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Hispanic Diversity

Hispanic American Diversity
Chris Watkins
AXIA College
ETH/125 Cultural Diversity
Daniel Henke
2-25-07

The United States is a nation of immigrants; the various cultures that now call America home have each brought their unique strengths and perspectives with them. This paper considers four groups of Hispanics living in the U.S.: Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Puerto Ricans and Latinos and aspects of each culture.
Mexican-Americans make up approximately 64% of the Hispanic population in the United States; they are concentrated mostly in the Southwest, though there are sizeable populations in Chicago, Florida and North Carolina (Mexican American, 2006). Because of the proximity of several population centers to Mexico, Mexican Americans have been able to maintain "the Spanish language to a degree not possible for other immigrant groups" (Mexican American, 2006).
Politically, this group tends to stay away from the polls, but when the do vote, they tend to vote for Democrats. "In the 2004 presidential election, in the western states, exit polls showed that "Latinos" (nearly all Mexican Americans) comprised 13% of all voters. They split 39% for Bush and 58% for Kerry"; in California the split was "32% for Bush and 63% for Kerry"—a landslide for the Democrat. Even in Texas Kerry won this group, though only by 2% of the vote (Mexican American, 2006). While they vote Democratic, they tend to be "conservative on social issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, and show strong loyalties to the traditional version of the Roman Catholic Church" though there are a growing number of non-Catholics in the population (Mexican American, 2006).
The family unit "is the single most important social unit in the life of Hispanics. Family responsibilities come before all other responsibilities … The father is the leader of the family, and the mother runs the household, shops, and prepares the food" (Warrix). While this is slowly changing, Mexican American...