Many Second-Generation Americans Are Living the American Dream?

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”Despite stereotyping as being separate from the majority population and unwilling to learn English and assimilate, second-generation Hispanic Americans—the children of first-generation immigrants—usually do quickly assimilate. Research shows that Hispanic immigrants learn English as fast as those from other countries, and in a generation or two, their mother language is nothing but a faint memory.

“What we see is the classic American story, where the second generation is doing better, in fact significantly better, than the first,” said Paul Taylor, a senior fellow at the Pew Research Center, to NBC Latino. Some 61 percent consider themselves just “typical Americans.”

In 2012, Hispanics had become the largest minority group on college campuses, making up a record 16.5 percent of all college enrollments—and that number is growing at a rapid rate each year. “Most have parents who came here without a formal education, so the jump in college completion among the second generation is significant,” Taylor also told NBC Latino.

With high school graduation among Hispanics around 80 percent, and their pursuit of college education soaring, what is making the difference? Is it a better education system? More dedicated teachers? Improved counseling? Parent involvement? In the case of Alejandra Franco, it is all of the above.

“I’m friends with some of my teachers,” she says, “and they’ve really helped me a lot. My graduating class is very competitive, with lots of Advanced Placement students. Sometimes, people can say hurtful things. I remember one of my teachers said, ‘Just remember, (those hurtful things said) won’t matter in 10 years. What will matter is who you are as a person and what you have accomplished.’”

Alejandra hears that message at home as well. “My parents are not putting any limits on me, and I can talk to them about anything,” she says.

She sees herself as the role model for her three younger brothers and is determined to set a good example. “I tell them they have to work hard, because without an education, they won’t be able to have a stable future.”

Alejandro Franco, Alejandra’s father, is completely supportive of his daughter’s educational pursuits. “He meets with my teachers and asks what he can do to help with my studies,” she says. “And my mother, Ana, is studying English, got her GED and is planning to take college classes. My father says he knows we (his children) can have a better life, that this country is full of opportunity, and it’s up to us to take advantage of that. He regrets not having been able to do that himself. ”While Alejandra Franco is indeed remarkable, there are many, many other second-generation American achievers coming up into what will soon be a “majority minority” country. We’re privileged to have them as our neighbors.

Alejandra’s bottom line? “I want to share my accomplishments with my community, because they helped shape me.”

    ANITA@LOVABLELIBERAL.COM

The Lovable Liberal

               SEPARATING POLICY FROM POLITICS

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I got to thinking about whether women might have reacted differently in the two aforementioned shooting events, and whether the direct marketing of firearms to women has made a significant difference. Although female gun ownership remained steady during the two decades leading up to 2010, it has since been surging. Women now constitute about 25 percent of gun owners, according to some sources.

Bruce Jernigan runs Yellow Mart in Indio, a store that carries, among other things, pink camouflage caps meant for women who want to look good while shooting. Accessories meant specifically for female gun enthusiasts run the gamut from pink pistol grips to bra holsters. 

Jernigan, who has been involved in the gun industry since the late 1960s, remembers when marketing specifically to women began. He attributes increased gun ownership by women to two major factors: aggressive marketing by gun manufacturers, and more women living alone and feeling empowered to protect themselves.

“Guns are marketed specifically to women as an untapped customer base, and there are definitely a lot more women as customers now than in the past,” he says. “Society has changed, and women are more independent and more comfortable buying guns than they used to be.”

According to The Blaze website, “Gun manufacturers are trying to find the angle in their product line that will turn a predominately male-focused industry toward females” by using smaller sizes, color options, and elements that reduce user fatigue.  

Here in the Coachella Valley, there have been special training sessions to make women more familiar with guns, and more comfortable when guns are in their homes. One local group, Women of Higher Caliber (is that a great name, or what?), calls itself a “social club comprised of women who enjoy shooting.” Its founders want women to learn about guns and practice in an environment “organized by and designed especially for women, and grounded in women’s attitudes about individual protection and peace of mind.”

However, there’s another side to the story of women and guns. According to Demand Action to End Gun Violence, “ women in the U.S. are 11 times more likely to be murdered with guns than women in other high-income countries” and “the presence of a gun in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent.” 

According to the Center for American Progress, “a staggering portion of violence against women is fatal, and a key driver of these homicides is access to guns. From 2001 through 2012, 6,410 women were murdered in the United States by an intimate partner using a gun—more than the total number of U.S. troops killed in action during the entirety of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.”   

