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'Returning' to the United States
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15064 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1988 |
5,180 Words |
| Author
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Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, S.J.
Father Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, S.J., teaches at Fordham
University, New York.
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Spanish conquistadors were among the first Europeans to explore and establish settlements in what is now the United States. Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in 1513; Santa Fe was explored by Franciscan missionaries in 1539 and California in 1542. The first permanent settlement, St. Augustine, was established in 1565. The culture and Catholicism of the Spanish colonial empire gave rise to the dominant characteristics of what are now the Spanish-speaking areas of the Western Hemisphere.
Today, as the most rapidly growing segment of the United States population, Hispanics may once again become a dominant influence in North America. The consequences of that influence will be important not only for the United States but also for the Hispanic world and for the relationships between Latin America and the United States.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census reported close to 19 million persons of Hispanic origin in the United States as of August 1987, an increase of 30 percent from the 1980 figure. The increase in the non-Hispanic population over the same period was 6 percent. (The major segments of the Hispanic population as given by the 1987 census, are shown in table 1.)
This rapid increase will almost certainly continue. The table does not include large numbers of undocumented aliens, the so-called "illegals." As of March 1988, 1.4 million persons had applied for legalization under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, less than anticipated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). No one knows how many of these may have been missed in the 1980 Census or the 1987 count. Furthermore, the largest number of legal immigrants come from the Spanish-speaking world. The U.S. Hispanic population is also very young. All these factors add up to one clear conclusion: Hispanics will constitute a major segment of the U.S. population in the next century.
Although Hispanics differ considerably among themselves in their history and their cultural characteristics, all share some common features. Although three major groups--Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans--will provide the main focus of this article, other Hispanic groups must not be overlooked. Large numbers of Guatemalan and Nicaraguan refugees today live in the United States. There are estimates of more than half a million Salvadorans in the United States--primarily refugees from the civil war that has torn El Salvador for nearly ten years--concentrated in California, Washington, D.C., and Long Island, New York. There is in addition a large concentration of white,
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