NewsTaco

By Yolanda Gonzalez Gomez, New America Media

Part 2. Read Part 1 here. 

DALLAS, Texas–“Lord, give me the strength of the buffalo, and make me like the eagle,” is one of the petitions that makes Loida Medellin fervently pray to God every morning. At age 75, Medellin is originally from Toluca in Mexico, and she calls herself a worshiper of God and Jesus Christ. She says faith is what frees her of any disease and provides all her material and emotional needs. “It is a must for me to pray to thank the almighty and for my family, as soon as I wake up,” said Medellin, who provides daycare for her three-year-old great-granddaughter, Sophia at her apartment.

Medellin, who immigrated to the United States 12 years ago, also said she is convinced God brought her to this country as a blessing. Six of her eight children live here, as do most of her 24 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. She prays for all of them every day.

Prayers for Grandchildren, Great-Grandchildren

According to AARP’s 2007 study, “Keeping the Faith: Religion and Spirituality among Hispanics over age 40,” nine in 10 Latinos in the U.S. pray regularly, and 97 percent say they do so with their family.

For Medellin, her faith was everything during the most difficult time in her life in Mexico, when her husband left her with their eight small children and she pulled herself forward by working as an executive secretary. “The only thing I was left with at the time was a big house, big enough to raise my children,” she explained, adding “who never lacked anything.”

Medellin plans to grow old in America—as long as God wills it, she said. Before she came to the U.S., she sold real estate in Mexico, allowing her to afford an apartment in Dallas, where she now lives with her youngest son. “I never thought of moving to this country, but I was increasingly traveling more often to visit my children, until they asked me to stay,” she said.

When Medellin is not taking care of her little great-granddaughter, she virtually dedicates all of her free time to Bible study, and to praying and writing religious poems. She also travels when invited to do so, as she did recently, spending two months in California with a granddaughter, who brought another great-grandchild into the world.

Culture, Traditions Positive Factors

Medellin is proud that all of her descendants keep Mexican customs in their lives, such as speaking Spanish, eating Mexican food and celebrating and the value of family. All her grandchildren and great-grandchildren are bilingual, and they still call her “abuelita” instead of “grandma,” even though they share American culture.

“Hispanics have practices that preserve us and protect life better. And there is the factor of strength in our people that makes them reach over 80 years old,”said Susan Gonzalez Baker, director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas, Arlington.

According to experts, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the so-called “Hispanic paradox” is a real phenomenon. Statistics show that despite living in difficult socio-economic conditions, Hispanic elders in the U.S. live longer than whites and African Americans.

“However, [greater longevity] is most prominent among the first generation of immigrants that still preserves the lifestyle of their countries, especially Mexicans,” Gonzalez Baker said. She stressed that second- and third-generation Hispanics usually lose their family’s traditions and assimilate into American culture. Too many in the U.S. acquire habits that make them develop obesity, along with greater a incidence of heart disease and stroke. “The first generation of immigrants is perceived to be most deeply rooted in customary habits, such as not smoking, drinking less alcohol and maintaining their original diet based on more fresh vegetables, corn tortillas and beans,” she said.

Hispanic immigrants often may be healthier than the total U.S. population of the same age and region. Also, Gonzalez Baker said , immigrants tend to develop psychological strength from their struggle to adapt to a new society, a new country and a new set of rules and conditions. Among newer generations of Mexican Americans, though, the Hispanic paradox disappears, said Gonzalez Baker–mainly when the children of immigrants adopt the practices promoted by the corporate messages of this country. She suggested that older immigrants’ mixture of customs, faith, hope and a purpose in life could give them a protective mixture for longer life.

“In practice,” Gonzalez Baker said, “we have found that Mexican immigrants report less physical pain when admitted to hospital and require fewer doses of analgesics for pain. We do not know if they are declaring less pain or if they really feel less pain. We do not know if that is because they have a certain attitude towards pain or is real.”

Gonzalez Baker added, “There are things to learn from the Mexican lifestyle, and maybe it would be good practice to adopt a bicultural system for new generations of Hispanics.”

More Optimistic

A study by the Pew Research Center showed that 44 percent of Hispanic immigrants surveyed are more optimistic that the future of their children will be better in this country, compared with only 33 percent of whites and African Americans. But extreme inequality could undermine that positive outlook, said renown gerontologist Steven Austad, interim director of the Barshop Institute for Longevity Studies and Aging Center Health Sciences at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Overall, Texas has the highest number of medically uninsured people in the nation, about 5 million, or 20 percent of the population. Of those, 37 precent are Hispanic. The Texas Medical Association, 80 percent of the state’s uninsured reside in 35 of the 254 counties.

