Poll: 1 out of 3 Americans inaccurately think most Hispanics are undocumented

[Spitfire of ATJ]

For many non-Latino Americans, the words “Latino” and “illegal immigrant” are one and the same. A new poll finds over 30 percent of non-Hispanics believe a majority (over half) of Hispanics are undocumented. However, the actual figure of undocumented Hispanics in the U.S. is around 18 percent, and only 37 percent of U.S. Hispanics are actually immigrants, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

http://nbclatino.com/2012/09/12/poll-1-out-of-3-americans-think-most-hispanics-are-undocumented/

Keep in mind that much of the West was once Mexico and those former Mexicans voted to become part of the United States and became instant citizens. White people did NOT charge in and run all the brown people off their land and force them to migrate over the border. The classic saying here in California amongst many Latinos is, "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed over us."

Despite this historic fact, you can have a great-great-great-grandfather who voted to make California a state in 1849 and still be accused of being an "immigrant" by someone who's family came to America from Europe a hundred years later just because you look "Mexican".

[HockeyMom]

1. If an elected representative of Congress, thinks Puerto Ricans

are illegals, what do you expect from the public?

[JRLeft]

2. Do we need anymore evidence that most Americans are dumber than a box of rocks?

[Mr.Bill]

3. I grew up in San Jose, California in the 60s.

Most of the hispanic families I knew then pre-dated my family's presence in this country by many generations. They had a saying there: "We didn't cross the border, it crossed us."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. We need to sit Republicans down and make them watch "The Legend of Zorro"

It starts off with the vote for Statehood.

The promise to the Mexican people of the time was that they would no longer be treated as peasants, but as equals.

[Bandit]

4. 1 out of 3 Americans think Republicans are good for America

I am sure it is the same 30%.. They behave like they are completely brain dead...

[treestar]

5. Wonder how they figure that so many cities in CA, AZ and NM

NV and CO are in Spanish. Maybe the durned illegals forced it on us? With their illegal votes.

Actually that is an interesting statistic to know. I would have known most are not illegal or even immigrants, but didn't know the actual percentage.

[geardaddy]

6. I can believe it.

People are eejits.

[jethro_troll]

39. I know, right?

The REAL number is that 70% are ILLEGAL!

[geardaddy]

43. Buh-bye!

[pampango]

46. As long as we're making up numbers - how about 150,000,000% are ILLEGAL!!!

That's even scarier - which is the whole point - assuming that the number is not going to be governed by a fact-checker.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. There's no such thing as an "illegal".

They're undocumented. The solution is to provide documentation. This prevents exploitation at the hands of those who would hire them at substandard wages.

The problem is also the assumption that they all of them want to be citizens. This goes back to the "America is the greatest country in the world and they want what we have" garbage. Many of these people are here because they want to make money and send it home because they can't make a living in their own country and they leave for home as soon as they can. They have zero interest in becoming citizens, much less dragging their family after them. This situation could be solved if the Mexican government would establish a wage people could live on. The rich over there have been had power over the government for generations and hold one fraudulent election after another to maintain their status.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. As long as we keep the undocumented in fear they will not come forward,...

....the companies will continue to use them as they see fit.

Let's face it.

Slavery still exists in America, it just comes in a choice of colors now.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. Yup, "We". Just like "We" invaded Iraq. "We" engaged in torture.

That why "We" also get pissed off over "Our" actions.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. Just the opposite. We need to provide all workers with basic rights.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. That's the argument the Neocons used. They said Iraqis were guilty for having Saddam in power.

The Mexican People are NOT the ones to blame for their lot in life.

There is STILL a cast system in place split between rich land owners and a peasant class. They can't just rise up and overthrow their owners. For one thing, our own government LIKES things the way they are so there is a cheap labor pool readily available.

Look what happened in Haiti. They elected a priest who had worked with the poor and his first act was to build schools, medical centers and raise the minimum wage and in response the United States gave M16's to a bunch of thugs who left corpses in the street to rot as a warning to others. Our government snatched that president out of his country and sent him to Africa with a warning never to return to this hemisphere.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. You know the current wave is due to NAFTA right?

They are not here because they want to, but because there are simply no jobs in rural Mexico, especially in places like Oaxaca and Chiapas. You also kow Tyson foods was convicted in Mexoco of attracting Mexican illegals by putting out adds in places like oh Guadalajara.

