Hispanics in the United States

Book excerpt: Hispanics in the United States represents a collective exploration providing a basic foundation of the information available to understand Hispanics in the United States and create an effective policy agenda. Hispanics are projected to be the largest minority group in the United States in the twenty-first century. The contributions define an agenda which will be useful for students, scholars, service practitioners, political activists, as well as policy makers. The opening essays define the diversity of the Hispanic experience in America and put each of the other essays within a larger context. This edition adds a new introduction by the editors incorporating and evaluating the implications of the results of the national 2000 census. The book is organized into two sections: the first establishes the historical, demographic, religious, and cultural context of Hispanics in the United States. The second describes the major issues facing this population in the American social structure, specifically the areas of health care, the labor market, criminal justice, social welfare, and education. The work concludes with a discussion of the role played by Hispanics in the political life of the nation. The contributors, all of whom are scholars with demonstrated competence in the areas, include: Teresa A. Sullivan, David Maldonado, Melissa Roderick, Barry Chiswick, Michael Hurst, Zulema Suarez, Alvin Korte, Katie McDonough, Cruz Reynoso, and Christine Marie Sierra, as well as David Engstrom and Pastora San Juan Cafferty. Together they have produced a book which will be extremely useful to anyone developing public policies and creating social interventions at either the national or local levels during the coming decade. This new edition is a valuable contributor to discussions about the issues defining the population that will be the largest minority group in the United States in this century.