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id like to know how people are quantifying "vibrancy" and how they are deciding that Mexicans, Guatemalens, Salvadoreans, Hondurans, etc fall short in regards to it...?
Nobody's quantifying anything. It's a purely qualitative matter. The thread calls for people to give their opinions, and then when people give those opinions, people get their panties in a bunch. All I can do is state my opinion, and in my opinion, Puerto Rican communities tend to be more colorful and vibrant than Mexican communities, which are rather reserved in comparison. Besides, before we even engage in a discussion about "vibrancy," it might help to define what the word actually means.
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Originally Posted by polo89
I didn't know Mexicans weren't vibrant? Wow, C-D teaches me something everyday. Even though Chicago isn't on the east-coast, some of the posters are showing a slight east-coast bias, as a good number of cities and towns on the east-coast have a majority PR Latino populous. There's a hierarchy in the east in relation to Hispanics. "PR's are this, while Mexicans are only this". The Latino communities in Texas are just as vibrant as the Latino communities in Chicago, NYC, etc. Look at El Mercardo Marker in San Antonio.
Eh. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. If we have a bias (including myself), it's that many of the most popular things non-Latinos associate with Latin culture (merengue, salsa, reggaeton, bachata) have their origins in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. But from my perspective, PR communities are the most vibrant because they have the most flair. Just like West Indian communities have more flair than regular African American communities. There's a world of difference between African American Day in Harlem with Al Sharpton preaching about the pangs of discrimination and West Indian Day in Brooklyn which is a flat out party.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 11-01-2011 at 08:28 AM..
No it wasn't. I have to wonder if you even lived here in 2000, and if you did, how often you ventured west of Ashland or Western. Bucktown and Wicker Park were even more Hispanic in 2000 than they are now. Same with Logan Square. Avondale, Irving Park, Albany Park, Hermosa, Belmont-Cragin, Portage Park, etc., all had large, well-established Hispanic populations by 2000. To say nothing of Humboldt Park....
I lived on Kedzie in Logan Square from 2001 to 2004. I was more trying to say the hispanic population seemed a lot more segregated pre-2000 than I was trying to accurately say exactly where they were living. My apologies.
I would have rationally said swaths to the north and south of the black belt and through the west side. I just said southwest cause that seemed to me to be the largest population and was straight up mexican/recent immigrants. Logan Square hispanics seemed to be more established than down on the southwest side. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'm not just guessing or making things up. I know there were tons of hispanics in Logan Square and especially Humbolt. I spoke my terrible spanglish with Rosie at the store next door to my apartment every day when I went in. I loved Logan Square. It seemed interesting mix of the few Polish holdouts, the hispanics and then the gentrification early 20's white people as far as I could tell.
With the numbers you posted above how are SF, Chicago or DFW indicative of Latino vibrancy? The vast majorities happen to be of Mexican descent. I am biased but Miami should be at the top of the list as a very vibrant Hispanic city that includes many nationalities and cultures.
Because this thread doesn't involve Miami......
Why are you getting angry at me for posting something as simple as numbers? For the record, I didn't even vote because I refuse to vote in a thread made by an obvious troll (look up "pollster31")
As for which of the three areas has the most foreign born Latinos, I think people are going to be shocked by this one:
NOTE: Numbers aren't available for the 2010 census yet for foreign born, so I used the 2005-2009 data. I know there is one for 2010 ACS, but I don't trust that data as much
Chicago Latinos: 43.3% foreign born DFW Latinos: 45.2% foreign born Bay Area Latinos: 43.9% foreign born
(Took the Latin American foreign born and divided it into the number of total Hispanics there are. I couldn't get data for Puerto Rican foreign born, but it should be released with the rest of the census)
Last edited by Lifeshadower; 11-01-2011 at 09:48 AM..
Eh. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. If we have a bias (including myself), it's that many of the most popular things non-Latinos associate with Latin culture (merengue, salsa, reggaeton, bachata) have their origins in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. But from my perspective, PR communities are the most vibrant because they have the most flair. Just like West Indian communities have more flair than regular African American communities. There's a world of difference between African American Day in Harlem with Al Sharpton preaching about the pangs of discrimination and West Indian Day in Brooklyn which is a flat out party.
I can agree with you somewhat about the differences between Mexican and Carribean hispanic culture. Theres something about Mexican culture that feels deep down "country" in a way that even rural america can be similar too.
If you don't believe me, look at the western wear shops in mexican neighborhoods even in chicago, where you can purchase cowboy hats and boots. American cowboy culture derived from the mexican vaquero. Mexico is largely vast tracts or isolated plateaus, deserts, and mountains with remote haciendas. Even though more urbanized today, that still has an influence on Mexican culture.
Carribean hispanic sphere was quite different. Small islands, port cities, agriculture was largely plantations not far from port cities, which brought in more ethnic variety, and mixing through the centuries. Sure you also had highland farms in the carribean, but theres much less that is remote and rural in the caribean.
