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Mexicans: The More Segregation, the Less Assimilation.
By Mari D. González
The less segregation, the more assimilation. It is a give and take situation.
~Altar de Muertos~ (Photo credit: uteart)
The highest level of education a Latin American immigrant has, the more willing he/she is to assimilate. Yet, he/she gives up his cultural origins. In terms of their level of integration in the U.S., there are implications for both the Mexicans and the more assimilated Latin American groups in the U.S. While the later might enjoy greater economical benefits than Mexicans, Mexicans is the only ethnic group that has kept its cultural roots generation after generation at the expense of not enjoying such economical benefits.
While Mexicans have refused to assimilate, they have influenced the U.S. culture in every way. A couple hundred years from now, the only culture alive in the U.S. will be the Mexican (Dia de los Muertos, piñatas, mariachi, tacos, etc.). The rest will be passing technology, brands, and disposable things. Mexicans have the ability to layer several cultures without renouncing their own. I’m very proud of every single bilingual and bicultural Mexican-American in the U.S.
The Latino and Mexican Online Consumer
Mexico City – Diana Fountain near El Ángel de la Independencia (Photo credit: Anirudh Koul)
By Mari D. González
I’m a graduate student in Intercultural Communication doing research on online marketing specific to Latinos in the U.S. and Mexicans in Mexico. I do a lot of reading on the topic and just finished reading Joe Kutchera’s book, Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content.
His is a complete read on the intricacies of the Latino market from a global and international perspective. He is not simply expressing his opinions. He does extensive research and lets the voices of other experts speak and share their valuable in-the-trenches experiences. Latino Link presents the real step-by-step, “how to” market to Latinos and to middle-class Mexicans who travel from Mexico to shop in the U.S. that I haven’t found in other books.
We already know the Latino/Hispanic market is large and expanding. The numbers are there–just check the Pew Hispanic Center website. Yet, we need to understand the complexities of comparing and contrasting this market within the context of the general market. And, beyond that, he compares the Latino market with Mexico as a stand alone and expanding online market. Kutchera talks about the “invisible consumer,” the affluent and middle-class Mexican buyer whose potential has not been recognized. Why? Perhaps, because most executives and so-called Hispanic marketing consultants have been fixated on the stereotypical Latino/Hispanic and the Mexican (in Mexico) consumer and continue to exploit the market based on such stereotypes.
What I enjoyed most is Mr. Kutchera’s ability to investigate without a preconceived premise or hypothesis. He is open to being surprised and finding new knowledge outside the box even from his own nephews who are habitual internet users and are the present and future consumers. As a consumer behavior researcher who focuses on the cultural and linguistic aspects of the Latino/Hispanic y en el mercado de Mexico, and the market in Mexico, I highly recommend Latino Link.
Edited by Connie Cobb
The Latino Movement and Cultural Integration
By Mari D. González
It is not uncommon to read outrageous statements in discussion in social media. I read this comment on a well-liked Latino blog: “Mexicans have no clue, their Spanish it’s is the worst among the Central American people.”
This was my response:
1) Mexico is part of North America not Central America, and NAFTA refers to the North America Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
2) Mexican Spanish includes words from the 60 Indigenous languages officially recognized by the Mexican government. The extent of the Indigenous influence is due to Mesoamerica (Central Mexico southward through Central America) being the center of the first most developed pre-Hispanic civilizations in the Americas.
3) Most Mexicans are proud of their Indigenous background and cultural make up. As a Mexican, I speak Mexican Spanish because that is my mother tongue; I use Spanglish with my Latino(a) friends in the U.S.
While we acculturate and adapt to the United States by keeping up with the challenge of “straddling two cultures” that is a common topic among Latina bloggers, let us not forget where we come from and the values we learned there such as respect for language differences and the nuances of language use. Let us “preserve our unique cultural identities” and “continue defining ourselves” without shoving others out of the way.
Welcome to the sequel or Chicano movement Part II, which is now more about integration than differentiation, and should be termed the “Latino Movement.”
El Proceso de Aculturación y la Diversidad de la Cultura Latina/Hispana
Contribución de Aurelia Fierros
Mi recopilación informativa y reflexión sobre el tema se basa más en un principio empírico y en la observación directa/periodística del fenómeno al que hoy llamamos Spanglish. No obstante, coincido con el resultado de tu estudio formal en que, sí hay una particularidad en la utilización del Spanglish por parte de la primera, segunda y hasta tercera generación de hijos de inmigrantes hispanos, cuando mezclan los idiomas que nos ocupan (inglés y español) para dar origen al híbrido que aquí tratamos de explicar. Es definitivamente distinto al utilizado -por ejemplo- por los pachucos en los años 40s y 50s.
Las palabras expresadas aquí, http://www.hispanicla.com/archive/espanol-y-spanglish/ son sólo un muestrario finito aunque se entiende que el vocabulario del Spanglish no lo es tanto, en el sentido de que -de nuevo, por ejemplo- muchos anglicismos son aceptados hoy en día como incorporaciones formales a otros lenguajes, incluido el español. El caso más explícito tal vez sea el de los vocablos de la nueva tecnología, los que día a día se incrementan y gracias al internet, un amplio público y mayormente los jóvenes, los adoptan con gran facilidad.
Por otro lado, la cuestión de las lenguas indígenas con relación al español y los inmigrantes, es otra que representa un reto no sólo en EE.UU. sino también en nuestros propios países latinoamericanos. Me encanta saber que hay quienes se apasionan en el tema al grado de enfocar sus estudios académicos a disciplinas relacionadas. El tema no tiene fin y es casi adictivo pero será siempre enriquecedor recibir sus comentarios.
Nota en español sobre “Spanglish”
Page 51 of Book IX from the Florentine Codex. The text is in Nahuatl written with a Latin script. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Escrito por Mari D. González
De acuerdo a mi último estudio, los jóvenes quienes aprenden español en su casa – ya sea porque sus padres se lo exigen o porque sus padres no hablan ingles- y que aprendieron ingles a temprana edad, prefieren, al hablar casualmente con sus amigos(as), usar las palabras y frases en español que aprendieron en casa y mezclarlas con términos o frases en ingles que aprendieron en la escuela.
Este proceso de “back and forth” de una lengua a otra no necesariamente incluye palabras comúnmente conocidas como Spanglish.
En mi opinión, las palabras en español inglesadas o anglicismos denotan conceptos nuevos o variaciones de conceptos ya conocidos que se añaden al vocabulario en el lenguaje que fueron aprendidas manteniendo el sonido español por la popularidad de su uso y la funcionalidad que ofrecen.
El use de Spanglish es más común en los mexicanos quienes nos aferramos a un español menos castellano y más Náhuatl y en personas para quienes no es práctico buscar en el diccionario español-ingles la traducción al español de palabras nuevas en ingles.
IXMATI 