Latino Threat Definition

The Latino Threat is the conceptualized idea that the immigration of Latinos/as to the United States is detrimental to white citizens. This belief proposes that immigrants, primarily of Mexican decent, have a ravenous goal of taking back the land that belongs to them; the American southwest. Fear constructed from the idea of the Latino Threat attributes to the issue that Latin American immigrants will never truly be equal American citizens. The segregation and racism that perpetuate this idea can be attributed to several different factors including laws, politics, and above all; the media. When legislation that promotes segregation is passed, such as the Arizona law that banned Chicano studies and textbooks, it opens the doors to the mindset that the …show more content…
In return, a majority of the population sees lesser or no value in the lives of these immigrants, which makes it easy to approve of behavior and legislation that keeps them “out.” Because of this myriad of slanderous information being sent out into the public, Latin American immigrants and their families are likely to never feel like they are true American citizens. Even if they are legal, many feel that they have “segmented citizenship,” where they are scrutinized because of the Latino Threat. This is because citizenship is more than just its legal definition. It also includes social, economic, political, and emotional ideas that are embodied in one’s citizenship, and Latino/a immigrants do not receive all of these aspects of citizenship because they are viewed as separate from the traditional group of American citizens. The information in this introduction and in our other readings contains similar ideas regarding how Latinos/as in America are often viewed as “others,” and sometimes even as second class citizens. The altered ideas that they impose a threat to “The American Dream” has been prevalent in several of our readings, and this specific example of the Latino Threat only strengthens