mexican-culture

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #8

Everyone has a different world view. There are some people that will have the same kind as you, but overall will have some minor differences. If you go out and talk to your friends, chances are you will have pretty close to the same  views. However, we need to take into account the other people that we do not talk to or see at all. It is important for us to have a better understanding of how other view the world, so that we can communicate with them better, rather than having a fight or having wrong assumptions about somebody. There are a couple of questions that I am going to address that will give myself a better understanding on how I look at the world.

            The first questions is what is the purpose of life? This is a very broad question in the fact that it changes quite often until I become an adult. When I am younger, the purpose of life was to be good to my family and friends, and to try and do the right thing all the time. Now that I have grown into an adult it has more or less stayed the same, but it has expanded. I still want to be a good person to my family and friends, and try to do the right thing all the time, but I also want to make a life for my future wife and kids. I want to have a family, grow, and get old while being surrounded by the people I love. I have also learned that in life, sometimes when you need to do the right thing may hurt other people. Most of the time you are trying to do the right thing knowing that is will more than likely affect you negatively. The more that I talk to a more diverse community I find that people who are from different countries and different religions are all humans with a different meaning to life. You can tell just by the way they have their traditions and the way they live their everyday life. Us, from the American culture make assumptions about people from the way they talk to the way they dress and walk based on what the media and elders have told us. We need to be more open to the fact that we can adapt to their way of living and to what their purpose of life is. This does not mean that we need to be naïve, and put ourselves in harm’s way, but to not think something is bad when it isn’t.

            The next questions is what is a human being/human nature? In my terms a human being is a living creature that has the conscience to know right and wrong, and can form our own thought and opinions. Human nature is our natural instinct on how we react to certain reactions. For example, it is human nature to protect ourselves and not put ourselves into harm’s way. If you think about the exotic sports such as cliff jumping, we intentionally put ourself in harm’s way, but we automatically do a quick assessment in our head on if we do this, how bad will we get hurt, and what are the chances of us getting hurt or killed. Now if we think about how we view the world, growing up we have different thoughts about different races and religions, based off of our previous experiences and media. This ties back to having the natural instinct to survive. For example, when we see someone in American that is Buddhist or any religion like that, our radar immediately goes off. Reason being  from 9/11. We try our hardest to accept people for who they are and to get to know them before making judgements, but human nature is to judgements then proceed with different precautions depending on the situation. This is not for all races and religions, I just wanted to point out the most extreme that we see on a regular basis.

            The final question is how do we determine good and bad – right and wrong? This comes from our life experiences. For someone who grew up in a very rich family that had to be clean and proper all the time, would find it wrong to leave your shoes on in the house for example. However, someone who grew up quite a bit more rough, who never had money and spent it all on drugs may find that leaving your shoes on in the house and getting high every night is acceptable. A lot of what we find to be right and wrong is taught through our parents, but we also take in a lot from the different experiences we have in our life time. This could be a dispute your friends had with one another and you form your own opinion about who was right and who was wrong.

With which of the worldviews described in the text do you most closely identify?

I most closely identify with the American world views.

What are the key cultural expressions of your worldview? In other words, what aspects of your culture are expressions of your worldview?

How we dress, how we eat, how we talk, how we address one another.

How is your personal worldview likely to impact how you communicate and interact with individuals whose cultural backgrounds and worldviews differ from your own?

They will impact how I talk to other with different cultural backgrounds. I would want to try and adapt to their way of knowing as a sign of respect. I would also kind of “tip toe” around my conversation with the intention of not saying something that could be disgraceful to them.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #10

Depending on what your life holds and different experiences that you may like really depicts on how culture shock happens and how hard it hits. Some people it hits harder than others. However culture shock can last through the duration of a vacation or potentially long term if you move there. The culture that I am studying is Mexico. As we all know Mexico is a very popular place to travel for vacation. It is not super expensive, and can be luxurious if you plan your trip properly. Most of the time people will only stay for a week at a time before they need to get back to reality. However, even for just a vacation, it can be a culture shock. The negative shock is the fact that if you do not go to proper places and you are not careful, then Mexico can be a very dangerous place. People say that if you stay on the resort you are fine, but be very cautious if you decide to explore elsewhere. The positive culture shock is the luxury and the weather. Mexico typically has nice weather for longer periods of time, with oceans, sand, and margaritas. For some of us that did not grow up around that, it is a culture shock to be around it and need to find new ways to adapt to the new temporary conditions. Then, after about a week we return to what we know as home.

