American History: Hispanic Women of the United States

Running head: AMERICAN HISTORY 1
AMERICAN HISTORY 8

American History
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American History
Poverty refers to a situation whereby a particular group of people is unable to meet their basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter. A state of poverty may be either absolute or relative. An absolute poverty condition occurs when people are unable to acquire adequate resources to meet their minimum level of living standards while a relative poverty situation arises in cases where people fail to enjoy particular life as provided by the government. The degree of poverty varies from a state to a state. It depends on many ideological factors such as the political stability of the country, the level of the economy as well as the sociological ideologies of the society. The Latina women of the United States emerge as one of the primary victims of the poverty. They represent all the females with origins in one of the Latin-American countries like Mexico. These women played a significant role in fighting the severity of the poverty that inflicted their countries. Therefore, this term paper will provide a discussion the level of poverty that the Latina women experiences, the effect of the poverty of these people and various strategies that the Latina women in the United States adopted as a struggle with poverty and racial inequalities starting from the 1960s.
The Latina women in the United States experienced a high level of poverty state for some reasons. Despite the similarity in the number of qualifications to the Latina women, they receive less pay as compared to Latina men and other women in the same country. The women working on a full-time basis in the United States receive only seventy-seven percent of the payment made by men. These women experience a lot of discrimination that widens the wage gap between men and females. With this payment gap, the women are unable to meet the high cost of living in the United States. High level of segregation into low paying occupations on women is another important characteristic of the United States. They dominate occupations that have a low level of payment. Moreover, the Latina women are more likely to bear the cost of raising children. These conditions influence women into situations of high expenditure in meeting the basic needs of these children. They carry numerous responsibilities in the society but receive little income. This situation makes women unable to counter the poverty situations in the United States. Domestic and sexual violence is an everyday experience to the Latina women. This situation may lead to loss of jobs, poor health conditions and even homeless to these women. Racial segregation is prone to the Latina women. As a result, the Latina women are unable to secure good employment opportunities and enjoy other good social amenities in the United States.
Starting from the 1960s, the Latina Women made several attempts that showed their struggle over the poverty level and racial inequalities that exist in the United States. The chief strategy for reducing poverty and racial inequalities by the Latin women in the United States entails the efforts for increasing earning opportunity for the poor people (Kilty, 2004). The Latin America women made a significant attempt of enrolling themselves in activities that increased their earning opportunities. This engagement entails the agricultural sector of the United States, urbanization and trade engagement by the Latin women. Sources show that most of the Latin women in the United States work in agriculture to earn their living. Since the 1960s, the data research shows an increasing trend in the number of the Latin women that are working in the agricultural sector. These women participate in developing new products and increasing the export market of the United States. The agricultural agencies of the United States helped the poor Latin women to work in the agricultural sector by increasing their level of productivity. It appeared a practical activity because the women acquired many farm inputs and technical skills that enabled them to exhibit a high degree of performance in agriculture. As a result, they received material benefits and income from the sale of the agricultural products. These advantages enable the Latin women to make access to the resources that meet their basic needs.
Development of programs that enabled the women to acquire urban labor force is another significant attempt by the Latin women over the struggle for poverty and racial inequalities. The labor force enabled the women to receive a broad range of goods and services. The Latin women joined in various agricultural development programs that improved their level of income and some products they acquire from agriculture.
Engagement in the Safety Net Programs is another serious attempt by the Latin women that facilitated struggle for poverty in the United States. A safety net program shows an action that provides temporary or recurrent support to poor people or families. This program made a poverty line such that an individual that went below the line of poverty would acquire a minimum income from the program (Rich, 2007). This program enabled poor Latin women to receive income benefits from the program that restored their wealthy situations whenever there was a setback. A safety program may take the form of cash transfers, food provision or provision of work at pay. This program aimed at helping temporarily poor people. It assisted women that are permanently poor especially the aged, physically challenged or windows and more significantly on those that do not enjoy rights to husband’s pension and divorcees. Therefore, enrollment for the Safety net programs enabled these groups of the people from the Latin Americans to acquire incentives that improved their living standards.
The workfare programs are other critical interventions by the Latina Women that helped in the reduction of the poverty level in the United States. This program assisted in the provision of temporary jobs at a low wage to the people that lacked employment. The objective of this program was to provide a supplementary income to the unemployed workers. The workfare programs are imperative to the poor Latin women for some reasons. They act as alternatives to the formal unemployment systems. These programs did not provide cash benefits to the women but offered a wage to these women in exchange for work. All the activities that took place under this program focused on various strategies that could help in providing employments to the poor. Therefore, the Latin women in the United States made a wise decision and invested in these programs to enable their acquisition of short-term employment to earn income for their existence. Revenue from the employment under these programs reduced the dependency level among the citizens in the country. They earned income that enabled them to access to the basic needs.
The Latin women made another critical intervention that marked their struggle for racial inequalities that existed in the United States since the 1960s. These women selected leaders, activists and intellectuals that made significant protests over racial discrimination, pervasive poverty and hardships. These protests emerged because of the failure of the government of the United States to make particular attention to the problem that the Latin women experienced. They participated in activities that led to the development of projects that illustrated the challenges and the problems that faced the Latina Americans (Maier, 2010). It resulted in the development of the Inter-Agency Consultation on race in Latin America. The project emerged as an effort for making special arrangements and addressing the issues concerning the American Latin groups. Moreover, the Afro-Latin American Women’s Network made special provisions for the Latin Americans to react against racism and sexism. The American Latin leaders such as Judith Morrison traveled to different places within the country advocating for the reduction of poverty, racial discrimination and ethnic inequality. He encouraged the government of the United States and other large institutions to make attempts that could enhance recognition of the needs of the Latin women in 2004.
Moreover, the Latina women participated in several activities that advocated for the reduction of poverty and racial inequality since the 1960s. They gave comments that supported government programs that aimed at reducing the poverty level in the United States as well as reducing racial inequality in the country. Some of these governmental programs include unemployment insurance, food stamps (SNAP). Cash assistance and the Earned income tax credit (EITC). These programs aimed at reducing the cost of living to these women by providing funds and tangibles goods to the women within the country (Keen, 2009). The Latina women provided significant support to strategies put across by the government that could reduce the poverty in the country. Some of these programs involved the family planning programs. The government of the United States found that population increase is one of the factors that led to increasing in the poverty level that affected the country. Family planning programs was a significant intervention by the government that could help in the reduction of the population.
The Latina women showed a positive response to these initiatives to enhance poverty alleviation. They took part in family planning programs by conducting rallies that educated others on the methods of family planning as well as informing other Latina women about the need for family planning. These women did not only in the family planning but also in other5 programs that aimed at reducing the level of racial inequalities in the United States.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, one can conclude that the Latina women of the United States played a significant role in the struggle for the reduction of poverty and racial inequality. They participated in various activities and formed several groups that showed many interests for the reduction of poverty and advocated for racial equality in different sectors of the country. As a result, the women attained several successes in their attempts. The government responded to their struggles and protests by implementing programs that recognized their rights and helped the Latina women to secure jobs in different offices to gain income. The revenue enabled the Latina women to make adequate access to resources and meet their basic needs.

References
Keen, B., & Haynes, K. (2009). A history of Latin America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Kilty, K. M., & Segal, E. A. (2004). Poverty and inequality in the Latin American-U.S. borderlands: Implications of U.S. interventions. New York: Haworth Press.
Maier, E., & Lebon, N. (2010). Women’s activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering social justice, democratizing citizenship. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.
Rich, W. C. (2007). African American perspectives on political science. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.