LatinaLista — The first bit of surprising news from the latest Pew Hispanic report entitled 2008 National Survey of Latinos: Hispanics See Their Situation in U.S. Deteriorating; Oppose Key Immigration Enforcement Measures is that immigrants account for 54 percent of all Hispanic adults in the U.S.
That number would explain the large percentage of Latinos surveyed who felt so pessimistic about the American Dream. Yet, as the report shows, nativity isn’t a big a factor as the fact that it really depends on the educational levels of the Latinos surveyed that determines how bad they see the situation for themselves in the country.
Hispanics who have lower levels of education and income are more likely than Hispanics with higher levels of education and income to say that the situation for Latinos is worse than it was one year ago. More than six-in-ten (63%) Hispanics with less than a high school education, compared with four-in-ten Hispanics (41%) with at least a high school education, say that Latinos’ situation is worse. Similarly, Hispanics with household incomes of less than $30,000 (57%) are more likely than those whose household incomes are $30,000 or more (40%) to believe that things have gotten worse for Latinos in the past year.
It’s natural that those with less skills would feel their livelihoods threatened by this tanking economy.
However, the most startling news revealed by this report isn’t the fact that more Latinos identify with the Democratic party or oppose all five forms of immigration enforcement but that a whopping 84% of Latinos surveyed who were U.S. citizens were not registered to vote!
There needs to be a separate report to dissect the reasons why for that astounding percentage.
In this time and place, such a statistic is as bad as the dropout and teen pregnancy rates.
