The Mexican American Family According to most, ethnicity usually is displayed in the values, attitudes, lifestyles, customs, rituals, and personality types of individuals who identify with particular ethnic groups. Ethnic identifications and memberships in an ethnic group has farreaching effects on both groups and individuals, controlling assess to opportunities in life, feeling of well being and mastery over the futures of one's child and future. These feelings of belonging and attachment to a certain group of people for whatever reason are a basic feature of the human condition. These ties are called "ethnic ties" and the group of people that one is tied to is an "ethnic group." In the general sense, an ethnic group consists of those who share a unique social and cultural heritage that is passed on from generation to generation. I will begin to examine the Mexican American ethnic group, probing the historical circumstances that impelled them to come to America, focusing on the structure and functioning of their family life to determine or, at least, to raise clues about how and why they have been able or unable to maintain an ethnic identification over the generations, and take a brief look ahead to being to speculate what the future endeavors are for this ethnic group and their constitutive families. Historical Background The history of the Mexican American people predates by many years the incorporation of the Southwest into the United States. Native to the Southwest, the Mexican American people have a history marked by the Spanish and then by the Anglo Americans. This early history, perhaps because of the proximity of the southwestern states to the Mexican border, has left a legacy of conflict that is p... ... middle of paper ... ...l Castillo, R. 1994. La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest, 1848 to the present. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Hoffman, A. 1994. Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Jaffe, A. J., R.M. Cullen, and T.D. Boswell. 1990. The Changing Demography of Spanish Americans. New York: Academic Press. McWilliams, C. 1998. North From Mexico. New York: Greenwood Press. Reisler, M. 1996. By the Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United States, 1900-1940. New York: Greenwood Press. Rothenberg, P. 1998. Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. New York: St. Martin's Press. U.S. Bureau of the Census. "The Hispanic Population of the United States: March 1991." Current Population Reports, P20-455. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991.
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Show MoreRamos, Raul A. Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. The University of North Carolina Press. 2008.
The focus of analysis will consist of Southern Chicago Mexicans and the way by which they established themselves as important features of US civilization. Within the late 1910s and early 1920s the first major waves of Mexican immigrants ventured into the Southside of Chicago. Members of the community overcame the discrimination against them while organizing themselves in way that introduced Mexican pride and community building across their
Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire a History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2000.
Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: a History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: Perennial, 2002. Print.
Fernandez, Lilia. "Introduction to U.S. Latino/Latina History." History 324. The Ohio State University. Jennings Hall 0040, Columbus, OH, USA. Address.
U.S. Census Bureau, (2010). Cumulative Estimates of the Components of Resident Population Change by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States. Retrieved from http://www.prb.org/Publications/PopulationBulletins/2010/latinosupdate1.aspx
Latinos have struggled to discover their place inside of a white America for too many years. Past stereotypes and across racism they have fought to belong. Still America is unwilling to open her arms to them. Instead she demands assimilation. With her pot full of stew she asks, "What flavor will you add to this brew?" Some question, some rebel, and others climb in. I argue that it is not the Latino who willingly agreed to partake in this stew. It is America who forced her ideals upon them through mass media and stale history. However her effort has failed, for they have refused to melt.
Ethnicity is an important yet highly imprecise concept in contemporary Mexico. Students of Mexican society, as well as Mexicans themselves, identify two broad ethnic groups based on cultural rather than racial differences: mestizos and Indians. Each group has a distinct cultural viewpoint and perceives itself as different from the other. At the same time, however, group allegiances may change, making measurement of ethnic composition problematic at best.
Crean, Tom, and Will Soto. "Immigration and the Class Struggle in the US." Socialist Alternative. Committee for a Workers' International, 1 Apr. 2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
The Sanchez Family is a large family that emigrated to the United States of America from Mexico. The family is deeply rooted in the Catholic faith and retains their Mexican culture. The family members that this case analysis will focus on are Hector Sanchez and his daughter, Gloria Sanchez. This analysis will provide a review of the family members and how each lens and theory is related to the family member and their presenting concerns.
..., "Major Problems In Mexican American History" The Mexican Immigrant Experience, 1917-1928, Zaragosa Vargas (233)
Hispanic Familieas in the United States: Family Structure and Process in an Era of Family Change. In: National Reserach Council (US) Panel on Hispanics in the United States; Tienda M, Mitchell F, editors. Hispanics and the Future of America. Washington (DC): NationalAcademies Press (US); 2006.5.
Mexico has been no stranger to economic hardship; despite the efforts to modernize it in the image of the United states since the late nineteenth century under Porfirio Diaz and up to the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it has failed and consequently forced the exodus of many of its people in search for economic opportunity. That some of these efforts towards modernity and development have helped a small fraction of the population is undeniable, but they have often come at the expense of those most vulnerable living in the Mexican countryside. In a struggle for economic survival, many Mexicans have immigrated to the United States and become part of the American working class in order to assume the role of their family’s
The ethnic- Mexican experience has changed over the years as American has progressed through certain period of times, e.g., the modernity and transformation of the southwest in the late 19th and early 20th century, the labor demands and shifting of U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. Through these events Mexican Americans have established and shaped their culture, in order, to negotiate these precarious social and historical circumstances. Throughout the ethnic Mexicans cultural history in the United States, conflict and contradiction has played a key role in shaping their modalities of life. Beginning in the late 20th century and early 21st century ethnic Mexicans have come under distress from the force of globalization. Globalization has followed the trends of conflict and contradiction forcing ethnic Mexicans to adjust their culture and combat this force. While Mexican Americans are in the struggle against globalization and the impact it has had on their lives, e.g., unemployment more common, wages below the poverty line, globalization has had a larger impact on their motherland having devastating affects unlike anything in history.