Читать книгу Multicultural Psychology - Jennifer T. Pedrotti - Страница 38

Despite the statistics for Asians, the population most of us think of when the issue of immigration is raised is Mexicans. The irony is not lost on Californians like us, who are writing about Latinx immigration on land that was once part of Mexico. As the saying goes, the story of Mexicans in the United States didn’t start with Mexicans crossing the borders, but with the border crossing Mexicans.

The term Latinx is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino. It is unusual to be discussing Latinx in a chapter on race, since it is not a race. Chicanx/Latinx are a mestizo people: mixed—various combinations of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the European colonizers of those lands (Spanish, Portuguese, etc.), and the Africans who came as free and slave labor. That racial complexity is just part of a diversity that includes a myriad of nations of origin, histories, and cultures. Today, that complexity is increased by the politicization of the issues surrounding immigration, deportation policies, and economic inequity in Latinx communities in the United States. Figure 2.5 shows a timeline of Latinx history.

Figure 2.5 Latinx Timeline