Of course you also know the Mexican federal government has been running internal programs to try to help and that ironically Mexican Unions are actually stronger than ours.

By the way i am all for a Teamsters Union that runs the gamut of North America, aka all NAFTA members. But perhaps I can't expect you to know this, since the Alta California, Tejas, Nuevo Mexico...were French territory...

I give up...

You know some of the buzz words, but your understanding of this is really shallow.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Two choices

Actually...

We stop globalization, Mexico and the US re-industrialize and protect their strategic industries. A generation at most the problem will solve itself.

If we insist on globalization, get off the nationalist horseshit you are espousing, and organize labor across international borders. Gompers got it 120 years ago, time we get it. what o you think will happen with strong unions working the breath and length of the North American Zone? Jaysus, there is a reason the free trade agreements have at their core weakening labor.

As is the current wave has not just slowed down, but due to the 2008 crisis, reversed itself.

But this, we call unintended consequences, sort off. And there is more, due to anti Mexican laws, let's be honest, that is what they are, two states lost harvests this year, not a harvest, a complete disaster...we, in the us, have depended on cheap labor since the Virginia and Massachusetts compacts. That is well before 1776, by a couple hundred years.

[hunter]

14. If bosses in the USA haven't got an undocumented immigrant working class to abuse...

... they will simply create a documented working class they can abuse, probably by destroying our public schools.

The entire premise of our "free market" economy is faulty if anyone, citizen or not, is not contributing to the common good simply by working.

The way to solve this falsely framed problem is to raise minimum wages and strictly enforce labor laws to protect all workers, documented or not. Corporations wouldn't find any profit hiring undocumented workers over documented workers and citizens, they'd have to treat everyone the same. Stronger unions would help too.

Immigration raids always ought to end with corporate executives being taken away in polices cars, and computers and documentation being loaded into trucks, and never with undocumented workers loaded onto buses and threatened with deportation.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. Law enforcement already knows agribusiness has a whole network in place to get,...

....migrant workers here but they look the other way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. To answer your question

True, much of the West was once Mexico. But isn't it also true that much of the land that became Mexico and then a portion of the United States belonged to France or was controlled by France prior to the the time that Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed?

No, that territory was part of Nueva España, New Spain, until Mejico, original spelling, achieved indepdence from Spain in 1821, ironically 400 years after the fall of Tenochtilan, modern day Mexico City.

There was a war of the pastries with the French before the 1847 war with the United States that led to the treaty, which was more high comedy than war, see the name of the war...and then the French occupation of 1860-5, which some historians believe stopped not because Napoleon III got any qualms but the end of the American Civil War which they had their paws in...not clear how deeply to this day. My personal view, Maximilian was not that bright truly, so if Napoleon wanted any role in the American Civil war, there was no way. Also Maximilian had an issue with Juarez and an open revolt by the Liberales, who fought the French, and the Conservadores, conservatives, who supported the Second American Empire.

Fun fact, Maximilian's residence is the same military fort in Chapultepec American troops assaulted, where the red line comes in the pans of US Marines...nother fun fact, it currently serves as the National history museum.

What you are thinking is the Lousiana Purchase of 1801 iirc, which was done by Jefferson, and included only one small portion of formerly Spanish territory, surrendered to the French, and that be Florida.

[gollygee]

10. I've had this conversation with people before

"Parts of the southwestern US were part of Mexico before they were part of the US. The people who lived there would have become US citizens many generations ago, when the area where they lived became part of the US."

But honestly I think there are people who think you aren't 100% American unless you are of European ancestry. Regardless of how long your ancestors have been here. It's scary and sad that people think that but I'm afraid they do. FOX should do a poll.

[gollygee]

13. True that

I've brought that up too. But a lot of Tea Party types seem OK with Cubans who are of Spanish descent. Not Mexicans who are partly Spanish and partly Native.

I can't explain the logic behind it. Sorry.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. I can, look up the term miscegination

The mixing of the races. It is a deep seated fear of the American right. Add to it a fear of slave revolts, these days labor unrest...

It's uggly.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. "Spain is in Europe."

Right wingers consider Mexicans to be a sub-human race.

But then, they also think Mexico is a desert. Never mind the tropical resorts the kids go to on Spring Break....

[img][/img]

Then there's the Sierra Madre mountains which is the southern Rocky Mountains.

