Hispanic/Latino Culture Essay

To help me understand and analyze a different culture, I watched the film Selena. The film tells the life story of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Not only does it just tell personal stories from her life, it also gives insight to the Mexican-American culture. Her whole life she lived in the United States, specifically in Texas, but was Hispanic and because of that both her and her family faced more struggles than white singers on the climb to her success. Even though the film is a story about a specific person, it brought understanding into the culture in which she lived. Keeping in mind that these ideas that I drew about the Mexican-American culture is very broad and do not apply to every single person in the culture, there

Latinos rather than Hispanic-Americans will be used in this entry since the former term is considered as more inclusive. Latinos refer to people living in the United States, who originally were from Spanish- and Portuguese speaking countries in Latin America as well as Spain and Portugal. The term Hispanics refers to people from Spanish speaking countries, which would encompass Latin America (except for Brazil where Portuguese is the predominant language) and Spain. “Hispanic” is a term used in the United States, which originated in 1980 with the U.S. Census Bureau. This term is not used in Latin America and Spain.

In conclusion, Latino or Hispanic is a word that put people into a group, but the words mean the same thing. As the people of these groups have more similarities than differences, they are a proud people. In these ethnicities, there are light skinned and dark skinned people, there are religious and non-religious people, and there are good and bad people. These traits follow any and every ethnic group around the world. As common as they are to each other, they are widely different. They speak different dialects in the Spanish language. They have different reasons for coming to the Unites

The misconception among American’s is that all Hispanics are alike. They have the same cultural backgrounds and speak the same language. This could not be further from the truth. In actuality there is great diversity among different Latin ethnic groups. Hispanic Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Columbians all have different cultural and historic back grounds that identify them as separate ethnic groups.

According Almanza, a Latino man working in the helping profession chosen to be interviewed, believes that family and church are the two places that man Latinos turn to when seeking to find assistance or help that might be facing

These include kindness, friendliness and respect. Kindness can be achieved by asking about the patient and his or her family. People stand closer to each other in most Latino cultures. Physical proximity is perceived as being more personable. Respect implies attentive concern for the patient and respect for his or her personhood and age, especially if the patient is older. Older patients should be addressed as senor or senora rather by first names. Elders have a prestigious status in the Hispanic family because of their experience. Family members look to them for support, comfort and advice. They may recommend safe, simple home remedies. In the traditional home, the man is the head of the family and makes all major decisions. There is a strong sense of male dominance, but the female role is

The issue of immigration is a major point of acrimony among Americans today with a great deal of the focus being directed toward individuals identified with Hispanic cultures (Guittierrez, 2006). There is a misconception among many Americans that all Hispanic cultures are identical in religion, linguistic, political, social, and family conventions and this misconception too often leads to biases and prejudices that create barriers. In reality, there are a many similarities between Hispanic groups but there are also many differences that characterize each group as being unique.

Language is an important value for the nationalistic identity of a nation. Hispanic culture is the way of life of people from Latin America and Spain, and their main identifying factor is the fact that they speak Spanish as their main language. Therefore, Hispanics are not necessarily Spaniards but other groups like Mexicans, Puerto

Latinos are the mostly impatience people in this whole world because the smallest thing get them mad or upset.

We are an ethnically ambiguous group. All Hispanics are not Mexican even though we speak Spanish, our accents are unique, our food has different flavors and colors and our cultures are diverse. Every Spanish speaking country has its own unique

To visit the homes of their non-Hispanic friends, they know new foods, new games and new technologies, as well as other products and services still not announced in the media in Spanish. In cases where parents have limited knowledge of English, Latino children act as translators for their elders in many social situations, from interactions with authorities and doctors to prepare recipe instructions. Marketers "talk" often children in their messages in the media to try to reach Latinos mother or father with what I call “the communication strategy in two

"The co-cultural communication theory, proposed by communication scholar Mark Orbe (1998), describe how language works between dominant and non-dominant groups--or cocultural groups" (Martin & Nakayama). Mexico is a big and diverse country with many ethnic groups. As mentioned above, some small groups in Mexico do speak indigenous languages, but since they are the minority, they have to adapt to the dominant communication style. As a result, 80 percent of those Mexicans who speak an indigenous language also speak

“Hispanic” is often used interchangeable with the term “Latino” and aim to describe the same group of people without knowing each terms does not mean the same. As both terms have become interchangeable, it

Hispanic families and Latino families are sometimes distinguished just from their facial features, Spanish accent and

“Latinos come from a diverse social, economic and geographic background”, consequently there is no a homogeneous stereotype of a Latino. However the data available show up