“The difference in life expectancy between two Texas counties like Collin and Anderson can be as large as that between the United States and Bangladesh,” Austad said. He emphasized that the U.S. cannot afford two Americas within its borders.

This article was first published in New Ameirca Media.

[Photo by New America Media]

By Jennie Pasquarella, ACLU of Southern California and Axel Caballero, Cuéntame 

Where would you expect to find half-a-dozen patrol cars on New Year’s Eve?  In Bakersfield, California, ranked in the highest ten percent of the most violent cities in America, you’d hope they’d be responding to incidents of violence and preventing murder, rape, and other violent crime.  At the very least, you’d expect them to be patrolling for drunk drivers.

Not so.  At least not when it comes to prioritizing such matters as “barking dogs.”  On December 31, 2012, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department deployed six police cars and numerous officers at the behest of a white resident who called for help from, well, the sounds of two small barking dogs.  Her neighbor, Ruth Montaño, a Latina farm-worker, and her three American children owned the dogs.

As Ruth poignantly describes in her own words, when she and her children returned to their trailer around 10pm that night from the grocery store, officers approached her and began shouting and cursing at her.  They said they were responding to a neighbor’s complaint that her two small dogs were being noisy.  Her dogs, a Chihuahua and a Shih Tzu, were enclosed in a fenced-in area outside her trailer.  But when Ruth asked the officers what the dogs had done, they refused to answer.  When she offered to put the dogs inside, they ignored her.

Instead, the officers questioned her about how long she had been in the United States and insulted her for not speaking English well.  They called her and her children garbage and threatened to arrest her.  When she pled with them to tell her why they were interrogating her, they again refused to say, growing even more hostile and agitated, and aggressively placing her under arrest.  As they walked her over to the patrol car, her children cried and pled for them not to take their mommy.  One officer violently bashed Ruth’s head into the side of the patrol car, before forcing her into the vehicle.

The dogs, meanwhile, remained outside, untouched.  Barking.

The officers claim that they arrested Ruth for “having animals making excessive noise” and for resisting arrest. But, under Kern County law, “having animals making excessive noise” is neither an arrestable offense, nor is it within the authority of the Sheriff’s Department to investigate – rather it is an issue for Animal Control.

Ruth believes she was arrested for one sole reason: racism.  We think she’s right.  If not, what’s one other plausible explanation for what happened to her?  Anti-immigrant sentiment runs high in places like Bakersfield, and law enforcement officers often target Latino residents.  Officers know that all they have to do is make an arrest – whether lawful or not – to turn any suspected “illegal immigrant” from today’s contributing resident into tomorrow’s deportee.

This is because under the federal government’s disastrous Secure Communities (“S-Comm”) program every person who is arrested is immediately screened and identified by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) for possible deportation, regardless of their charges.

Dragnet federal immigration enforcement programs, like S-Comm, increasingly are to blame for abusive and unlawful police conduct that target Latinos, violate their civil rights, and undermine public safety.  The program encourages police to take action based on race, language, and perceived immigration status – knowing that any arrest could lead to deportation – rather than doing their jobs to ferret out threats to public safety.

Stories like Ruth’s only reinforce the urgent need for California to finally adopt the TRUST Act, a bill that would ensure that the police can no longer detain for ICE people like Ruth who have done no harm to our communities.  And it demonstrates the need for Congress to pass common-sense immigration reform to ensure that residents like Ruth are put on a road to citizenship, not a highway to family separation.

Ruth still faces deportation.  Do your part and tell ICE to take her out of deportation proceedings.  Call (202) 732-3000. Her case number is A205 763 399.

This article was first published in Cuéntame.

[Video and screenshot by Mycuentame.org]

By NPR

Sonic Trace is a multimedia project that follows Latinos living in Los Angeles travelling back to their families’ native lands. Led by radio producer Anyansi Diaz-Cortes, it examines the link between what some Latinos consider home – before and after they or their families came to the U.S.

Diaz-Cortes told NPR host Michel Martin, that she was always interested in international reporting – even on a local level. “To cover any American city in the year 2013 or in this decade you really have to go beyond U.S. borders.”

