Growth of Hispanic Workers in the Workplace

Introduction

Since the 1800's, there has been a tremendous growth of Hispanics within the United States. Hispanics have been migrating to the United States, and leaving their home countries in Central and South America to "find a better way of life." Through research, many authors argue that their migration has placed such a terrible strain on the social and economic systems within the U.S. Others argue that their migration brings great benefits.

However, studies show that many managers struggle to accommodate Hispanic workers, due to language barriers, cultural differences, discrimination, and health and safety hazards, to name a few. Further studies show that even though the added diversification of recruiting Hispanic workers may have their downfalls, there are many benefits associated with them, as well. There seems to be a strong dedicated and team-oriented work ethic among many of the Hispanic workers. From a manager's standpoint, diversification within the workplace may not be easily welcomed by their other employees or counterparts, at first, but through education, training and mentoring, recruiting such ones of different cultural backgrounds, prove to be very profitable for an organization, thus, not only focusing on certain markets within the United States. This diversification brings about globalization, thereby marketing their services or products throughout the world, due to creative inputs from not only Hispanic workers, but from other workers of diverse backgrounds.

To understand why there is such a tremendous growth of Hispanic workers, one will need to observe the history of Hispanic immigration and why they chose to leave their home countries to come to the United States.

History of Hispanic Immigration

Hispanics have affected the social, economic, and cultural climate of the United States, since the early 1900's. The focus on migration only highlighted three different groups of Hispanics-Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans.

The first group to migrate to the U.S. was the Mexicans. This resulted after 1848, immediately after the Mexican-American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was enacted, and it allowed Mexicans to migrate to the present-day states of California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and parts of Arizona. Once they occupied those states, the treaty granted them the opportunity to become American citizens. The next group of Hispanic immigrants was Puerto Ricans. They migrated to the United States after the Spanish-American war. The Jones Act of 1971, resulting after that war, granted U. S. citizenship to all people born in Puerto Rico, which made it a lot easier for them to obtain residence in the U. S. The last group of Hispanics to migrate into the U. S. was the Cubans. This occurred around 1959, when Fidel Castro became Cuba's new president over the Cuban government. Around 1980, President Castro allowed many Cubans the option of leaving Cuba, which included thousands who immigrated to Florida, along with more than five thousand hard-core criminals who were released. When this happened, the United States Congress quickly passed the "Refugee Act of 1980," which allowed many of the Cuban [Hispanic] immigrants to obtain "refugee status." (Allaport, Reimers, et al)

Though many Hispanic immigrants were allowed to migrate into the United States at different periods in time, they shared common reasons of leaving their home countries, not only because of the violence and government oppressions that existed there, but to ultimately find gainful employment so that they could find alternate ways of supporting their families, and make a better life for themselves. (Allaport, Reimers, et al)

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Part One: Literature Review

This research focuses on the increase of Hispanic workers within the United States, and it's past and present effects on the social, cultural, and economic climates. Also, observations and studies will show how the increase in Hispanic workers affects the working environment, and how they strategize to incorporate diversity within their companies, or organizations.

As reported in The Conference Board, the United States Census Bureau projects the number of U.S. Hispanics households will reach more than 13.5 million by 2010, which will represent more than $670 billion in spending power. Another projection by the Census Bureau reported that the Hispanic population will account for 25% of the U.S. population by 2050. Another survey submitted by CareerBuilder.com and America Online states that hiring ten percent of