Tensions Between Blacks and Latinos

Conversations about race in America usually center on the relationship between blacks and whites, but what often isn’t discussed is racial tension among minority groups.

In a Sunday op-ed piece in the LA Times, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes racial tension between blacks and Latinos is America’s worst-kept secret in race relations.

Recently, there’s been an increase in violence between Latino gang members and blacks in South Los Angeles.

Hutchinson writes that this is just one source of the tension between Latinos and blacks in Los Angeles and elsewhere across the country.

“Animosity between Latinos and blacks is the worst-kept secret in race relations in America. For years, Latino leaders have pointed the finger of blame at blacks when Latinos are robbed, beaten and even murdered. Blacks, in turn, have blamed Latinos for taking jobs, for colonizing neighborhoods, for gang violence. These days, the tension between the races is noticeable not only in prison life and in gang warfare (where it’s been a staple of life for decades) but in politics, in schools, in housing, in the immigration debate. Conflicts today are just as likely — in some cases, more likely — to be between blacks and Latinos as between blacks and whites.”

Tensions between the two groups seemed to be heightened in the wake of debates about illegal immigration. Some blacks feel that cheap labor from LAtin America poses a threat to low-skilled African-American workers.

The Pew Center conducted a poll this year which showed that a higher percentage of blacks said either they or a family member had lost a job because of an immigrant.

Though it hasn’t been proven empirically, some studies have shown a correlation between a surge in immigration and unemployment rates for American-born workers.

A 2004 study by a Harvard professor showed that between 1980-2000 a rise in immigration coincided with a 4.5 percent decline in employment for blacks and a 5 percent decline in employment for Latinos. One caveat: it wasn’t clear whether these people would have been employed even if there wasn’t an influx of immigrants.