            If you were planning on moving down there for potentially a year or longer, then your shock will last for a longer period of time. A lot of times what we find initially is that we are home sick. We have left our comfort zone and attempting to make a new place our home, in not just a new house or new state, but a new country. Other shocks that happen are the fact that you may not be able to talk to anyone and communications will be much harder than we find in America. As a human race, we have evolved pretty well in communicating with others that do not speak our language. The use of technology has been a huge factor in communication as well. If we cannot get across what we are trying to say using body language and signals, we can always rely on google translate to help us out. It may not be a 100 percent total match on what we are trying to say, but it will get the point across if we are in need of help, ordering food, or just trying to have friendly conversation.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #9

We all went to school growing up. Some of our fondest memories are in school, making our lifelong friends and not having a worry in the world. If we think about our education, Idaho is not the best in the United States, but we still put in effort to do our best. As we know from my previous blog posts, that I am studying Mexico. For the most part there are a lot of similarities between both countries.

            When we look at basic education it is relatively the same as the United States. It takes about 12 years to complete this. However, a day in the life looks a little different. When the kids wake up in the morning, they typically have chores to do and then have an afternoon shift of school. This depends on where in Mexico you live. As we all know the more rural areas, are not as well funded as Mexico city for example. There was one video I watched where there was this young girl that was in the 5th grade that, when she woke up she had to sweep, feed the hens, and go to the grocery store. Once she was done with that then she went to school. I found it very interesting that she did not mention homework. As I look back on my education career, most of what I talk about is my homework, and how I have to budget time out of my day every day to either do homework, review content, or study for my classes.

            When we move out of basic education and move onto high school and college we find that number go down significantly. From talking with my coworkers that came to the United States, they did not complete their GED until they were an adult. Both of them were in their 50’s. This is not uncommon for people that come to the United States, but if they were to stay in Mexico it is much more important to get to work after grade school. Very little graduate high school and even fewer go to college. There was an article done by “mexiconewsdaily.com” says that of the population aged between 25 and 64, only 17% has completed higher education studies. People may think this may vary with race, gender, etc, but it doesn’t. In America we find that it is about 50-50. It has to do with the socioeconomics. If you grew up poor and your family is poor, chances you need to drop out of school and work, or make sure that you and your family eat that night. However, if you are in a higher class, then children will go to school and sometimes finish high school, depending on their family values.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #7

As we all know I have been studying the culture in Mexico. I currently work with multiple Hispanics. I do not work in a “white collar” job, but in the Agriculture profession. I think it goes without saying that it is not the most professional work place. However, the more research I do the more I find how “white collar” people operate in Mexico. According to Mexico- Business and Travel Etiquette “Mexican businesspeople in major cities place a great deal of importance on appearances, and in many settings generally dress more formally than in most U.S. cities. We recommend wearing professional attire when meeting with prospective business partners in Mexico and it is advisable to avoid overly casual clothes and athletic shoes when going out to business meals.

Being sensitive to typical business hours and mealtimes is extremely important. It is not uncommon for offices to open at 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. and for people to work until 8 p.m. or later. This means that during the week, many Mexicans follow a pattern of five meals, with desayuno consisting of fruit or a pastry between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. before going to work, a somewhat heavier almuerzo around 10:30 or 11:30 a.m., a heavy lunch called comida generally after 2 p.m., an evening snack called merienda, and/or a light dinner or cena after 8 p.m. Don’t try to schedule a meeting between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. unless you intend for it to be over lunch.

The business lunch is a key tool in Mexico. Use it to build relationships and discuss matters in greater leisure. Before beginning a business discussion, it is common to discuss family, recent events, or other social themes. Mexican businesspeople and government contacts may smoke and drink during business meals. Business lunches can span two hours or more and, again, usually do not begin until 2 or 3 p.m. Many restaurants do not open for lunch before 1:30 p.m. and most restaurants will not begin offering dinner before 7:30 p.m.

Patience is key when doing business in Mexico. Business meetings in Mexico will often take longer than they would in the United States. Mexican social etiquette often includes more small talk before business. Social custom makes it difficult to say no. Therefore, “yes” does not always mean yes. In conversation, Mexicans emphasize tactful and indirect phrasing, and may be more effusive than Americans with praise and emotional expressions. Email communication may be significantly more formal than it is in U.S. practice, and it is courteous to mirror this formality in your own correspondence. The mobile messaging application WhatsApp is popular for quick, informal communications. Do not be overly aggressive while negotiating. It is considered rude.

