Fully revised and updated, the second edition of this popular text
provides students with a comprehensive introduction to Latino
participation in US politics. Focusing on six Latino groups -
Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and
Guatemalans - the book explores the migration history of each group
and shows how that experience has been affected by US foreign
policy and economic interests in each country of origin. The
political status of Latinos on arrival in the United States,
including their civil rights, employment opportunities, and
political incorporation, is then examined. Finally, the analysis
follows each group?s history of collective mobilization and
political activity, drawing out the varied ways they have engaged
in the US political system.



Using the tension between individual agency and structural
constraints as its central organizing theme, the discussion
situates Latino migrants, and their children, within larger macro
economic and geo-political structures that influence their
decisions to migrate and their ability to adapt socially,
economically, and politically to their new country. It also
demonstrates how Latinos continually have shown that through
political action they can significantly improve their channels of
opportunity. Thus, the book encourages students to think critically
about what it means to be a racialized minority group within a
majoritarian US political system, and how that position structures
Latinos? ability to achieve their social, economic, and
political goals.