Thomas Jefferson was once quoted "equal rights for all, special privileges for none." Yet America is far from this vision. Minorities in America are often discriminated against and paid less for equivalent work. Native Americans, Latinos, and African American's struggle for equality while always in the shadow of their fellow minority, the "model minority" or also known as Asian Americans. But inequality is not limited to immigrant minorities but also includes women, who although work in the same jobs, play the sports, and go to the same schools, are never treated the same as the male gender. It is now a known fact that women are just as capable as men, and there is no such thing as "race", yet these beliefs are what are holding America back from live, liberty and justice. These beliefs are holding America back from complete equality.
Minorities in America deal with many factors of discrimination. Minorities are often paid less than White Americans for equivalent work, and are often held back from promotion in the employment field. There is also a higher level of unemployment for minorities than there is for white Americans (i.e.: with African Americans and white Americans unemployment rates are 10% and 4%, respectively.) There are many factors to this problem. One factor is based on language barriers and preconceptions of different ethnic groups. Mexican Americans for example represent 30% of the labor field, and only 13% of professional occupations. Another factor to minorities and their lower occupation placing is the lack of education.
Low incomes for minorities often stress a family and lead to the necessity of a student to drop out in order to help with financial issues. Because more minority students are forced to drop out of school there is a lesser percent represented in schools of higher education, than there is of White Americans. Because of this reason Affirmative Action was put into place.