The Second Amendment is the only one in the Bill of Rights which has an introductory clause: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Why was it written so differently from all the others? 

In 2008, the Supreme Court, for the first time in our history, held that the Second Amendment includes a constitutional right for individuals to keep a handgun in the home. The court made it clear, however, that reasonable restrictions could still apply.

I asked Bruce Jernigan what restrictions he thought made sense. He agrees with age restrictions already in place (18 for a long gun, 21 for a concealable handgun), and with denying purchase of a gun to a person with a felony criminal history or open warrants. As for mental-health restrictions, if we can find a way, then Jernigan is all for them.

“California is always on the cutting edge of new laws regarding firearms,” says Jernigan, “and restrictions based on mental health should be a priority.”

Training is encouraged, although not required, and testing is not necessary to purchase a gun—but is required, for example, to get a hunting license. 

It’s almost impossible to have a reasoned discussion about guns in the United States.  It’s hard to argue with pro-gun advocates who say, "If guns kill people, do pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat?” This is an example of “false equivalency,” a logical fallacy used as a debate tactic. 

People with pencils can write, and make mistakes, because the primary purpose of pencils is to write; people with cars can move from one place to another, even drunk, because that is the primary purpose of cars; and people with spoons can eat too much, because the primary purpose of spoons is eating. People with guns can kill because the primary purpose of guns is to kill.

Considering that two-thirds of the world’s people live in nations that are less homicidal than the United States, and women are more pro-gun control than men, it’s worth wondering: What would happen with guns if women ran America?

I've learned the hard way - what you resist persists

By Anita Rufus

I’m having a problem with some of our neighbors. Unfortunately, it’s just that—my problem.

Social Rule System Theory, a field of sociological study, analyzes how human social activity is organized and regulated. These often informal rules include language, customs and codes of conduct. The theory holds that the “making, interpretation and implementation of social rules are universal in human society.” It’s how we learn to live with other people.

Many social rules are culturally influenced. This helps explain why people from densely populated areas, like Southeast Asia or New York, tend to push to the front of any line rather than neatly lining up to wait their turn. Where they come from, if you wait, your turn will never come.

A New Yorker friend, Peter, recalled his experience in London, where people were confusedly dithering about while lining up to get on a bus. He purposefully strode to the front of the throng, got on the bus and, when he heard grumbling behind him, turned around and proclaimed, “I’m an American.” Somehow, that seemed to settle the matter—the “ugly American” concept of “loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric behavior” is, unfortunately, well-known and accepted throughout Europe.

One of my pet peeves is people who talk in movies. There are unwritten rules about how to shush someone. It starts with the quick turn-around to locate who is talking, which should alert them we overheard them. Next is the longer turn-around, with a glare and a quick but audible “Shh!” When that doesn’t work, some turn and hiss, “Be quiet!” Others just give up and suffer through to the end

The worst incident I’ve ever experienced came in a Palm Desert theater, when I shushed a woman sitting two seats over, who was talking in a normal tone after the movie had already begun. I followed the “rules” about shushing, including finally hissing, “Please stop talking.” I couldn’t believe it when her husband, sitting beyond her in the row, leaned across her, got into my face with a coiled fist, and said through bared teeth, “If you shush my wife again, I’m going to put my fist down your throat!”

“Well,” I loudly whispered back, with uncharacteristic nerve, “tell her to be quiet!” Needless to say, when the movie was over, I stayed in my seat for quite a while to make sure they were well gone before I left .Why do people feel the need to share out loud every detail of what they’re watching? It’s particularly galling when, for example, at a vocal performance, people talk while the singer is singing, rather than waiting to comment during the applause that would cover their comments.

I’ve noticed that many of our neighbors don’t seem to realize that movie theaters are not their living rooms. People don’t seem to understand that the director of the movie fashioned the opening to set the mood for what will follow.

I’m really not interested that you know which prior movie that actor was in, or how much older that actress looks. As for comments like, “Why did he do that?”—we’re all there to discover that together, so please just wait and see along with the rest of us. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?

Here’s my short list of other social rules:

◾At public performances, don’t talk while the performer is performing.

◾Hold the door for someone coming in right behind you.

◾Teach your children the difference between “inside voice” and “outside voice,” and that it’s not OK to disturb other diners in a restaurant.

◾Don’t take cuts in line.

◾Say, “Excuse me,” when you pass in front of someone or step on their toes.

