I am a member of subculture. Subculture is a “part of your life from birth to death such as religion, race/ethnicity, or the elite upper class”. I became a member on April 23rd of the year 1999. I was my parents first child. My grandparents second grandchild. This is where my journey into the Hispanic culture began.
Two material examples for Hispanic families such as mine would be the vapor rub and pinatas. Vapor rub, also known as ‘Vicks’, even though it may seem ridiculous it is a staple in Hispanic culture for at home remedies. Even though Vicks does have medicinal properties we use it as ‘it can fix anything’. Oh, have a cough? Rub some Vicks on your neck. Oh, can’t breathe? Dab some Vicks on the rims of your nose. Anytime I had a cold my grandma would rub Vicks on me, or when I was congested, she would put Vicks on my nose. To this day I still use Vicks for my husband and children. Pinatas were a big thing at parties when I was growing up. The traditional shape of a pinata is the seven pointed one. The seven points are designed to represent the seven sins. Known as greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, wrath envy, and lust. Even to this day they’re a big hit. You can find them in almost every child’s birthday party. You can fill them up with candy, toys or both. My family would get a candy pinata and a ball pinata; the ball pinatas are my favorite. When you would break the pinata the balls would fall and all you would see is kids diving towards the middle to reach them before they bounced off everywhere.
The fact that women ‘need’ to wait on there husband hand and foot, is my first example of a belief in Hispanic culture. Hispanic women tend to baby their spouse, in many ways such as picking up their plate after they finish eating and serving their food, they way they like it because it is expected of us to do so. Traditionally Hispanic women and men are taught since their childhood that men ‘run’ the house. Meaning the men are supposed to be the dominant force while the women are expected to resemble femininity and succumb to the male. For example, mothers and mothers in law will always ask if you take care of your husband the ‘right’ way. They say we are supposed to wash their clothes and fold them the way they like it, cook the meals they want even though we don’t like them we should still make it and eat together because it is what he wants. Since he is the man of the house, we should treat him like a king that he is.
A significant majority of Hispanics believe that God is present in the universe. They respect divinity. A large portion of the Hispanic culture value religion, church. More than 50% of Spanish speaking people are Catholic. Their main element is the catholic religion the service that the pastor gives, gives us a special meaning to our culture. It has the capacity to have an effect of life, family and community affairs that develop a spiritual meaning to be Hispanic/Latino culture.
Grandparents have a huge impact on their grandchildren’s life’s. We value our grandparents. My grandpa and grandma mean the world to my siblings and I. they are the rock of our family. They hold the foundation of our family like glue. They show us so much love that it just could not compare. We are very close and connected with our grandparents, we appreciate them, the time we spend with them. We are very family oriented when it comes to them. It gives us a feeling of love and support. Our ties are very strong. We also value our culture. We want to keep it alive. It is the foundation of our family’s teachings. We were taught many things by our parents; our grandparent’s and they were also taught by their parents and so on. Our goal is to keep our culture alive and to be able to tell our kids, grandkids about it. To be able to teach them what was taught to us. Teaching them how to love our culture and that is it okay to be different.
Most people celebrate Christmas on Christmas day. We celebrate it on Christmas Eve. Since I can remember we have always celebrated it like that. On December 24th we wake up, start preparing the food for our dinner which would be around 4pm. We eat dinner and then wait till the night to open our presents. My grandparents would tell us stories about when they were little, they would do the same thing with their families. My friends of different culture would always question why we did that. I never understood why because to me it is a normal thing to do. Dinning together is a well-known norm for Hispanics. We must eat together as a family. If we disobey that norm it would be considered as being disrespectful, not having table manners. I grew up eating together as a family. It was something I appreciated and didn’t mind doing because it was the time where our family would really listen to one another with no distractions.
Spanish and gestures are two languages used in Hispanic culture. Being Hispanic you were raised hearing your parents and family members accentuate the essential need of being able to communicate in Spanish. It is very important for us to know Spanish and keep it going with our children, it is very helpful being bilingual but to be bilingual you must keep the Spanish going as well. That is why Hispanic parents stress that we must know Spanish. Lastly would be gestures. When greeting a family member or a newcomer we greet with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Those are common greetings for us. We feel more comfortable when being greeted like we were taught to, the person you greeted feels welcomed. It also speaks on our manners.