Hispanic Culture And Latino Culture

At my understanding, the term Hispanic is wrongly used when referring to a race. Being Hispanic is, of course, to belong to an ethnic group, but it is much more than that. It is not about the color of your skin or your hair, but about culture, tradition, and manners. All started with the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of South and Central America. From Europe came the adventurous men, full of ambitions and courage. These attributes blended with the strength and energy of African slaves and the Native Americans, and this mixture led to the born of this new culture that we called Hispanic.

I am no immigrant. I have been living in this country ever since I was born. My brother, sister, and I are all first generation citizens. Both of my parents were born in Mexico, and at an early age came to the United States. They are now living happily in the U.S as citizens. Growing up I only spoke one language, Spanish. Being Mexican this was the only way I could communicate up until kindergarten. Although it was such a long time ago, I remember how hard it was for me to adjust. I know I had a strong accent, and I was sometimes ashamed of it. On occasion I remember accidentally speaking Spanish to my classmates. “Did you finish your homework?" “Si, todo esta-”. “I mean, yeah, all done.” I often got these confused looks on their face whenever this happened. The next year in first grade I became accustomed to English. I no longer spoke spanish to my parents. When the realization that I could no longer speak Spanish hit my parents, they were shocked. Personally I was also disappointed. Especially today, in a school with a general population of Hispanics I would love to be able to converse with them. I often get people asking if I speak Spanish and I tell them why I can’t, but can understand what the words mean. All because I did not want to look different in a school where people were primarily white back then. I don’t recall many people of my race at this school at all.

As many immigrants arrive in the United States of America and begin to call it “home”, comparisons between such immigrants are certainly inevitable. In particular, the U.S. Hispanic population gives more room for such comparisons since their cultures and traditions are very similar. Most of their similarities stem from a common Spanish heritage. However, there is a lot more to being Hispanic than just speaking Spanish or eating rice and beans. What most people do not understand is that there are also many differences amongst Hispanics and that, most of all, there are many differences between people born and raised in Hispanic countries and people born and raised in the United

Growing up in a Latino household is hard. My parents only spoke Spanish therefore my first language was Spanish. For the first few years of my life this was not really a problem, I enjoyed life as any normal little girl would. I got to talk to all of my cousins and all of the neighbor’s children. It wasn’t until I got to school that it became real that I was going to learn English. Don’t get me wrong I always knew I had to learn English my parents always talked to me about school and helped me as much as they could. It was also around this same time where I started to understand that it was not only hard for me it was hard for them as well. My parents had to live in this country not knowing the main language spoken.

My Hispanic identity and heritage is an important part of my identity because it has shaped my journey as student and guided me in discovering my passion in life. I strongly believe being the daughter of immigrant parents has pushed me to work harder as a student and has motivated me to search for ways to help my Hispanic community. Since my parents and the majority of my family are immigrants from Mexico, this unique position has exposed me to the reality of thousands of people who come to the country looking for the American Dream, but also the difficult obstacles they face in their daily lives. As a child, I witnessed how my Hispanic community lived in the shadows and were afraid to speak up when injustices occurred because of the inability to speak English and the lack of knowledge

I am a U.S. born citizen. My parents moved to the United States in 1984 without knowing anything about this country. Looking for a fresh start and new opportunities, my parents settled in Houston. With hardly knowing any English, my parents knew this was the place to make dreams become a reality. Luckily, I had older siblings to look up to whenever I needed help. Like Lahiri, I was trapped in between two different cultures while I was growing up. At home, I only spoke Spanish, but in school it was English. My habits and customs were different than others. Life as an immigrant’s offspring can be very difficult. As I grew older, I allowed myself to open my eyes and see the beauty of being an American from Hispanic descent.

The Latino community is not just a group of people with the same heritage, but a family who works together to give others a better life and success. Being a Latina in such a world where minorities do not have as many opportunities as the privileged majority is very difficult. Especially in these times where minorities aren't able to have a say in their government and are attacked for their heritage. However, standing together as a community against oppression can be just as powerful as a united whole. It is our responsibility to bring a voice to the people of our community and join together.

Imagine someone is lost, standing in a checkout line at a corner drugstore. They need directions to get back on the road. The couple in front of them is having a very engaging conversation, fluently, in Spanish. Most would not even give an effort to talk or ask where to go, but why not? Too often the assumption is made that people who speak Spanish are immigrants, and do not speak English well. Hispanics are, persons of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American descent, other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. Too often the assumption is made that Spanish-speakers are unamerican, lazy, receive low income, or are uneducated in any way. Hispanics are also demonized in the media as people who are stealing American jobs. That is the belief that some Americans associate with Hispanics.

