Cultural Identity Interview and Analysis

An interview with a fellow member of the Mexican American residential area was conducted on December 1st, 2007. This research leave provide a synopsis of that interview particularly, it will include a description of the rules, norms, traditions, and values of Mexican American cultivation. The research will too discuss a) how the surmisals regarding cultural norms affect the interviewees behavior in his daily life b) both disadvantages related to his culture being outside the norm and how he reacts to that c) any advantages related to being assimilated to the prescriptive culture and how he reacts d) his sources of strength or support e) an analysis of the quad dimension theory and how it relates to the interviewees life.Finally, the research will provide some insight on how one can utilely progress with battalion of other cultures. In fact, communication with various members that belong to other ethnic groups (i.e. Arab Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, et c) may be trying some at times because of the cultural difference that exists between the groups. Jose Luis Aguilar was natural in Tijuana, Mexico on January 7th, 1972. Mexican is the ethnic group he belongs. He lived in Mexico for 29 years. In 2001, he emigrated in Los Angeles, California. Job opportunities, presence of family members, and the presence of a massive Mexican community were the factors that brought him to immigrate into the join States. Mexican Americans ar the largest Hispanic or Latino ethnic group in the fall in States.According to the 2000 Census, approximately 20 million Hispanic or Latinos of the 35 million in the United States are Mexican Americans (U.S. Census, 2000). Mr. Aguilars ingrained language is Spanish. However, during the past years spent in California, he was able to learn basic face, although it remains a second language as the majority of the Mexican American who live in the United States. Richard Schaefer stated as of 2002, about 23 percent of Mexican Americans are English dominant allele, 26 percent are bilingual, and 51 percent are Spanish dominant (Schaefer, 2006, p. 241). Mr. Aguilars religion is Catholic. Indeed, Mexican Americans represent the largest number of Catholic immigrants to the United States comes from Mexico Mexico also sends the largest number of Protestant immigrants to the United States (Murray, 2006).Mr. Aguilar is married. He has a 1 year-old son. Aguilars family has a patriarchal organization as the corresponding as other many Mexican American families have. According to Kathleen Niska, Mexican Americans Families continuity was characterized by mothers doing tasks deep down the house, fathers doing tasks outside the house, and both parents performing toddler and early childhood tasks (Niska, 2001). One of the Mexican traditions that Mr. Aguilar mentioned during the interview was quinceanera. This religious rite is celebrated in church when women reach the age of 15 to thank God that they arriv ed to this stage of their lives. akin to a wedding day celebration, the celebration of a girls fifteenth birthday is a major topic in most Hispanic girls lives as it means that she begins her journey to adulthood (Mattel, 2001).They are ready to admit married. The ritual of quinceanera is viewed not only as a gesture to strengthen faith and family provided also as a means to prevent teen pregnancies. A quinceanera also allows for sending a nub of sexual responsibility (NC Times, 2008). Mr. Aguilar is an independent contractor mainly for real estate management companies. He provides superior general maintenance services at $10 an hour. So far, he had limited choices regarding the jobs (e.g. janitorial, landscaping, and maintenance) he could do since he moved into United States. Lack of education and his pending status with INS (he has not received his green billhook yet, work permit only) were the obstacles that did not allow him to obtain better paid jobs.According to David S pener, Mexican immigrant workers act as an important economic role inside the United States as healthy. They constitute a significant bundle (8 percent) of the total U.S. manufacturing work force (Spener, 2000). Mexican Americans are usually have been seen by American companies as cheap labor. Mr. Aguilar shared that members of his culture had been affected by any form of racism, prejudice or discrimination. In particular, he pointed out the bilingualism issue and the tension that the proposition 227 created among his community. Proposition 227 went into effect in 1998 and call for that all public cultivate instruction had to be in English.A) How do assumptions about cultural norms tint your interviewees behavior on a day-to-day basis? Mr. Aguilar pointed out how one particular assumption regarding Mexican Americans culture affects his life on a day-to-day basis. He mentioned that one of his cousins was a crime syndicate member he was killed months ago. A popular assumption i s that Mexican American gang membership is generational which means the membership from a father to a son or from a family member to other one. Therefore, based on this assumption, people believe that he is a gang member. So, Mr. Aguilars behavior is immediately to prevent anything that may mislead people in this sense, e.g. wearing red or