Reply to each student 150 words eeach 2 soures included
In his article, George Sanchez discusses the rise of nativism, an anti-immigrant attitude rooted in fear and resentment, in California, particularly targeting Asian and Latinx communities. Sanchez points out that many Americans felt threatened by the rapid growth of these immigrant groups, which they saw as competition for jobs and resources. This anxiety led to discriminatory attitudes and policies aimed at isolating or excluding immigrants from mainstream society. Sanchez uses events like the 1992 Los Angeles riots to show how these anti-immigrant sentiments erupted into violence and division, with immigrant groups being blamed for societal issues. He notes that this nativism wasn’t limited to any one political side but was a broader phenomenon fueled by economic insecurities and fears over the future of “American identity.” This reaction, according to Sanchez, made it challenging for immigrants to integrate fully and safely, pushing many to respond by seeking naturalization and political involvement to protect their rights.
Meanwhile, Kelly Lytle Hernandez examines how the US prison system evolved during the same period to become a tool of exclusion and control, disproportionately impacting immigrants and people of color. Hernandez explains that the rise in immigration enforcement and “tough on crime” policies led to the criminalization of immigrants and an explosion in the prison population. She describes how minor legal violations for immigrants often triggered deportation and how, within the prison system, Latino and Black populations were heavily overrepresented. By the 1980s and 1990s, mass incarceration had become a major issue in California, driven by policies that punished drug offenses harshly and disproportionately affected communities of color. Hernandez argues that these trends created a “caste” of people, mostly immigrants and African Americans, who were denied basic rights and opportunities and essentially treated as second-class citizens. For Hernandez, this racialized approach to crime and immigration control reflected an ongoing struggle in the US to balance justice with fairness and equality.
Both Sanchez and Hernandez highlight the fear-driven policies and attitudes that shaped America’s response to diversity and social change in this period. Sanchez focuses on the growing nativism that fueled discrimination against immigrant communities, while Hernandez reveals how the prison system became a way to control and exclude racial minorities. Together, their works illustrate the late 20th century’s biggest social challenges: dealing with diversity in a fair way and ensuring that the justice system upholds, rather than undermines, equal rights for all. These challenges reveal a period marked by struggle as America tried to redefine itself amid complex demographic and cultural shifts.
George Sanchez’s article, “Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century America,” examines the resurgence of nativist sentiment, particularly aimed at Asian American and Latin communities. Sanchez argues that economic anxieties and demographic shifts fueled fears among white Americans that immigrants were undermining national identity and taking over economic opportunities. This rise in anti-immigrant sentiment led to restrictive policies and social discrimination against immigrant populations, marking them as outsiders within the nation.
However, in Kelly Lytle Hernández’s article, “Amnesty or Abolition?” focuses on the composition and rapid expansion of California’s prison population. She shows how shifts in sentencing policies, the criminalization of poverty, and racial biases in policing affected Black and Latin communities. Hernández argues that this penal expansion created a crisis within the justice system, with prison populations swelling due to policies that disproportionately impacted marginalized groups. Hernández describes this trend as part of a broader “prison industrial complex” that reflects deep social inequities rather than an effective approach to public safety.
Sanchez and Hernández highlight the late 20th century’s most significant social challenges: a heightened anti-immigrant sentiment and the growing issue of mass incarceration. These issues converged in their shared focus on marginalized populations and illustrated the effects of exclusionary and punitive measures that both authors argue have only served to deepen racial and social divides in the United States.
Lytle Hernández, Kelly. “Amnesty or Abolition?” *Boom: A Journal of California*, vol. 1, no. 4, Winter 2011, pp. 54-68. University of California Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/boom.2011.1.4.54Links to an external site..
Sanchez, George. “Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century America,” International Migration Review, Vol. 31, No. 4, Special Issue: Immigrant Adaptation and Native-Born Responses in the Making of Americans (Winter, 1997), pp. 1009-1030;