In the book, González examines the rise of the United States as a territorial power throughout the nineteenth century and the decrease of Latin American countries to the borderlands of North American power. The genuine Latino gatherings that have settled in the United States include Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, people from the four war-torn Central American countries, and Colombians and Panamanians. The intertwined histories of Spanish-speaking nations and the United States and the growth of Latinos make them an essential group in contemporary U.S. legislative issues. Among them are illegal migration across the Mexican border, the civil discussion on dialect use, the relevance of free trade issue to Latinos and the status of Puerto Rico. While immigration is encouraged by the historical interaction between the United States and Latino countries, immigrants still encounter many difficulties while trying to adapt in a new country’s society.
First of all, I believe that the the first challenge that Latino encounters is connected with blending into American society. My point of view is evidence-based, as González led general meetings with individuals from various Latin American countries. The data from these meetings give profundity and abundance to his portrayal of contemporary Latino life. González includes self-portraying materials, recounting his own particular family’s development from Puerto Rico to New York, and his extreme emotions when an open teacher endeavored to erase his origins by forcing the name “John” on him.
However, I believe that immigrants from Latin America occupy a fairly significant part of the American community. In discussing racial order in the early United States, for example, González remarks that “in the United States… the main government registration in 1790 reported that free coloreds’ were under 2% of the populace, while dark enslaved people were 33% (González 175).” However, open U.S. Census records confirm my point of view regarding the significance of the proportion of Latinos from the total population. According to the website, the primary enumeration reported that 19.3 percent of people in the country were of African descent — a high proportion but far below 33%.
Moreover, I believe that immigrants have been discriminated against because of attempts to speak their native language. My opinion is at odds with the opinion of González, who claims that the government strongly supported the preservation of national dialects. In comparing dialect strategies toward prior European gatherings and contemporary Latinos, he says of the French language in Louisiana “the utilization of French declined. However, it did so through the advancement of the populace, not through government fiat, and the privileges of French-speaking children continued to be perceived in the state-funded schools (González 175).” In reality, memories of being rejected for communicating in French in state-funded schools are shared among those who attended.
The general argument based on immigration and U.S. policies is well articulated: the U.S. government is tough on allowing immigrants to enter the country. The cultural interaction of migration today is described as a phenomenon that was there from history, and González saves the audience time by using history to back up his points. The work provides an analytical model that demonstrates to the reader that understanding the presence of Latins in the United States requires understanding the activities and roles that the United States plays in Latin American countries. It is concluded that the increased number of Latin American immigrants in the United States is the harvest of the empire.
González leaves the reader in desperate need of a prediction of the future interaction between the United States and Latin American countries after concluding that the future is written in immigration and foreign policies. González concludes that procedures governing the Latin American population determine whether peaceful transactions thrive or chaotic events dominate the twenty-first century. Since the author strives to demonstrate that the influx of Latin American immigrants is a result of American foreign diplomacy and interventions, he concludes that policy reforms would be the solution to the increased tension. González solution to immigration and sociopolitical exchange between the United States and Latinos is to end U.S. militarism in Puerto Rico and Cuba (González 178). He also proposes to increase job mobility between Mexico and itself, and invest in urban public schools in the United States (González 178). These solutions are only viable if the transacting countries can establish a working relationship. However, challenges to implementing these recommendations are severe because Latin American countries’ sociopolitical and economic structures are affected by factors other than job mobility, political interference, and education quality. Despite policy implementation, internal institutions and cultures in Latin American countries may favorably increase immigration.
The control that the U.S. established on Latino can be perceived the interaction of the U.S. and Latinas with its colonialism, imperialism, foreign policy, and politics. González book provides more intimate encounters that fill historical gaps, the book has cemented my understanding of Mexican and Latina resilience to political and social interaction with the United States. However, it can not serve as a primary source for explaining the reasons of the sociopolitical tensions. A structural background that explains the increased immigration of Mexicans and Latinas in the United States despite strict anti-immigration guidelines cannot based on a meager migration story. A historical understanding of today’s cultural systems in Mexico and Latino countries should not only consider legal but also linguistic and demographic aspects.
Work Cited
González Juan. “Speak Spanish, You’re in America! El Huracan over Language and Culture.” Harvest Empire: A History of Latinos in America, Penguin Books, New York, 2022, pp. 168–179.