ABSTRACT
The lack of self-determination which Latino communities have been allowed to exercise, has enhanced the presence of cultural pluralism in the United States. This chapter focuses on two major criticisms that have been levied upon contemporary Latino politics and that should become even more severe in the 1990s. Each of these criticisms flows from an understanding of the major change that has occurred in the recent past in American political development. An impassioned argument is made by M. Abigail Thernstrom and other critics of the development of the Voting Rights Act that the imposed inclusion of minority communities in formal representation leads to several undesirable consequences for the polity. The major consequence worthy of consideration is that imposed representation of racial and ethnic communities institutionalizes, and thus makes permanent, ethnic and racial conflict within the regime. Minority and nonminority communities are allowed to appreciate that not all problems for which changes may be sought are within the purview of government.
