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Latin American immigrants in Indianapolis: Perceptions of prejudice and discrimination

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Abstract

The article focuses on immigrants’ interactions with the Indiana natives, with emphasis in the city of Indianapolis and its suburbs. More specifically, this study aims at providing an understanding of the experiences of Latin American immigrants with special attention to perceptions of prejudice and discrimination and to feelings of social exclusion. A substantial proportion of Latin American immigrants interviewed indicated that they considered Indiana natives to be prejudiced and that they had personally experienced discrimination. The study reveals specific examples of discrimination experienced by the immigrants at the work place, in housing, in stores, restaurants and by various service providers. The results of the study demonstrate the relevance of the normative and power resource theories to explain prejudice and discrimination.

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Notes

  1. The term Hoosier would be appropriate here, but some readers might find it too colloquial. The term White Americans is often used, but many Latin Americans consider themselves also white Americans; furthermore, the perceptions of prejudice and discrimination are not only related to White Americans or the Anglos. Indeed, the in-depth interviews revealed that some Latin Americans perceived discrimination against them by African-Americans. Therefore, it seems that Indiana natives (referring to established residents of Indiana) is the best alternative in the context of this research, although not a perfect one.

  2. We use the term “Visible immigrant” in this research as a value neutral-term for Hispanics non-white or non-Caucasian immigrants, as it is commonly used in the literature on immigration (for example, Lackland, 1992; Marger, 2003), but also in terms of their external appearance such as type of clothing that clearly identifies them as different from the natives of Indiana.

  3. Several studies indicate that the higher the socio-economic status of the immigrants and the longer they have been living in a given town, the lesser the prejudice and discrimination they will experience (for example, Smith, 1981; Jaret, 1995; Farley, 2000).

  4. A comparison of the data obtained during the initial study and from the interviews indicated that while there were slightly more females in the latter sample, they were similar on the other major demographic characteristics. While the interviews are the primary data source for the respondents’ accounts of their experiences with prejudice and discrimination, in several cases the participants in the initial study included detailed comments and examples of the discrimination they had experienced in response to the open-ended questions on the questionnaire.

  5. Smith and Mannon (2006) define “secondary immigration” as domestic migration of people born abroad after their initial arrival to the United States.

  6. The use of the term “Spanish accent” refers to Spanish-speaking countries in general, not to a particular country.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported, in part, by an International Awareness Grant from the Indiana Humanities Council and Butler University. We thank the Latino Studies' editorial board and the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions. They made a great difference in the final version of this article.

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  1. Butler University, Indiana

    Antonio V Menéndez Alarcón & Katherine B Novak

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Menéndez Alarcón, A., Novak, K. Latin American immigrants in Indianapolis: Perceptions of prejudice and discrimination. Lat Stud 8, 93–120 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2010.2

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