Cultural Assimilation Of Hispanic Immigrants

He states that assimilation happens whether one likes it or not. “It is something that can not be helped. Rodriguez recalls a time when Loatians and Mexicans lived together even though never having gotten along. Loatians were complaining about the Mexicans when Rodriguez realized they were speaking with a Spanish accent” (91). The Loatins had developed an accent from their neighbors without meaning too. When assimilation happens, it is usually because you have grown up with something that you consider home.

Latin American immigrants are not just concentrated to one area of the country. Cubans mostly live in Florida, while Puerto Ricans live in the northeast, and Mexicans mostly live in the southwest (Chavez, et al, 2005: 508). Their main destinations in the United States could be based on the geographic locations of their home countries. They settle in the area of the United States that is the closest to their country of origin. The formation of ethnic enclaves is common among immigrants because it connects them to their home country. They are able to livie among people who speak the same language, or in this case the same dialect, prepare the same food, and have the same cultural values. This spatial distancing is further proof of separate ethnic identities. Immigrants tend to live within groups of people from their own countries, not just with people who identify as Latino. By living with people from their home countries, immigrants maintain connections with where they came from.

The assimilation of Cuban Americans has come rather slowly due to the discrimination that this group has faced. Like most other immigrating groups, Cubans have seen themselves rejected and discriminated by the dominant group, making them embrace their own culture and straying away from the dominant expectations for several years. In order to maintain their culture, and as an effort to reject discrimination, Cuban Americans have opened various organizations and enclaves that help promote their heritage. The stratification between Cubans and white Americans is quite high in places like Florida. In fact, affluent Anglos are usually placed in elite private schools that are populated by little to none Latinos. Due to the fact that many Cuban Americans consider themselves to be exiles, their assimilation has come rather slowly. According to Gordon’s assimilation theory, cultural and identification assimilation have come at a slow pace. To elaborate, Cuban American immigrants have faced much discrimination and stereotyping that has led them to stay away from assimilating to the dominant culture. In fact, their cultural patterns have been kept sturdy by promoting their heritage in organizations, clubs and enclaves. With new U.S. born generations, there can be a sense of cultural assimilation, but for the most part, Cuban Americans have not completely assimilated culturally. In the same sense, identification assimilation has not come hastily. As mentioned, Cuban

majority of Latino undocumented workers are presently part of the labor force in the United

For immigrants in America, two radically different choices of culture exist. First, the immigrants can choose to stay loyal to their ancestral roots and deny mainstream culture. Instead of contributing to the melting pot of opinions present they isolate within themselves by refusing to learn both the English language and American culture as a whole. Because they cannot communicate with a majority of the population, they don’t maintain any amount of control over American ideals including both politically and socially. The second opportunity available would be to embrace this new found culture, no matter how foreign it is to them, and develop a sense of unity with America. If immigrants wish to break the currently controlled system of power and privilege in America and truly become a part of American customs, they must learn to assimilate culturally.

In the countries of immigrants like the united States, people from different cultural backgrounds bring their own cultures and traditions to live and work together. In the normal situation, one kind of culture will hold a dominant position. It is good for the people who have the dominant cultural background. However, that makes people from another cultural backgrounds confuse, especially for second or third generations of the non-dominant cultural background people. For these people, cultural assimilation and retroculturation are two necessary processes. They will influence non-dominant culture of people and their next generations. In Manuel Munoz’s work “Leave Your Name At The Border”, he points out the cultural assimilation by discussing the changing of Hispanic people’s names. Name is very important because it is the symbol of the culture, but many Hispanic people change their names to the American style in order to get the better lives in the united States. The interesting phenomenon is that, after several generations, the descendants of the first immigrants start to interest in their original culture because their own cultural symbols make them special. The different traditions are the representatives of different cultures. In Julia Alvarez’s work “Once Upon a Quinceanera”, she talks about retrocultration and the very important celebration of Hispanic girls, Quinceanera. In her work, Quinceanera is not only an important tradition for young girls, but the tie between

Numerous leaders have been stepping up by establishing and incorporating their compassion to tackle on precarious causes and generating a thread of beneficial acts that serves others needs. The willingness and boom of passion are evidently shared, witnessed, or undergone a tragic set of events. Evidently, inspiration and hope developed in means to prevent or reduce a grievous set of acts that prey on groups of people. For instance, my compassion lies with my culture and the various social challenges my foreign-born family members, friends, and community struggled in the past. The term “fish out of water,” captures the context perfectly, in which families that have transitioned into a new culture may not have the same safety net, relationships,

In "Health Assimilation among Hispanic Immigrants in the United States: The Impact of Ignoring Arrival-cohort Effects," Tod G. Hamilton, Tia Palermo, and Tiffany L. Green set out to add a meaningful contribution to the literature tackling the "healthy immigrant effect," a phenomenon where the initial health advantage of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. diminishes over time. Indeed, this phenomenon (or puzzle) sets the foundation for their study since it is clearly presented by Hamilton et al. right at the beginning of their article: "Upon arrival in the United States, Hispanic immigrants, like many immigrant subgroups, tend to exhibit better health than their native-born counter-parts. This advantage, however, erodes as immigrants' tenure of U.S. residences increases" (Hamilton et al. 2015, 460).

