Hispanic Cultural Identity

“Culture is fluid. Culture is smoke. You breathe it. You eat it. You cant help but hearing it… I am in favor of assimilation. I am not in favor of assimilation. I recognize assimilation” (Rodriguez 143). All in all, I am accepting of the labels society may put on me, for now. I'm growing up in a community that values peoples differences and accepts that we are all American in our own way. Being racially identified is not important to me, I don’t believe it makes me, or anybody else, who there are today.

Growing up Chicana I was told that it is very important to know my cultural background and the importance of the word Chicano/a itself, but as a kid it was hard to understand something that even adults today still struggle with. When people heared the words latino or chicano they often would think of someone who spoke spanish or was born in a spanish speaking country, but for someone like me who does not speak spanish nor was born in a spanish speaking country, I became very disconnected from my chicana background and it wasn’t until the beginning of last year where I began to finally understand what it really meant to be a chicano.

Much to my own embarrassment, my Hispanic heritage had been a thing I hardly thought of. My Father left my family when I was young, and with him went the hopeful wisps I had of learning about myself. It’s not to say that I wasn’t aware that I was Hispanic, but rather, growing up in a mainly white household I didn’t think I had any right to claim my ethnicity. However, the more I look around me and learn about the community Hispanics have grown accustomed to, the more I find that I understand where I came from. To me, being Hispanic isn’t about what you were told when you were younger, or the traditions you grew up with. Rather, being Hispanic is about learning where you come from, and learning about those who share your same heritage. ‘Hispanic’

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.).

Race is genetically mixed, socially filtered, and an inextricable subject of change. That’s why most Latinos prefer to identify themselves according to their country of origin. They are in some sense executing the strong national identity they are taught in school. The problem comes when they are asked if they are Hispanic or Latino, which is the current format that the Census Bureau uses to ask people about their “ethnicity”. With only linguistic connotations, this two words cannot define the whole Latino community. So, how can we better define their ethnicity?

In Mexico I’m not seen as Latina, Hispanic, Chicana or Mexican. For my Mexican relatives I’m just seen as an “American” or as they would say a “pocha”.

I became aware of my significance as a Latino in a STEM major after taking an ethnic study course. Having come from a college educated Latino family, I previously did not realize how rare, as an American Latino, it was for me to be attending a university, furthermore as a Latino in a STEM major. About 0.2% of Latinos will graduate with a doctoral degree; I wish to receive the necessary intellectual, social and moral capacity from to Michigan State University to become a Latino doctoral holder and a politician starting with positions in water regulation and compliance to embody a Latino minority in a STEM and political world. By pursuing a graduate degree in environmental engineering, I can diminish and overcome statistical boundaries imposed on the Latino community by education pipeline

Did you know that 35 out of 57 waste sites in the eastern part of Los Angeles were located in zip codes with at least half the population consisting of Latinos? (Pulido 21) This is a direct and apparent representation of environmental racism in our country. In particular, its existence could be closely observed in the recent dispute of an urban farmland in South Central Los Angeles. Frankly, environmental racism had little effect on the actual dissolution of the South Central farm, as it was an issue of property rights. Instead, environmental racism played a significant role in the confrontation process that led to the closure by excluding minority groups, especially Latinos, from decision processes and obstructing their effort to conserve the farmland.

The Environmental Justice Movement started when a group of minorities started to notice that their environmental protection was been violated. It was violated by hazards facilities that were been place in their communities. The groups of minorities consist of African-Americans, and Latinos. The environmental justice movement came up with the fact that people who live, work and play in America’s most polluted environment are most likely to be people of color and the low income. As the Natural Resources Defense Council mentioned, “The statistics provide clear evidence of what the movement rightly calls “environmental racism.” The communities of color and Latinos of low-income have been battling this environment injustice for decades. The Environmental

Throughout my life, certain identities have remained consist. And these identities have come to shape my perspectives and my needs and wants within American culture. Typically, my social

I am Latina. I am queer. I am a woman. My existence, I have learned, is a giant fuck you to institutions that work to oppress women, queer individuals, people of color and other marginalized identities.

As a young girl, I’ve faced difficulties in expressing my opinions and beliefs in spite of critical eyes. As a young Hispanic girl, I have faced the hardship of learning that my heritage was not a chain that bound me from opportunities but a microphone that demanded attention. This past month I was invited to the Washington Youth Leadership Seminar with other youth leaders from across the nation. I was invited as the representative of Colorado and carried the responsibility of representing the issues facing Latino families in Colorado. During the trip, I attended seminars discussing environmental concerns in Latino Communities. Although the seminars intended to inform students of environmental issues, I learned of other issues facing many Latino

One of these aspects that results in the exclusion of people of color in the environmental movement is the lack of Black thought in environmental discourse. As a social construct, the terms nature and environment is able to take on definitions that can be changed and applied in a way that can apply to anyone who is in charge. Which is why, in part, the omission of Black bodies from discourse in environmental justice is sad, but not shocking. The exclusion of Black thought from environmental discourse is caused by the intentional exclusion of Black bodies by white environmentalist groups that do not define the “environment” in a way that is inclusive to Black people . One way they do this is by viewing the environment as something that is tangible or relating to non-human things such as air pollution, or saving trees and other things similar to that nature. Considering that these issues, while important, do not pervade Black life to the extent that living in clean houses, raising children, and ensuring safety for their family in toxic environments, the blanket definition of white environmentalism does not, and cannot, apply here . Yet, white environmentalists want to include Black people (predominantly women because of what they bring to the table ) in their movement, but they refuse to acknowledge the terms of Black environmentalism as an environmental movement. One reason that they refute these ideas could stem directly from the disproportionate socioeconomic status between Blacks and whites. This is evidenced in that many environmental activists are predominantly white upper class with above average income, while Blacks not only make considerably less money, but also live in housing shaped largely by federal housing politics, institutional and individual discrimination .

The term Afro-Latina is a word that symbolizes unity between the Black and Latina community. In the United States a person is viewed as on the fence between to racial identities when one claims both Afro-Latina ancestry. An Afro-Latina individual is forced to choose between his/her racial identity, racial friend group, as well political interest. Currently, Afro-Latinas are misunderstood and viewed as a separate category, because there has and still is a lack of historical and culturally knowledge about Afro-Latinas. What plays a bigger impact on Blacks and Latina coalition are similar political interest and colorism.

All over the world, there are more and more environmental catastrophes occurring and we are beginning to see the repercussions of our treatment of the planet. Even though there does appear to be some action being taken to reduce the amount of risks, we still continue to follow our traditional ways in a lot of aspects. Something that I have personally noticed however is that certain communities end up facing the worst of the repercussions when something goes wrong. It’s no secret that people in the United States are persecuted based on their racial background, but I never really thought about how environmental issues played a part in this. My main goal is to look into why people seem to not care about the impact environmental issues have on certain groups of people based on their race. I specifically want to look into how the indigenous tribes of America are affected by this since it has become a recurrent theme throughout American history to blatantly ignore the rights of indigenous peoples in America and that statement could not be more true when it comes to environmental issues. I am choosing to make this my area of focus because I have volunteered my services on one of the reservations and have seen first hand some of the hardships these people have had to endure.