Latines/xs in Education Book Discussion - Making Hispanics (Mora, 2014) by Gina Ann Garcia

2025-09-09 01:58:09 UTC

A social construct, the government needed a label to be able to get the vote of this newly booming population. They wanted to create an overarching label to cater to this group, and the formation of a panethnic label was the goal.

It was fabricated by individuals in power and thrust upon the Hispanic/Latinx community in order to categorize them among the white and black society.

2025-09-09 02:00:08 UTC

2025-09-09 02:01:37 UTC

The title is an invented label by multiple groups to institutionalize the label. The identity itself also has its own labels within itself. Although they are geographically seperated, they were still lumped together due to a central argument and what the authors refer to as "pan-ethnicity" (an ethnicity treated as a race).

2025-09-09 02:01:50 UTC

It wasn't created overnight. There were interlinked relationships that collaborated to build up a sort of momentum towards a label. Interlinked relationships specifically between activists, media executives, and government. They depended upon each other: activists went on the media to boost public opinion using information that the government provided.

cmobaraka — 2025-09-09 02:02:17 UTC

The labels are superficial and take away from each group's political and social identity
There are different levels of complexity for each ethnic group
It generalizes distinct and unique ethnic groups into 2 categories just because they share similar cultures and languages
Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans that she focused on were each fighting for different things politically

2025-09-09 02:03:06 UTC

The label itself created a lot of racial ethnic tension. The media could convey uniformity but it also neglects the historical conflicts and alliances for the sake of being easier for an outsider to categorize their identities.

Lafufu

2025-09-09 02:04:19 UTC

Spanish language media expanded the collective sentiment wanting to self identify. Main groups were Cubans, Puerto Ricans & Mexicans

2025-09-09 02:06:36 UTC

The Hispanic/Latine identity label is a social construct.
But a complex in which various groups are categorized into one.
These labels were developed from efforts showing differences of experiences in the U.S. and noting that people are different

2025-09-09 02:06:37 UTC

Mora discusses the accusations against the Census Bureau for undercounting and talks about the creation of the Spanish Origin Advisory Committee (SOAC). Also discusses that by 1990, "Hispanic" was institutionalized nationwide as a panethnic identity.

2025-09-09 02:06:56 UTC

Policy shapes identity formation by constructing labels that the public will use to define themselves.

2025-09-09 02:07:21 UTC

There was an emphasis on the differences between the different groups. How Mexicans were focused on bilingual education and immigration, Puerto Ricans were focused on PR sovereignty, and Cubans focused on foreign policy. Showing that even though the government really wanted to force a 'we are one people' narrative, which ended up being more divisive because it refused to acknowledge how fundamentally different we are.

2025-09-09 02:07:30 UTC

One large value from this generalized label was that it was of a large enough population that the Hispanic community was able to leverage their size against Richard Nixon to win more resources for themselves. Labeling, although it erases identities, it also can group an identity away from a national label. It both raised and decreased power in terms of advocacy from individual nationalities by clumping them together. Instead of worrying about how state actors can also coop demands from activists by pushing forward less radical ideas to draw attention away from radical or less popular ideas.

cmobaraka — 2025-09-09 02:07:54 UTC

Because the government needed a way of tracking and identifying these large groups of people, they created these labels and, because of backlash, also made the organizations below or appointed more Latine/Latinx officials
The CCOSSP and IMAA were good organizations created to get people out of their comfort zones through rallies, protests, and discussions about panethnicity
A goal included was to separate Hispanic people from White people because they were expecting them to assimilate but that didn't really work
The census had good and bad sides because it had Latine/Latinx people a part of the conversation, but it put all these people under an umbrella term

2025-09-09 02:08:47 UTC

It encouraged seeing people as "the other". The government was trying to simplify communities. It deprived people of their identities (throuch their Spanish speaking backgrounds).

2025-09-09 02:09:42 UTC

By grouping Mexican American, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans under one identity, it limited the manner in which how policies impacted these individuals was overall viewed as unfair.

2025-09-09 02:09:56 UTC

Public Law 94-11; allowed agency to gather information people of their origins and decent

2025-09-09 02:10:45 UTC

The concept of race is historically tied to identity formation. Race is ever-changing. For example, how the first wave of Cubans were considered white and identified with it to move away from the social aspects that came with being non-white, and yet now they're considered non-white. There is also the disconnect of Puerto Ricans' historical status, of the fact that they are actually citizens, so there's this idea of 'why would we care about immigration, etc'?

2025-09-09 02:11:42 UTC

The "Hispanic" category was not a natural concept, it was constructed. Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans had distinct agendas and values and weren't initially a unified group. The ambiguity of the term was deliberately vague so that people could adapt it to their needs, it also made it easier to unite diverse groups.

