RACE AND YOUR COMMUNITY(MEXICAN AMERICAN

Race and Your Community(Mexican American community)

Race and Your Community (Mexican American community)

Mexican Americans Mexican Americans are extremely proud of their heritage from the old country to the new country and depending on one's generation, have a unique blend of Mexican and U.S. American values and beliefs. Most Spanish customs and beliefs are rooted in religion and family. To fully understand the Mexican American heritage one must look at the relationships within family and how they are different and similar to one's own viewpoint. (Catalano, et. al. 2001)

Within the Mexican culture family comes first. All the people I interviewed feel that family gives you roots, identity, acceptance, devotion, promise, passion, drive and life. Family is viewed as warm and nurturing for most Mexican Americans and is by far is the most valued part of any Hispanic's life I have ever met. Growing up, a young Hispanic does not look forward to the life ahead with thoughts of themselves outside the family. They are not independent of the family unit. To another race you are yourself, to the Hispanic, you alone, are nothing. Everything they go through as they are growing up is shared with some member of the family. Children grow up hanging out with their brothers, sisters, and cousins as friends. There is no need to go out by themselves and leave the younger ones at home as if they are a burden. Of course there are the times they spend alone, but most of the time they are enjoying company of their family. The love and treasuring that takes place in the Hispanic family is quite touching. There is a respect that is demanded from children towards their elders. Parents care, provide and protect their children. No matter how busy the parents are, there is always time for the children.

The extended family may include godparents and/or very close friends. Mexican families tend to live near relatives and close friends, have frequent interaction with family members, and exchange a wide range of goods and services that include child care, temporary housing, personal advice, nursing during times of illness, and emotional support. No matter what happens in life, one thing most children of Hispanic families grow up with, it is the knowledge that their parents and all the other adults in the family will always put them first. (Samora, 2003)

In return for this type of acceptance and love, a child who grows up in this type of family almost always feels the same toward their parents as well as other children in the family. I do not know of too many Hispanic families where the children feel animosity towards their younger siblings.

Respect of the elders is of utmost importance. Families do not move the elderly members of their families to residential care, instead preferring to take care of them themselves. After they can no longer work they take on the role of religious teachers, family historians, nurturer of small children and transmitter and guardians of accumulated ...