MIAMI – Yadilka Aramboles eyes her three young children playing on the sidewalk and sees college in their future even though her husband’s modest accountant’s income barely covers the family’s most basic expenses.
“The situation is bad now, but I have faith that this is going to change,” says the 32-year-old from the Dominican Republic. “For me and my children, I aspire to something more.”
Aramboles’ feelings and hopes for tomorrow, tempered by daily doses of financial stress, are a familiar blend for Hispanics in the United States, according to an Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Latinos. But the survey of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority also shows a resounding diversity, with views and experiences varying between immigrants and the U.S.-born.
The survey was conducted as America’s 47 million Hispanics face acute economic and political pressures.
The recession that erased millions of jobs has taken an especially heavy toll on Latinos, whose average income is lower than many other groups. And the Hispanic community has been jolted by election-season debate over the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, a debate that has increased in intensity following Arizona’s enactment of a law that requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person’s immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion he or she is in the country illegally.
About three-quarters of the nation’s illegal immigrants are Hispanic, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.
The poll, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, shows that Hispanics have complex beliefs about how best to fit into America.