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by  Fernando Reyes Palencia]

By Steve Ralls, Latino Decisions

Originally posted at Immigration Equality

A new Immigration Equality/Latino Decisions poll of Latino voters shows strong support for immigration reform legislation that includes lesbian and gay binational couples. Support for ending the separation and exile faced by LGBT Americans who are unable to sponsor their partners for residency is strong among Latino Catholic and Evangelical voters as well. The poll, released today, shows that 64% of Latinos favor inclusive immigration reform.

When asked “how important is it that comprehensive immigration reform apply to gay and lesbian couples,” 92% those who expressed support felt it was very or somewhat important that immigration reform include lesbian and gay binational couples. Support for inclusion of those families also crossed faith lines, with 71% of Catholics, and 53% of Born-Again Christians supporting an inclusive immigration reform bill. Both U.S.-born (63%) and Foreign-Born (65%) Latino voters also expressed support.

“Immigration reform is more important to Latino voters than any other issue, and Latino Americans want that reform to include all families,” said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality. “Latino voters, like most voters, see family as family, whether gay or straight. These results underscore that an inclusive bill will have broad and deep support among people of faith. While some are using scare tactics about border security and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community to distract from common-sense reform, our poll shows those tactics are nothing more than fear mongering. Among those most committed to fixing our broken immigration system, LGBT families have overwhelming support.”

Poll Results

Q1. As part of the immigration process, one member of a married couple who is a citizen is allowed to sponsor the other for residency. As part of the current debate regarding immigration reform, one proposal is that citizens who are lesbian or gay would also have the right to sponsor their partner for residency. Would you favor or oppose allowing gay and lesbian citizens to sponsor partners for residency?

Overall Favor 64%
Overall Oppose 24%

Catholic Favor 71%
Born-Again Favor 53%

Q2. In your view,  how important is it that comprehensive immigration reform apply to gay and lesbian couples as well?

Overall Very Important 63%
Overall Somewhat Important 29%

Catholic Very Important 62%
Catholic Somewhat Important 32%

Born-Again Very Important 61%
Born Again Somewhat Important 31%

Q3. Forty-seven percent of gay and lesbian mixed-status couples are raising a U.S. citizen child. Given this information, how important is it that these children be able to keep both of their parents in the U.S.?

Overall Very Important  62%
Overall Somewhat Important 16%

Catholic Very Important 70%
Catholic Somewhat Important 14%

Born-Again Very Important 57%
Born-Again Somewhat Important 15%

Methodology: Latino Decisions interviewed 500 Latino citizens registered to vote, randomly selected nation-wide. Latinos were identified through a process that moves beyond surname and employs other markers of hispanicity, then screened for self-identification. Calls were made using both cell phones and landlines, and respondents were interviewed in language of choice, determined at the top of each call. The margin-of-error is +/- 4.4%.

This article was first published by Latino Decisions.

Immigration Equality is a national organization fighting for equality under U.S. immigration law for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive individuals.

Latino Decisions is the leader in Latino political opinion research. Founded by professors of political science, Dr. Gary M. Segura and Dr. Matt Barreto, the firm leverages a unique combination of analytical expertise and cultural competencies that are unparalleled in the industry. The team is comprised exclusively of credentialed research scientists with established publication records, rigorous methodological training, and experience with large-scale collaborative research projects. They employ professional insights and specialized technical skills to produce the most accurate information about Latino political attitudes, experiences and engagement.

[Photo by OneAmerica]

By Priscila Mosqueda, Texas Observer

Lourdes Flores didn’t know she wanted to help others until someone helped her. She was born in Reynosa, Mexico, and moved to Mission, Texas, at age 12. When she graduated from high school she couldn’t legally work, so family members suggested she join a new community organization an Irish nun had founded in nearby Las Milpas. Las Milpas is one of many coloniasalong the border wracked by poverty and lacking basic necessities. At the time, the colonia didn’t have paved roads, public schools, a fire station, doctors or a pharmacy.

Flores, 42, has been with the organization, A Resource In Serving Equality (ARISE), ever since, working to improve conditions in colonias in the Rio Grande Valley. ARISE’s mission is to aid communities by helping residents identify life goals and helping them reach those goals on their own. Its guiding tenet: Don’t do anything for anybody that they can’t do for themselves. The organization’s founder, Sister Gerrie Naughton, recruited Flores early on and encouraged her to share her skills.