2025-09-09 02:11:52 UTC

She studied specific historical accounts and influences from specific Nations as examples of how the US chooses to categorize all of them into one group. It created more tension between the groups but it was used by the US to make their decision making easier. It also allowed media to target communities and deminish images.

2025-09-09 02:12:04 UTC

In the Cuban refugee policy, it implied that Cuban Americans had a higher-class status than Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. Additionally, there was the MALDEF’s Lawsuit that claimed the census misrepresented Mexican American's and affected federal funding allocation, employment discrimination remedies, & congressional redistricting.

2025-09-09 02:13:09 UTC

Kept coming back to the 1970s-80s, as the sorta rise of the need for a panethnic identity. As that's when stats of the boom in the Latino community were coming out, and a need to get their vote for elections became a big topic. They could no longer be ignored, so they said, 'Let's lump them into one label and get their vote that way'.

Lafufu

2025-09-09 02:13:13 UTC

Historical attention towards discrimination 1960's, led to collective struggle to defend themselves, Lyden B Johnson's policies forced communities to take action. Gov't provided universal translation of census that didn't address everyones language repertoire so they filed La Confederacion de la Raza Unida v. George Brown

2025-09-09 02:13:40 UTC

Race is ever-changing as well as directly intertwined with identity.

2025-09-09 02:14:17 UTC

The differences in how groups identify, such as Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. Cuban-Americans saw themselves as white, while Mexican-Americans did not
Also, the preference in Television shows between the groups within the Latine/Hispanic group
That government agencies had a major role in creating these labels and were influencing the identity of people.

2025-09-09 02:14:37 UTC

There was no differentiation between cultures. The need to collect information on the population led to the panethnicity of the census

cmobaraka — 2025-09-09 02:15:00 UTC

The different Latine ethnic groups fought for different issues facing their communities
La Confederación de La Raza Unida v. George Brown: Mexican-American and other Spanish-origin persons were miscounted by the 1970 census, either because they were not counted at all or because they were counted but not identified as being Mexican-American or of other Spanish origin.
All three groups were undercounted in the data reports, and they were trying to be accounted for more.
Mexicans: farmers' rights and higher education
Puerto Ricans: urban poverty and independence
Cubans: dealing with Castro and his regime and the aftereffects

2025-09-09 02:15:55 UTC

Just how useful interwined relationships were in pushing this identity, the government needed activists, and activists needed the media. Showing how even know there is still a divide of what label we should go by.

2025-09-09 02:17:46 UTC

Through time, discourse, and analysis, society develops new labels from those that exist, such as future/new generations of families and groups.

cmobaraka — 2025-09-09 02:17:50 UTC

Creating the Hispanic and Latino categories to describe these people was to secure electoral votes, and it was a way of cheating the system
People who wanted to secure votes could easily say they were fighting for these groups, and it was ambiguous due to it was applied to the majority
Race is tied to identity and the first factor looked at when we are interacting with different people is where they come from or their cultural background

2025-09-09 02:17:56 UTC

The Civil Rights movement was influential on marginalized communites, including the Puerto Rican community that would be important in speaking up about the marginalizatoin they face. The author discussed the creation of the IMAA was discussed as the first official Hispanic organization. The Nixon administration was hearing a lot of commotion from the organizations and would publically address them as "Hispanic". In 1977, the CCOSP addressed how the 1970 was ignoring whole communites. In 1980, the option for Hispanic was included on census.

2025-09-09 02:18:55 UTC

Mora discusses the Civil Rights movement and it's importance in opening up the political space that forced the addressing of racial and ethnic inequality. This created opportunities for under-represented groups to demand recognition and resources. Mora also addresses the tensions in activism between Mexican American's and Puerto Rican's values, where MA's emphasized "brown power" and identity, while PR's focused on colonialism and independence.

2025-09-09 02:19:40 UTC

Dominant narratives has always determined who gets put into what categories. Discussion and discourses were not about what was true but about how to maintain power.

2025-09-09 02:20:12 UTC

Provides historical context and events, a collection of data, to give an understanding of new label creation efforts.

2025-09-09 02:20:25 UTC

History makes categorizing individuals within the Hispanic/Latinx complicated because not all individuals align with their definitions and they instead conform to the label due to it being present instead of actually being something the different groups have chosen to represent them.

cmobaraka — 2025-09-09 02:21:01 UTC

The Civil Rights Movement
The Presidential Historical Narrative with voting rights and how the President treated the Hispanic community
Creating the CCOSSP and the IMAA
Appointed Hispanic officials to oversee these different groups and try to bring these organizations together

2025-09-09 02:24:55 UTC

Civil Rights Movement
1970s Census/Crisis
SOAC establishment, progression, and members
The CCOSSP
The Spanish-Speaking-Vote