America is largely made up of immigrants, and thus it is referred to by many as an immigrant’s nation. The rise in immigrants of the first generation and those of second or third generation is changing the demographics of the United States each day. Duncan and Stephen observe that about “a quarter of U.S. residents are either first-generation immigrants or the second-generation children of immigrants” (109). Most of these immigrants move to the country with the aim of achieving the American dream through career success. We would like to believe that the nation follows through with its American ideology that immigrants are welcomed with open arms, and they will have economic opportunities. However, the process of integration and assimilation of these immigrants has for long been a common debate question. The immigration waves into the United States have occurred in several waves over the past years. In the earlier years, most of the immigrants were from Europe and their assimilation was rather smooth. But, the recent wave of immigrants groups prevalently from Asia and Latin America do not face similar acceptance and open arms as their predecessors.

Immigrants come to America in search of freedom and acceptance of their cultures. According to America’s title as a “melting pot”, immigrants should be able to come to America and find exactly what they looking for. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Richard Rodriguez covers this in his essay “The Fear of Losing a Culture” when he says, “Hispanics want to belong to America without betraying the past. Yet we fear losing ground in any negotiation with America. Our fear, most of all, is losing our culture” (Rodriguez 94). If there are people from cultures who are scared to belong to America for fear of losing their culture, how can America be a “melting pot”? Rodriguez shapes the American culture in a very detrimental way. He speaks of how America believed its national strength came from diversity, but Latin America is really the bed of so many races and cultures (Rodriguez 94-95). America has turned a blind eye to Latin America, refusing to believe that Latin America is so diverse. Latin Americans have much to offer from their passion and dedication to hard work. Regardless of what America wants, Latin Americans will change America as it forces them to change (Rodriguez 95).

Most of the Latino immigrants are focused on supporting their children and making life in the United states, so they themselves have not earned higher level schooling which makes it harder to help their children. Madrid mentions in the article, “Many Latino parents feel incapable of helping their children learn because they lack formal education and because they do not speak English well”. In addition to the lack of education, the children end up being the ones that translate for their parents, so it is tough for the parents to help the children that are more knowledgeable than they are in the

Studies have shown how immigrants are located in a certain part of an area of the United States that either resembled or is made to resemble Mexico and their culture, just how Assessing Immigrant Assimilation by Mary Waters and Tomas Jimenez explained that immigrants have allowed themselves to be segregated from the rest of society to their own culture. “Although we focus below on the experience of immigrants in the areas of new geographic settlement in the south and Midwest, the majority of immigrants still settle in the large gateway cities—Los Angeles, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston. These studies all find that Asian and Latino immigrants have moderate degrees of segregation from with Anglos.” (109) Language is also a barrier that these people encounter which affects their potential job offers or even enrollment into schools. Jay Fitzgerald wrote a short article Changing Patterns in the Assimilation of Immigrants about the effects of the language barrier, “The rate of increase in English language proficiency is significantly slower for larger national origin groups. The author notes that the payoff for immigrants to learn English is likely tied to the frequency with which they use their language skills in everyday activities and that the incentive to learn English is likely to be lower when immigrants find a large, welcoming ethnic enclave in the United States.”

Native Americans are known to be the first inhabitants of the territory which is now known to be North America and as a result the United States of America. They fought through treacherous battles and countless endeavors to be able to live in their homes only to be relocated by American settlements. Centuries past, yet the Native American people still stay loyal to their land. From aggressive resettlements to forced cultural assimilation, they gave up everything they had to stay alive. In modern times, the Native American people have sought agreements and were granted trade-offs in respect to previous events that shocked their ancestors. Of these including but not limited to, territorial reassignments, healthcare coverage, and other governmental

Reformers, unlike many Americans, thought Native Americans can be assimilated into the American culture. They believed assimilation would lead to Indians settle down in their reservations and stop resisting and fighting. One way of assimilation was the Indian boarding school programs. Reformers believed assimilating Native American youths into the American culture would lead to peace in the future when they grew up and this was the only way to get them “civilized”. Reformers also thought this was required for Native American population to survive from annihilation by the army and settlers. They thought Indian boarding school programs was a good way to achieve this as they were taught to be “civilized”. They had a negative impact due to the

I am a PhD student at the California University, Merced studying Sociology. This is my first year and my two-year paper will be on the birth experience of black and Latinx mothers in the Central Valley of California, where the health of minority infants, especially the infant mortality of black infants is 4 times higher than other developed nations.