“I was discovering I had abilities I didn’t know I had; it made me feel really good,” Flores says. “I saw how much ARISE changed me, and I thought, ‘I can’t keep this for myself; I have to share it with other women.’”

Flores was involved in ARISE’s very first program: English lessons for women in the colonias. When ARISE was founded in 1987, the Immigration Reform and Control Act had granted legal amnesty to some immigrants living in the U.S. To qualify, the women needed to learn English. Flores was one of the few in the community who spoke English, so she started teaching other women. As more women obtained legal residency, they became eligible for driver’s licenses—so ARISE began a program to teach women how to drive.

Today ARISE has four community centers in three colonias near McAllen: Las Milpas, Muñiz and South Tower, each with a different director. Flores helped open the Muñiz center, headed the South Tower branch, and now directs the support center in South Tower.

At each center, the organization offers initiatives focusing on youth and adult leadership, and personal development. It runs three cycles of programs each year and helps about 3,800 families each cycle. ARISE members go door-to-door to ask women about their needs and encourage them to share their talents, often through teaching others.

Three of ARISE’s centers are dedicated solely to community programs, but the support center helps with training for all four centers. It also offers programs of its own: It recently opened a community garden and compost facility to teach the residents of Hidalgo County, one of Texas’ poorest counties, about sustainability, and it provides solar water heaters to South Tower families who cannot afford to have hot water in their homes.

One of Flores’ responsibilities is to create new programs and curricula to expand ARISE’s reach. Among her biggest struggles, she says, is saying no to programs the community needs but the organization doesn’t have the resources to handle.

Despite limited resources, ARISE has helped poor families living along the border and has promoted civic engagement among the Latino community in the colonias. During last year’s election, ARISE members, many of them undocumented immigrants, held a voter-engagement campaign. They knocked on doors and marched. Though they couldn’t vote, they still wanted to make a difference by informing eligible voters about the issues and candidates.

Because the group is largely composed of individuals with only basic education and limited English, Flores says public forums and other events engaging the larger community and elected officials can be a challenge.

To that end, one of ARISE’s main goals continues to be education, providing classes and tutoring services for kids and adults. The group’s other focus is immigration, to offer residents the opportunity to lead their communities and be active members of society.

“Our biggest goal is to help the community reach its dreams,” Flores says. “We want people to be informed so they know they can stand up for themselves.”

This article was first published in The Texas Observer.

Priscila Mosqueda is an editorial intern for the Observer and graduated with a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Her work has been published in the San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio Magazine, ENVY Magazine and “Forty Acres of Fun,” a book about the unique culture and traditions of the University of Texas.

[Photos by Texas Observer, University of Texas]

By Aaron Schrank, Religion News Service

As the country’s fastest-growing population, Latinos now make up nearly 40 percent of all U.S. Catholics, but represent less than 14 percent of students at Catholic schools, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.

In the past decade, 16 percent of U.S. Catholic schools have closed, dropping from 8,114 to 6,841. Enrollment nationwide has declined 23 percent—driven by competition from charter schools, fallout from the church’s sex abuse scandals and changing demographics.

Catholic leaders now tout Latino outreach as one answer to the system’s problems. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on its schools to increase Latino outreach in a 2005 statement. Since then, dioceses around the country — including Boston, Cincinnati and Phoenix — have launched initiatives.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by joguldi]

By Khalil Abdullah, New America Media

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Thousands of unborn Americans have no say on whether the process of across-the-board federal budget cuts – the so-called “sequestration” — should move forward after officially going into effect today.

Although still in the womb, those infants will be among the Americans most affected by the sequestered loss of close to $700 million to the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program for lower-income families, compared to 2012 funding levels, according to a report released this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

The reduction in WIC funding will have an immediate impact on new African American mothers because they breastfeed less frequently than many of their peers from other groups. Latino families are also likely to be hard hit, the report said.

“Cuts to postpartum women who are not breastfeeding will fall disproportionately on African American women,” the report notes. “Cuts to children will fall disproportionately on Latino families. Latinos represent 38 percent of infants participating in WIC and 39 percent of women, but 45 percent of children.”

Unborn and Breast-Feeding Infants

Unborn and breast-feeding infants are even more dependent on nourishment from their low-income mothers than the very young children that WIC is also designed to serve, but all rely on the program to stretch meager household food budgets.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, WIC (formally called the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) is a $7 billion program serving an estimated 9 million individuals nationwide.

