Hispanic groups share language, little else

Hispanic groups share language, little else
There are profound cultural and economic differences among the nation's millions of Spanish-speaking people

By THOMAS HARGROVE AND MICHAEL COLLINS
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

When Arturo Ignacio Sanchez hears other Latinos speak, he immediately recognizes their accents and knows what country they came from.

Word choice, the rhythm of speech and distinct accents as varied as a Texas twang and Boston brogue are dead giveaways to the national heritage of millions of Spanish-speaking people living in the United States.

"We can pick up the nuances the moment someone opens their mouth," said Sanchez, a Bogota-born Colombian who teaches at the Pratt Institute in New York.

Language is not the only geographic marker for America's Spanish-speaking population. Though most native-born Americans are unable to tell Mexicans from Nicaraguans or Salvadorans from Argentines, there are profound cultural and economic differences among the millions of Spanish-speaking people who are often lumped together into one generic category: Hispanic.

"What the hell is a Hispanic? I have no idea. There is no such place as Hispania," said Juan Gerena, executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Springfield, Mass. "People look at the last names. They don't make a distinction that this individual could be Puerto Rican, could be Colombian, Dominican or Cuban."

Hispanics grew to more than 38 million in the United States this year, prompting Census Bureau officials to acknowledge them as America's largest minority group. Newly released data of unprecedented depth and detail show that Hispanics are actually many groups with little in common.

Mexican Americans, for example, have a median age of 24, making them the youngest of any major Hispanic subgroup. Only 23 percent of Mexican-born immigrants rate themselves as speaking English "very well," the lowest proficiency rate of any major foreign-born group.

Cubans, with a median age of more than 40, are the oldest and among the best-educated. One in every five has a college diploma or an advanced professional or academic degree.

Argentine Americans are the nation's wealthiest Hispanic group, with a median household income in the 2000 census of $46,091; for Dominicans, the poorest, it's $29,099.

"There is no doubt there are a lot of differences," said Mexican-born Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "We have a language in common and some culture and traditions. But, overall, each of us is different in a lot of ways."

Census demographer Robert Ramirez, also from Mexico, agrees: "There certainly are wide socioeconomic variations that have a lot to do with the historical immigration trends for each group."

He said population experts often cite dramatic differences between America's Cuban and Mexican populations, variations rooted in their original motivations for coming to the United States.

"Cubans came during a political crisis in their homeland. Mexican migration tends to be economic, occurring among people of the very lowest income and education classes," Ramirez said.

Most of the 1.4 million Cuban Americans came in a burst of immigration starting shortly after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, while Mexicans arrived in a steady stream of teenagers and young adults seeking jobs. A small number of Cubans, about 4,500, live in Washington state.

"We are an exiled community and, so, are a cross-section cut from Cuba," said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, the nation's most prominent exile group. "Cuba's level of literacy was among the highest in Latin America. When the political system collapsed, we had a high number of professionals leave."

As a result, 23 percent of employed Cubans held managerial or technical jobs last year, compared with 12 percent of Mexican Americans. More than 6 percent of Cubans hold advanced degrees in medicine, law, engineering or other arts and sciences, compared with fewer than 2 percent of Mexicans.

Even though virtually all Hispanic emigration occurred from countries south of the United States, there are vast disparities on where the different cultures have settled. Most Cubans live in Florida. Mexican immigration has occurred more broadly throughout the United States, but still 89 percent live in either Western or Southern states.

In Washington state, Mexicans make up the largest percentage of Hispanics at 75 percent. Puerto Ricans are the state's next-largest, at nearly 4 percent.

Fifty-eight percent of the nation's 3.2 million Puerto Ricans live in the Northeast, especially concentrating in the New York metropolitan area. The Bronx alone has more than 319,000 Puerto Rican residents, accounting for a quarter of the borough's population. Much of this immigration occurred during the mid-1940s and 1950s.

"It was a time after World War II when there was a lot of need for employment ... throughout this area," said Gerena of Hampden County, Mass., about 100 miles north of New York. Puerto Ricans account for nearly a third of the population of Springfield, Mass.

"We are part of this country. And our young men and women have served in every major war that this country has fought from World War I to World War II to Korea and Vietnam and the Middle East. ... Maybe our way of thinking is we think of ourselves as both Puerto Ricans and Americans," Gerena said.

The largest single concentration of America's 655,000 Salvadorans is found in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Arlington, Va. By comparison, King County has only about 1,600 Salvadorans, the largest concentration in the state.

"People need a network of support, and they surely find it in the Washington area," said Walter Tejada, an elected member of the Arlington County Board. "It is not uncommon that people will find someone they grew up with in their little hometowns (in El Salvador) and sort of come across them unexpectedly on the street."

A similar pattern occurred in the migration of the nation's 470,000 Colombians, whose two largest population centers are found more than 1,000 miles apart, in Miami and Queens, N.Y. Colombians have formed tight-knit communities within these broader Hispanic communities.

Despite these nationalistic communities that occur throughout Hispanic America, Rodriguez said Hispanics have generally been successful in forming a political coalition.

"We try to stay away from issues that would divide us. But the beauty of it is that, in most of the issues we pretty much are in agreement," Rodriguez said.

Although the Congressional Hispanic Caucus avoids taking stands on hot-button issues such as U.S. Cuban policy or Puerto Rican statehood, it has reached a general agreement over education, health care and immigration issues.

"On immigrations, the Puerto Rican members (of Congress) help us a lot even though every Puerto Rican is already a U.S. citizen," Rodriguez said. "Even though we are different, we are able to work by consensus."

P-I reporter Phuong Cat Le contributed to this report.