An Overview of African American and Hispanic Tensions in the United States

Because of historical (and current) tensions between African Americans and Anglos, the majority of scholars who study racial issues focus almost exclusively on the interrelationship of these two people groups. This tunnel vision has prevented many from considering the interactions of African Americans and Hispanics in the United States. Below are two accounts that characterize the challenges that exist.

Author Guadalupe San Miguel Jr. wrote from the perspective of Hispanics who resided in Houston in the 1970s: “Racial prejudices between Mexicans and African Americans . . . was very much a reality in the barrio. . . . [Some Hispanic] students were afraid of going to schools that were predominantly black because ‘black kids are always bossing us around, picking fights.’ Adults also expressed these sentiments. . . .”[1] Forty years later, a considerable percentage of Hispanics hold similar opinions.

As evidence for their view, they often cite the case of David Rivas Morales, who, on June 20, 2007, was murdered by a group of African Americans in Texas. Morales had been riding in a vehicle that struck a two-year-old African American boy in an apartment complex parking lot, causing non-life-threatening injuries to the child. When African American bystanders attacked the driver, Morales tried to help, and was beaten to death.[2] Some reports placed the number of aggressors at twelve to twenty people.[3] Ultimately, ex-Golden Gloves boxer Kurtis Colvin was sentenced to ten years probation for his role in the death, and a juvenile who was sixteen years old at the time of the attack received eight years of probation for punching Morales.[4]

Some African American also express misgivings about Hispanics moving to neighborhoods that traditionally have been African American. On August 2, 2007, the following account appeared in The Economist:

“We’re being overrun,” says Ted Hayes of Choose Black America, which has led anti-immigration marches in south-central Los Angeles. “The compañeros have taken all the housing. If you don’t speak Spanish they turn you down for jobs. Our children are jumped upon in the schools. They are trying to drive us out,” Not, Mr. Hayes emphasises [sic], that he has anything against illegal immigrants personally, or against Mexicans who are in America legally. Indeed, he says, in that useful old phrase, he is friendly with many of them.[5]

When one considers these stories side by side, it is striking how similarly some representatives from both people groups view individuals from the other group.

 In early 2008, the Pew Research Center published the results of a groundbreaking survey that focused on the interrelations of African Americans and Hispanics. First, while only 18 percent of African Americans stated that relations between the two people groups were “not too well” or “not well at all,” almost one-third of Hispanics (30 percent) thought relations were “not too well” or “not well at all.” Additionally, almost 50 percent of African Americans answered that immigrants were responsible for reducing the number of job opportunities available to African Americans.[6]

A 2007 Gallup poll showed that 29 percent of African Americans saw relations between them and Hispanics as somewhat to very bad, while 38 percent of Hispanics viewed interrelations negatively.[7] To make matters words, in 2013, a similar Gallup poll revealed that the relationship between African Americans and Hispanics was the most problematic source of ethnic tension in the United States, surpassing the historic challenges that African Americans and Anglos have experienced.[8]

In an article that analyzed the 2013 poll, Jeffrey Jones observed that polling occurred around the time George Zimmerman, a multiethnic man with Hispanic and Anglo ancestry, was found not guilty in the tragic death of African American teenager Trayvon Martin.[9] While this event may have had some impact on people’s answers regarding African American and Hispanic relations, it is worth noting that two years later in 2015, statistics remain unchanged.[10] These dynamics led Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an African American author and social commentator, to state in 2007, “Animosity between Latinos and blacks is the worst-kept secret in race relations in America.”[11] Lamentably, research does not point toward interrelational improvements occurring anytime soon.

Observations

• African American and Anglo relations still are an area of concern, and we must not ignore this important issue
• African American and Anglo relations in the United States overshadow the tensions between other people groups
• African American and Hispanic relations are a relatively new phenomenon—only in the 1960s-70s did large numbers of Hispanics begin to immigrate to the United States
• Many African Americans and Hispanics compete for the same jobs and reside in the same neighborhoods, factors that help to fuel tensions
• Some African Americans believe that Hispanics have benefited from the grueling efforts of African Americans to secure civil rights, to the detriment of the very African Americans who fought for these rights
• Some Hispanics believe that African Americans resent their presence in their neighborhoods, and find them to be easy targets due to a reluctance to report crimes
• African American and Hispanic relations are not improving
• The Trayvon Martin case is an example of strained tensions between African Americans and Hispanics
• We must devote energy to this problem in order to prevent it from worsening

---

[1] Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston, vol. 3 in University of Houston Series in Mexican American Studies, ed. Tatcho Mindiola (Houston: University of Houston, 2007), 105-6.

[2] Alfonso Serrano, “Cops Seek Witnesses to Car Mob Killing,” CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cops-seek-witnesses-to-car-mob-killing/ (accessed September 20, 2017).

[3] Polly Ross Hughes, “Police Change Accounts in Austin Beating Probe,” Houston Chronicle, http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Police-change-accounts-in-Austin-beating-probe-1805633.php (accessed September 20, 2017).

[4] “Ex-Boxer Gets Probation for 2007 Death,” ABC 13 Eyewitness News http://abc13.com/archive/6485924/ (accessed September 20, 2017).

[5] “Where Black and Brown Collide,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/ node/9587776 (accessed September 20, 2017).

[6] “Do Blacks and Hispanics Get Along? Yes, But Not Always, and Not about Everything,” Pew Research Center http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/01/31/do-blacks-and-hispanics-get-along/ (accessed September 20, 2017).

[7] Joseph Carroll, “Whites, Blacks, Hispanics Assess Race Relations in the U.S.,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/28312/Whites-Blacks-Hispanics-Assess-Race-Relations-US.aspx (accessed September 20, 2017).

[8] Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans Rate Racial and Ethnic Relations in U.S. Positively, View Black-Hispanic Relations Least Positively,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/163535/americans-rate-racial-ethnic-relations-positively.aspx (accessed September 20, 2017).

[9] Ibid.

[10] See the chart included in the following article: Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans’ Views of Black-White Relations Deteriorate,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/184484/ americans-views-black-white-relations-deteriorate.aspx (accessed September 20, 2017).

[11] Earl Ofari Hutchinson, “The Black-Latino Blame Game,” Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/la-op-hutchinson25nov25-story.html (accessed September 20, 2017).