Hispanic American Diversity

Assignment: Hispanic American Diversity

Scotte W. Mendiola

ETH125

May 14, 2010

Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Friedrich

Assignment: Hispanic American Diversity

When you read or hear the term ‘Hispanic’ there is always a tendency to relate every Spanish speaking individual into this grouping. The truth behind this façade is that the Hispanic American classification is made up of numerous, diverse, and unique people from different regions of the world. In order to understand this diversity, we must first realize that each group is really a separate entity of its own.

MEXICAN AMERICANS

Mexican Americans form the largest group of Hispanic Americans. Because of the vast number of Mexican Americans in the U.S., and the immense waves of immigrants that flee to America on a constant basis, it seems as if this group is more inclined to maintain their distinctive cultural ways. The culture and the native language have been revitalized constantly with each new wave of immigrants. The social network of the average Mexican American primarily consists of other Mexicans. Most immigrants will move to areas already populated by other Mexicans, and even obtain jobs working side-by-side with other Mexican Americans. (Englekirk, Marin, 2010).

Spanish remains the predominant language of all Mexican Americans, however, as the proportion of second and third generation Mexican Americans families have increased, the use and proficiency in English has become a practical means for survival. Because of this generation shift and the movement of bilingual instruction in the public school systems, English is slowly becoming the norm for a large amount of Mexican American families (Englekirk, Marin, 2010).

In the early 90’s, the average size of a Mexican American family was 4.1 persons, compared to 3.1 for non-Hispanic and 3.8 for all Hispanic families residing in the United States. By the year 2000, the size of the average Mexican American family has slowly...