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Hispanic American Diversity
By Alan Hood | July 31, 2007
While most Hispanics are lumped into one group referred to as Latinos or Hispanics just like most cultures Hispanics living in America come from different parts of the world with many differences in culture. Hispanics in the southwest United States are usually referred to as Mexicans or in the southeast United States are commonly referred to as Cubans but in reality may come from a mix of one, both or maybe someplace altogether different. While most Americans cannot tell the difference, they most certainly can and this report will focus on the differences of the cultures and people.
Mexican Americans are the prominent minority group where I live in the southwest United States. I have worked and gone to school with both legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico, as well as Mexican Americans whose families have been in the United States for longer than some of my ancestors. Growing up in New Mexico where 43% of the population is Hispanic gives a person a real insight into the Hispanic culture and heritage. One of the largest celebrations in New Mexico is the Cinco de Mayo celebration, which I would compare to a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Ireland. In New Mexico we put up luminarios which are paper bags filled with sand and a burning candle on top of the sand to light up the bag, for Christmas instead of the traditional lights done in most parts of the country. One of the outstanding insights into Hispanics that live in New Mexico is that most do not still have family that live in Mexico and have no real ties to Mexico, they consider illegal immigrants “wet backs” and say that the illegal immigrants give them a bad name. Native New Mexican’s will still hire illegal immigrants, to work in their yards, and in the kitchens of their restaurants. Our text supports this where (Schaefer, 2006, 238) reads “Among U.S.-born Latinos, there is clearly a move away from using the native country as a means of identity. Among this segment of the Latino population, 46 percent say they either first use or only use “American” to describe themselves, and 29 percent use their parents’ country of origin.”
I have only known one family of Puerto Ricans in my life and the live down the street from me now. The grandfather Silviero and I have become good friends because we have a common interest in cars. Silviero was a garbage collector from Chicago who retired and moved to Arizona to get away from the cold and to provide a better life for his grandchildren. Silviero has lived in the United States for 50 years but still speaks with a heavy accent and has close ties to Puerto Rico, visiting there often. Everyone in the family speaks English but only the adults are bilingual, it seems like they have intentionally not taught the children Spanish but I have never inquired as to why. Schaefer says that (Schaefer, 2006, 241) “Puerto Ricans in the United States tend to be more English-language oriented, with 39 percent English-dominant, 40 percent bilingual, and 21 percent Spanish dominant” Which makes me think that Puerto Ricans work hard at assimilation and acceptance. I believe that it is hard not to look at Puerto Ricans as immigrants even though Schaefer points out that (Schaefer, 2006, 237) “Sociologist Clara Rodríquez has noted that Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, are often mistakenly viewed as an immigrant group and lumped with all Latinos or Hispanics.” If Puerto Ricans are American citizens then why aren’t they counted in the national census? Is our government still practicing subjugation after all these years? It seems like they are with Puerto Ricans, because we recently hit a milestone in population that was big news, 300 million Americans, if we had counted all of the 4 million plus Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico then that milestone would have been reached much faster.
When I think of Cubans it is mostly about the salsa dancing and night life in Miami Beach, but that is quickly overshadowed by the oppressive communist government run by Fidel Castro and Scare Face the movie. The only Cuban I have ever known is a business owner in Albuquerque who is a multi-millionaire that spends his free time hunting and mounting large game in Africa. To me he is the exception to what I see in news coverage and movies about Cubans. While I am sure that not all Cuban immigrants are drug dealers and hustlers, which is mostly how they are portrayed by mass media and entertainment. As a group Cubans Americans are doing well according to (Schaefer, 2006, 249) “Cuban Americans have college completion rates twice those of other Latinos. In this and all other social measures, the pattern is similar. Cuban Americans in 2000 compared favorably with other Hispanics, although recent arrivals as a group trail behind White Americans.” While I can not explain why Cuban Americans complete college at twice the rate of other Hispanic groups it would seem that a close family and community structure relies on the younger generation to get ahead so that they can all be accepted into American society.
The fourth group I would like to look at is a combination of Central Americans and South Americans. This group is the smallest in numbers of Hispanic immigrants. While they are classified as Hispanic the one thing that would make them stand out in my mind is that we mostly think of Hispanics as Spanish speaking people but immigrants from Central or South America could speak any number of languages pointed out by (Schaefer, 2006, 251) “Not all Central and South Americans have Spanish as their native tongue; for example, immigrants from Brazil speak Portuguese, immigrants from French Guyana speak French, and those from Suriname speak Dutch.” One of the most interesting things about people from Central and South America is that they don’t typically racially profile people but classify people by a color gradient system. A color gradient system is (Schaefer, 251) “A color gradient is the placement of people long a continuum from light to dark skin color rather than in distinct racial groupings by skin color.” Color gradients would make a lot a sense in America also, considering all of the people of mixed backgrounds. While Hispanics are now the largest minority group, because of their unique and differing backgrounds they will probably never get together and for a united front. Like all other grouped immigrants Whites, Blacks, Asians, we all have different beliefs and structures so it is foolish to classify the many different Hispanics all together.
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