Hispanic_American_Diversity

Hispanic American Diversity Mexican Americans made up 66.9% of the population in the United States as of the year 2002. As of 2002, about 23 percent of Mexican Americans are English dominant. Until the last 20 or 30 years, there was a conscious effort to devalue the Spanish language and to discourage Hispanics from using it in schools In the political arena, some of our candidates relied heavily on tickets that were written in the Spanish language. Both political parties have recognized that Hispanics form a force in the election process. Federal law now requires bilingual or even multilingual ballots in voting districts where at least 5 percent of the voting-age population or 10,000 of the population do not speak English. Latino household income has increased over the last 20 years, but there is still a significant gap in relation to non-Hispanic Whites. Just like the rest of the Hispanic groups, most of them are of the Roman Catholic faith. Language retention or assimilation is an index of how well a group of immigrants become part of a new country. In areas of high concentrations of Mexican Americans, language retention is high. At that 2000 census, almost 75 percent of Mexican Americans still spoke Spanish at home. Mexican Americans do not have many entrepreneurships or a wide-spread ethnic economy like the Cuban Americans established in Miami. Throughout the history of immigration to America, Mexicans seem to have made little progress in moving up from immigrant status to mainstream social status, partly due to the amount of discrimination and the poor educational systems provided to them (Alba, 2006). Puerto Rico is a self-governing territory of the United States. 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. Spanish and English are both official languages of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican constitution guarantees freedom for all religions, and Christianity is the major religion followed. Today, majority of the population are Roman Catholics. Apart from this religion, people also follow Protestant faith. Other forms of beliefs include Islam and Judaism. Some also practice Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion that originated in Cuba. Puerto Ricans have steadily lost ground in terms of labor force participation, earnings of family heads, welfare dependency, and poverty status. “For the most part, the day-to-day governing of the island is left up to the local administration. Puerto Ricans elect their own public officials and their model of government closely resembles the U.S. system; Puerto Rico has a Constitution (ratified in 1952), a Senate and a House of Representatives. Both English and Spanish are the official languages of the island”. Cubans Third in numbers only to Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans are a significant ethnic Hispanic minority in the United States. Fidel Castro was a huge influence to the migration of many Puerto Ricans to the United States. in 1965 produced the second wave through a program of freedom flights: specially arranged charter flights from .Havana to Miami. Cuban Americans are doing well in the United States. In July 1992 the Constitution was amended in order to guarantee freedom of religion in Cuba. The whole island of Cuba is filled with beautiful churches. Like Hispanics, families are really close. “Despite the hope of U.S. companies that Cuba might welcome capitalism and that the U.S. might lift its long-running embargo, dramatic change probably won't happen soon. Raul Castro is unlikely to anger Cuba's ruling elite by launching major economic reforms, economists and Cuba scholars predict”. Catholicism has been the principal religion of Cuba, although Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian schools, churches, and missions and a number of other religious groups also thrived in the prerevolutionary period. Afro-Cuban Santería, a syncretic religion that draws on both the Yoruba and Catholic cultural heritages, is deeply engrained in Cuban culture and has at least the tacit respect of practitioners of other religions. http://www.everyculture.com/Middle-America-Caribbean/Cubans-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html#ixzz1ovEmdIOG USA TODAY Central and South Americans For more than a century, Central and South Americans have continuously immigrated to the United States. Their countries of origin include: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Belize, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uraguay and Venezuela. These countries vary greatly in size, geography, history, language, levels of urbanization and industrialization and number of immigrants who have resettled in the United States. “Central and South American immigrants are a very diverse group; the population includes people from different socioeconomic, ethnocultural and geographic backgrounds. Although the majority of Central and South Americans speak Spanish, the population also includes indigenous Indians who speak languages such as Quiche or Kanjobal, and coastal Central Americans who speak English. Racially and ethnically, Central and South Americans are the descendants of indigenous Indian, African and European people; the population also includes people of Asian descent. Although the majority of South and Central Americans are Roman Catholic, the group also includes many Protestants and a smaller number of Jews and people from other religions. Economic and sociopolitical instabilities are the most important determinant factors for South and Central Americans to come to the United States. Overall, their relocation in the United States is the direct result of economic and political stresses in their home countries. According to the U.S. Census, in 1990, there were 2,359,432 Central and South Americans living in the United States. According to the U.S. Census, 1,323,830 Central Americans resided in the United States in 1990.Younger individuals demonstrate higher motivation to learn English than older persons. Many Central and South Americans choose to speak Spanish in their everyday lives. Poverty appears to play a significant role in educational attainment among Central and South American youth. OUR MULTICULTURAL HERITAGE: A GUIDE TO AMERICA'S PRINCIPAL ETHNIC GROUPS with Carlos Cordova and Jorge Del Pinal, Edited by Elliot Barkin, Greenwood Press The major differences between Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Central and South Americans include geographical location and how much of the different Hispanic groups have migrated to the United states. Catholism is the religion of choice for some of the people in some of the groups. Family life is a key factor in Hispanics lives. Hispanic groups speak over 1000 different languages between them. One thing is that Cuba and Puerto Rico has a lot of black people because of the heavy slave labor that was used as oppose to Spain and Mexico. All four groups are revered as hard workers. In the end there are many similarities and not very many large differences, as a social, ethnic whole Hispanic Americans have very similar tendencies. The most important thing to remember is illegal or legal they have a place and contribute to the positive growth that is apart of our countries heritage! References http://userwww.sfsu.edu http://lrd.yahooapis.com www.allfreeessays.com /www.coursehero.com/file/5563039/chapter-9/ http://www.everyculture.com/Middle-America-Caribbean/Cubans-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html http://www.buzzle.com/articles/puerto-rican-culture.html http://www.helium.com/items/1084950-hispanic-culture-in-the-united-states'page=3 http://www.scribd.com/doc/27749334/The-Official-Language-Movement http://www.suitecuba.com/english/religion.php http://www.oppapers.com/subjects/hispanic-american-groups-mexican-americans-and-puerto-ricans-page1.html http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc102d.pdf http://www.civicmind.com/pr.htm