Racial discrimination has a long history in the United States of America. It dates back to the days of slavery. Mexican descendants are migrating to the United States at an alarming rate. The culture that the Mexicans experience in their own country is very different from the culture they experience upon arriving in the United States of America. The U. S. Census Bureau created the label “Hispanic” for convenience. Some people of Spanish descent think of themselves as “Hispanic” and others prefer the term “Latino”; however, most identify with a particular country, such as Cuba, Argentina, or Spain (Macionis 2006) Hispanics accounted for 14.8 percent of the population in the United States of America in 2006 (www.prb.org). The percentage
There is a job where there is a great demand for an individual that can speak Spanish and English. Law enforcement as well as the court system has a great need of such individuals. The one problem that individuals face when learning to speak Spanish is that the Spanish you are taught in schools proper language. There is several different dialects with Spanish as it is with English. The Spanish classes teach proper, and when you try to communicate with Hispanics and Latinos, they cannot understand you any better than you can understand them. I have observed that the people that can communicate with them are people that have lived and/or worked with them for a long time.
I work in law enforcement so I have responded to calls, which involved people from Mexico. They are very polite to you when you are speaking to them. They may nod their head and smile at you while you are talking. This does not mean that they know what you are saying. If you think about it, they probably feel the same way as we do when you are talking and they do not understand it. We feel like they are speaking in some type of tongue.
We have communities in our area that are dominantly Hispanic and/or Latino. Many people do not treat the Hispanics in our community as they should be treated. The criminals will target them because they know that most of them are afraid to call law enforcement because they may not be in America