The concept of time is flexible in Mexico. Guests to social events (except in the case of cities in the North) can arrive up to an hour late. However, punctuality is the norm for most business and government appointments.

Business cards are used extensively. Come with a large supply. Mexican pesos are used throughout the country. It is not legal or common to pay with U.S. dollars (although in border areas and tourist areas dollars are sometimes accepted).”

As you read though this you find that they do business basically the same that we do in America. They like to build rapport and have small talk more than we do in America, but overall it is the same. Be on time or early, be police, build rapport, and use technology and business cards to get your name out there.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #6

Learning to talk to people is always much harder than you think. You have to think about what you are saying to them, their body language, social cues, and much more. We spend most of our life trying to figure all of this out with our friends. However, some of us never get the concept. One of my longtime friends from high school, his dad works as a head engineer for a big time tech company. I remember going over there one time and we got to talking about his job. He made it a point to tell us that if we grow up and have jobs that go international, we need to study that culture to a tee. At that time he spent a lot of time in Singapore. He got to know that culture really well just from being over there for so long. He mentioned that he was in meetings constantly with them. In those meetings the way they introduce one another and say hi to one another is much different than what we are accustom to. He is a firm believer that if he did not study their nonverbal language then his potential to lose that contract would have go up exponentially, and would have cost the company millions.

            When you look at the Hispanic heritage, there are a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. They are much more respectful to their family, for the most part, the celebrate major holidays but only the ones that mean something to them. For example, in my last blog post I mentioned many different holidays they celebrate, but in America we celebrate all different heritages. The problem is that in America we don’t fully understand why we are celebrating, we are just doing it for a day off of work, a reason to get together, or a reason to have a drink or 10. They celebrate what is important to them, and they know why they are celebrating.

            When we talk about eye contact, it is disrespectful to not make eye contact with the person you are talking to. That is the same here in America for the most part. Everything else with gesture, facial expressions, touch and paralanguage are relatively the same. It��s almost as if it is human nature we do those things. Now, if you look at the way they dress, it seems as if they are not out buying these fancy clothing brands. They are about wearing clothes that are practical. Don’t get me wrong, some people do wear fancy brands, but when I was talking to my co-workers (who are Mexican), when they grew up in Mexico, they did not have a lot of money. That means that they did not grow up wearing nice things, and learned to work with what they have and save everything they can.

            When we talk about personal space they are the same as Americans. They like to stand 4-12 feet away when talking with you, and will let you know if you are in their bubble. It seems like this is the same across the world. You do find those people that like to be nose to nose with you, one of them was a really good family friend of ours. But, just like other people we do not like others in our like people “up in our junk”.

            Overall, we can get along with just about any culture that we decide to visit. We just need to be respectful, and do our duty in studying their ways of communicating, so we can communicate better when there is a verbal language barrier.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #5

With the country that I am studying, there are many different types of languages. For example, the English language came from England which means that we talk more of a slang English. That is how it works over in Mexico. When we think about speaking Spanish, that originated from Spain. According to Native-languages.org  there are about 30 different forms of Spanish throughout Mexico. They are:

