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Latalia Sykes

Professor Encinias

Central American Studies 113A

02/15/2023

In the article “Becoming Hispanic”, researchers focused on how it's been placed on Latin

Americans of today. Between November of 2004 through July 2005 they interviewed a group of

27 immigrants, 19 men and 8 women from Atlanta and listed their take on living in a racialized

society. racialization is The act of being “raced” or seen as someone belonging to a particular

race. In particular, non white, foreign born residents often times are racialized through

assumptions regarding their nationality and loyalties, in short, their "Americans are critical of

traditional bi polar, black-white models of racial hierarchy in the United States because they may

fail to capture the experiences of non white, non European immigrant group.

They speak on the oppression and many struggles that they have to live with being

outside of their country. Atlanta was deemed as a gateway for immigrants to go to because it was

easy. In the south there are majority black natives unifamiliar with the culture. In result they

categorize anyone from Latin American culture as being “Hispanic” or “Latino”. Which forces

the immigrants to actively have to argue against living with a racialized identity. In one

interview with an immigrant named Marco he quotes “most of the forms that I used to do in the

military I was a Hispanic. But I don't mind being called Latino or Hispanic. It doesn't really

bother me either way. Either term is the same to me. I never really have paid attention to why

they do this' ' They express that this is something very normalized in the South because that's just

the way things have gotten. They are forced to be labeled with racial identities that do not belong

to them because even though they are not hispanic, because they “look alike” that's what they are
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categorized with. In another interview with another immigrant, Jose, he quotes “I would feel

more from Guatemala if I was over there, but here I am just hispanic”. The racial assumptions

and stereotypes of Latin born natives have an undeniable effect on how they identify themselves

racially. He also quotes from the same interview after being asked if people ever ask where he's

from. He answers “Yea sometimes, They say where are you from Mexico?”. He would tell them

he's from Guatemala but they follow up with “everybody looks the same”. This is where the

main issue is stemming from. The way everyone “looks”. If you're brown, you are black or

Mexican, if you're pale you're white. This continuing on for so many years and even still in

today's society everywhere is affecting people's sense of belonging and self.