Summary Of Criminality And The Images Of Latino Youth By Mary Romero

Mary Romero’s article explained the criminality and the images that Latino/a youth have before knowing the individual. We see a lot of crimes and murders that were made by officers towards people of color, specifically, in this case, Latino/a. In the Latinx community, we have a lot of disadvantages. Not only based on the color of our skin but also the fact that majority of Latinos in this country are immigrants. According to Romero, Latino youth was always seen and described as criminals since WWII. Since then, Latinx always had a specific image whenever the word would come up. When people think of Latinx, they already have an image of what someone who is Latinx would look like. This can lead to the stereotypes that Latinx have. Words that a lot of people describe Latinx: cholo/a, chunti, aggressive, stealer, uneducated, animals, and wetbacks. A lot of people believe that it’s true for every Latinx. According to Romero, the way some Latinx dress can interfere with an interaction with an officer.

Now, we still see the way people dress can interfere. Not only the way someone dress but the way someone talks. Their whole background can be a motive for a police officer to be suspicious of a brown person on the street. All of the officers described how they thought their life and their colleague's life were in danger but could not describe the behavior of the victim. Romero also brings up the description of how youth are described in poor neighborhoods. They are described as “super-predators” and they are also described by the neighborhoods that they grew up in. These kids grew up in neighborhoods described as deviant, delinquent, criminal, dysfunctional, fatherless. Fatherless was a word that Julio Valerio was described and also made it seemed that was the reason for this terrible thing to