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Latino Culture Essay

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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Latino population is composed of people of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central America, or other Spanish cultures or origins (Grieco and Cassidy, 2001). As of 2010, there were over 50 million Latinos in the U.S. (Ennis, Rio-Vargas and Albert, 2011). This makes Latinos the largest minority group in the nation. Collectively, this group is now referred to as either Latino or Hispanic. The largest segment of this population is Mexican Americans, but they became Mexican Americans without ever crossing a border. Many Mexicans became Mexican Americans with the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848 when the U.S. annexed Texas and Mexico ceded California and most of Arizona and New Mexico to the U.S. The U.S. granted citizenship to about 75,000 Mexicans who remained on annexed land (Schaefer, 2004), and with the open border between Mexico and the United States there has been large-scale movement between the two countries for 100 years. And it wasn’t until 1965 that immigration from Mexico was restricted (Schaefer, 2004). Attempting to offer a description of the conceptualization of childhood for the population of Hispanics or Latinos is difficult because of the number of countries (as …show more content…

In addition, respect is one of the most important values that parents attempt to instill in their children (Rodríguez, Donovick, & Crowley, 2009). Hispanic parents believe that children should be obedient to authority figures, and that they must behave and act in an appropriate manner – meaning that they should obey rules without talking back to their parents. According to Halgunseth, Ispa & Rudy (2006), Hispanic parents describe obedience as having manners, being respectful to authority figures, and behaving in public. Parents believe it is a reflection on the parents how a child behaves in the presence of

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