Mexican American Culture Lifestyle Factors

The purpose of this essay is to familiarize the reader with some of the cultural values of two prevalent minority cultures in the Western Washington area classrooms in order to create a positive learning environ resulting in higher academic achievement for these students. The two cultures discussed in this essay are Mexican Americans and Filipino Americans. Although the Sumner School District, where I work, is not highly diverse, these two minorities are represented to some degree in most of the schools. Among the important factors that influence one’s cultural identity and are discussed in this essay are: language, socioeconomics, traditions, immigration, religion, and the family organization.
Mexican American Culture Lifestyle Factors

Some of which have seen little change since the 1800s. However, with each new generation of Mexican Americans the number of practicing Catholics is decreasing; usually depending on the level of contact maintained with the more tradition-oriented members of the Mexican American Catholic community (Englekirk & Marin, n.d.). Filipino American Culture Lifestyle Factors
The Filipino American culture is prevalent in the United States as it’s the second largest cultural minority. Discussed in this section are immigration, family structure including roles of men & women, and religious factors impacting the lifestyles of Filipino Americans. Bautista (2014) states “Many Filipino Americans may look Asian American; however, their views on culture and traditions are not the same, insofar as influences derive mostly from Spain and the United States” (p.20).

The national language of the Philippines is Filipino, a derivative of Tagalog, and English is the language of instruction spoken in schools. However, there are "over 43 languages and 87 dialects are found in the 7,100 islands in the Philippines, with nine spoken by 89% of the 58,000,000 million Filipinos. Most belong to the Malay-Polynesian language family, so there are certain similarities in their sound and grammar." (Claudio-Perez, 1998, n.p.).
Filipino Americans speak English, especially second generation. However, a large majority report speaking a language other than English at home, although less fluently (Wolf, 1997). Furthermore, as reported by Ong (2016) "immigrant parents want their children to assimilate easily into American culture, and because their native languages will never nearly be as valuable as English for surviving and thriving in the US, they often get left behind"