Hispanic Diversity
Hispanic American Diversity
Four Hispanic, or Latino, groups comprise a large percentage of the United States population. Mexican Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Cuban Americans, and Dominican Americans are four separate groups with commonalities and differences between them. Important similarities and differences exist between linguistic, political, social, economic, religious, and familial conventions and statuses.
Mexican Americans
From Culture of Mexico: Language (n.d.), Nahuatl is a Mexican indigenous language that has strongly impacted the linguistic characteristics of Mexican Americans today. Mexican Spanish, which has migrated into the United States, contains words that are not found in Spain’s version of Spanish. Buitre is the Spanish word for “vulture,” but Nahuatl influence has caused the word to become zopilote.
In 2004, the Mexican American vote was overwhelmingly anti-Republican. This probably stems from having the lowest median income, the highest poverty rates, and the highest concentration in the blue collar and service categories (Muñoz, 2005).
Barrow (2005) finds U.S. born Mexican Americans both earn more on the whole, and they are more represented in the middle and upper classes. They are not, however, represented well in the professions; this is probably due to difficulties in transferring professional licenses.
According to Grogger and Trejo (2002), Mexican Americans are able to acquire less education than people of other groups. This education gap ultimately results in fewer opportunities, which is likely the reason for the relatively low earnings of workers with a Mexican lineage.
Richard Vara (2006) writes that, “The Catholicism that Mexicans brought with them had its beginnings with the conquistadors and was more medieval in outlook than post-Reformation Catholicism. The Catholicism that blossomed in Mexico was more spiritual and emotional than the later intellectual, attendance-counting European...
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