The report from CBPP, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., explains that states may vary in how they choose to downsize their eligibility rolls to offset the loss of federal money. Some states may make gradual changes in managing their caseloads; others may take immediate and more dramatic actions.

Should Congress not restore funds by Sept. 30 (the end of the current fiscal year), according to the report, “based on the ways in which states are most likely to institute the cuts, we estimate that by the end of the fiscal year, the number of participants whom WIC is serving would have to be 600,000 to 775,000 women and children fewer than the program served in an average month of fiscal year 2012.”

WIC, a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is usually touted as being one of the most successful intervention programs to target low-income mothers and their children. The program, however, has not been without its critics, some of whom consider it to be a corporate subsidy program for manufacturers and marketers of WIC-approved products.

The CBPP report does not address those controversies, but it does summarize 2012 USDA research showing that “WIC participation contributes to healthier births, higher intake of key nutrients, less consumption of sugar and fats, and a stronger connection to preventive health care.”

Misinformation Could Spread

The downsizing of WIC funding was not the CBPP report’s only concern. The public’s reaction to learning about changes to WIC, depending on how each state chooses to adjust to the loss of funds, could have negative repercussions with serious health consequences.

The report states, “To be sure, most states should be able to achieve the necessary spending cuts without denying benefits to…pregnant women and infants.”

The study’s authors caution, “Once states begin denying benefits to other families, however — including non-breastfeeding women who have just given birth and children as young as one or two — misinformation is likely to spread. Some eligible women who are pregnant or have an infant may come to believe they can no longer get benefits either, and may not apply for them.”

A woman’s physical health is not only adversely affected by the lack of sufficient nutrition for herself and/or her children, but stress induces negative health consequences of its own.

“Programs like WIC that help poor families with pregnant women or very young children afford the basics,” the report states, “may help improve longer-term outcomes for children by reducing the added stress that parents or children may experience if they cannot pay their bills or do not know if there will be adequate food.”

This article was first published in New America Media.

[Photo by Francesco Rachello]

By Jody Brannon, Latinovations

The desire to connect with America’s growing Hispanic and Latino audiences has marketing firms parsing data, looking to help clients make sense of shifting demographics.

With the growth in immigration and U.S.-born Hispanics and their families, the marketing firm Experian has produced an analysis concluding that 16 percent of people in the U.S. ages 6 or older identify as Latino or Hispanic.

That’s up 2 percentage points from 2006, when this figure was 14 percent.

The report also points to a youth boom, saying that 1,008 Latina girls in the United States turn 15 each day (tying that to the traditional coming-of-age celebration of quinceañera), up nearly 8 percent from 2006. But the other striking figure is among Generation Y and younger:

About 25 percent of individuals in the U.S., ages 6 to 34 – roughly the Millennials or Gen Y – identify as Latino or Hispanic.

These numbers are in addition to census data showing that the U.S. population growth in general will slow, then skew older and more diverse by 2060.

That 25 percent – fully a quarter of the nation – is in that sweet spot of youth with buying power. Today it tantalizes merchants, online and in stores, restaurants, theaters and more, and it will only continue to grow as the U.S. Hispanic population continues to grow in decades to come.

And beyond cash registers, the same population has strength politically, given that about 55,000 Hispanic teens reach voting age each month, according to researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center, who expect the Hispanic electorate to double by 2030.

This article originally appeared on National Journal and Latinovations.

Jody Brannon, Ph.D., is a Veteran digital journalist and editor of The Next America, a National Journal initiative that explores the impact of shifting demographics on politics and policy.  Contact her at  @brannonj or follow The Next America on Twitter and Facebook. 

[Phgoto by wneuetc]

By Arlette Saenz, ABCNews

In an interview with Time magazine, Rubio said his mother, Oriales Garcia Rubio, left him a voice mail in December that urged him to tread cautiously when it came to undocumented immigrants, whom she called “los pobrecitos,” Spanish for “the poor things.”

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by Gage Skidmore]

By Jonathan V. Last, Los Angeles Times

When it comes to immigration, demographers have a general rule of thumb: Countries with fertility rates below the replacement level (2.1) tend to attract immigrants, not send them. And so, when a country’s fertility rate collapses, it often ceases to be a source of immigration. Many Latin American countries have already fallen below the replacement level.

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by mahalie]

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Love this Infographic!

