For Many Hispanics, a Tenuous Prosperity Lost

Source: NY Times

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The economic downturn unfolding across the United States is imposing a particularly punishing toll on Hispanics, a group that was among the primary beneficiaries of the expansion in recent years. What had been a story of broad and steady advances has given way to growing joblessness, diminishing paychecks and lost homes.

From April of last year to April of this year, the Labor Department reported, the unemployment rate among Hispanics spiked 1.4 percentage points, to 6.9 percent. By comparison, the overall jobless rate rose half a percentage point, to 5 percent.

For the nearly 19 million Latino immigrants in the United States, the downturn in the job market has cut significantly into earnings, dropping the share of those sending money home to families in Latin America from nearly three-fourths two years ago to about half, according to a survey released last month by the Inter-American Development Bank.

Economic troubles now threaten to reverse a long period of gains in homeownership among Latinos as well. From 1994 to 2006, the rate of Hispanic homeownership climbed to 50 percent from 41 percent, according to census data, a pace more than double the increase among non-Hispanics.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/business/13hispanics.html?hp

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Unfortunately this is one way to cure the illegal immigrant problem. A really, really, bad way - for all of us!

and sending money to another nation has certainly not helped the American economy either.
They in combination with the war, etc need to be dealt with so citizens can get back to work
and be able to afford to live in their own homes again.

I am watching United States citizens going thru to many problems for me to be sorry for any kind of
illegal aliens which many of the hispanics are ... who have stolen jobs and pay checks from citizens
either born or those individuals who came thru the system in the right way as far naturalization
into citizenship is concerned. I would never think that law breakers should be anywhere but deported
back to the home of their own births.

P.S. Many supposable legal immgrants have also come upon their legal status illegally and that needs
to be looked into as well. I know of many individuals who have brought their way into being legal as
well and it is simply wrong and should be handled as well.

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Obama has nothing to do with the xenophobia that blames undocumented workers for Wall Street's decisions or that lumps all of us Latinos in with people of other nationalities. :hi:

si no las hacemos cumplir?

Podemos cambiar las leyes poco a poco! Hasta que sucede, debemos dar la bienvenida a la gente que desea trabajar para hacer una vida mejor, para el dinero y también para una sociedad democrática bajo leyes de la constitución de los Estados Unidos de América.

A las mismo tiempo, nuestros diplomaticos debe hacer mas facil para la gente de esto pais vivir y trabajar en otros paises porque yo creo tal vez que yo quiero salir.

And, I bet non Spanish speaking DUers would like a translation so they can follow your thinking. :)

We can change the laws little by little. We should welcome people who want to work to make a better life, for the money and for making a contribution to a democratic society under the laws of the Constitution of the USA. Until that happens, our diplomats should also be making it easier for us to go to other countries to live and work as a citizen of other nations if we think we can make a better life there as well.

this past year had stay at old posh hotel in Jackson Hole with husband
suffering from broken leg. Not one person could speak English to give us directions to service elevator rather than take grand staircase. Made me anxious as to what would happen if there was a fire ect?

So we ask you to refrain from posting in that language--or any other, besides English--in the public forums.

When in doubt, we will have to be strict about possible violations of the civility rules, since we may miss the nuances.

Gracias.
Thank you.

but you are right this forum is for people who speak english. (di francesi monolingua)

Many DU members rail against any suggestion that English should be the official language of the United States, but English is now the official language of DU.

but not when it personally affects them.

I find your post ignorant, bigoted and offensive.

I pass by dozens of men who did not get their day labor job today. They will not be sending any portion of any income to a foreign country today. There are more men than jobs. How do these men eat? What keeps them here if they can't find work?
I stop at the light behind the brand new Lexis and notice the young man driving it probably sends a portion of his income home, to a foreign country, also. He is probably making ten times what the man across the street makes a day and he is employed full time, every day, with benefits, because of his H1-B visa. He may be working at the job I once had. H1-b visas are just in-your-face outsourcing.

Our economic problems are far, far bigger and more deeply rooted than that.


I have always said that we must enforce our immigration laws, in part because any attempt to protect the wage standards of American workers is a dead letter otherwise. But blaming illegal immigrants for the recession is just scapegoating, and singling out an ethno-linguistic group for resentment is extremely dangerous and wrong.

None of them lost their home or job because an immigrant had steal it. My friends know who have stolen their American Dream and it has a name -THE REPUBLICAN PARTY-. They made a mess out of the economy and want to blame the Latinos. Playing their game won't make thing better.

The question is how to differentiate a legal resident, a naturalized citizen and an unauthorized immigrant, what's the problem with people calling all latinos illegals? racism? are there any unauthorized immigrant from other countries that don't look like latinos? why the phobia against latinos?

I think about three out of four Hispanics are here legally. Some have been here for hundreds of years, newcomer.

Try painting with a brush that's not so broad.

a post that is NOT inflammatory, extreme, divisive, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate. But your statements indicate a fundamental lack of perception of the current state of affairs in this country.

LOL, DISREGARD THAT I SUCK DONGS.

Sorry about that! Must have been that big, piping hot bowl of Quaker Cream of Stupid I ate for breakfast this morning.

by the influx of people from south of the border? Or that the working class has their unions busted and their jobs outsourced?

HELL NO! No one gives a damn!

I feel sorry for anyone losing their job or home, BUT we need to take care of the people here legally first!!!

I give a damn.

Noticed that ICE refers to the group from the 28 countries as aliens?

institutional racism

Perhaps "non-resident aliens".

On the street, at the same lofty stylistic level that gives us "aliens" as only extraterrestrials, and above the level of native-speaker competence that gave us "no human is illegal", we have "illegal immigrants". And just below that, "illegals".

Or, as I saw yesterday or the day before on DU in a thread in which somebody said liberals and progressives never use adjectives as nouns in English, "undocumenteds".

"Undocumented worker" doesn't apply to all illegal immigrants--I watched one student try to convince me that a 8-year-old referred to in a newspaper article was an "undocumented worker". The incongruity of the term was obvious even to the undergrad, although in his ignorance he gave it a good try. ("Well, she was probably already in a sweatshop!" "Oh, and her little sister, age 3?" "She'll be there soon enough!" Eh.)

"Alien" has been around for a long term in referring to people from other countries. It's why sci-fi writers in the last 100 years decided to use it for "people" from other worlds. "Foreigners" has a tacky feel to it. Not all aliens are "immigrants" or "tourists".

People really need to get a grip on different styles and registers of English.

they did not even come here voluntarily . I think America owes the people born here jobs first, not those who come here illegally.

expect to see violence and fights over jobs. Take construction jobs, for example. A builder starts to see a slowdown in building projects. He needs to lay off some workers. How is he going to do that? Who will he lay off?
I guarantee you, if Hispanic workers get to keep their jobs and white workers get the pink slip, there will be an enormous amount of resentment.
I'm not taking any positions on this. I'm just saying to expect it.

Also Hispanic families tend to be bigger, they have a historic higher unemployment rates. Food prices are going upward dramatically, so they will bear the brunt much harder.

I'd say they're still much better off here than wherever they came from or wherever their relatives are.