Abstract
The following examines Mexican American and African-American cultures and the ways that these two cultures interact the dominant white culture in the United States. While on the surface these two cultures might seem to have much in common (given that they are frequently discriminated against minorities in the United States), in point of fact they are very different in the ways that they assimilate into American culture. Anthropologists and sociologists have traditionally used words like “integration” and “acculturation” to describe the process in which immigrant cultures ultimately blend in to (and accommodate themselves to) the dominant culture of the country surrounding them. However, recent research has demonstrated that the process is not quite as straightforward as previously believed. Often, immigrant cultures engage in what is known as “biculturalism.” This is a mindset in which the immigrants sees him or herself as being a member of both his or her own culture and a part of American culture as a whole. The following will examine this phenomenon by looking at Mexican-American and African-American culture as it currently exists in the United States.
As largest minority groups in the United States, one might expect that African-Americans and Mexican Americans would have a good deal in common. However, this is not uniformly the case. For a range of reasons, African-Americans and Mexican Americans have often found themselves at odds with one another in America’s so-called “melting pot.” The underlying difference in culture between these two groups arises from a fundamental difference in their histories both inside and outside the United States. The following will consider how African-Americans and Mexican Americans and their cultures interact with one another in the American scene and how they are impacted by the dominant white culture.
An interesting aspect of both Mexican-American and African-American culture is that both groups tend to have a sense of being bicultural. Across all age groups, but particularly among ethnic minorities, there are a variety of types of self-identification notable. How one chooses to identify oneself relative to the dominant culture or to other minority cultures is in fact an important aspect of one’s own culture. Over the years, there’s been a great deal of theorizing and speculation regarding biculturalism. However, the issue has a great deal of significance when it comes to cultural adaption among minorities.
The process by which cultural adaption occurs among minorities has been studied many times in adults and children. Early social psychologists and sociologists frequently focused on the acculturation of incoming European migrants. These researchers tended to assume that an individual with experience conflict between his or her own culture and that of the dominant society. From this perspective, it was felt that immigrants facing such bicultural pressures would either reject their own culture and embrace mainstream culture or reject that mainstream culture and embrace their own (Padilla, 1980). But more recently, there has been a greater recognition that acculturation is a much more complex, multifaceted process than this earlier work suggested.
And important aspect of the acculturation process is what is known as “integration.” And integrated individual is one who identifies with both cultures and participates in both. Such an individual can be also described as bicultural. However, even this term perhaps oversimplifies the various concepts involved in biculturalism. The relevance for both African-Americans and Mexican Americans relates to how biculturalism can allow them to retain their own original culture while still being a part of the rest of the society.
Beyond this, it is necessary to understand the ways in which African Americans and Mexican Americans view their own biculturalism and how they express (if they do) their existence as individuals in two cultures. Any ethnic minority in the United States will tend to face a similar array of issues, including racial/ethnic discrimination and open parentheses frequently) disadvantaged economic status. At the same time, the experience of biculturalism varies widely from group to group based on social and historical factors. As suggested above, the historical experience of African-Americans and Mexican Americans differs significantly. This is particularly the case the further back in time one goes.
Castes, native peoples, immigrants and racial minorities all face their own specific set of issues with regard to how they interact with the larger society. For this reason, the examination of biculturalism and culture itself can be better facilitated by comparing both in two separate ethnic groups. Of course, it is necessary when making such comparisons between (in this case) Mexican Americans and African Americans to take into account their differing histories and varied experiences. Mexican Americans and African-Americans originate from two distinct cultural heritages and have their own particular and unique relationship with broader American society.
Historically, the culture of African-Americans was originally derived from Africa. However, over the centuries African-American culture has changed significantly from those original origins. Given the fact that Africans were forced to come to the New World as slaves and that even after the end of slavery they faced ongoing racism from the dominant white society, African-Americans have developed an troubled relationship with that dominant society. Despite the fact that African-Americans have lived for hundreds of years in the United States, in many ways they have not yet assimilated to the extent that many immigrant groups from European cultures have (Landrine & Klonoff, 1996).
Despite this though, many scholarly writings about the African-American experience and African-American culture have focused on the necessity and inevitability of biculturalism. From the perspective of these traditionally minded scholars, the integration and socialization of individuals into a dominant society should and does begin at a young age. From this perspective, this assimilation continues during the life of the individual and applies equally to all incoming cultures, races and ethnicities. The relationship that African-Americans have to their specific racial group, as well as to the broader society around them, has often been viewed as a process that these individuals go through to arrive at (on the one hand) an internal black identity and (on the other hand) a sense of their identity as a part of the general society. In this process, the individuals “blackness” is seen as positive and relevant but is also a accompanied by a more bicultural viewpoint that also allows them to identify themselves as “American.”
