Page 304 - Essencials of Sociology

Racial–Ethnic Relations in the United States 277

seats in the U.S. House of Representatives
(Statistical Abstract 2013:Table 421). Yet,
compared with the past, even these small totals
represent substantial gains. On the positive side,
several Latinos have been elected as state gov-
ernors. The first Latina to become a governor
is Susana Martinez of New Mexico, who was
elected in 2010.
It is likely that Latinos soon will play a
larger role in U.S. politics, perhaps one day
even beyond their overall numbers. This is
because the six states in which they are con-
centrated hold one-third of the country’s 538
electroral votes: California (55), Texas (38),
Florida (29), New York (29), Illinois (20), and
Arizona (11). Latinos have received presiden-
tial appointments to major federal positions,
such as Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of
Transportation, and Secretary of Housing and For millions of people, the United
Urban Development. States represents a land of opportu-
Divisions based on country of origin hold back the potential political power of Latinos. nity and freedom from oppression.
As I mentioned, Latinos do not think of themselves as a single people, and national Shown here are Cubans who reached
the United States by transforming
origin remains highly significant. People from Puerto Rico, for example, feel little sense
their 1950s truck into a boat.
of unity with people from Mexico. It is similarly the case with those from Venezuela,
Colombia, or El Salvador. It used to be the same with European immigrants. Those who
came from Germany and Sweden or from England and France did not identify with one
Explore on MySocLab
another. With time, the importance of the European country of origin was lost, and they
Activity: Social Constructions of
came to think of themselves as Americans. Perhaps this will happen to Latinos as well, Race and Ethnicity
but for now, these distinctions nourish disunity and create political disagreements.
Social class divisions also obstruct unity among Latinos. In some cases, even when
they come from the same country, the differences in their backgrounds are severe. Most
of the half million Cubans who fled their homeland after Fidel Castro came to power
in 1959 were well-educated, financially comfortable professionals or businesspeople. In
contrast, the 100,000 “boat people” who arrived 20 years later were mainly lower-class
refugees to whom the earlier arrivals would hardly have spoken in Cuba. The earlier
arrivals have prospered in Florida and control many businesses and financial institutions:
There continues to be a vast gulf between them and those who came later.

African Americans
It was 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. As specified by law, whites took the front seats of
the bus, and blacks went to the back. As the bus filled up, blacks had to give up their seats
to whites.
When Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American woman and secretary of the Mont-
gomery NAACP, was told that she would have to stand so that white folks could sit, she
refused (Bray 1995). She stubbornly sat there while the bus driver raged and whites felt
insulted. Her arrest touched off mass demonstrations, led 50,000 blacks to boycott the city’s
buses for a year, and thrust an otherwise unknown preacher into a historic role.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who had majored in sociology at Morehouse College
in Atlanta, Georgia, took control. He organized car pools and preached nonviolence. In-
censed at this radical organizer and at the stirrings in the normally compliant black com-
munity, segregationists also put their beliefs into practice—by bombing the homes of blacks
and dynamiting their churches.

After slavery was abolished, the Southern states passed legislation (Jim Crow laws) to seg-
regate blacks and whites. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that
it was a reasonable use of state power to require “separate but equal” accommodations