Hispanic Community Communities

Despite Hispanics being the largest minority group in the Unites States, issues plaguing Hispanic communities far too often do not get much attention in the academia. And although environmental injustices affect the general minority population, Hispanic communities are further disadvantaged because their cries for help are repeatedly silenced by either language barriers, deportations fears, or just an overall of lack awareness. Unfortunately, there is an obvious gap between environmentalist activist and the communities that they themselves want to help. This is because mainstream environmentalism 's perception of diversity has a predominant focus on Black communities. Consequently, Hispanic communities undergoing environmental injustices …show more content…
Just as the minority experience varies amongst minorities because of racial and cultural boundaries, there are similar experiential differences amongst Hispanic populations. I realize that focusing on a particular community is still generalizing, but it is an efficient way to get a broader, yet focused, perspective encompassing a community that would have otherwise been ignored in research that groups all minority experiences under the same umbrella. Border towns interest me because they are unique microcosms of what I like to call “Mexico in the United States”; their populations are typically homogeneously Hispanic, and Mexican language and culture is predominantly practiced. They are also an even further marginalized group within the Latino academic community, as conventional Latino work focuses on communities where Latinos are the literal minority of the population. In border town communities, however, Hispanics are the majority, making any person of anglo-background in these communities the “minority”. Because of this “minority” status in these predominantly Hispanic communities, they have adopted Hispanic traits such as: speaking with Spanish slang or “Spanglish” (speaking both English and Spanish), as well as practicing Mexican tradition and celebrations. That said—coming from personal experience of living in border town communities—it should be recognized that …show more content…
I am assuming internalized oppression occurs amongst Hispanic communities in predominantly white areas as well, but again, I feel that it is important to distinguish between border town Hispanic communities where Latinos are the majority, and communities where Latinos are the minority. Even though the circumstantial predicament may be the same, the environment from where these behaviors stemmed from is very different. For example, my Latino university peers from Chicago have been well aware of their oppression and of systematic racism for quite a while before coming to a predominately white college because they experienced it from themselves back at home. I, on the other hand—along with many of my friends from these border towns—did not fully grasp the concept of racism until we were forced into a different environment in college. Understanding these differences is, in my opinion, important for environmentalist to employ community action successfully in Hispanic communities. Although this information can appear to be somewhat tangential, I feel this is all pertinent information for the reason that I will use my experienced introspection to formulate some of the questions that I would like to pose in my