Language name

Country/region spoken

Approximate number of speakers

1. Spanish

Throughout Mexico

110 million

2. Nahuatl

Mostly central Mexico

2 million

3. English

Throughout Mexico

2 million

4. Mayan languages

Mostly southeastern Mexico

1.5 million

5. Mixtec

Southwestern Mexico

475,000

6. Zapotec

Oaxaca and surrounding area

450,000

7. Otomi

Eastern Mexico

285,000

8. German and Plautdietsch

Various communities throughout Mexico

275,000

9. Totonac

Eastern Mexico

240,000

10. Mazatec

Oaxaca and surrounding area

220,000

11. Mazahua

Mexico State

150,000

12. Chinantec

Oaxaca and Veracruz

135,000

13. Mixe

Oaxaca

130,000

14. Purepecha

Michoacan

125,000

15. Tlapanec

Guerrero

120,000

16. Tarahumara

Northwestern Mexico

85,000

17. Zoque

Chiapas and surrounding area

60,000

18. Tojolabal

Chiapas

50,000

19. Amuzgo

Oaxaca and Guerrero

50,000

20. Chatino

Oaxaca

45,000

21. Huichol

Durango and surrounding area

45,000

22. Popoluca

Veracruz and surrounding area

40,000

23. Mayo

Sonora and Sinaloa

40,000

24. Tepehuan

Durango and surrounding area

35,000

25. Triqui

Oaxaca

30,000

26. Popoloca

Puebla

20,000

27. Cora

Nayarit

20,000

28. Huave

Southeastern Mexico

18,000

29. Yaqui

Sonora

17,000

30. Cuicatec

Oaxaca

13,000

If you take Spanish classes in high school or even college, then you learn the proper Spanish. When I talk to my co-workers, there are times that people cannot understand one another as there are different words for different things, depending on their slang. If we relate that to how we talk to each other in America, depending on where you go in the country they have different slang. They not only pronounce words differently, but if you use the word pancakes for example, to them it is hotcakes. This is just the tip of the ice berg, but point being where ever you go, there are different language styles.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #4

Just like American History, Meixco has a history on how they became the country they are today. There is a timeline according to “Archive.org”. I am a firm believer that if you are going to visit a country, or live in a new country, then you need to know the history. Just like when Hispanics are moving to American for one reason or another, in order to become a U.S. citizen, you need to know the history and critical event that formed America into what it is today and what we stand for. With that being said, here are some crucial events that happened in Mexico, to further explain their upcoming:

“1519 — Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico. In 1521 Cortés and Indian allies conquer Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital.

1531 — Juan Diego, one of the first Christianized Aztecs, reports the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe. 

1551 — National university is founded in Mexico City.

1808 — Napoleon dethrones the Spanish king, stimulating political unrest throughout Spain’s empire.

1810–c. 1821 — During wars of independence that pit Mexicans against one another as well as the forces of Spain, over 12 percent of Mexican population dies. Mexican independence is achieved under the 1821 Plan of Iguala, which promises equality for citizens and preserves the privileges of the Catholic Church.

1821 — Moses Austin receives land grant to settle Anglo-Americans in Texas.

1824 — Constitution of 1824 establishes Mexico as a republic with a federal system.

1825 — Joel R. Poinsett is named the first United States minister to Mexico. At the first Pan-American congress in 1826, Mexico’s representative defeats Poinsett’s plans for a hemisphere-wide trade pact, interpreting it as a cover for United States dominance.

1835 — Rebels seeking independence for Texas fight the Mexican army at the Alamo. In 1836 the Texas Republic becomes independent.

1837–1841 — Revolts favoring federalism over the centralizing constitution imposed by Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1836 occur in much of Mexico.

1845 — The United States annexes Texas.

1846–1848 — Mexico and the United States are at war. In the resulting treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexico cedes Texas, New Mexico, and California to the United States.

1854 — United States Senate approves Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, adding nearly 30,000 square miles to southern Arizona and New Mexico.

1854–1861 — Benito Juárez and other liberals overthrow Santa Anna (Revolution of Ayutla). The liberal reforms they inaugurate encourage division of Indian and church lands into private holdings, subject clergy and military to regular courts, and establish religious freedom.

1857 — Constitution establishes a federal republic and, moving beyond the Constitution of 1824, guarantees the individual rights of free speech, assembly, and press. In 1858–1861 supporters and opponents of the reforms fight the War of the Reform, which ends in liberal victory.

1862–1867 — The French emperor Napoleon III, in alliance with conservative and proclerical Mexicans, installs Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor of Mexico. On May 5, 1862, Mexican troops defeat Napoleon III’s troops at Puebla. (The holiday Cinco de Mayo honors this victory.) In 1867 Juárez’s forces defeat and execute Maximilian.

1876–1911 — The Porfiriato, the authoritarian regime of the longtime president Porfirio Díaz, maintains the liberal economic policies and secularization achieved under Juárez and encourages foreign investment.

1884 — United States–Mexican railroad connection links El Paso and Mexico City.

1891 — United States Immigration Act authorizes inspection stations at ports of entry on the Mexican and Canadian borders.

1904 — To curtail undocumented entry of Asian and European immigrants into the United States through Mexico, immigration inspectors on horseback begin to patrol the United States–Mexican border.

1910–1917 — Spurred by discontent with the dictatorial Díaz regime, regional animosities, and increasing economic inequality in the countryside, guerrilla armies fight the Mexican Revolution, temporarily breaking the country into warring regions.

