Diversity in the Hispanic Culture

Explain what is meant when we talk about cultural diversity in Mesoamerica and how is cultural diversity affected by geographic diversity? When we refer to cultural diversity we refer to ideas that are followed by a society. Some examples are norms, beliefs, music, morals, religion, medicine and many more. These ideas of culture have been affected by geographic diversity in the manner that the locations of different groups or societies affect the different norms and beliefs they gained. For example, groups that lived on the coast and groups that lived in the desert or mountains contained many different ways of living based on their location and resources. A great difference these groups had besides, norms or morals was language. There were

Immigration from Latin America and the growth of the nation 's Latino population are two of the most important and controversial developments in the recent history of the United States. Latinos are destined to continue to have an enormous impact

◦ Describe the dominant health practices of Hispanics and their relationship with the health care

In America today, we are faced with several different minority groups arriving to the United States. The most common of all minority groups are the Hispanics. America is known for their language being English, but as the year's approach, that language has faded and a new face in English language has taken over, it's called Spanish. We as the people of America have become controversial over this major change, and due to that major bilingualism and political movements that have occurred from the government to the education departments. In this paper, I am going to talk about the four most common Hispanic groups in our country today and the political, social, linguistic, economic, religious, and familial conventions and/or statuses that they

Currently within the United States one of the fastest growing minority population (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) is the Latinos. In 2010 Census Bureau Brief ( Ennis, Rois-Vargas, & Albert, 2011) it stated how an estimated 15 million Latino individuals were living within the United States, which is approximately about 16% of the entire U.S. population. There is one big problem with addressing the Latino population, and that is the family patterns are either misrepresented or not properly understood, due to the label of Hispanic and Latinos being placed together. These two groups may share the same spoken language of Spanish and have similar cultural ancestry but the diversity among Hispanic and Latinos (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) make generalizations about their lifestyles difficult. The term Hispanic came to be used in the 1970’s by government officials (cdc.gov, 2011) in trying to provide a diverse label on this population that had connections to speaking Spanish and the Spanish culture. Latino became more of a termed to be used when distinguishing between Mexican (Hispanics) and Latinos who descendants from Latin America such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Hispanic heritage is an important concept that surrounds my entire life. I have lived in Puerto Rico during my whole childhood. This culture has been important in my life because it helps define who I am and how I view the world. Both of my biological parents are Dominican, but I lived with my mother and step-dad in Puerto Rico. It was not until I moved to the United States that I began to become more aware of different ethnic groups. The United States has been called the “melting pot” society. Newcomers to this country were expected to adapt their “old world” values and culture to fit the values and lifestyles of the “new world” (An Overview of Diversity Awareness, n.d.).

The Latino and Hispanic population continues to increase at a lower rate every year in the U.S., they account for a large portion of the population. However, it hasn’t change the portrayal of Latinos in the media. Often, the Latino community is shown in a negative light that doesn’t represent the reality of this community. The main goal of this paper is to show and understand how the media portray Latinos and ways to solve the problem.

When looking at political campaigns in recent years there has been increasing evidence in the parties’ campaigns for the support of this racial group as they are being targeted in the campaigns in a strategic manner, by campaigning in Spanish or supporting citizenship, or heavy focus on Hispanic candidates from the parties for examples the Republican focus was on candidates such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

One cultural identity that affects my existence above and below the Iceberg is the ethnic identity. In this identity, I consider myself Hispanic through the conceptional foundations of its traditions, customs, values, and beliefs, as well as the feelings involved. The Hispanic community can also vary in its cultural characteristics from Puerto Ricans to Mexicans. In my case, the Mexican culture has been my representation from an early age. With that in mind, this ethnic identity can be divided into two categories—what we see and what we cannot see, portraying the above and below portions of the Iceberg respectively.

I never knew about the diversity of Mexican people in relation to the fact they had European settlers. I always thought that the Mexican people were all Mexican and were the original people of the country. I also found the suppression of the indigenous people similar to not only black people in America but American Indians and how they were pushed out of the mainstream. They even have recognized Mexican Indian groups (the same as the United States) and are allowed to resolve their own conflicts and elect leaders (Schaefer, 2015, p 349). I never thought of Mexico as having slaves like the United States so it was interesting that they discussed the color gradient similar to the situation in America where we have those that that are lighter

A person is incomplete if they are not aware of the history behind their heritage. Growing up in a predominantly white community, I felt like I was only American due to my lack of exposure of Hispanic culture. Yes, I knew I was different from the rest of the people I grew up with - my brown skin, the language my parents spoke to me, and the music I heard when I walked into my grandparents’ home reminded me that I was a part of another heritage too. But how could I fully identify with being Hispanic if I rarely participated in Hispanic tradition?

Religion plays an important role in Hispanic and Latin American culture. Hispanic and Latin Americans are highly religious and they represent a highly Christian constituency. The majority of Hispanic and Latin Americans identify as Catholic and Protestant. Catholic affiliation is much higher among first-generation than it is among second- or third-generation Hispanic or Latino

Spanish Hispanic segment is the largest among the other 3 segments due to the diversity of nationalities as Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central Americans (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010), are part of this group, they hold the lowest interest rate on buying a home with only a 79% of population concerned on the ownership feeling (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010), likewise only 60% of the population knows that the require documentation is also available in their language, making this segment the least confidence, since only 18% (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010) of the population surveyed understand the process.

Nearly 70 percent of Latino children are of Mexican origin. The next largest origin groups include Puerto Ricans (1.6 million), Salvadorans (587,000), Dominicans (448,000), Cubans (394,000), Guatemalans (363,000) and Colombians (236,000) (Saenz, 2014). Although Latino children come from a vast array of countries, more than 90 percent are born in the United States or born abroad to U.S. citizens. As a result of this, the language patterns of Latino children have strong ties to their ancestral roots. About three-fifths of Latino children are bilingual. They speak Spanish at home but are also fluent in English. This is an extremely important factor for the Latino community. Public schools are effectively teaching Latino children to speak English but at home they converse in Spanish with their families.

The population is the 2nd largest in Latin America, behind Brazil, and is racially diverse: 60 percent are mestizos (mixed of Spanish and indigenous blood); 30 percent live in the central and southern parts of the country and are considered indigenous. The larger percentage, within that percentage, is the Mayan located in the far south along the