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The experience of Cuban-Americans is significantly different from those of Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans since most Cuban immigrants chose to come to this country. Following Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba, massive migration of Cubans to the United States took place. Many Cubans however, chose to migrate to Spain, Venezuela or other countries. This first major wave of Cuban migration to the United States included mostly members of Cuba’s higher socio-economic classes, business people, the highly educated and most of those who believed that the Communist regime would not be beneficial for them (Marger, 2000, p. 300). Their rejection of Marxism helps explain why members of the Cuban-American community have embraced the American culture and lifestyle more than other Hispanics. The higher levels of education and income of Cubans in the United States are indicative of their higher level of socio-economic development. Nevertheless, the Cuban community has not been assimilated (Marger, 2000, pp. 297-9). The culture of Cuban-Americans is very distinctive and they celebrate their cultural heritage. Such celebration includes major special events such as “Festival de la Calle Ocho” and occasionally the “Serie del Caribe”, an international Latin American baseball tournament comparable to the Baseball World Series in the United States (Myers, 1990; Hernández, 2000).

Desire of hispanics to become assimilated

The majority of Hispanics in the United States wish to succeed economically and to have equal access to the rights, privileges and resources this country have to offer. Nevertheless, most Hispanics are unwilling to give up their traditions, their uniqueness and their cultural identifications in order to become indistinguishable from White Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans (Zastrow, 199, p. 235). The assimilation of Hispanics in the U.S. occurs very selectively at the individual and family level; however, no Hispanic ethnic group has been fully assimilated.

Desire of dominant group to assimilate hispanics

Current literature suggests that White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans are more willing to assimilate Hispanics who are White Caucasian, who share similar cultural backgrounds, and who accept Anglo dominance in society (Marger, 2000, p. 150-1). The lack of assimilation of Hispanic ethnic groups in the United States can be explained by the fact that a majority of Hispanic Americans are not White Caucasian and have very distinct cultures and traditions which they are unwilling to give up. One of the cultural characteristics of most Hispanics in the U.S. is their Roman-Catholic religion, which drastically differs from the dominant protestant religions in the U. S. This may become an obstacle to the assimilation of many Hispanics since there is a history of discrimination against Catholic immigrant groups in the United States (McLemore, 1991). The experiences of earlier immigrant groups such as the Irish, the Italians and the Polish clearly demonstrate this (Zastrow, 1992, p. 205).

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Source:  OpenStax, Immigration in the united states and spain: consideration for educational leaders. OpenStax CNX. Dec 20, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11150/1.1
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