1914 — United States forces occupy the port city of Veracruz for seven months.

1916 — United States President Woodrow Wilson orders Gen. John Pershing to capture guerrilla leader Pancho Villa after Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico. For nine months 4,000 American troops search in vain for Villa.

1917 — The Constitution of 1917 maintains republican and liberal features of the 1824 and 1857 constitutions but also guarantees social rights such as a living wage. It nationalizes mineral resources and prohibits foreign businessmen from appealing to their home governments to protect their property. Altered many times, this constitution remains in force.

1917 — The United States Immigration Act applies a literacy test and head tax to Mexicans entering the United States legally, spurring undocumented immigration by Mexican workers. (During the World War I labor shortage, these provisions are temporarily suspended.)

1918 — Oil is declared an inalienable national resource, and existing titles to oil lands become concessions. The United States government protests.

1924 — The Immigration Act of 1924 establishes the United States Border Patrol.

1927 — Conflict over the 1917 Constitution’s provisions for separation of church and state leads to nationalization of church property and armed rebellion, which the government suppresses.

1929 — President Plutarco Elías Calles founds the predecessor to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The PRI controls the national government throughout the next seven decades.

1929–1934 — Nearly 500,000 Mexican nationals and some Mexican Americans are repatriated to Mexico, forcibly or voluntarily, during the Great Depression.

1933 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the Good Neighbor Policy, promising to end United States military intervention in Latin American countries.

1933–1934 — Mexican painter Diego Rivera, a Marxist, completes murals for the RCA building in Rockefeller Center, New York City. When he refuses to replace the face of Lenin with that of an anonymous individual, as requested by Nelson Rockefeller, the murals are destroyed.

1937–1938 — Mexico nationalizes British and United States railroad and oil industries. A 1947 settlement provides compensation to foreign investors.

1940s — El Congreso de Pueblos que Hablan Español (congress of Spanish-speaking peoples) calls for the relaxation of United States restrictions on immigration, naturalization, and citizenship.

1942 — The United States and Mexico adopt the Emergency Farm Labor Program, or bracero program, allowing Mexicans to perform contract work in the United States for a fixed period. Over the next 22 years of the program’s existence, more than 4.6 million labor contracts are issued.

1957 — Citizens of El Paso, Texas, elect the first Mexican American mayor of a US city.

1968 — Riot police repress student protests for democratization of the government, killing over 100 civilians in the massacre of Tlatelolco in Mexico City.

1970–1976 — Mexican President Luis Echeverría visits Cuba and the Soviet Union and engineers a partial lifting of the hemispheric embargo against Cuba.

1973 — United States creates the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to suppress domestic and foreign production of narcotics intended for sale in the United States.

1982 — President José Lopez Portillo visits Nicaragua and praises the Sandinista revolution.

1986 — The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), or Simpson-Rodino Act, increases funds for the United States Border Patrol, penalizes employers for hiring unauthorized workers, and provides amnesty to long-term undocumented residents.

1986 — The Anti–Drug Abuse Act enhances the DEA’s power to extradite foreign drug traffickers and prosecute them in the United States.

1990 — The Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs creates the Program for Mexican Communities Abroad to aid Mexicans in adapting to life in the United States and to foster continuing ties to the homeland.

1994 — The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) begins to phase out tariffs between the United States, Canada, and Mexico over fifteen years.

1994 — Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, protests the PRI’s dominance of political power and the government’s indifference to the fate of peasants and indigenous peoples.

1994 — California voters adopt Proposition 187, denying undocumented residents access to nearly all public services in the state. (Courts later strike down much of the law as unconstitutional.)

1995 — Over 500,000 Mexicans work in maquiladoras, factories on the border that assemble parts from the United States and export the finished goods back to the United States.”

 I have attached with a link an animated video that doing a brief explanation on the history of Mexico. It goes into detail about what could have happened if certain things did not go they way  they had planned, and things they wish could have happened. It is a great short film that is about 30 minutes long that I encourage you to watch.

