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Mexico era, is MX slow to change or do Mexicans in the US romanticize a stereotypical image of MX

nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,682
This is something that has been bothering me for a while as a Mexican American. Everywhere i got i feel like my people only seem to have one image of Mexico. I'm not sure if this is an acccurate representation of actual Mexico or a product of shallow marketing in America when it comes to Mexico. I mean, i don't listen to latin music anymore but every couple months i check out whats new on stations here in the us and it seems like nothing has changed. still reggateton, banda, mariachi, bachata, etc. It's like our culture never changes and it kinda dissapoints me. It's like our culture is run by old people who won't let young people add to it. Same thing with tv. God help me if i have to watch another novela that ends in a happy marrriage after defeating the shitty rich person again.

Actually thinking about it a thread discussing how people view their own culture when it's filtered for them because they dont live in the country their culture comes from might be interesting. I'll leave that to someone more qualified than me though.
 
modoversus

modoversus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,674
México
There are many elements that change depending on the region of Mexico, and there are some that remain universal. But what is exported culturally from Mexico to the US is largely dependant, as you said, from "old people", or the ones in charge of making this pop culture and selling it.
 
Darkness_Nova

Darkness_Nova

Member
Oct 27, 2017
103
In my opinion the mainstream culture has resented the political situation of the country. If you check the indie scene, it is another thing.

Try to look in different places for options.
 
Hardhat

Hardhat

Banned
Feb 7, 2018
475
User Banned (1 Week): Pushing racist stereotypes + previous infractions.
I think tacos and Jennifer Lopez. And sombreros. It's not a bad image really.
 
killdatninja

killdatninja

Member
Oct 26, 2017
623
(disclaimer: i'm not from Mexico but traveled there in the past)
Just like the US, there is more than just one culture that varies state to state (city to city even).

From what I noticed, what the US considers top "latin hits" is vastly different to actual top hits in Mexico (or wherever the hell they consider latin hits come from). You also have to remember that you're in the US, the amount of spanish content will be limited and will only stick to the tried and true music. Imagine if you travel to Mexico, you'll hear English music on the radio, does that make it a good indicator as to what's actually currently popular in the US? Probably not.
 
American Eskimo

American Eskimo

Banned
Jan 18, 2018
2,625
I check out whats new on stations here in the us and it seems like nothing has changed. still hip hop, rock, rap, country, etc. It's like our culture never changes and it kinda dissapoints me.


... That's essentially what you're saying op. It's very rare for a new genre to emerge
 
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nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,682
American Eskimo said:
I check out whats new on stations here in the us and it seems like nothing has changed. still hip hop, rock, rap, country, etc. It's like our culture never changes and it kinda dissapoints me.


... That's essentially what you're saying op. It's very rare for a new genre to emerge
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Hip hop/rap of today sounds nothing like hip hop of yesterday is my point.
plenty of new sub genres have emerged.
i can't say the same for latin.
 
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nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,682
onlySpicySalsa said:
Why does this bother you?
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Sr Kitsune said:
You need to be a little more specific of why this is bad or something?

I don't see the problem.
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It's a problem to me because little change in a culture reinforces alot of shit aspects of a culture. machismo being a big one.
it also prevents young people from being their own person or introducing new things or improving on their culture. i mean mexico is like 80 percent catholic last i remember. you dont think that leads to alot of problems? i live in america and even i know as a mexican american that if you don't fall in line when it comes to religion you aren't going to have a great time.
 
Saganator

Saganator

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,991
I don't have a clue what the music scene is like in Mexico, but I imagine there is much less money in it compared to the US. If that's true then there are probably fewer young aspiring musicians with unique ideas being fed into the system.
 
Joeytj

Joeytj

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,673
Ahhhh. You should take a trip through major Mexican cities.

Americans are always listening to rap, pop and country, so?

Ok, first, remember that the type of Mexican that migrates to the U.S. are different than the ones that remain. For the most part. And also, what immigrants listen too or cherish about their culture, is also different from what Mexicans living in Mexico do. Those of us who live in Mexico don't feel the need to do "Mexican things" in order to keep our identity. My family living in the U.S., ironically, watches more novelas than we do south of the border.

We watch HBO every Sunday too. (Ok, well, half of Mexico is watching the Luis Miguel Netflix series, but that's still kind of proves we do change, lol).

I live in Mexico and 95% of the music I listen to is in English, and the same goes for millions of Mexicans, especially on the border, just like a lot of cosmopolitan people around the world. American culture is very much present in Mexico as well.

