HISPANIC AMERICAN DIVERSITY

Hispanic American Diversity

Hispanic American Diversity

Mexican Americans

Historically, Americans' attitudes toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans have been less than favorable or ambiguous at best. Many Mexican American landowners lost their lands to white Americans shortly after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as a result of duplicitous U.S. legal maneuvers. Also, during various periods over the past 150 years, the United States has vacillated between encouraging Mexican migrants to the United States to satisfy cheap labor demands and discouraging them by conducting deportation sweeps and denying social benefits and educational opportunities for their children (Vigil, 2008).

Today, although completely irrelevant to some Mexican Americans, issues related to immigration still affect many Mexican Americans given that they or extended family members must contend with immigration issues at some point in their lives. Further, because Mexican Americans generally have darker skin than whites, they have endured ongoing social discrimination in various degrees.

Contemporary Mexican Americans are quite diverse. Descriptors commonly applied to Mexican Americans have included loyal, hardworking, humble, family oriented, and Catholic. Although some values and traditions are shared across vast segments of the Mexican American population, Mexican Americans vary in personalities, acculturation, socioeconomic status, educational attainment, and occupation. Mexican Americans also vary in their preferred ethnic label, often as a function of interactions between sociodemographic variables, language proficiency, and experiences with discrimination and oppression. Some self-identify as Mexican, Spanish, Mexican American, Americans of Mexican descent, Latin, Chicano, Hispanic, and Latino (Therrien, 2007). Also, intermarriage increasingly is leaving its imprints on Mexican American identity, attitudes, and behaviors. Marriages in which one partner is Mexican American and the other is non-Hispanic white represent the most common interethnic marriage in the United States.

For some Mexican Americans, the pressure to adapt or acculturate toward mainstream customs and values is stressful as they struggle to negotiate a myriad of personal, family, and cultural changes (Gonzalez, 2007). In contrast, some Mexican Americans comfortably gravitate toward behaviors and attitudes consistent with non-Hispanic white American culture. Still, other Mexican Americans selectively acculturate, electing to maintain specific Mexican beliefs and values while adopting specific mainstream ideas or customs. Despite the inevitability of acculturation, the unity and cohesion of Mexican American families sometimes can be compromised as family members—particularly during the first few generations—learn to balance their adherence to traditional family values with their adoption of egalitarian and individualistic values of mainstream American culture.

Puerto Ricans

Puerto Ricans' experiences in the United States are similar to other immigrant groups because they have different sociocultural traditions and speak a language other than English. Even after several generations in the United States, Puerto Ricans tend to maintain a strong ethnic identity and retain the ability to speak Spanish. Puerto Ricans living on the island have most of the rights and obligations of U.S. citizens, such as paying social security taxes, receiving some federal welfare, electing to serve in the U.S. military, and holding U.S. passports. Only Puerto Ricans living in the United States must pay federal taxes and have the right to vote in the presidential elections (Garcia, ...