African Americans are a racial group whose dominant ancestry is from sub-Sahara West Africa. Recent black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are also sometimes classified as African Americans. However, these groups, especially first and second-generation immigrants often have cultural practices, histories, and languages that differ from those African Americans born in the United States. Thus, Caribbean and African immigrants may or may not choose to identify with the African American community.

According to the 2000 census 34.7 million African Americans live in the United States, making up 12.3 percent of the population. African American history is intertwined with that of blacks in Latin America and the Caribbean. Li

Since the early 1970’s, civil wars and economic turmoil in Latin American countries has brought sizeable numbers of emigrants from other countries. In El Salvador, conflict between the government and left wing guerrillas drove many Salvadorans from their homes in the 1980’s. Approximately 500,000 Salvadorans immigrated to the United States during this time. Civil war in Nicaragua during the 1980’s drove around 800,000 Nicaraguans to the U.S. Political unrest and economic upset in the Dominican Republic resulted in the immigration of large numbers of Dominicans to the United States.

Asian Americans are residents of the United States who trace their ancestry to Asia. Pacific Islanders, such as native Hawaiians and Samoans, are often grouped with Asian Americans. The rapidly growing Asian American community is compromised of many diverse groups, including Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, and Vietnamese Americans. Large numbers of people from India, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia have also immigrated to the United States.

Latino influence has profoundly changed the American culture. Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S. and Hispanic influences are noticeable in American foods, music, and visual arts. As the nations of the western hemisphere are increasingly linked within the global economy, the Latino world and the U.S. are rapidly discovering that their cultural differences are less important than their common interests and shared destiny.

The second largest subgroup of Latinos is Puerto Ricans. About 3.5 million Puerto Ricans live in the United States. Most Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. are former jibaros, or rural folk who migrated from the countryside of Puerto Rico in the 1960’s. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States and Puerto Ricans are considered U.S. citizens making them eligible for many federal benefits not available to other minority groups. However, many Americans feel that welfare programs have trapped many poor Puerto Ricans in a cycle of poverty. Others maintain that discrimination in employment and education, not welfare, are the major forces that have kept some Puerto Ricans in poverty.

African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans contribute to the diversity of the United States populace and have long been a source of friction. Throughout the nation’s history, some segments of American society have sought to exclude people who differ from themselves. Even today, some Americans argue that recent emigrants to the United States are radically different from previous immigrants, can never be assimilated, and therefore should be barred from entry. There are very different meanings of what makes a person an American. The nation’s motto, E pluribus unum (“From many, one), describes the linguistic and cultural similarities of the American people.

Cuban Americans, numbering 1.2 million, constitute the third largest Latino subgroup. Most Cuban Americans arrived in the United States as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which brought Communist dictator Fidel Castro to power. These Cuban immigrants were mostly well-educated members of the middle and upper-middle classes of Cuban society

Some topics in this essay:
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