LATINOS IN THE UNITED STATES:
THEIR HISTORY AND RACIAL IDENTITY
Harvest of Empire:
A History of Latinos in America. By Juan Gonzlez. New York:
Viking Penguin, 2000. xx + 346 pp. Maps, tables, notes, bibliography,
and index. $27.95.
Changing Race: Latinos, the Census, and the History of Ethnicity
in the United States. By Clara E. Rodrguez. New York: New
York University Press, 2000. xv + 283 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography,
and index. $55.00 (cloth); $19.00 (paper).
Manuel G. Gonzales
Diablo Valley College
The 2000 decennial census will confirm that the Latino population in the
United States now exceeds 32 million. Buoyed by both high birthrates and
heavy immigration, this figure represents a 45 percent increase during
the decade of the 1990s. Moreover, across the country Hispanic communities
are rapidly expanding beyond their traditional strongholds. Puerto Ricans
and Cubans, for example, are venturing well beyond the barrios
of the Northeast and Florida, respectively. Mexicanos, who represent about
two-thirds of the Hispanic total, have now become a national minority
rather than one identified exclusively with California and the Southwest.
As these ethnic communities converge, a pan-Latino identity is surfacing,
an emergent trend encouraged both by entrepreneurs seeking to simplify
marketing strategies and ethnic politicians hoping to create a broader
electoral base. Mirroring this momentous demographic shift in American
society is an escalating interest in Latinos (or Hispanics). Representative
of the recent literature on the subject are the two volumes under consideration:
Harvest of Empire and Changing Race.
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