Interactive map of Latino urban riots and social unrest

Fountain, Aaron
http://libcom.org/history/interactive-map-latino-urban-riots-social-unrest
Date Written:  2016-07-21
Publisher:  Libcom
Year Published:  2016
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX19823

A map that displays Latino riots in the United States from 1964 to 2016.

Abstract: 
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n the article, I discussed riot shaming, a tactic where people demonizing rioters, mostly African Americans, while ignoring the fact that identical outbreaks of violence have occurred among other racial and ethnic groups. The practice didn’t start after the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore. As African Americans communities erupted in violence in the 1960s, some academics and community leaders held onto the belief that Latinos were naturally “submissive” in contrast to their “aggressive” African American counterparts.

When violence erupted in Puerto Rican communities, residents expressed bafflement. After three nights of rioting in East Harlem and the South Bronx in July 1967, an article in the New York Times reported that “the shock of the city’s first Puerto Rican mass disorders… came against a background in which Puerto Ricans have historically been considered passive.” A local pastor said, “We never expected this to happen in this part of Harlem. It’s not that Puerto Ricans aren’t as bad off as the Negroes, but the Puerto Ricans don’t have the Negroes’ sense of ‘revolution of expectations.’ The Puerto Ricans sort of celebrate their own poverty.” Although there were Puerto Rican riots in Chicago and Perth Amboy, New Jersey in 1966, residents in New York appeared unaware of these two incidents.

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It’s not preposterous to argue that a riot over various grievances in a predominately Latino community could happen again because several cities and towns had experienced near riots in the not-too-distant past. There were near riots in places such as Reading, Pennsylvania, in 2008; New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 2009; and in Salem, Massachusetts, in 2011. Since near riots don’t make national news, these events remained local news stories. These incidents, and many others, are examples that a small-scale disturbance could one day escalate into a full-scale riot.
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