Hispanic American Diversity

Essay by HuffyCollege, UndergraduateA+, June 2008

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An example of linguistic change in the Mexican-American community is the use of the word estar. Speakers in the Mexican-American community have changed the word ser to estar, to classify within a certain category (Guiterrez, 2003). Mexican-Americans were the least likely to report voting in the 1996 presidential election. Even after incorporating measures of political engagement and ideology, the overall result is the same: Latinos, especially Mexican-origin Latinos, are less likely to participate in electoral politics. Mexican Americans have long been used to fill cheap labor positions, such as service workers, manufacturing workers, farm laborers, and skilled artisans. Many are afraid of detection and deportation, so many illegal immigrant workers do not take advantage of social welfare programs, or interact with public authorities, which would make them highly vulnerable to exploitation by employers. Most Mexican-Americans practice Catholicism and believe that God's will controls everything and determines one's health status. In a study done by Hutchinson and Fidel (1984), Mexican-Americans spend more time in family groups than Anglo Americans.

Another study done by Floyd and Gramman (1993) shows that Mexican-Americans spend more time doing outdoor recreational activities, but not in all areas. Anglo Americans spend more time doing water, snow, and travel recreation than Mexican-Americans (Christenson, O., Eggett, D., Freeman, P., Zabriskie, R., 2006).

A study done on 2-year-old Puerto Rican-American boys that speak Spanish found that there were only slight differences in vowel pronunciation to those of their English speaking counterparts (Goldstein, B., Cintron, P., 2001). Less than half of the Puerto Rican-American population take advantage of their voting privileges, which is hard to believe since almost 80% of the Puerto Ricans that still live in Puerto Rico exercise their voting rights. Though the Puerto Rican-Americans that do participate in the political arena have established themselves quite well. There is...