blue, or particular clothing, or having tattoos.B) Does your interviewee recognize any challenges or disadvantages related to her/his culture being outside the norm? How does he/she respond to those challenges? Similar to several other fellow Mexican Americans, Mr. Aguilar is able to communicate in his native language without learning English properly. In fact, Spanish language is commonly spoken in the urban center of Los Angeles. Almost every place (grocery stores, restaurants, public offices, and so forth) has signs and directions in Spanish language. This massive promotion of Mr. Aguilars native language in the United States encouraged by Mass Media represents a disadvantage.Radio and television set have also been factors that allowed Mexican Americans, as Mr. Aguilar, to maintain their original cultural values. In fact, in 2004, in that location were over 678 Spanish language radio stations compared to 1982, when there were 12 Spanish language television stations in the United States. This number more than doubled within 10 years. Several artists (e.g. Jennifer Lopez or Shakira) overhauled to promote their cultures by singing in their traditional languages (Jandt, 2007). Mr. Aguilar has responded to this challenge by enrolling himself in an adult school in order to improve his English. However, as of today, he is still struggling to write, read and speak English fluently.C) Does your interviewee recognize any privileges or advantages associated with assimilating to the normative culture? How does he/she react to that recognition? Mr. Aguilar recognized that being assimilated to the normative culture has some adv antages. In particular, he stated that a positive sentiment is that immigrants learn the language of the normative culture they are able to avoid any form of closing off and segregation. Furthermore, these immigrants likely will not face any prejudice from the dominant society as he experienced during his stay in the United States.During the interview Mr. Aguilar recalled a few family acquaintances with 3rd generation sons and daughters who had an variant in the American culture different compared to their parents. In fact, they were able to go to school, learn the language, get a college education, and obtain a good job. They became a part of the American culture. In fact, they celebrate the 4th of July and the Thanksgiving, which are truly American holidays. They also had to learn about professional sports other than Mexican soccer. He instantaneously is also watching baseball, basketball, and American football games.D) What does that person cite as being sources of strength or support? Mr. Aguilar cited church and family as his sources of strength or support. As many others fellow Mexicans Americans, Mr. Aguilar gives exceptional vastness to religion and family on a day-to-day basis he is very active in his community especially with humanitarian initiative promoted by his catholic church. Mr. Aguilar is very family orientated. He tries to spend as very much time as possible with his family it may be common to see him doing business with his families around.E) An analysis of the four dimension theory and how it relates to the interviewees life A theory from the course that was well related to Mr. Aguilars interview is the four dimensions of culture by Geert Hofstede. Particularly, Aguilars interview confirmed that in the Mexican culture masculinity is predominant, mostly due its history. Mexican families were mainly patriarchal therefore men were in dissipate of the family they were working to provide money and food while women were at home taking care of the children. Mexican culture is based more on collectivism due mainly to the fact that more people with financial difficulties seek to one another for help or gather together (e.g. two or three families living in the same apartment). Power distance is embodied in the Mexican culture. Mexico is a developing country with significant financial problems. The difference between people (e.g. poor and rich people) is well marked. Finally, the fourth dimension, uncertainty avoidance, is correlated to religion and history of the cultures (Jandt, 2007). Roman Catholic Christian cultures and cultures with Romance languages (e.g. Mexico) tip to score high. In conclusion, communication with various members that belong to other ethnic groups may be difficult at times because of the cultural difference that exists between the groups.However, inclusive language can be an effective way to communicate with such members. Mr. Aguilar and the interviewer are from different culture backgrounds. The re were times during the interview where inclusive language was used to avoid miscommunication. Choosing the right words when communicating with members who have different backgrounds may help to prevent miscommunication that may end up stereotyping them on the basis of race, gender, disability, religion, or other factors. Furthermore, conducting research and accumulation information on members with different backgrounds may help not only to overcome language issues but also can assist people in becoming more culturally sensitive.Referenceshttp//nsq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/ uprise/14/4/322http//www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/05/faith/17_56_271_3_08.txt