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5.2: Integration and Adaptation

  • Page ID
    206990
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    Integration and adaptation Patterns


    While white ethnics, Cubans, Asians, and Middle Easterners tend to follow the traditional assimilation pattern, three significantly large Latinx minorities have not followed this more traditional pattern: Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans. The assimilation patterns for these groups differ due to propinquity, method of migration, and let us not mince words, racism. A relatively smaller percentage of all Mexican immigrants to the United States do not follow the traditional assimilation pattern. This is partly due to the propinquity of the mother country, the nearly continuous new migration stream, a relatively high rate of return migration, racism, and in some cases, involuntary immigration in that parts of Mexico have been annexed by the United States so that some people’s native land quite literally changed overnight—they went to bed Mexican and woke up American.

    Puerto Ricans, following the treaty that concluded the Spanish American War, became citizens of the United States, albeit citizens without suffrage. Therefore, Puerto Ricans, who are already citizens, have little incentive to assimilate and, like their Mexican counterparts, are physically close to their homeland, maintain a nearly continuous migration stream onto the mainland, and have a relatively high rate of return migration. Puerto Rico is a historically poor colony of the United States populated primarily by Spanish-speaking, Hispanic-surnamed descendants of African slaves. Thus, entrenched intergenerational poverty, coupled with language difficulties and racism, have prevented assimilation. Most Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland live in poor, inner city neighborhoods in New York and Chicago. Neighborhoods that are not ethnic enclaves but are rather huge concentrations of the poor, undereducated, and Black underclass.

    Cuban Americans, perhaps because of their relative wealth and education level at the time of immigration, have fared better than many immigrants. Further, because they were fleeing a Communist country, they were given refugee status and offered protection and social services. The Cuban Migration Agreement of 1995 has curtailed legal immigration from Cuba, leading many Cubans to try to immigrate illegally by boat. According to a 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. government applies a “wet foot/dry foot” policy toward Cuban immigrants; Cubans who are intercepted while still at sea will be returned to Cuba, while those who reach the shore will be permitted to stay in the United States.

     

    Spanish Language Usage among Latin@s in the United States


    According to studies on language maintenance across generations in the United States, immigrants (especially those who have migrated as adults) continue to speak their ethnic language mostly in public and private social spheres.  The second generation (children of immigrants) maintain an active grasp of their ethnic language and tend to speak it in private social spheres (at home and with relatives) and speak English in public social spheres (at school and with friends).  The third generation tends to experience significant loss of the ethnic language and may speak it more symbolically than actively.  (Fishman, 1966; Michnowicz et al, 2023)

     

    PewLanguageShift.png

    According to a Pew Center survey,  Latin@s in the U.S., in general, tend to follow this generational language shift pattern found by Joshua Fishman.  For instance, 57% of U.S.-born Latin@s reported that they are able to converse in Spanish compared to 93% of their foreign-born counterparts.  This also follows along generational lines.  While 69% of children of immigrants (2nd generation) say they are able to converse in Spanish, only 34% of their third generation or higher were able to do so.  Compared to other groups, such as Asian Americans, Latin@ tend to have higher rates of language maintenance into the 2nd and 3rd generations. Lopez, focusing on specifically on Southern California, attributed this difference to Latin@s having a shared language (Spanish), that Spanish is ubiquitous and has become the lingua franca of the working class in Southern California, and more contact between second and third generation Latin@s and Spanish-speaking relatives due to a combination of cultural and socioeconomic circumstances.  (Lopez, 1996)

    Geography has also been found to either increase or limit Spanish language maintenance over generations.  For example, Villa & Rivera-Mills (2009) found that a certain region of the country becomes a Spanish heartland “where those of Spanish-speaking origin have a historic presence, form a democratic majority in many areas and move back and forth across national and international political borders, thus creating a bilingual dynamic in which Spanish is lost or maintained in relation to its affective and instrumental values.” (p. 29) Conversely, geography may limit the maintenance of Spanish over generations and lead to an accelerated language shift towards English. Michnowicz et al (2023) found that among Latin@s living in North Carolina, the shift to English typically found in the 3rd generation has occurred in the 2nd generation (among children of immigrants).  They concluded that the “newly developing Latino communities in the Southeast [U.S.] may lack the critical mass of Spanish-speakers necessary to preserve the language long term, and the absence of a well-established, focused bilingual community, as in NYC, Chicago, or the Southwest [U.S.], points toward a fairly rapid language shift in North Carolina…”

     

    Towards a true pluralistic American experience? 


