Summary Of The Latino Threat By Leo R. Chavez

Natalie Calderon
History 240
Brian D. Behnken
December 7, 2015
The Latino Threat The Latino Threat is a book written by Leo R Chavez and anthropologist who is a professor at University of California, Irvine in which he analyzed the threats that Latinos face in America by its society. In his book Chavez discussed that Americans assumed Latinos were a threat because of the stereotypes and prejudices that the media and many other sources had over them. He talks about Americans thinking that Latinos were taking over the Southwest because they refused to learn English, Latinas were having too many babies, were taking American organ transplants, between other topics. Chavez demolishes the assumption that Latinos are a threat by stating actual

He explains that Latino immigrants are here to have a better life then what they had when they were in their origin countries, Latinos are aware that they need to integrate into society to become successful. As Chavez said “Rather than living apart from the larger society, their friendship, religious, and romantic relationships extend beyond the social borders of Latino life” (71). When I look around my surroundings I realized that he is right, Latinos are not only excluded to their origins because they are just trying to gain the privileges and participation of being a citizen. I realized that he is right Latino immigrants have want those privileges that citizen possess because that gives them a sense of belonging. Arriving to a whole new culture must be hard not only because they just left their whole life behind but also because they have to adapt to the new culture. Learning English is the best way they can achieve that sense of belonging, for that reason it does not make sense for Americans to think that Latinos reused to learn