Pew Research Center

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Looking for Research on Immigration trends?  Check out the Pew Research Center Website, which provides links to immigration-related Reports since 1995!  It houses a wealth of information, exploring topics such as  party politics, the impact of immigration policies on unauthorized immigrants, demographic changes, birth rates, and health care.  Pew also has a really cool site called the Pew Hispanic Center, which focuses on trends and research related to Hispanic Populations throughout the U.S.  One of my favorite reports explores Latino identity, or should I say Hispanic identity?  The title of the article is “When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity.”  Interesting to note that 50% of Latinos use their country of origin to describe their identity (e.g., Guatemalan, Mexican, Cuban). 24% use Hispanic or Latino, and 21% use American.   So why do we even use labels at all, especially if, as the report notes, these labels aren’t even used consistently outside of the United States? It all has to do with Public Law 94-311, 1976 which mandates that the U.S. document the economic and social statistics of U.S. residents who come from Spanish Speaking countries, that is Hispanics or Latinos.  You might wonder if you should use the label Hispanic or the label Latino…that depends on who you ask. Check out Hispanically Speaking News for a short discussion on Hispanic vs. Latino.

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