[img][/img]

Really looks like a desert,...doesn't it....

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Oh absolutely

And the mangroves down in Tierra Caliente.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. When was the last time you heard the words, "Latin Lover"?

I get the idea it's white insecurity AGAIN that explains some of the hate...


Compare and contrast:
[img][/img]

[img][/img]

[MariaM83]

23. yeah, and about 1 out of 2 Americans say humans did not evolve from earlier beings

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1107/polling-evolution-creationism

[JDPriestly]

33. Thank you. We in Southern California are very aware of this and even some if not all of us

who are not natives to this part of the country are very proud of our Southwestern heritage which includes Native American as well as South and Central American and the original formerly Mexican inhabitants who were here before we arrived. These are wonderful, warm cultures.

People in other parts of the country are just ignorant about who the people of the Southwest really are.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

34. One thing people do in this country is to move to where the jobs are.

That means a lot of the long term residents of California have moved on to other parts of the country. The attitude from the fearful, outraged, racist FOX "News" viewer upon seeing Latinos in their pure white bread suburb outside of Indianapolis is to believe Lou Dobbs when he says the Mexicans are invading America.

Doesn't matter if you look in the library to check out an old phone book from the 1950s and see a bunch of them listed...

BTW: Have you ever noticed when a Right Winger gets mad and you show them that they had no reason to be mad and they even agree with you that they have no reason to be mad but they still are mad? Then when you point out that they're doing that they get mad about the fact that you are pointing it out? Want to really set them off? Tell them that's why they call it "madness".

[pampango]

35. It would be interesting to see the partisan breakdown of clueless Americans.

Something tells me that teabaggers would top the list of folks who think most Hispanics are undocumented with other republicans a close second.

From the OP:

What about the relationship between what Americans choose to watch or read and their views on Latinos? The study found strong correlations. For example, 41 percent of conservative radio talk show listeners think Latinos take jobs away from other Americans, over twice the rate of National Public Radio listeners (19 percent held this opinion). Illinois Democratic congressman Luis Gutiérrez stated he sees the consequences of negative talk radio in his office on public policy issues such as immigration. “We get calls in my office from angry and outraged talk radio listeners several times a week filled with misconceptions and negative stereotypes,” said Gutiérrez in a statement. “The reality is that when you strip away the anger, underneath there is a lot of consensus among Democrats, Republicans, and independents on the immigration issue and how to get things back on a legal footing,” he added.

Of course, Congressman Gutiérrez is the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus. What he meant the consensus on immigration is that majorities in both parties and independents support a path to citizenship as at least a part of immigration reform.




55% of republicans favor a path to citizenship as a priority or co-priority in immigration reform. Tea partiers are the only group in which a majority opposes any role for legalization.
75% of Democrats (including 82% of liberals and 87% of those 18-29) favor a path to citizenship as a priority or co-priority in immigration reform.

[entanglement]

36. A significant fraction of the white population considers only whites to be "Real" Americans.

I have noted, curiously enough, that they use the word "illegal" as a synonym of "illegitimate" - in their opinion, certain groups of people have no right to be here, so they are "illegal". The exact legal status of the objects of their hate is of no consequence. That same group isn't especially interested in history either. At least, in their version of history, there is no space for Latinos who voted to make California a state way back in 1849.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. Nativism is a big part of the Right Wing movement,..

...in particular, "The Turner Diaries" which is a book that describes a war against all other races worldwide to make the entire planet "white only". It actually SCARES white people to know they are a minority in the world. It also makes some white people feel they should OWN America and make the other races "go back where they came from" ignoring the fact that white people came from Europe.

[img][/img]

[pampango]

38. Hey, if you 'want to take our country back', you have to be taking it back from "THEM".

Excellent pie chart, btw!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

44. I can picture an alien race deciding to make first contact with the most common people,...

....and Right Wingers flipping out and calling the aliens "commies".

[MariaM83]

40. funny how that works - what they consider "white" today would have been aliens a years ago nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

45. I'm old enough to remember the WASP racism against the Italians.

[MariaM83]

41. Two-thirds of Americans can't name even a single Supreme Court justice

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/21/idUS125529+21-Aug-2012+HUG20120821

[MariaM83]

42. Two-thirds of Americans can't name the three branches of the federal government

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/09/constitution-knowledge-sandra-day-oconnor-tea-party-/1