My Love for Mexican Culture

All around the world, people have their own cultures and traditions within the community and the family. This week I learned about latino culture and the struggles parents go through to help their children get ahead in life. There are many undocumented illegal Mexicans that live in the United States. One of the main reasons they come to United States is because parents want to help there children get ahead in this life. Usually the father comes to the states first to provide a foundation for the rest of the family to come over later. Mexicans focus most of their life on familism and they see family, including extended family, as the most important aspect of life. When the father leaves the home, family roles start to change and the mother usually takes charge. When they are reunited with the father in the U.S., children have a hard time adjusting to the new “boss” in the home. Latino families will continue to support the family through really hard struggles and adolescents will help bridge the culture gap with their parents by becoming bilingual. Parents support the children by working an average 12 hour days. In mexico, the family is traditional with a stay at home mom who is the nurturer and the father is the provider. It is a really tough transition having both parents working, due to higher standard of living in the U.S., and still trying to keep the family strong. The typical family may go three days without seeing each other due to conflicting schedules. One of the hardest things was to stop having family dinners. Since parents could not be as involved in the children’s lives, they seemed to get into more trouble and the parents become stricter than they were in Mexico. The adolescents report that they are lonely all the time and depressed because they focus on their past and how happy they were with all of their extended family and friends in Mexico. Adolescents see Americans as sad. They feel that Americans have money but no family. They see mexicans as happy because they are always around family and everyone genuinely cares for one another. They face much discrimination and people tell them to go back to Mexico. Due to the lack of knowledge of the language, they have a really difficult time learning the skills of their jobs but they sacrifice a lot of happiness just for their children. “They did not measure their success by their work. Success for parents meant helping their children get ahead.” Many children become Americanized and start questioning their parents (Which they dont do in Mexico out of respect) but they still keep their Mexican cultures and traditions. These traditions build the family identity and unity. These Mexican-Americans find U.S. culture and holidays interesting so they do keep and open mind and sometimes converge the two cultures. I do not fully agree with illegal immigration but I have a new love for the mexican people. Their whole lives are based on family relations and they typically keep the traditional family. They recognize the importance of certain roles in the family and that family time is vital to be happy. But most of all, the parents love their children so much that they would sacrifice anything for them. They gave up their home, their extended family, they are at risk for losing traditions, parents work long and physically demanding hours, family time is lost, and there is more to worry about with youth getting into trouble or trying to fight depression. Mexicans are strong people because they have solid family values and I completely love and respect what they stand for.