Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies: Hispanics and the American Future

176 Pages·2006·3.47 MB·English

by  National Research Council

Panel on Hispanics in the United States
Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell, Editors
Committee on Population
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing
Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils
of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the
Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were
chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. N01-OD-4-2139, TO #123 between the
National Academy of Sciences and the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, the National Cancer Institute, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sci-
ences Research, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute on
Aging of the National Institutes of Health; the U.S. Census Bureau; the National Cen-
ter for Health Statistics; the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California
HealthCare Foundations, and the California Endowment.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Multiple origins, uncertain destinies : Hispanics and the American future : panel on
Hispanics in the United States / Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell, editors.
p. cm.
“Committee on Population, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-09667-7 (hardcover book) — ISBN 0-309-55087-4 (pdfs) 1.
Hispanic Americans—Social conditions—Statistics. 2. Hispanic Americans—
Economic conditions—Statistics. 3. Hispanic Americans—Government policy. 4.
United States—Ethnic relations—Statistics. 5. United States—Population—Statistics.
I. Tienda, Marta. II. Mitchell, Faith. III. National Research Council. Division of
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.
E184.S75M85 2006
305.868’073090511—dc22
2006000204
Additional copies of this report are available from the National Academies Press,
500Fifth Street, N.W., Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055; [phone] or
[phone] (in the Washington metropolitan area); http://www.nap.edu.
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright 2006 by the National Academies. All rights reserved.
Cover credit: Juan Sánchez, Soles y Flores para Liora (1997). Copyright by the artist;
used with permission.
Suggested citation: National Research Council (2006). Multiple Origins, Uncertain
Destinies: Hispanics and the American Future. Panel on Hispanics in the United States.
M. Tienda and F. Mitchell, eds. Committee on Population, Division of Behavioral and
Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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PANEL ON HISPANICS IN THE UNITED STATES
MARTA TIENDA (Chair), Department of Sociology, Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs and Office of Population
Research, Princeton University
LOUIS DESIPIO, Department of Political Science and Chicano/Latino
Studies Program, University of California, Irvine
JORGE DURAND, Social Anthropology, University of Guadalajara, Mexico
JOSÉ J. ESCARCE, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA and RAND,
California
V. JOSEPH HOTZ, Department of Economics, University of California,
LosAngeles
NANCY S. LANDALE, Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State
University
CORDELIA W. REIMERS, Department of Economics, Hunter College and
the Graduate School, City University of New York
RUBÉN G. RUMBAUT, Department of Sociology and Center for Research
on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy, University of California,
Irvine
BARBARA SCHNEIDER, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
EDWARD TELLES, Department of Sociology, University of California,
LosAngeles
STEVEN J. TREJO, Department of Economics, University of Texas at Austin
PETER WARD, Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin*
National Research Council Staff
BARNEY COHEN, Director, Committee on Population
FAITH MITCHELL, Senior Program Officer
ANA-MARIA IGNAT, Senior Program Assistant**
ANTHONY S. MANN, Senior Program Assistant
AMY GAWAD, Research Associate***
*Until January 2004
**Until November 2004
***Until December 2004
v
COMMITTEE ON POPULATION
KENNETH W. WACHTER (Chair), Department of Demography,
University of California, Berkeley
ANNE C. CASE, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
CHARLES B. KEELY, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown
University
DAVID I. KERTZER, Department of Anthropology, Brown University
BARTHÉLÉMY KUATE DEFO, Department of Demography, University of
Montreal
CYNTHIA B. LLOYD, Policy Research Division, Population Council,
NewYork
THOMAS W. MERRICK, Center for Global Health, George Washington
University
RUBÉN G. RUMBAUT, Department of Sociology and Center for Research
on Immigration, Population, and Public Policy, University of California,
Irvine
JAMES W. VAUPEL, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research,
Rostock, Germany
ROBERT J. WILLIS, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
BARNEY COHEN, Director
vi
Acknowledgments
With the release of the results of the 2000 census, the growing role of
Hispanics in the United States became apparent. Hispanics are now the
country’s largest minority. Cognizant of the important implications this
demographic change would have for the United States, staff of the National
Research Council (NRC) suggested it was an appropriate time for a study
that would capture social and economic dimensions of the current situa-
