These are some of the findings of a new poll released by the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Latino Decisions on how media portrayals impact public opinion of Latinos and immigrants.
“There is widespread exposure to negative stereotypes of Latinos in the media, and exposure to these images and stereotypes does have a causal effect on people’s perceptions,” explains political scientist Matt Barreto, principal at Latino Decisions.
Non-Latinos hold some positive views of Hispanics — over 75 percent of those polled think Latinos are family-oriented (90 percent), hard-working (81 percent), religious (81 percent) and honest (76 percent). However, 1 out of 2 non-Latinos think “welfare recipient” describes Latinos very or somewhat well (51 percent), as well as “less educated” (50 percent), and “refuse to learn English” (44 percent).
