Are Hispanics Reluctant to Assimilate Into Mainstream American Society?
Why is there a cultural gulf between Mexican Hispanics and Caribbean Hispanics? Here is where nature and culture conspire to create obstacles. Mexican Hispanics, racially, are overwhelmingly mestizo, a people that emerged from Europeans and the first peoples of the new world, while Caribbean Hispanics follow a pattern more common to Americans: white (European descendants), black (Sub-Saharan descendants) and mulatto (a mixture of black and white ancestry). There is, racially, a difference between Mexican Hispanics and Caribbean Hispanics. So, while shared bonds of Hispanic society go a long way to bridge racial and cultural differences, they do not ameliorate them all, and tensions may arise from lack of familiarity. For many Mexican Hispanics, their first contact with black Hispanics — usually from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Cuba — occurs when they are in the United States, widely augmented by living among African-Americans. For most Caribbean Hispanics, the first time the