    There has undoubtedly been in increase in the incorporation of some aspects Latinx culture in mainstream America, especially with regard to food (e.g. eating tacos), music (e.g. listening to Spanish language crossover pop songs), symbolic traditions (e.g. using piñatas at birthday parties) and celebrations (e.g. celebrating Día de los Muertos). However, as we know from the previous experiences of other communities of color, partaking in aspects of culture does not necessarily translate into better racial and ethnic relations. For example, as white Americans were listening to the music of Louis Armstrong in the 1930s and 1940s, most African Americans were suffering from the effects of Jim Crow era racism and segregation. Similarly, as Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba", a rock and roll remake of a traditional Mexican song, became a rare Spanish language crossover hit in the 1950s, Mexican-Americans were being subjected de facto segregation, deportation regimes such a Operation Wetback, and discrimination. There is also the tendency of American mainstream society to "whitewash" Latinx culture and for corporations to appropriate culture for economic gain, such as the celebration of Cinco de Mayo and more recently, the Disney corporation's attempt to trademark "Day of the Dead" (Flores, 2013).

    After the 2020 election, Latinx representatives now make up approximately 12% of the U.S. House of Representatives (up from 10% from the previous election). Although the increase represents progress, they are still underrepresented as they make up 18.5% of the total population. There are currently 6 Latinx Senators. Five were elected and one was appointed by the Governor of California. Three of the Senators are Democrats and 2 are Republicans, reflecting the diversity of political affiliation within the Latinx electorate. In terms of economic power, according to a Latino USA publication, while Latinx workers make up 17% of the U.S. labor force, they only make up 4% of company executives (Swerzenski, Tomaskovic, & Hoyt, 2020). They also found difference across metropolitan areas. Miami had the highest percentage of Latinx executives (25%) and New York had the lowest (4.5%). Houston (10%) and Los Angeles (8%) were in between but closer to New York than Miami. The authors recommend increasing the the percentage of Latinx workers in mid-level management positions and also "acknowledging blindspots that often exclude [Latinx] workers, such as non-Latinx employers recognizing unconscious biases in their communication styles and providing opportunities to professionally use their cultural competencies" (Ibid, p. 1).

    Contributors and Attributions

    Works Cited

    • Aguirre, A. & Turner, J. (2007). American Ethnicity: The Dynamics and Consequences of Discrimination. 5th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.
    • Carrigan, W. & Webb, C. (2003). The lynchings of persons of Mexican origin or descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928. Journal of Social History, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Winter) Oxford University Press.
    • Castillo, M. & Simnitt, S. (2020). Size and composition of the U.S. agricultural workforce. USDA Reports.
    • Cisneros, H., Morales, S., Racho, S., Galán, H., Moreno, M., Cozens, R., Beasley, B., ... NLCC Educational Media. (1996). Taking Back the Schools. In Chicano!: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. [Video]. Los Angeles, CA: National Latino Communications Center.
    • De la Roca, J., Ellen, I., & Steil, J. (2018). Does segregation matter for Latinos?. Journal of Housing Economics. Vol. 40, p. 129-141.
    • Fishman, J. (1966). Language Loyalty in the United States. Mouton. 
    • Flores, A. (2013, May 8). Disney withdraws trademark filing for 'Dia de los Muertos'. Los Angeles Times.
    • Massey, D. S. (2006, August). Seeing Mexican immigration clearly. CATO Unbound: A Journal of Debate.
    • Michnowicz et al. (2023). Spanish Language Maintenance and Shift in a Newly-Forming Community in the Southeastern United States: Insights From a Large-Class Survey. Hispanic Studies Review, Vol. 7, Issue 2. 
    • Moll, L. & Ruiz, R. (2002). The Schooling of Latino Children in Suarez-Orozco, M. and Paez, M. (Eds.). (2002) Latinos: Remaking America. Berkeley: UC Press
    • Mora, L. & Lopez, M. (2023). Latinos' Views of and Experiences with the Spanish Language. Pew Research Center Report. September, 20, 2023
    • Swerzenski, J.D., Tomaskovic, D.T., & Hoyt, E. (2020, January 27). Where are the Hispanic executives? Latino USA. The Conversation.
    • Villa, D.J. & Rivera-Mills, S. (2009). An integrated multi-generational model for language maintenance and shift: The Case of Spanish in the Southwest. Spanish in Context, Vol. 6, Issue 1. 

    This page titled 5.2: Integration and Adaptation is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Carlos Ramos.