Abstract
In this book, Michele P. Bratina systematically examines the use of violence by Hispanic males and focuses specifically on whether or not her respondents’ assimilation into the mainstream culture had an influence on their attitudes toward violence. Given that there are more than 44 million Latinos in the United States, making this the country’s largest ethnic minority group, a study of this nature is extremely important and timely. Also, since there has been recent discussion on a national level related to the link between immigration and crime, Bratina’s book is particularly relevant. The author mentions that as a whole Latinos tend to be both educationally and economically disadvantaged compared to the residents in the general population. Additionally, members of this ethic minority group often are not as proficient in the English language as others. Latino men also have an incarceration rate that is roughly 3 times the rate of White, non-Hispanic males. Since demographers have predicted that the Hispanic population is likely to triple by the year 2050, there is clearly a need for a study that seeks to assess the relationship between acculturation and violence among this minority group.
Bratina begins her book by identifying the various subgroups that currently comprise the Latino population within the United States. While Mexicans constitute the largest portion of this population (66.9%), Hispanics also come from areas such as Central and South America (14.3%), Puerto Rico (8.6%), Cuba (3.7%), and other origins (6.5%). The author also reminds the reader that Latinos often differ in regard to their race and may identify themselves as White, Asian, Native American, Black, and other categories. Also, Bratina maintains that Hispanics come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. The author makes an important observation that there is clearly a considerable amount of diversity within this ethnic minority group. Given this, it is admirable that Bratina chose to embark on a project, such as this one.
One of the strengths of this book is that the author provides a very thorough and comprehensive literature review related to the assimilation of Hispanics into mainstream American culture. She relies on both classical and contemporary literature, and this alone may be well worth the price of the book, especially for scholars who have research interests in this area. One of Bratina’s major hypotheses is that Latino males with high levels of assimilation are likely to experience increased conflicts and will therefore be more inclined to approve of violence than less assimilated Latino men. In order to test this hypothesis, the author designed a questionnaire with numerous items that measure a variety of variables, including attitudes toward violence and assimilation into the mainstream culture. In the spirit of transparency, Bratina graciously includes the entire survey in an appendix at the end of the book. This is also likely to be quite useful for scholars who are interested in conducting similar types of research.
In order to conduct her quantitative, self-report study, the author sought out Latino subjects between the ages of 18 and 25. Initially, she opted to use only Internet-based surveys. This decision was made primarily to attract a large sample of second generation and successive generations of Hispanic males. Also, it was presumed that an Internet survey would inexpensively yield a large cross-national convenience sample from respondents all throughout the country. While Bratina acknowledges that she could have attempted to utilize a large-scale probability-based sampling technique, she argues that this would have been both costly and time-consuming. Also, the author contends that it would have been challenging, if not impossible, to have located an adequate sampling frame to draw potential subjects from. For these reasons, Bratina designed questionnaires and initially administered these through MySpace Latino, a social networking site that specifically caters to a Hispanic clientele.
One of the many strengths of this book is that the author candidly discusses the technical details associated with conducting online surveys. For example, Bratina explains that she constructed a webpage (profile) on MySpace Latino and sent “friend requests” to potential respondents inviting them to complete her survey. Subjects could then access the questionnaire through an anonymous link. This portion of the book is quite informative and is likely to be of interest to scholars who are interested in research methodologies that utilize online surveys. In addition to finding respondents through MySpace Latino, the author used Facebook as well as Quepasa.com, another social networking website often frequented by Hispanics. In this portion of the book, the author highlights the various obstacles she encountered. For example, moderators from two of the websites deleted profiles and communications between Bratina and her potential respondents. Also, Bratina points out that she obtained an extremely low response rate from all three of the social networking websites. Anyone who plans to utilize similar research designs might benefit from closely reading this section of the book.
While Bratina initially planned to collect all of her respondents from various social networking websites, she ultimately had to alter the manner by which she collected her data. In the end, Bratina opted to administer the majority of her surveys to students who attended colleges in central New Mexico and southeastern Florida. The final sample consisted of 314 Latino males who either accessed the survey online or through a college class they were attending. Perhaps because of the way that the research subjects were selected, the overall sample was highly assimilated with the majority of respondents being gainfully employed. Bratina points out that her final sample is not likely to be representative of the larger Hispanic population and therefore has little, if any, generalizability.
It is commendable that Bratina is not afraid to be critical of her own research methodology. This illustrates that the author is unbiased and also illustrates a type of intellectual humility which is not always found in academic work. In spite of the author’s own criticisms, this book does have merit and is worth reading. It is noteworthy that Bratina’s assimilation hypothesis was unfounded. By and large, respondents who were assimilated into mainstream culture or highly “Americanized” did not tend to endorse violence. Instead, the most significant predictor of proviolent attitudes in this sample was found among subjects who showed indicators of machismo or male dominance. This proved to be the case even after controlling for sociodemographic variables as well as respondents’ level of assimilation. This finding supports previous research which indicates that certain aspects of the Latino culture, such as a heightened perception of masculinity, may often be positively correlated with high rates of violence.
In addition to the above finding, Bratina found that subjects who perceived that they were mistreated by U.S. non-Latinos also tended to have attitudes that were more conducive to violence than other respondents. Given this finding, it would behoove criminal justice officials and policy makers alike to consider the implications that negative sentiments toward immigrants may have toward crime. While this book did have some methodological limitations that were identified by the author, it nevertheless proved to offer some fascinating insights into the largest and fastest growing minority population in the United States. It would be beneficial for scholars who are interested in Hispanic culture, immigration issues, or criminal justice policy to familiarize themselves with this exploratory study. For this reason, I recommend this book.