The stereotype has always been there, but a recent study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy provided a hard number to the startling phenomenon of teen pregnancy in the American Latino communities: 53% of young Latina get pregnant in their teens, twice the national average:
In 2007, the birth rate among non-Hispanic whites ages 15 to 19 was 27.2 per 1,000, and 64.3 per 1,000 for non-Hispanic black teens in the same age range. The teen birth rate among Hispanic teens ages 15 to 19 was 81.7 per 1,000. [...]
Three-quarters of Latino teens said their parents have talked to them about sex and relationships, but only half said their parents discussed contraception.
The survey also found that:
• 74 percent of Latino teens believe that parents send one message about sex to their sons and a different message altogether to their daughters, possibly related to the Latino value of machismo.
• Latino teens believe that the most common reason teens do not use contraception is that they are afraid their parents might find out.
Moni Basu of CNN has more on the findings: Link
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/165718
and as expected, it's extremely offensive
By the way, the plural of Latina is Latinas.
stacey- i get the feeling you didn't actually read any of that, you just busted out the soap box.
people are biologically programmed to want to be sexually active, especially when they're young and in the best health. but you have to remember that our populations were very small when we were carving out an existance for ourselves. life has changed a lot for us in a short amount of time, and biology is still trying to catch up. we've got a lot of sex drive and a lot of people making it out of childhood that wouldn't have 10,000 years, heck, even 100 years ago. all that sex drive nowadays turns into a massive population boom that quite frankly, we can barely support.
if you want thousands of children born to unwilling, and unable parents to be raised who-knows-how, that's your opinion- but keep in mind that (whether you believe it or not) evolution pushes us to produce more offspring than our ecosystem can support simply for the best possible genetic outcome.
my best advice to you is to worry about living the best life you can, and keeping your nose out of other people's business.
I can attest to the fact that teen pregnancy is encouraged in the Latino
community - have seen mothers of teens put the expectation/pressure of pregnancy onto a teen so that the girl will bring home a bambino to "gramma" to raise. To a degree this also happens in the black community.
every girl in my family has had at least one kid before they turned 19.
i turned 19 last thursday.
no babies yet.
but i'm gay so that might have something to do with it.
@ Madcap, bambinos are for Italian people, and grammas are for Americans. Hispanic women have "bebes", and a grandmother is an "abuela".
And then, if lucky, be chosen based on gender and race and not merit, to legislate from the bench in the highest court of the United States.