrant, he dislikes hyphenations that separate citizens and refers to himself simply as an American. My mother, a native of Spain who became a U.S. citizen at the age of 26 tells us that when she renounced her Spanish citizenry, she became an American, not a hyphenated ethnicity. 

Because of my father’s career, I grew up overseas, far from any barrio or ethnic enclave, and in the law and order world of military bases. Moreover, thanks to the United States military, I witnessed first-hand – and years ahead of the general population – a racially diverse and merit-based society where minorities were judged by performance and character, not by race and class. I grew up surrounded by diversity, interracial marriages, equal opportunity and minority advancement. In short, I saw America at its best and my own future as limitless, and I credit the United States military with having tempered my surprise that a black man could rise to the highest office in the land. 

When it comes to religion, the Pew study finds that church attendance is highest among first generation Hispanics and tends to decline among those from second, third and fourth generations. Yet in our home and family, church attendance between generations remains high. My parents never permitted their children’s cultural assimilation to detract from what they thought was most important – faith and tradition.

These days, American culture and politics (as well as Latin America’s proximity to the U.S.) discourage Hispanics from achieving the kind of assimilation that benefited the immigrants that preceded them. At the same time, popular American culture encourages young people to shed religious practices and, in turn, traditional or conservative values.

This is markedly different from the experience my parents sought to give us. They encouraged our assimilation, demanded that we learn and excel in English first and take full advantage of the opportunities this country has to offer. Yet, they remain fiercely traditional in matters of Church, faith and morals.

The balance they sought between cultural assimilation, which enhances upward mobility, and the preservation of faith and traditional values, which allow one to fully enjoy the fruits of that success, was not an easy balance to strike, but it’s one that has given our family a genuine shot at the American dream.  

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)