Work Cited

maps and timeline. (2022). Retrieved 26 September 2022, from http://archive.oah.org/special-issues/mexico/timeline.html

(2022). Retrieved 26 September 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4kF0lRzGnI

#Youtube

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #3

This week in my blog we are talking about world views. When we talk about world views, there are three different types. Atheistic, spiritualistic, or religious. As we know I am studying the Hispanic culture. If I had to choose one dominate world view it would have to be religious. According to one of my co-workers everyone that he knows in Mexico is religious. Now, we could go into detail on the difference between spiritualistic and religious. He has mentioned before that every house has the virgin Mary statue and that most of the Hispanic heritage is of the catholic religion. If we want to talk more on the spiritual side according to the National Library of Medicine they say “Despite forces of transnational migration that may blur geopolitical boundaries, there are some enduring cultural values among Latinos in which their faith experiences are embedded. Personalismo is an important Latino cultural value that is characterized by warmth, closeness, and empathy in one's relationship with others. In faith experiences, this translates to a direct and intimate relationship with one's conception of a universal being, which may include Christian concepts of God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and/or various saints” (NCBI.com). Another way we can look at the Hispanic culture vs. the American culture is by the way we look at death. Both of us have funerals and have a celebration of life for the person that passed. However, they have a special day called “Day of the Dead”. This takes place on November 1 every year. This is where they celebrate their loves ones who have passed away and moved onto better places.

            For the most part Hispanics are homogenous and they are very accepting of new people that want to explore their ways of doing and knowing. They encourage people to make their way down to Mexico and celebrate their different celebrations. The more that I talk to my co-workers, we have really Americanized different Mexican holidays. For example Cinco de Mayo, that has turned more into a party and have lost the reasons why we are actually celebrating. I think that us as Americans can do a better job at understanding why other cultures celebrate what they do, and conform our celebrations to that.

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #2

The traditional family structure in the culture I am studying is a Hispanic culture. First I want to start out by talking about the socialization they have in that culture. The way that the families socialize within themselves is much different than the way us Americans socialize in our families. Over time and social cues we have found that Hispanic families are much harder on themselves and their kids than Americans. It is almost as if Americans are pampered. Hispanics tend to work until they cannot walk. By that time in their life when they are older, it isn’t that they don’t need to work, it’s the fact that they don’t want to stop working. As I further my career into agriculture, I find more and more Hispanics working. For example, I work in Homedale, and I pass multiple crop fields at 6:00am. You do not see a single American out there unless it is the farmer. We will never know the reason they do what they do, but point being they may have come over to America for a better life for their kids. With their kids, they seem to be harder on them. According to “PubMed Central” they say “Within ethnic minority families, the maintenance of ethnic pride by individual family members appears to be an important psychological resource in the face of adversity, helping promote healthy academic and psychological adjustment. During the transition to adolescence, individuals experience potentially stressful cognitive, biological, and peer social changes, as well as contextual changes in the family (e.g., increases in parent-child conflict) and school (e.g. elementary vs middle school academic demands. Especially during this challenging transition, a sense of ethnic pride may help minority children successfully cope with these stressful circumstances. Moreover, parents may foster this psychological resource for their children” (National Library of Medicine). This study was put into place to investigate the family factors and ethnic pride when children are transitioning from 5th to 7th grade of the Hispanic heritage. This really brought to light the cultural difference between Hispanics at a young age vs. Americans as a young age.

            If we switch gears and talk about a language acquisition and identity factors, that plays a huge role when the move to the United States. A lot of times there will be parents, or grandparents that come to the United States for a better life. For one reason or another they did not like it over there, and that is their business to keep. If I put my grandparents as an example, they came over when they were in their early 20’s. My great grandpa owned a drug store, and the cartel decided they wanted a piece of it. They got tipped off that some bad stuff was going down so my grandma and grandpa fled to the United States. They eventually became legal immigrants, but coming straight from Mexico was very hard for them to get around. They did not know much English, if any at all. So just making a simple grocery run was very hard for them.