However I disagree that west indian culture is more vibrant than african american culture. Without African American culture we have no popular music in America. African american culture may not have quite the loud celebrations of west indian culture such as Jamaican, but the music, and performing arts, creativity, dance, that came out of black america, can not be overstated.
As for which of the three areas has the most foreign born Latinos, I think people are going to be shocked by this one:
NOTE: Numbers aren't available for the 2010 census yet for foreign born, so I used the 2005-2009 data. I know there is one for 2010 ACS, but I don't trust that data as much
Chicago Latinos: 43.3% foreign born DFW Latinos: 45.2% foreign born Bay Area Latinos: 43.9% foreign born
(Took the Latin American foreign born and divided it into the number of total Hispanics there are. I couldn't get data for Puerto Rican foreign born, but it should be released with the rest of the census)
This actually doesnt surprise me in the least.
Most of my friends here in the Dallas area are Hispanic. In all the events Ive been to where I have met their friends as well, I have yet to meet one Hispanic person here who was born in the US.
One of my best friends here is from Mexico City. A couple of weeks ago, I went to his birthday party and chatted up with some of his friends. My wife brought up San Antonio and one of his friends shouted that there were no true Mexicans in San Antonio, that its just a bunch of Texans. Same with Austin to a lesser degree so they say. The consensus among Mexicans in Dallas is that Dallas, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley are the only places to find "Mexicans" and that the rest of the state is just Texans who happen to be of Mexican decent. It was also mentioned that in San Antonio, if you turn on a Tejano station, the DJ's speak English. In Dallas the DJ's speak spanish on the Tejano stations. More evidence is that the foreign born concentration is lower in San Antonio than Dallas. Look at the foreign born map below and you can see:
I think the perception is that San Antonio is a historically Hispanic town. The roots of Mexican culture run deep, but because they are so deep, the culture has evolved into a Texan culture. Where as cities like Dallas and Chicago, the Hispanic culture is a lot newer and as such its much more truly Mexican.
However I disagree that west indian culture is more vibrant than african american culture. Without African American culture we have no popular music in America. African american culture may not have quite the loud celebrations of west indian culture such as Jamaican, but the music, and performing arts, creativity, dance, that came out of black america, can not be overstated.
That's not quite the issue. The question is which population is more vibrant. It's not which population has made the greatest cultural contributions. Those are two different questions in my mind. If someone asked me, "Which is more vibrant: a traditional African American wedding or an Indian wedding?" I'd tell you in a heartbeat that an Indian wedding is far more vibrant. Especially when going by the definition provided by mas23: "full of energy and enthusiasm." Black weddings are boring. We jump the broom, head to the reception to eat expensive foods, and do the Cupid Shuffle for an hour. Indian weddings are three days of all-out, go hard or go home partying. In terms of "vibrancy," black weddings just don't measure up.
You see the same difference when the black and West Indian communities are juxtaposed. There's a sense of vibrancy and color in Crown Heights that you don't get in Harlem or Bedford-Stuyvesant.
yeah, dunno why that would surprise anyone. The bulk of Mexicans in Dallas and Houston came between the mid 90's and the present. (there was a major wave in the 80's too after that mexican depression coupled with the amnesty fiasco but not as big a wave as the present one).
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I think the perception is that San Antonio is a historically Hispanic town. The roots of Mexican culture run deep, but because they are so deep, the culture has evolved into a Texan culture. Where as cities like Dallas and Chicago, the Hispanic culture is a lot newer and as such its much more truly Mexican.
San Antonio most definitely was NOT a historically hispanic town as people would like you to believe. Oh yes the roots are longer than anything in Houston or Dallas, but the Mexican population was rather small until the 1970's.
San Antonio was a white town, with white culture sprinkled with a little hispanic. I met an old mexican woman last year who was complaining about the new mexicans. She said she was in the 90's, she was born and raised in SA and she had resentment towards the new peeps of her kind.
She said the old ones were assimilated, they learned English, and went on with their everyday lives, and was indistinguishable from the rest of the population. SA actually had a large black population back in the day and was a major cotton producing area. It was as southern as Houston- with a large black community, many plantation houses, lots of white land owners. Anyway, the old woman was implying that LULAC and the Chicano movement gave them a voice but also made things worse for them. She said the mexicans in SA went largely unnoticed, but now people look at her as something foreign instead of an american like everyone else.
Her story may seem odd, but in SA especially I met a lot of people who remember the old days. The days when more Mexicans flew US flags instead of Mexican flags. Many of these are the 'send them back' crowd.
Anyway, SA is a city that has a long rich Spanish History. It had Latin style homes and buildings for a longer part of its history, it is very catholic, it has a spanish name, but don't be fooled. It may seem that it has been a Hispanic town forever, but that is just because the large hispanic population was just overlaid over the long hispanic foundation making it seem like it has always been that way.
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