But here, too, they defy the classic political and social meaning of the term. Public policies toward minorities, including affirmative action and school desegregation, were undertaken to redress historic wrongs done to African-Americans whose ancestors arrived as slaves rather than voluntarily. To do so, many national pan-Latino advocacy groups that became active in the past decade adopted the blueprint of the black civil rights movement. You have people who come here and say, 'I don't know what this Latino and minority stuff is all about. Besides African-Americans, anyone with an Irish or Jewish or Italian grandparent who came to the United States in the early 20th century heard of similar ethnic and racial slurs directed against their ancestors.
American history has no lack of examples of discriminatory laws against specific immigrant groups.
Indeed, the principal determinant of who was allowed into the country for decades, until the laws changed in 1965, was white European ancestry. True, some have fled civil war and repression, but many more feel free to move back and forth between their native land and new homeland. The U.S., with its historic links to the Spanish-speaking world, also feels less foreign to Latino immigrants. And American society and its demands on immigrants have changed. Though multiculturalism is often criticized for diluting American identity, it is also more acceptable now to retain a distinct ethnic identity.