Mexican Grocery Store Culture

In America today, we are faced with several different minority groups arriving to the United States. The most common of all minority groups are the Hispanics. America is known for their language being English, but as the year's approach, that language has faded and a new face in English language has taken over, it's called Spanish. We as the people of America have become controversial over this major change, and due to that major bilingualism and political movements that have occurred from the government to the education departments. In this paper, I am going to talk about the four most common Hispanic groups in our country today and the political, social, linguistic, economic, religious, and familial conventions and/or statuses that they

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

Mexican-American culture has been characterized as a family-focused, community-oriented culture. Even second and third-generation Mexican-Americans place a higher value upon their relationships with others versus personal autonomy, in contrast with the dominant values of the United States. Living in extended family situations, or being influenced by extended family is much more common in Mexican culture than in other cultures. The core values of Mexican culture are said to be "familismo, personalismo, and respeto. Familismo involves placing the family ahead of individual interests, living near extended family, making collective decisions that involve one or more members of the family, and feeling responsible for and obligated to the family...Personalismo involves the building and valuing of interpersonal relationships...Respeto refers to the high regard for family and community members, especially for authority figures and the elderly" (Neff, Brabeck, Kearney 2006).

Frequently, we do not put too much attention to our own cultural values and traditions until we are exposed to a different culture, and start comparing. In order to have a more productive and fruitful life I believe we need to become more self-aware and more sensitive to the culturally and ethnically diverse community we live in. Two cultures that have been sharing the same living space for centuries are the Hispanic and American culture. In this paper I would be analyzing each culture giving a brief background and pointing out some aspects in how they differ, like the perception of time, family, orientation, and others. American culture has a couple of aspects in which it differs from the Hispanic culture, which for the

This paper will be addressing the differences between American and Latino culture. American culture is an individualistic culture in which everyone tries to be unique from one another and more successful. Success in the American culture typically means being wealthy. Americans make decisions based off of their own personal needs unlike Latino culture. Latino culture is based off of collectivism where the family is the most important aspect in their lives. Latinos are more likely to make decisions based off of the best interest of their families not necessarily themselves. The primary language Americans speak is English whereas Latino Americans typically speak Spanish. One thing that both cultures share is the importance of a good education.

My cultural interview was with a coworker, 28 years of age and of Hispanic descent. While conducting the interview I learned a lot about the Hispanic culture. Many Hispanics like to be called Latino (a). Some do not like to be referred to as Mexican when they are from other countries other than Mexico. Hispanics also use slang within their culture just like African Americans. Within the culture the male is the dominant figure in the household. All the decisions that affect the family go through the father. If there is no father in the house, the oldest son fulfills that role. The older son may drop out of school so that they may assist the mother at the house in the absence of the father. Many Hispanics

| The attitudes and customs of Hispanics have a major presence on music, food, holidays, dance, and arts here in the United States. The Hispanic families in the United States are traditionally close-knit groups, and Spanish speakers are quite formal toward each other when speaking.

Every culture has their own unique and distinguishing characteristics. One’s cultural identity defines who they are as an individual, group, and community. Their cultural identity may be reflected in numerous ways such as: language, communication styles, religion, beliefs, values, clothing, or other types of aesthetic markers. Cultural identity is formed by many of these traits but is not limited to these specifically. This essay will provide detailed information on Mexican Americans, and their ancestry and heritage. I will also explain about this cultures central beliefs and values, while incorporating information on Mexican Americans, cultural patterns, cultural identity, and their cultures communication characteristics and styles.

I was born and raised in the Philippines. I identify myself with the Filipino culture. I chose to learn about the Mexican culture, so I have interviewed my coworker. The interview was focused on the meaning of food in their culture and its impact on their health.

This paper will reflect on my experience by exploring an ethnic grocery store. Exploring the different aspect of cultural food that is new. This new knowledge of different cultural food in this ethnic grocery store gave a variety of food that you would not majority see in American grocery stores. But have some food that you would see in American grocery stores. This paper provides my acknowledgment of surrounding, what cultural group or common nationality mostly shop there, are they store food labels based on their cultural language from their country.

A prominent strength to Bourgois’ ethnographic research was his immense personal integration into the community of El Barrio. Through moving into an apartment alongside his wife and newborn child (who was born within the duration of Bourgois’ five year research period), Bourgois himself became, to an extent, a part of the local population, eating at the same restaurants, visiting the same ice cream parlors and supermarkets, and

Not knowing many Venezuelans and being over 2,000 miles away from my extended family made it difficult to maintain my cultural identity, but the Casita allowed me to keep a piece of Venezuela in America. Walking into the restaurant transported me to the country itself. The Casita was decorated from floor to ceiling in knick knacks that mimicked the typical art pieces in Venezuela. The food tasted homemade, as if it came straight from my grandmother’s kitchen. The sound of salsa music over loud speakers reminded me of family celebrations at home. I spent most of my childhood at the restaurant and it never let me forget where I came from.

Lastly, Mexican cuisine in America was not well known to many chefs because they did not know real authentic Mexican cuisine. In fact, “Few, if any, famous chefs had worked in Mexico” thus, “even fewer had studied there” (McEvoy). In this situation, to be respected as a chef one must witness first-hand real Mexican cuisine and to do that it requires visiting Mexico and getting the real experience of Mexican cuisine. Indeed, witnessing the real thing can help bring out the best in a chef because they will know the ingredients and taste needed to satisfy customers seeking authentic Mexican cuisine. Moreover, chefs today are exploring the option of expanding Mexican cuisine in other areas of well know American food. For instance, chefs have rolled

The research team was very adamant on following this criteria because they were curious about understanding the ways of curanderismo in the Mexican-American culture. They began this study by creating an interview guide, one in Spanish and one in English. The questions were asked in an open-ended style to follow the phenomenological approach they were using. These nine questions were ones that the researchers felt the current literature did not cover very well. The questions were as followed:

In the community of San Andreas, Guatemala some of the cultural norms include men having the ability, or the authority to form a committee. In the San Andreas community it means that men are employed by the parish to manage projects. Project may include coffee, water, health clinics, reforestation and others to help then community grow economically and socially (68). Basically the social norm for this community, the Mayan cultural, is patriarchal. It means that men make the decisions for the family and the community (72). Even though there has been progress for women in having a voice in the community, they are still expected to be house wives that cook, clean, and take care of the children. These cultural norms can intersect professional values.