Why Hispanics Aren’t Buying Into the 2016 Doom and Gloom
With Election Day less than 40 days away, anxiety is running high. Some Americans are severing friendships over political differences, while others are considering fleeing to Canada if their candidate does not win the White House.
Of course, not everyone is panicking. Included among them is Jose Estrada, a 71-year-old immigrant from Mexico living in the United States. Although a Clinton supporter, Estrada recently told the Associated Press: “Whoever it is, I am living in this country, it is a beautiful country and I love it. I’ve got more here than I ever had in Mexico.”
Estrada’s optimism is consistent with the findings of a recent poll conducted by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute that found Hispanics are bullish about America’s future. What makes these findings and comments like Estrada’s interesting is that Hispanics have been absolutely battered during the recent recession. In fact, according to most economic indicators, Hispanics saw a sharp decline in homeownership rates and median monthly salary while seeing an uptick in poverty rates and unemployment.
What gives?
To make sense of this, start with the obvious fact that many Hispanics are immigrants, or the sons and daughters of immigrants with vivid memories of the despair and hopelessness of their home countries. Yes, poverty exists in the United States, but not at the scale found in many places around the world.
Beyond hunger and poverty, for more recent arrivals, the fear of kidnapping, mugging and extortion were a constant worry in places like Honduras and El Salvador. Here in the United States, this is not typically the case. There are exceptions, of course, but even Chicago’s alarmingly high homicide rate does not compare to a city like San Salvador, which recently overtook Tegucigalpa as the bloodiest municipality in the Western Hemisphere. (See the nearby chart.)
But to make sense of Estrada’s optimism, understand the enduring appeal of the American Dream — a concept that can mean a lot of things to many people, but which is grounded in the idea that the United States remains a place of abundant opportunity. It’s the same magnetic pull that has drawn millions to these shores since our founding, and one that remains today, even in the wake of the Great Recession.
Once here, research suggests that immigrants are twice as likely as native-born Americans to start a business, bolstering the workforce and adding to the nation’s overall prosperity.
Living out the American Dream doesn’t necessarily mean starting a business. For many Hispanics, it simply means seeing their children enjoy a higher quality of life than their own and make the best of living in a place of upward mobility and opportunity. This is the effervescent optimism expressed by Estrada and many Hispanics.
And according to the Pew Research Center, there is proof that this optimism for the future is being passed down generation to generation among Hispanics. A whopping 90 percent of Latinos recently polled said that they expect their finances to improve in the coming year.
That’s an amazing statistic, considering that many Hispanic Millenials are struggling to pay off huge amounts of student debt while looking for work.
The lesson here is not to ignore reality, but instead consider what is still possible in America. Hard work and determination continues to pay off. There are challenges to be sure, but to lose sight of the abundance of opportunity in this country is to miss an important point.
What makes the current set of challenges different is that far too many Americans are placing their faith in the government to solve everything that ails our society. If this continues, disappointment will surely follow.
Hispanics, it seems, are not interested in wallowing in collective misery — and that’s a good thing. We could all use this perspective.