It was done by our friends at MAP Political Communication, in Austin, Texas.

Very few things tell a story better than a picture, or in this case a well done graphic. It speaks for itself – about Latino attitudes concerning family planning and birth control, and it’s broken down into six important subsets: national origin; generation, education; gender; religious affiliation; and income.

Check it out, share.

PRESS RELEASE

Second-generation Americans—-the 20 million adult U.S.-born children of immigrants—-are substantially better off than immigrants themselves on key measures of socio-economic attainment, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. They have higher incomes; more are college graduates and homeowners; and fewer live in poverty. In all of these measures, their characteristics resemble those of the full U.S. adult population.

Hispanics and Asian Americans make up about seven-in-ten of today’s adult immigrants and about half of today’s adult second generation. The second-generation of both groups are much more likely than immigrants to speak English, to have friends and spouses outside their ethnic or racial group, to say their group gets along well with others and to think of themselves as “a typical American,” according to Pew Research surveys. The surveys also find that they place more importance than does the general public on hard work and career success. They are more inclined to call themselves liberal and less likely to identify as Republicans. And roughly seven-in-ten say their standard of living is higher than that of their parents at the same stage of life. In all of these measures, the second generation resembles the immigrant generation more closely than the general public.

As the U.S. Congress takes up immigration legislation, this Pew Research report projects that given current immigration trends and birth rates, virtually all (93%) of the growth of the nation’s working age population between now and 2050 will be accounted for by immigrants and their U.S.-born children. By then, the nation’s “immigrant stock” (first and second generation combined, adults and children combined) could grow from 76 million now to more than 160 million, at which point it would comprise a record share (37%) of the U.S. population.

This report provides a snapshot portrait of the second generation based on analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, supplemented by a look at attitudes, values, economic experiences, intergroup relations and identity markers, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys of Hispanics and Asian Americans. Here is a summary of the report’s key findings:

Educational and Economic Attainment: Adults in the second generation are doing better than those in the first generation in adjusted median household income ($58,000 versus $46,000); college degrees (36% versus 29%); and homeownership (64% versus 51%). They are less likely to be in poverty (11% versus 18%) and less likely to have not finished high school (10% versus 28%).

Identity: Pew Research surveys of Hispanics and Asian Americans find that roughly six-in-ten adults in the second generation consider themselves to be a “typical American,” about double the share of immigrants who say the same. Still, most in the second generation also have a strong sense of identity with their ancestral roots.

Intergroup Relations: About half of second-generation Hispanics (52%) and about two-thirds of Asian Americans (64%) say their group gets along well with all other major racial and ethnic groups in America; fewer immigrants in these groups say the same. The second generations of these groups are also more likely than the immigrants to say they have friends outside of their ethnic or country-of-origin group.

Intermarriage: About one-in-six (15%) married second-generation adults have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity from themselves, compared with 8% of all immigrants and 8% of all U.S. adults.

Belief in Hard Work: About three-quarters of second-generation Hispanics (78%) and Asian Americans (72%) say that most people can get ahead if they’re willing to work hard. Similar shares of the immigrant generations of these groups agree. By contrast, 58% of the full U.S. population of adults feels the same way.

Political and Social Values: Second-generation Hispanics and Asian Americans, as well the first generation of each group, identify more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party and characterize themselves as liberals at higher rates than the general public. About half or more of the second generation believe that abortion should be legal, and more than two-thirds say homosexuality should be accepted by society. The relative youth of the second generation contributes to, but does not fully explain, their liberal political leanings.

Nonmarital Childbearing: Second-generation women who recently gave birth are more likely to be unmarried than immigrant women (41% versus 23%).

Language Usage: About nine-in-ten second-generation Hispanic and Asian-American immigrants are proficient English speakers, substantially more than the immigrant generations of these groups.

Perceptions of Generational Mobility: Most second-generation Hispanics (67%) and Asian Americans (75%) say their standard of living is better than that of their parents at the same stage of life. Similar shares of the immigrant generations of both groups say the same. By contrast, 60% of the full U.S. population feels the same way.

The report is for immediate release and is available at the Pew Research Center’s website athttp://www.pewresearch.org.

The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, non-advocacy research organization based in Washington, D.C. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

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[Photo by  moodboardphotography]

By Joseph M. Humire and Fernando D. Menéndez, The Hill

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by mahalie]

By Aaron Sankin, Huffingon Post

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by  moodboardphotography]