There’s a lot of fear growing among the Latino community, both immigrant and non-immigrant, mainly due to the stereotypes we see on mainstream media. Sylvia Marotta-Walters is a professor of counseling at George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development and she’s been a trauma researcher for over 25 years.
As a trauma researcher, she’s researched situations that can cause post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as the ones that Latino immigrants are currently experiencing. All over the country immigrants are living in fear of being deported and this fear is causing symptoms of PTSD.
Many of the things people hear and read on the news and social media have spread fear, which is why it’s important to dispel stereotypes that are getting into people’s heads. “We’re human beings and naturally wired to stereotypes and it isn’t the stereotyping itself that is the problem, the problem arises when we believe that the stereotypes that are in our head help us categorize information as real,” says Marotta-Walters. When we act as if these stereotypes are real, that’s when we get into trouble. We are all a nation of immigrants and to assume that because a person is of a particular ethnic group that that person must be illegal, it’s one of the most difficult stereotypes, she says.
Three Popular Myths That Are Simply Not True
1. Latinos Don’t Adapt to the American Culture
Latino immigrants have been in the U.S. for over three generations and just like other immigrant groups, they share the culture and adapt. “People think that Latinos are mono-linguistic and if you’re looking to categorize an entire group of people, you are creating a false reality,” she says. The fact is, that the majority of Latinos living in the United States are citizens and speak English. “When people talk about not assimilating, they say that Latinos are not going to learn the language and that’s simply not true,” says Marotta-Walters. Being bilingual is often addressed as a liability, rather than a resource and being bilingual has many valuable health benefits.
2. Latinos Are Criminals
Most of the Latinos that migrate to the U.S. come here to work and to have a better life for their families. Several studies have analyzed the crime rate in the U.S. and have failed to show any relationship between immigrants and the crime rate. A recent study shows that areas with the most immigrants have lower crime rates. Latinos come here to work and ironically they are the ones responsible for most of the construction in the United States. Our buildings, structures, and houses are all built by Latinos.
About two-thirds of the Latinos that people stereotype have blue-collar occupations or service occupations. Another two-thirds of the U.S. population is in managerial occupations or sales. “They’re not taking the jobs, except at the very lowest level and in America, very few people won’t take those jobs, so there’s no competition there,” explains Marotta-Walters. Having illegal immigrants take low-cost labor jobs, especially in the agricultural field benefits not only employers but also keeps prices down for the consumer.
People are Living in Fear
“We’re creating a culture of fear and once you do that, then there are all kinds of disorders that result when there’s a mass social destabilization,” she says. Many families split up when they emigrate to the U.S. and then later reunite once they’ve settled down. They have lived here comfortably for decades and the thought of having to leave the country they’ve watched their children grow up in is a scary thing.
“I have Latino colleagues here whose children are worried and these are children that are not at any risk, but they’re worried,” she explains. “They’re not sleeping, they don’t go outside to play and they’re told that they’re going back when their parents are U.S. citizens.”
Unfortunately, the Trump administration has taken the filters out of civility, they have made it ok for anyone to say anything they want and have created a culture of fear in people who don’t even have a reason to fear. “It’s quite scary to me that the filters that keep us a civilized society are gone, that it’s ok to nullify the person that you think is different from you for whatever reason you think they’re different,” says Marotta-Walters. “Today it is race-ethnicity, tomorrow it might be something else…once the filters are gone, the ability of people to live alongside each other is compromised.”