According to a new study by the Pew Hispanic Center, Latino youth “are straddling two worlds as they adapt to their new homeland”. While young Latinos are making gains in education and employment, they still face considerable challenges in overcoming social stigmas and gang violence.
The high school dropout rate for Hispanics as a whole is roughly 17 percent – a figure that places the group well behind other demographics – but falls in line with the national average for American-born Latinos. The study also found that while nearly 30 percent of immigrant Latinos live below the poverty line, the number improves to 19 percent by the second generation.
There are, however, figures that show some worsening conditions for Latinos as they establish themselves in the United States. American-born Latino youth were more than twice as likely to be associated with gangs, spend time in jail and report higher incidence of discrimination as their foreign-born counterparts.
Hispanics are expected to account for 30 percent of the US population by 2050, and as such their political influence will increase as well. “[Latinos’] share of the electorate has not grown nearly as much as their share of the population,” said Paul Taylor, director of the Pew Hispanic Center. “Now, with the coming of age of this big generation of U.S.-born children of immigrants, that’s all about to change.” And the research would indicate that the political stances of Latinos also differ between immigrants and subsequent generations. Second and third generation Latinos are socially more liberal than those who immigrate. They are more likely to support abortion rights and gay marriage, while reporting decreased church attendance.
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