Latin Diasporas - Research Paper Example

as a minority group, a Spanish-speaking background, and a perception wrongly or not that their presence in America has heightened the country’s drug menace. Their home countries border the United States and a huge number of them either have problems with the United States Immigration Department or know a relative who does. Latinos are seen as takers and a burden to society. Their population is made up of newly arrived newcomers as well as old-timers with very deep roots in American soil, probably deeper than any other ethnic group.

Their history with America goes way back to the establishment of the nation. Popular United States culture has ignored this and underplays their association with America instead portraying the country as the story of the expansion of English America. However, their long history with America is a litany of racial, social, economic and political discrimination that may have contributed to their involvement in the drug trade. They have been denied many basic opportunities as American citizens. The surge in the Hispanic population has been sudden due to the accelerating immigration from Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America.

Most of Latinos in America are from America’s neighbor Mexico, with whom it shares a 2000 mile border. Thousands of tons of drugs and millions of illegal aliens cross into the United States from Texas (Campbell, 254-300). The millions of undocumented people on American soil have led to the proliferation of various crimes including drug trafficking and prostitution. America has a long history of drugs and drug addiction and the Federal Government had been engaged in a protracted war with drugs for decades since 1968 when then United States President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs (Lyman & Potter, 254-260).

The key to this fight has been the source of the drugs and Latin American countries including Colombia, Peru, Guatemala and Mexico have been identified as drug sources. Mexico is the undisputed leader