Teresa Puga wrote a paper discussing Mexican culture for her human diversity class. She discusses traditional Mexican foods like tamales and enchiladas. Mexican clothing includes items like skirts, tunics, and shawls worn by women and shirts, pants, and capes worn by men. Important celebrations in Mexican culture include El Grito de Delores in September and Dia de los Muertos in November. While Mexican culture shares the Catholic religion with Spanish culture, it also incorporates indigenous traditions. The paper compares differences and similarities between Mexican and Spanish cultures in areas like food, religion, language, and gender roles. Through interviews, Puga found that strong family values are important in both cultures. She concludes that as diversity

1. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
Assignment 6.1
Signature Assignment
By:
Teresa Puga
ECD 310
Human Diversity and Relations
CD 52 Lemoore Center
Fresno Pacific University
June 12, 2013
Peter Kopriva
1

2. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
Signature Assignment
The culture that I chose to discuss is the Mexican culture. These individuals from
Mexico are part of the Latino or Hispanic culture. The Mexican culture is a very
traditional and strong valued culture. Mexico has to fight hard to keep their county and
their values from invading countries so these individuals have held strong to their
traditions and values. These invasions started with the Spanish conquests, then wars with
United States after.
One of the most known and enjoyed cultural foods comes from Mexico. Mexican
cuisine is the favorite of many different individuals all around the world. Some of the
great dishes are: Tamales, enchiladas, chili rellenos, Mexican rice, tortillas, beans, chili,
guacamole, flan, mole, tacos, and burritos. The list of famous Mexican dishes can go on
and on. The Mexican culture prides themselves on food and making from scratch with
love for their family. Food is a very important part of who they are and their culture.
The clothing of Mexico is similar to the fashion in the United States. The
Mexican culture does have traditional clothing women wear a skirt, a hulip: a tunic,
quechquemitl: a cape, and a rebozo: shawl. Men wear a shirt, pants, sarape: a cape, and
boots. During celebrations they wear costumes and sombreros: a hat, during carnival they
wear a charro: a suit like the mariachi’s wear. Women and girls wear a Puebla when
performing foloric dancing. (Lad, 2012).
The Mexican culture is very rich and strong their land holds history and artifacts
from the Aztecs and Mayan cultures, these are the Native American tribes that the
Mexican culture was derived from. Colima avian whistle from west Mexico 300BC.
2

3. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
-300AD.
(Vandervort, 2003-2012).
A two headed bird symbolic of a male and female duality.
Some celebrations in Mexico are El Grito de Delores- September 16, Los de los
Muertos- November 1 and 2, Dia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe- December 16 to
January 6. (Unknown, 2013).
The religion of the Mexican culture is primarily Catholic; the Spanish passed on
this religion. When Mexico initiated their freedom from Spain they took the religious
image of the Senora de Guadalupe a version of Mary. (Unknown, 2013).
The differences and similarities that the Spanish culture and the Mexican
cultures have are numerous. Since the Spanish conquistadors conquered Mexico, the
Spanish culture significantly influenced the Mexican people. These Mexican Individuals
were strong individuals and fought for their freedom and held onto some of their previous
traditions and added and enhanced the values and traditions brought by the Spanish.
(Pansters,Unknown).
I am a descendant of the Spanish culture; my family has been living in the United
States for many years, but they have held onto the language and the traditional food. The
traditional religion in Spain is Catholicism but my family is Seventh Day Adventist.
Religion and food are very important to our culture and the Mexican culture.
The differences between the cultures are slight but they are there, for example
food rice, the Mexican culture has Mexican rice with just rice, tomato, and onion.
3

4. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
Spanish rice has rice, onion, tomato, cilantro, and jalapeno. The religion in Spain is
Catholicism; the Mexican people slightly changed this with their Mexican version of
Mary, Senora de Guadalupe. The Mexican people also held onto their Native American
traditions. This is where a lot of their celebrations and holidays come from. An example
Dia de los Muertos the Mexican people combined the Catholic tradition of all saints day
with Aztec practices. (Unknown, 2013).
Some practices that did transfer over to both cultures are bull fighting. Spain does
bull fighting and the running of the bulls in Mexico there is bull fighting. Spain has
flamenco dancers and Mexico has foloric dancers, these dances and dress seem to have
similarities and differences. (Unknown, 1989-2013).
Even though both cultures seem to speak the same language they have differences
in dialects. A person who is from opposite culture can pick up the differences in speech
and pronunciation. Even though I do not speak Spanish I can hear the difference between
Spanish language from Spain and Spanish from Mexico. My interviewee Erika agreed
with me on this point and she does speak Spanish and she can distinguish between the
differences (Montoya, 2013). These differences are from the integrating of the Native
American language into Spanish. (Pansters, Unknown).
Family values and expectations are different between the two cultures in the
Mexican culture the man is the head of the household. Some even say that the man may
even be macho or controlling. In Spain women have become more independent and
therefore the men and women hold more of an equal status. In both cultures I do believe
that women and men did serve a different role in my family the woman was still expected
to cook and care for her family as in the majority of Mexican families. The father works
4

5. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
does the out door work. The parents were to teach their children these gender specific
roles mother teaches daughter father teaches son. In my family we were very close and
food brought us together as I feel is the same in the Mexican culture. (Trujillo, 2013).
As I interviewed the two individuals I quickly realized how much our families
and we had in common. The women that I interviewed were: Erika Montoya and Diana
Trujillo. We all came from loving caring families that got together and had good food
made with love and family time. Strong religious values and a grandmother who was a
little tough but wanted the best for all her children and grandchildren. I really enjoyed the
interviews we got to laughing and reminiscing about the past. (Montoya, 2013). (Trujillo,
2013).
Today’s society is becoming more and more diverse as the years pass. In
California there is a significant group of Hispanic individual who have migrated from
Mexico. In the years to come the Hispanic minority will be the majority in California.
Thinking about this there is no question that this cultural group is going to affect society
today. If you look in the upcoming events you can see this there are several Hispanic
cultured events taking place.
In today’s society there is more access to translators than in the past, this is a
wonderful thing because these individuals are probably nervous and unsure coming to a
new land and not knowing the language is another obstacle so if a translator can ease
some of the discomfort that is great. I think that people need to think about how it would
be if you were in that individuals shoes, I feel some views would change if this could be
accomplished. This is the county that accepted all different cultures from all around the
5

6. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
world this is what our Statue of Liberty stands for. I feel that the United States should be
more accepting and welcoming to these individuals.
During the research earlier in this course on diversity in the community I ran
across many new events for the Mexican culture. The one that really stands out is the
Kings Cultural Center because this establishment is just down the street from my house. I
have driven by it many time without really knowing what exactly what events were being
held inside. Know that I know I think that is something really special. This program
teaches children about their culture through music dancing, and performances in
traditional clothing. Children need to feel accepted and proud of their culture and I think
that this center does that for these children.
The world is I believe becoming more diverse as the years go by and individuals
are becoming more accepting of these cultures. It is going to be exciting and interesting
to see the world is a combination of individuals like for example a melting pot.
6

7. SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT
References
Lad, K. (2012, August 16). Traditional Mexican Clothing. Retrieved from
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/traditional-mexican-clothing.html
Montoya, E. (2013, June 10). Cultural Interview. (T. Puga, Interviewer)
Pansters, W.G. (unknown). Culture of Mexico. Retrieved from
http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Mexico.html
Trujillo, D. (2013, June 9). Cultural Interview. (T. Puga, Interviewer)
Unknown. (2013). Mexican Festivals and Celebrations. Retrieved from
http://www.squidoo.com/mexican-holidays
Unknown. (1998-2013). Spanish Festivals. Retrieved from
http://www.enforex.com/culture/spanish-festivals.html
Vandervort, G. (2003-2012). Ancient Colima and Mexican Artifacts for Sale. Retrieved
From http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/precolumbian/mexico-colima.html
7