Table of Contents
Started with European countries’ colonial project and invasion, western culture and custom have exerted great impact upon aboriginal cultures especially Latin American traditions. These influences were largely change how Latin Americans practice their traditions, and they integrated different elements to the celebration of Latin American festivals.
When the immigrant flow reached its new peak, enormous cultural rituals brought by Latin American immigrants speeded up the blend of traditional American values and Latin American traditions. With so many political and economic issues, the integration and exchange of different nationalities’ cultures was the mainstream of the history. Among these immigrants, the migration and transformation of Mexican Americans’ cultural phenomenon has been the most obvious. This research paper will analyze what positive and negative affect does the values of mainstream culture have on Mexican American immigrants and how does the western colonialism enforce culture shift on Latin American nationalities.
Significance of Question:
To have a better understanding of the aspects of multiculturalism in United States, we should look at the various forms and rich content of Mexican Americans’ cultural ritual since they are the largest minority group in this country.
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Sources:
In Silvia Pedraza’s article Assimilation or Transnationalism? Conceptual Models of the Immigrant Experience in America, the author demonstrates that “the experience of racial minorities (Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Native Americans) differed significantly from the experiences and eventual assimilation of the White European immigrants at the turn of the century” (421) Pedraza introduces the “internal colonialism model” which indicates the sufferings of racial minorities due to their skin color and race in the process of Western colonization. The author also emphasizes that greedy Western colonialists had enforce cultural change on the racial minorities. (421) This source can help me to identify the negative aspect of the Western colonization and the implicit effect that colonization has on minority group’s traditional ritual.
In Steve J. Stern’s paper Latin America’s Colonial History: Invitation to an Agenda, he states that colonial experience transmuted and conditioned the contours of Latin Americans’ culture, tradition, social structure and economic life. (3) This source would help me to analyze how does the colonial history affect the contemporary condition of Latin American culture and politics. In Jack Rothman’s journal Mexican-American Family Culture, he uses specific social work techniques to delineate the family cultural characteristics and the basic cultural awareness of Mexican Americans. (198) Based on his theory, I will explain the inner core of Mexican Americans’ traditional value and the interaction between their culture and U.S. mainstream culture.
Conclusion:
To incorporate with personal experience and opinion, I will interview my Mexican American classmate who came to United States ten years ago. He shares the common value of typical Mexican family and also influenced by U.S. cultures. By combining his experience and the broader cultural and political issue, we will understand the explicit and implicit significances of multiculturalism and the features of interaction of two different cultures.
Dive deep into Mexican American’s thoughts and values, we can research the complexities and similarities between Mexican and American culture from individual perspective.
