Mexican American Cultural Groups

Mexican America’s , Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Central and South American’s are the groups I have chosen to write on. It took some time to study these groups as I am one of the typical American’s who seems to link the groups together. I do not mean to be that way, I simply haven’t done a whole lot of research on the matter. What I have discovered is that they are all very similar, but have somewhat different priorities and traditions. It also appears that economic status is a dividing factor. The most common language spoken by Mexican American’s is both English and Spanish. Some call it “Spanglish” there is even a movie with that label, I have a friend who speaks Spanish and when she saw me trying to learn it, she explained that Spanish
is more “Slang” now than the traditional way that we learn in our classes or books. She explained that “Spanglish” is so common now even in Mexico that I would be laughed at if I used the traditional vocabulary. Immigrants from Mexico came here looking to fulfill their dreams of making money and becoming educated. Mexican American’s are considered to be poor as compared to the Puerto Ricans or Cubans. They encourage the young women in the families to stay home and help take care of the children while their Parent’s go out and support the families making it hard to get the education that these young women crave. It also makes it difficult to be able to afford the nicer clothing and shoes that their peers in school have. The predominant religion of Mexican Americans is Catholic, and their political views lean towards the Democrats. There are five or more living in each household and many of them are living below poverty.

The Cubans, compared to the rest of the Hispanic population in the United States are older, have a higher level of education, higher median household income and higher rate of home ownership. The largest Cuban communities are in Miami Florida, and West New York. Cuban American’s have successfully established business and political clout by transforming Miami Beach from a retirement community to a modern city with a younger demographic base with a Caribbean flare. Cubans tend to be more conservative than other Hispanic groups and vote more Republican. There are four Cuban-American members of the United States House of Representatives and two Senators in the United States Senate. The Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group in the United States.
Most Puerto Ricans descend from a combination of Europeans and Africans. Puerto Rico is a Commmon wealth or unincorporated territory of the United States. The residents of the Island have been United States Citizens since 1917. New York City tends to be the largest home for the Puerto Rican community, however they do reside in all fifty states. When they moved to the United States, they were originally farm workers. The Puerto Ricans are considered poverty level, and have a high level of high school dropouts. They lean towards the Democratic political side and had their first government representative Oscar Garcia Rivera in 1937. Much like Mexican American’s, they embrace the Catholic religion. They consider themselves to be American’s, but are still very proud of their island and their
culture. Today Latin Americans are the largest immigrant group in the United States. Eight million immigrants came to the United States in the 1980’s. There are an estimated 31 million Latino’s in the United States making up 11.2 percent of the United States population. There are many religious traditions of the Latin Americans. Catholicism in various forms such as Protestantism, and African based religions such as Vodou which is a very old practice and very rarely used in the United States. El Salvador is a good example; after an eleven year civil war that finally ended in 1992 about one third of their population migrated to the United States. Some were refugees who felt endangered at home, and others were displaced persons who had to leave their communities but remained within national boundaries. These people were also called “Internal Refugees”. There were approximatley one million refugees who sought peace and safety in the United States. Many of them send money back to their families in El Salvador who’s families depend on it. They are mix of Native American and European Spanish and also lean towards Catholicism. Their primary language is Spanish and they are also at poverty level.

The similarities that I see with all groups are mainly religion.
I see that most of them are Catholics. I think they all have the same objective, and that is to come to the United States where they can have freedom of speech, work to make more money to get out of poverty, and to get an education. According to our textbook, it took some time before the United States has excepted Spanish into our schools, it has just happened in the last twenty or thirty years. The fact that they were separated into their own school and punished for speaking Spanish when they did integrate into the public school system is about as bad as separating the African American’s from the Whites. They have had to bond together, and all groups are very family oriented. They live together, pull their money together, and raise their families together even in small homes. They all have similar talents of cooking, music and dancing and have brought their traditions to the United States and we are finally embracing them. The evidence is seen on television, the radios, and even in the nightclubs with Latin
dancing.
The differences that I see are that of money and prestige. The American Mexicans are considered poor , the Cubans rich and the Puerto Ricans wealthy and El Salvadorians to be lower class . They all come from different regions, however do not always want to be affiliated with each other. They do not find it flattering that U.S. Citizens look at them as all the same and make it very clear by being outspoken about it. I went into a few different blogs to get answers about how they felt about each other and got a mix of answers. It seems that they in many ways that they are unwilling to be affiliated with each other and speak of each other in an ill manner.