DENVER.- An academic group presented a study detailing the "robust effects" stereotyping Hispanic immigrants have in their integration and life in the United States today.
The research, conducted by Jeffrey M. Timberlake, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati, was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association held at Denver's Convention Center.
Timberlake and his collaborators interviewed 2,150 voters registered in Ohio and concluded that the way US citizens perceive Latin immigrants is strongly linked with beliefs about the supposed negative impact immigration has.
Timberlake, a PhD by the University of Chicago in 2003, is specialized in the analysis of residential segregation due to racial and ethnic matters, in urban demography and sociology, as well as in sociology of population, focusing in what he calls "causes and consequences of urban injustice."
The study, titled "Who 'they' are is important", found that the surveyed Ohio citizens do not link their opinions to the characteristics of Asian, Middle Eastern and European immigrants, but they do so in the case of immigrants from Latin America.
Specifically, the research paper reveals the stereotyping related effects have on Latin immigrants are "large and robust, especially those regarding (the citizens') attitudes about the impact immigration has on unemployment, school quality and crime."
"Anyone following the political discourse about the current immigration policies can't stop noticing that people, before stating their opinion (be it in favor or against the different immigration reform's versions), assert their positive feelings towards immigration and their respect of our 'nation of immigrants' history", said the scholars at the closing of their study.
"Nonetheless, how our findings show, the reaction regarding immigration generally goes through the filter of attitudes towards a set of unique characteristics that are believed a certain immigrant group possesses", added Timberlake and his collaborators.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers used data compiled between November of 2007 and May of 2008 by the Institute for Policy Research of the UC.
They explained that Ohio is an "ideal state" to study US citizen's attitudes towards immigrants since "most residents of Ohio have little contact with new immigrants."
That is why Ohioans' attitudes regarding immigrants stay "relatively unaffected by the current immigration levels."
According to data gathered by the census, only 3.8 percent of Ohio's 11.5 million inhabitants are immigrants. On a national level, 12.7 percent of the United States' 311 million are.
In Ohio 3.2 percent of its population are Hispanic, the national level is 16.7 percent.
Every surveyed person was asked to evaluate a sole immigrant group and to indicate if its members were rich or poor, intelligent or unintelligent, self-sufficient or dependent on government assistance, willing to integrate to US society or not and whether they were violent or not.
The study concluded that the citizens who assume that Latin immigrants have a negative impact in the working and educational situation as well as on the population's security (whether those assumptions are real or not) also attribute negative characteristics to the group.
On the other hand, there was not a similar correlation found regarding immigrants coming from other places, and neither was there a strong association between stereotypes towards all immigrants and the belief that immigration makes maintaining the country's unity difficult.
The research included scholars from the Rice University (in Houston, Texas) and the Loyola University from Chicago; it was funded by the University of Cincinnati.
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Original Text : EFE Agency
Translation: Karen.Balderas@sandiegored.com
