10. Mexican American Language Community

Minnesota's
Mexican American Language Community

In the U.S., Spanish language use alone seems to have come to constitute a common identity of being Latino or Hispanic, despite the broadness and arbitrariness of the category. Over time, this common identity has been strengthened through struggles to gain recognition for bilingual education programs in U. S. public schools.



The 2010 U.S. Census Bureau recorded Minnesota residents self-identifying as persons of Hispanic or Latino origin as 4.7 percent of the population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). By far, the state’s largest specific ethnic communities within the Census Bureau’s general Latino category are people of Mexican heritage and background.

Francisco Jiménez on the Mexican American experience,
libraries, and his book "Reaching Out" 

 

Article:

http://adage.com/article/guest-columnists/u-s-hispanic-population-growing-abuela-s-latino-community/149331/

U.S. Hispanic Population Is Growing, but This Isn't Your Abuela's Latino Community

The 'Bridge Generation' Has a Different Cultural DNA
By: Hernan Lopez Published: March 14, 2011

According to these latest Census estimates, Latinos now make up 18% (50 million people) of the nation's population. To put that into perspective, the U.S. Hispanic population is more numerous than the entire population of Canada.

However, the more telling statistics have to do with the Hispanic growth rate. Latinos and other minorities were responsible for an astonishing 85% of U.S. population growth in the past 10 years, and that growth happened well beyond Texas and Florida. In fact, the state with the fastest-growing Hispanic population is the heart of Nascar Nation, North Carolina, which also shows that Hispanics have begun to establish roots in areas of the U.S. outside the typical points of entry.

 

. . . While Hispanic population growth in the 1980s and 1990s was primarily driven by immigrants arriving to the U.S. in search of economic prosperity, today's Hispanic growth can be attributed, overwhelmingly, to the group's American-born children. They are bilingual, bicultural and increasingly influential within their multi-generational households.

Dubbed the "bridge generation" in a recent study by MRM Worldwide, these young, U.S.-born Latinos move comfortably between English and Spanish depending on the situation. They attend American schools and have American friends. By every method of measure, they are American. And while they still retain their Hispanic cultural identity, they have increasingly discerning tastes and a desire for new experiences.

Our mindset is no longer defined by language preference, age or acculturation level. It is guided by an evolved set of shared values and needs.

Video on Central and South American in the U.S.