While Mexican Americans have often also faced negativity and problems as a consequence of being members of a relatively small minority group within broader American societies, the difficulties that Mexican Americans have faced in this regard are based on a very different historical context. In part, this is because the Mexican American population of the United States and its culture has changed over the years because of ongoing immigration. By contrast, the vast majority of black “immigration” in the United States ended with the outlawing of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807.
Language also represents another major cultural difference between the two groups that impacts how they experience discrimination and the degree to which they have assimilated into American society. African slaves who were captured and sold in the New World were forced by slaveowners to learn and use the English language. They were forbidden to use their prior languages. Although some African words did make their way into the American vernacular, for the most part African-Americans speak English and English alone. Of course, there was a limit to how well versed in English slaveowners wanted African-Americans to be. For instance, most of the southern states passed laws making it illegal to teach a slave how to read and write (Wallace, 2015).
With Mexican Americans, the close proximity of Mexico and the unbroken stream of migrants in the country has helped to ensure that there cultural heritage (as well as their language) is always present in their minds. Moreover, this cultural consciousness is constantly being refreshed by newly arrived immigrants. At the same time, even Mexican-Americans who have lived for generations in the United States have faced serious cultural conflicts with broader American society. Often these conflicts arise from biased stereotypes and ongoing language barriers.
In fact, a great deal of the research done on the acculturation of Mexican Americans has focused on behavioral factors, such as customs or language (Ruiz, 2013). Often, the extent to which an individual has adapted to the mainstream culture is directly related to their generational status in the United States. At the same time, a number of researchers have demonstrated the significance of binational and bicultural identification (being a both American and Mexican) among both immigrants and American-born Mexican Americans. Other researchers have in a like vein pointed out the possibility of an individual being able to participate in both cultures. These researchers suggest that such an individual will be able to identify with multiple cultures and participate in both of those cultures without any conflict or confusion. However, more recent research has demonstrated that while this is a possibility, it is often not fully realized. Moreover, the wide variety of ways in which an individual can choose to identify or not identify) with his or her respective cultures has not been sufficiently studied by sociologists and other experts.
Given the substantive differences in the experience and prior history of Mexican Americans and African Americans in the United States, it is very difficult to make a comparison/contrast between the two. Whereas African-Americans have lived in the United States for centuries without having a great deal of contact with their homelands in Africa, Mexican Americans (many of whom have also been in the United States for very long time(have still been able to maintain direct contact with their culture and their families in Mexico. To a certain extent, this distance that African-Americans have from Africa may perhaps have made it easier for them to assimilate into American society and to view themselves largely as Americans. Conversely, Mexican Americans experience a frequent influx of new members emigrating from Mexico, which may have the effect of reducing the degree to which Mexican Americans can blend in with the broader American society.
As mentioned before, there are generational aspects to Mexican American acculturation. Younger Mexican Americans are frequently more fluent in English than their elders, particularly if they are the second or third generation of their family living in the United States (Vigil, 1984). In fact, many younger Mexican Americans speak little to no Spanish at all. In theory, this could have the effect of distancing them from Mexican American culture.
On the other hand, there is also a generational aspect of African-American identification with “Africanness.” Two or three generations ago, most African-Americans tended to think of themselves entirely as Americans. Even in the worst days of segregation and Jim Crow most African-Americans did not see themselves as African at all. The very fact that the term “African-American” is a recent construct makes this perfectly clear. It is only in the last few decades that African-Americans have become more interested in their heritage as Africans and in the culture of Africa in general. Of course, this is itself a misconception, since there is no single “African” culture. Africa is as multi-cultured as Europe, if not more so.
Conclusion, the cultures of Mexican Americans and African Americans do have certain similarities, at least to the extent that both exist as minorities in a predominantly white dominated society. Both have experienced prejudice and discrimination based on their race and/or ethnicity. At the same time, these two cultures are hardly identical. Biculturalism among Mexican Americans is a far more real and day-to-day reality for them because of the use of Spanish in their communities and the cost of influx of new immigrants from Mexico. For African-Americans, the degree to which they feel bicultural is largely determined by the extent to which they as individuals choose to study and embrace their ancestral heritage.
References
Landrine, H., & Klonoff, E. A. (1996). African American acculturation: Deconstructing race and reviving culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Padilla, A. M. (1980). Acculturation, theory, models, and some new findings. Boulder, Colo: Published by Westview Press for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Ruiz, B. (2013). Assimilation, Social Mobility and Racial Formation: The Multi-Generational Mexican American Perspective. (Dissertation Abstracts International, 74-7.)
Vigil, J. D. (1984). From Indians to Chicanos: The dynamics of Mexican American culture. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press.
Wallace, S. (2015). Runaway Reading. History Today, 65(9), 4-5.
