2012 Reports

Latin American and Middle Eastern Discrimination in America: Shared Discrimination Following Changes to Government

Smith, Raymond Arthur; Lewis, Cinnamon Lea

This issue brief discusses an intersection that conjoins Latin Americans and Middle Eastern Americans who have experienced advanced discrimination in the United States as a result of drastic events that have altered the government and the public's perspective on these ethnic groups. In terms of the Latin American community, discrimination escalated following the intensification of the debate on immigration, which spawned the strict immigration law in Arizona: S.B. 1070; in terms of Middle Eastern peoples, discrimination escalated following the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.