Mexican American Relationships

American author and Professor at the University of Southern California, Leo F. Buscaglia; also known as the Dr. Love says, “A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself — to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.” Relationships are shared with the people we cherish or care about. Ways to express what and how we feel toward people we care about is achieved through interpersonal communication, verbal or nonverbal. If communication is ineffective in a relationship potential strain results. A way to notice tension in a relationship is by the examination of relational dialects. Relational dialectics are tensions that are embedded in interpersonal communication interactions. Three major primary tensions that will be discussed in this paper are dialectic of expression, dialect of integration, and the dialectic of certainty.

Communication is vital in keeping a marriage and collaboration together. There has to be clear communication on both parties. Thoughts and ideas should be address. In doing this there needs to be face-to-face interaction. Both parties need to make good eye contact, face their partner and discuss their ideas or problems they are having. Just like in a good marriage communicate what are the responsibilities of each person.

Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example

The human idea of love is quite possibly the most misunderstood in today’s society. Love can be between a man and woman, mother/father and their kids, or even really good friends. However, these relationships of love go through many interactions and stages to start and progress. Many psychological events must occur and be worked through in order to be successful. All relationships must endure the five perspectives of human behavior. These perspectives are biological, learning, social and cultural, cognitive, and psychodynamic influences.

The articles “Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why is it Hard for Men and Women to Talk to each other” by Deborah Tannen and “Speaking Different Languages” by John Gray are about how men and women often misunderstand each other which causes conflicts and or arguments. When a woman says something it usually has a deeper meaning, but men are usually more direct when speaking; this leads to conflicts and relationship problems. According to Tannen and Gray, men and women can adjust their thinking to minimize misunderstanding by translating each other’s dialect, by understanding their different ways of listening, and different body languages.

The United States and Mexico have had an irregular relationships from the moment the alliance was established under the Spanish Empire. Immigration between the two have been fluid up until the 1920s. There has been a steady influx of drifters before, and there has been a regular flow ever since. Yet, migration from Latin America has festered since the last of the 2000s. In spite of this, Latinos have been held to be the largest minority by the end of 2050. Children are attending schools across the nation, attending all levels from pre-school to college. What they are not learning are the heavily influential individuals who made it possible for them to do so. Textbooks do not speak about or touch on them; do not dedicate chapters to all that

I can also feel the rigid gender roles and norms in the Mexican American culture. In Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas que traicionan, Anzaldua mentions that the Mexican culture barely accepts deviant behaviors. Their culture expects women to be commitment to men and if they are not, they are labeled as a selfish. Women are valued as a wife and mother, and “women are made to feel total failures if they don’t marry and have children.” Because of fear of being unaccepted and abandoned by their own culture, “some conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows.” The Mexican women fight for women’s rights in their mother culture first, before they fight against the racism or sexism in white dominant culture.

There is nothing that keeps a relationship strong and going healthy, better than understanding and once established communication is created many become more familiar with communication and the different ways we can communicate..

This literature review will first define romantic relationships and explore what exactly happens in the development of these relationships. From the research found, individual’s age or sex did not necessarily affect the differences in communication. Some research claimed that communication itself defined a romantic relationship; while other researchers said that a couple having the conversation of, “what are we?” was enough to define the relationship. Sometimes it was mutuality in a relationship that helped define it. Mutuality in relationships was often increased with positivity and compliments between partners (Doohan and Manusov 2004).

To me interpersonal communication describes the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between two different people. Joseph DeVito states that “interpersonal communication is inevitable, irreversible, and unrepeatable” due to these things effective communication is a necessary skill for us to function in our day to day lives (p. 20). Therefore, I have created a theory for interpersonal communication that goes as follows; To experience effective communication you must understand: your culture, the other person’s culture, and how to listen effectively. By knowing these three things you can consistently avoid misunderstandings and promote understanding in your interpersonal and intercultural relationships.

It takes two individual to build a successful relationship. Relationships or marriage would be a success if the communications towards each other were strong. A strong and loving relationship is a source of great happiness in life. Unfortunately, a relationship that lacks communication can be a source of unhappiness. In addition, being in a relationship takes commitment, compromising and communication skills. Each individual has to share to each other their feelings and thoughts to know each other’s wants, and needs. Without shared understanding and lack of communication, the

Another author who specializes in concept of achieving ability to communicate better in the relationships is Susan Page. She has a master?s degree in theology and has directed women?s programs at the University of California at Berkeley. Page is an expert in conducting relationships workshops, she is mostly concern with learning communication rules. The communication rules are very helpful for the relationship to last for a long period of time. Learning those rules will help people give more to the spouse they love. People communicate every day, learning how to talk to each other could be very helpful for a healthy relationship. By implementing the right techniques to resolve conflicts and start understanding each other will help couples achieve their goals. Fallowing Page?s rules gives couples ability to resolve conflicts, arguments and understand what they might want from their life. Susan Page gets her expertises from workshops discussions, interviews with happily married couples and her own personal experiences. Page statistically found out that many couples have poor knowledge on how to communicate with

A Prominent saying state – “Good Communication is the key to a healthy relationship or marriage”; whether it may be verbal or non-verbal. Many marriages end up in divorce, because of neglecting to communicate

Humans have been communicating since four million years. On the other hand, the birth of culture is estimated to have taken place about 35,000 years ago. Today, both culture and communication have evolved considerably and have become interdependent of one another, to the point that communication is considered to be a product of culture. Thus, our own culture has a deep impact on our thoughts and behaviors. Since each culture has its distinct aspects, intercultural communication can be the cause of conflict and disorder. There are three main issues which are at the root of the problem of intercultural miscommunication : language as a barrier, cultural diversity and ethnocentrism. I will analyze

When discussing love, people generally think about the love between a husband and wife, or the love between a couple in a romantic partnership, and that is one type of love that I will be discussing. In addition to romantic love, there are other types of love also. There is the love we have for our children, our families, and also the love that we have for our friends. All of these types of love share some of the same attributes, however, they have differences also. In reading and researching different types of love, I have found that romantic love and friendship seem to be the most similar in nature, although they have differences, they share a lot of the same attributes. I found that friendship and romantic love tend to have more similarities than differences. In this paper I will examine romantic love and friendship. I will discuss the definitions of the two, and what elements each of these have. I will discuss the different theories of love, and I will compare and contrast the similarities and differences between romantic love and friendship.