            When we talk about child-rearing practices, this was much different. According to the “College of Education Faculty Research and Publications” they said “In addition to describing research related to the unique cultural influences in Mexico on parenting, research on Mexican families conducted outside of the boundaries of Mexico is also included. Overall, it appears that particularly for families with very young children, there are more similarities than differences in parenting practices between families in Mexico and elsewhere. In order to support Mexican families who are experiencing challenges in child rearing, intervention programs have been developed to offer parent–child training programs with positive results for the parents and their children. Recently, parenting research has explored the possibility of bridging the indigenous psychologies, such as Mexican ethnopsychology, with mainstream psychology. The initial findings appear to support the idea that traditional Mexican values continue to exist while a progressive infusion of counter-cultural values are gradually altering Mexican parenting attitudes and practices. This chapter concludes by providing a brief glimpse into the lives of two families in Mexico, one from a small city and another from the country” (College of Education). The main point that I got from that is their traditions. They raise their kids in the same traditions they grew up on. If you compare it to us, they do not have very many at all, but the traditions that they do have it very special. For example Cinco De Mayo. For the United States it is a reason to “party” or get together. But, for the Hispanic culture it is a big deal. And from the stories I have heard from my Hispanic coworkers, their traditions and cultures do not change. They have stayed the same way for so many years. The migration and globalization has become greater in the last 100 years, but the family structure have stayed the same.

Work Cited

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960310/

Solís-Cámara, P., Fung, M., & Fox, R. (2022). Parenting in Mexico: Relationships Based on Love and Obedience. Retrieved 11 September 2022, from https://epublications.marquette.edu/edu_fac/352/

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #1

The culture that I will be choosing to study is the Hispanic culture. The reason that I chose this culture is because I am half Hispanic for one and the second reason is because a lot of my coworkers are Hispanic. They tell me a lot of stories on how they grew up in Mexico, how fun it was, when they came to the United States and why they came over here. I wanted to learn more about their culture and traditions to better relate to them and to have a better understanding of my families heritage. I think that this “deep dive” will have a great effect on how I interact with my coworkers and will help me better understand their traditions. I have already made some sort of connection with them being half Hispanic. I really do enjoy all of the stories that they tell me. Obviously there are many countries that Hispanics are in, but I will be focusing on Mexico. In the period of this blog.

Holidays Observed

            Mexico does not have nearly as many holidays that they celebrate compared to the U.S. They celebrate their Independence Day on September 16th, Mexican Anniversary of the Constitution on February 5th, La Batalla de Puebla aka. Cinco de Mayo on May 5th, and the Fest of our Lady Guadalupe on December 12th. If you compare that to the United States and look at our calendars we have double that amount. According to my coworkers that was weird for them to see when they first moved here 30 years ago.

Food

            As we all know from have food in a Mexican restaurant that Hispanics love their food spicy and have a much different dishes compared to American food. A couple of dishes that are very popular in Mexico are Tacos al pastor which translates to “in the style of the shepherd”. However this is not your normal taco. It is thinly sliced pork with slow-roasted pineapple.

            Another dish is Tostadas. They stale tortillas, that are fried to make a hard shell that they fill with meat, cheese, veggies and a number of garnishes.

            The next dish is Chilaquiles. This is a famous breakfast dish in Mexico and the largest meal of the day. Chilaquiles are fried tortillas that are cut into smaller pieces. They are topped with salsa and breakfast foods such as eggs, cheese, cream, and chicken. It is often served with a side of refried beans or as they call it frijoles.

            According to Carnival.com, they say that Chiles en nogada are as patriotic as it is tasty. The reason being that the colors that are in this dish not only taste amazing, but they represent the colors of the Mexican flag. The dish includes a mix of fruits, spices, and meat.

            Pozole is a rich and spicy soup that is very popular in that country. It is made from hominy corn that usually cooks overnight and has a wide variety of spices that come together with the meat of choice. When the dish is cooks it comes with onion, radishes, limes, lettuce, and chilies.

            I can go on and on about the dishes that are served in Mexico but those are the most popular ones in Mexico that are not so common in the United States. I really encourage you go try those dishes next time you visit.

            Later on in the blog we will go more in depth of this culture, but I just wanted to scratch he surface. When you write blogs it is hard to find ones that are not biased and not really accurate. The way that I intend to keep accurate and not biased is by finding reliable sources and talking with my coworkers. Like I stated earlier on in this post, I work with a lot of Hispanics that came from Mexico. They have lots of stories and lots of knowledge that they are willing to share. They want to tell people about how they live, they food, and their culture in general. They say that there are a lot of misperceptions out there about Hispanics, and I want this to be a place of truth and education.

Work Cited

Latin American Holidays & Celebrations. (2022). Retrieved 28 August 2022, from http://www.rilatinoarts.org/LatinoHolidays.html

7 Delicious Foods to Eat While You’re in Mexico | Carnival Cruise Line. (2022). Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://www.carnival.com/awaywego/travel/mexico/7-delicious-foods-to-eat-while-youre-in-mexico