Many Mexicans pass over to U.S soil frequently mainly because of the violence happening in their homelands. For safety reasons and for the protection of their family they risk coming over here. Us as U.S citizens is our duty to help them, yet to communicate we must know their native language Spanish. To help with the demands that need to be met teachers and people with other professions get paid more to be bilingual as encouragement while us as students are required to take a foreign language to easy the communication between people with a different language. In conclusion my community and location has shaped me in various ways. At a point I was and still am against the norms in my community but with some help I am still able to keep in touch with my culture and

I grew up not ever talking about being undocumented because I did not want anyone, especially my friends pitying me. Just recently this year I began to tell my friends, after years of knowing them, that I am undocumented. I now view it as an aspect that sets me apart from the average student attending Hood River Valley High School. The biggest way I have helped promote diversity, has been, accepting to talk about my life in Spanish at Junior Night. This event takes place in order to encourage students, to continue their education past high school. One of the counsels at Hood River Valley High School recognized my motivation to focus on school through my grades and being an undocumented student. Instead of staying quite I accepted to encourage students not sure about attending college by explaining to them the amount of federal financial aid available to them and that although I don’t qualify for the majority of it, I still don’t let set me back from choosing to attend college. I also wanted to encourage undocumented students still in the shadows to turn being undocumented into a motivation and not let it stop them from choosing to succeed in

Being a Hispanic can have its ups and downs. In today's modern society, there are many racial terms that are put against Hispanics. Examples of these can stretch from calling someone an illegal immigrant to making jokes that we Hispanics ‘all eat tacos’. I don’t know if racism will ever end, but I do know many people are being affected by it. So, what being a Hispanic means for me is to show the world that we are not all this stereotypical drug lord, or murderer. My parents were indeed illegal immigrants at one point. They through many difficult battles to get into this country in hopes of a better life. I want to build on from that, and show how a family from one generation to another can become the next CEO of NASA or President of the United

Latino immigrants have always had many obstacles when coming into the United States, the difference between the American and the Latin cultures is what has caused a huge hurdle that immigrants have found hard to overpass. This obstacle has caused many generations to go through cultural assimilation. Mize et al. (2012) explain that cultural assimilation is the adaptation of immigrants to unfamiliar cultural patterns, which include language and the value systems of other cultures. In order for immigrants to be successful in another country, which is not of their origin; they need to learn how to assimilate to their new homes. Immigrants have learned that they need to adapt in order to get to experience new opportunities and also to learn from new cultures that are not theirs (Mize et al., 2012). Immigrants have learned that they are not leaving behind their own believes and norms, but mixing their norms, this gives them the opportunity to create and mix their culture with the new. Cultural assimilation can be hard to achieve because in one hand it is important to change in order to live within a different culture, but on the other hand it is important for a person to maintain their identity regardless of where they live. At times immigrants find it difficult to achieve a balance and for many families it is a struggle over generations. There are different levels of assimilation, some immigrants come to the

The level of the English language by Latinos descendants is growing, they usually prefer to speak Spanish only at home, to be exact, are 3.4 million children (Hakimzadeh & Cohn, 2007), but nevertheless, Most latinos belive that if they do not have a good English, things would difficult to them, principally at work and it could be a reason why the new generation prefer English outside and Spanish in their house; even so, in a study of 2013 was found that only 2% of the latinos community speak a decent English (Gonzalez Barrera & Hugo Lopez, 2013)

I am part of the 8.2% Latino community of WPI. I come from Quito, Ecuador where I used to attend an only English speaking school. I also participated in many volunteering experiences that shaped the way I see the people and world around me. These experiences have allowed me to develop a mature mindset that is always open to new ideas and cultures. I am a college student that worked hard to get accepted into WPI in order to pursue a double major. My parents worked hard to obtain a middle class socioeconomic status. Special because they came from a working-class household in a South American country.

From experience, working in different districts where there has been an increase of Latino students in the classrooms as well as my own experience in my education I can see where Latino students can be overrepresented as well as underrepresented. I want to focus on what I experienced, which also reminded me as I read the chapter on cultural and linguistic diversity by Nicole Patton Terry and Miles Anthony Irving. From my experience, and experience of students I worked with, when parents fill out registration forms for school in elementary and are asked what language they speak at home. Parents who pick other languages other than English, their students are automatically placed in ESL or ELL program at their school. Some schools handle this differently. There are school who will pull the students often from the classroom, which was my case growing up. At