◾Move your shopping cart to the side so others can get past you while you try to find something on the shelves.

◾Let someone with only one item go ahead of you when you have a cartful.

◾Return incorrect change.

◾Let at least one vehicle into the lane ahead of you when the driver is obviously waiting for a break in traffic.

◾Don’t leave clothes on the dressing room floor—rehang them.

Many years ago, I took “est” training. One of the mantras we learned was, “What you resist persists.” In other words, we get repeated chances to learn to incorporate into our reality things which we cannot control or change. I presume that’s why the talkers always sit near me. As long as it’s an “issue” for me, I get to keep having opportunities to learn to handle it!

My most instructive incident happened when I went to a summertime movie in Palm Springs. I was sitting with my friend at the left side of a row in a nearly empty theater. At the right end of the row behind us was an older woman with her husband. Shortly after the movie began, she started telling him everything that was happening on the screen. I tried the look, the simple “Shhh,” and then a much louder “Shhhhh!”—all to no avail. She continued her running narrative of the film through the entire performance.

When the film finally ended, I raced to the end of the row so I could confront the woman. “Ma’am, why don’t you wait for the movie to come out on tape so you can see it at home without bothering others, since your husband is obviously hard of hearing?” I said.She smiled sweetly—and patiently—at me, and said, “Honey, my husband isn’t hard of hearing. He doesn’t see well.”

What you resist persists.

Why Do We See Others of Our Own Species as Inferior?

Then the preacher asked, “Who gives this woman to be married?” My son dutifully said, “Her mother and I do,” although his wife had not accompanied them down the aisle.

The fact that we are still acting as if a father “owns” his daughter and passes that “ownership” along to another man, only abandoned in public policy in recent history (for example, women can now have credit and make medical decisions on their own), made me catch my breath. This is 2014. Why aren’t both sets of parents asked to deliver their children to each other? 

Also on my mind: The highly publicized rantings of Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. We’re all aware of the sensationalized, “You can do anything but … don’t bring him to my games,” statements regarding her public appearance with Magic Johnson, among others.

Sterling was apparently upset that his girlfriend/mistress/assistant (take your pick), who describes herself as Mexican and black (“You're supposed to be a delicate White or a delicate Latina girl," he told her), was somehow disrespecting him by appearing publicly with a black man. His racism and ignorance were appropriately publicly censured. But what hasn’t really been discussed is that he apparently holds the belief that his image is based onher behavior, like an employer who tells you how to act with customers, because you are representing him or her and are expected to do nothing that would put that employer in a bad light.

Sterling’s racism is proven by his concern about appearances, just as my father was. (To be charitable, perhaps it was only my father’s perception about the racism of his parents.)

Then there’s the appropriate outrage, finally, about the girls abducted in Nigeria by some fringe group of idiots who believe that publicly educating females means the end of their world, a notion only abolished from our own public policy in the 20th century. Girls need to be married off, not educated, say the extremists in Nigeria, and somehow, they make the illogical leap that they should therefore fund their activities by selling the girls to men who will own them. Even in America, some can’t abide the notion of true gender equality.

So within the space of one week, I experienced my reaction to two weddings and racism, with the ownership of women as the unifying theme among seemingly disparate events. I suppose I could be accused of letting my feminist politics overwhelm and define things that are merely social conventions, or public displays of ignorance, or ego-involvement events, or self-defined religious extremists going against their own religious teachings.

But I’m trying to figure out how to make sense of and promote understanding of the pernicious effect of seeing others of our own species as inferior. This instinct is in all of us, perhaps inherited from a tribal “us vs. them” mentality, but leading inevitably to borders between lands, to slavery, to “the final solution,” to women as property. It pervades everything. It is held on a level often so unconscious that we can’t believe it is motivating us in any way. It permeates our religious teachings and our cultural norms.

Unless and until we can “own” this part of our nature, and do whatever is necessary to obliterate it, ownership of women—and others—will continue to be part of the reality of being human.

We could start with absolute public censure of people like Donald Sterling, regardless of position or fortune, and making it impossible for anyone with those views to do business or participate in our institutions.

We could make it the social norm that brides walk down the aisle on their own, proudly going toward their own future without anyone passing them on.

We could adjudicate that people cannot be defined or punished based on whom they love or with whom they associate.

We could recognize that each of us carries this addiction to superiority around inside of us, and the manifestations, while appearing very different, all spring from the same source.

The first step toward sobriety is acknowledging there is a problem.