tion and provide a baseline for future research. The proposed project would
also build on prior NRC reports on the status of minority Americans,
including America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences (2001)
and A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society (1989).
As a first step in developing a study, the NRC convened a planning
meeting in 2001, chaired by Marta Tienda, to clarify key issues regarding
Hispanics in the United States. This was followed in 2002 by a meeting on
emerging issues in Hispanic health, chaired by E. Richard Brown, which
was sponsored by the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research of
the National Institutes of Health. That meeting brought together experts
in demography, public health, medicine, sociology, psychiatry, and other
fields to examine key issues related to Hispanic health and well-being and
resulted in the report Emerging Issues in Hispanic Health: Summary of a
Workshop (2002).
With support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, the National Cancer Institute, the Office of Behavioral and
Social Sciences Research, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health; the U.S.
Census Bureau; the National Center for Health Statistics; the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; the Andrew W. Mellon Foun-
dation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California HealthCare
Foundations, and the California Endowment, a major study of Hispanics
was begun. This report is the product of that study by a panel of experts
convened by the National Academies. This report has a companion vol-
ume, Hispanics and the Future of America, which presents the detailed analy-
ses that underlie much of the discussion in this report. We thank first the
sponsors of the project. Their recognition of the timeliness of a study on
Hispanics made possible what we believe is a far-reaching and provoking
look at the nation’s fastest-growing minority population.
We thank the following individuals for their workshop presentations
and other contributions to this volume: Jorge Del Pinal, Patricia Fernández-
Kelly, Claudia Galindo, John Gallegos, Eugene Garcia, Roberto Gonzalez,
John Iceland, J. Gerardo Lopez, Maria Lopez-Freeman, Elizabeth Martin,
Jeff Morenoff, Chandra Muller, Jeff Passel, Sean Reardon, Catherine Riegle-
Crumb, Jerry Valadez, William A. Vega, Bruce Western, and Marilyn
Winkleby.
We also thank Jeff Evans and Roberto Suro for their contributions to
the panel’s thinking and writing, Charles V. Morgan for preparing data for
the panel’s analysis, Rona Briere for her editorial contributions, and Yasmin
Ramirez for her assistance with the artwork. We very much appreciate
Carmen Lomas Garza, Freddy Rodriguez, Ixrael Rodriguez, Juan Sánchez,
Nitza Tufiño, Julio Valdez, Patssi Valdez, and Kathy Vargas for permissions
to reproduce their artwork. Among the NRC staff, special thanks are due to
Barney Cohen, intern Nicole Ganzekaufer, Amy Gawad, Eugenia
Grohman, Ana-Maria Ignat, Anthony Mann, Jane Ross, Kirsten Sampson
Snyder, and Yvonne Wise.
Special thanks are due to the panel members, who not only contributed
to the lively and at times intense analysis presented in this volume, but who
also authored or coauthored the papers in our companion volume.
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for
their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with proce-
dures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of
this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that
will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible
and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity,
evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the
deliberative process. We thank the following individuals for their review of
this report: Richard D. Alba, Department of Sociology, State University of
New York at Albany; Luis A. Diaz, Department of Dermatology, University
of North Carolina School of Medicine; Reynolds Farley, Population Studies
Center, University of Michigan; Patricia Gándara, School of Education,
University of California, Davis; Jennifer L. Hochschild, Government
Department, Harvard University; Robert A. Hummer, Population Research
Center, University of Texas at Austin; John R. Logan, Spatial Structures in
the Social Sciences, Brown University; B. Lindsay Lowell, Institute for the
Study of International Migration, Georgetown University; Alba Ortiz,
Office of Bilingual Education, University of Texas at Austin; Richard
Santos, College of Arts and Sciences, University of New Mexico; Marcelo
M. Suárez-Orozco, Immigration Studies, New York University; and Mary
C. Waters, Sociology Department, Harvard University.
Although the reviewers listed have provided many constructive com-
ments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions and
recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its
release. The review of this report was overseen by Charles Hirschman,
Department of Sociology, University of Washington, and Ron Lee, Depart-
ment of Demography, University of California, Berkeley. Appointed by the
NRC, they were responsible for making certain that an independent
examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional
procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered.
Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the
authoring committee and the institution.
Marta Tienda, Chair, and Faith Mitchell, Study Director
Panel on Hispanics in the United States