I do a lot of other typical "Mexican" stuff, like speaking Spanish in everyday life, some of the food I eat, TV I watch and political topics I care about, I work in Mexico, shop, etc., but most of the stuff is what any other 30-year-old would do, I suppose.

Having said all that, it's obvious that we're going to have strong cultural and social customs that slowly change, just like any other country with a lot of history and traditions. We're always going to eat tacos, like to listen to cumbias in weddings and watch soccer. And there are things that need to change, no doubt about it, especially in how little diversity there is still in our media (although I think that's changing thanks to Netflix and technology in general).
 
onlySpicySalsa

onlySpicySalsa

Avenger
May 29, 2018
280
So what you are saying is that you want to "improve" Mexican culture?

Bro, just focus on improving yourself. That way you are "improving" Mexican culture.
 
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Deleted member 30544

User Requested Account Closure
Banned
Nov 3, 2017
5,215
it even matters the perception they have? It don't matter to me to be honest. I take issue with racist dismissive assholes (like in the WC thread) but in the long run, we need to start focusing in improving our country and society, do our part and then start wondering about other things.
 
gutter_trash

gutter_trash

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
17,124
Montreal
it's the case for 2nd gen and 3rd gen for any ethnicity. Tend to hold onto "values" but those values are from decades past meanwhile the motherland has modernized.

I'm a 1st gen Portuguese immigrant in Canada and I find that many other 2nd and 3rd gen people here from the Portuguese community are stuck with 1950s and 1960s values, meantime Portugal has modernized, secularized and liberalized .

Italians living in North America is even more intense compared to their more liberal and modern cousins back in Italy.
 
killdatninja

killdatninja

Member
Oct 26, 2017
623
WONK said:
It's a problem to me because little change in a culture reinforces alot of shit aspects of a culture. machismo being a big one.
it also prevents young people from being their own person or introducing new things or improving on their culture. i mean mexico is like 80 percent catholic last i remember. you dont think that leads to alot of problems? i live in america and even i know as a mexican american that if you don't fall in line when it comes to religion you aren't going to have a great time.
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You're stereotyping here, is there not a problem with Machismo in the US? Is Trump/Athletes/#MeToo movement not a prime example of that?

Like everything you're saying is anecdotal, what you personally experience, but the truth is there are tons of sub-cultures in Mexico. You ever wonder what the perception is about the US from other countries/cultures? Hint: it's not good. Does that bother me? No.
 
FeliciaFelix

FeliciaFelix

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,778
Hardhat said:
I think tacos and Jennifer Lopez. And sombreros. It's not a bad image really.
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Puerto Rican.

WONK said:
its been around for about 23 years.
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Reggeaton''s been around since 1990-ish and started when Puerto Rican hip hop artists mixed their music with Jamaican dance hall. It solidified circa 1995. I remember when it was nothing but homemade cassettes shared in school. The PR government even tried to confiscate the music and that made it even more popular. Panama was also an influence.

And like someone said, what makes it to the US probably isn't representative of what's popular in Mexico or even Latin America. Mariachi and banda never played in PR and I dont hear it in Miami. (Miami is probably a bit closer to what Latin America is listening.)
 
BronzeWolf

BronzeWolf

Member
Nov 3, 2017
3,643
Mexico
WONK said:
This is something that has been bothering me for a while as a Mexican American. Everywhere i got i feel like my people only seem to have one image of Mexico. I'm not sure if this is an acccurate representation of actual Mexico or a product of shallow marketing in America when it comes to Mexico. I mean, i don't listen to latin music anymore but every couple months i check out whats new on stations here in the us and it seems like nothing has changed. still reggateton, banda, mariachi, bachata, etc. It's like our culture never changes and it kinda dissapoints me. It's like our culture is run by old people who won't let young people add to it. Same thing with tv. God help me if i have to watch another novela that ends in a happy marrriage after defeating the shitty rich person again.

Actually thinking about it a thread discussing how people view their own culture when it's filtered for them because they dont live in the country their culture comes from might be interesting. I'll leave that to someone more qualified than me though.
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Mexican immigrants get stuck with whatever version of Mexico they left with.

Here, things change like in the rest of the world, but some things won't. Mexican food will continue to evolve slowly because it is rooted in tradition and that's good, not bad.

Mariachi is a national treasure and won't go away. Banda is regional and keeps changing, but you probably don't notice because you don't like it. Reggeaton and bachata are not JUST Mexican but latinamerican in general and are about 12 years old at this point, it's just another music genre.

But the core of Mexican culture, such as food, family and warmth is not going to change any time soon
 
FeliciaFelix

FeliciaFelix

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,778
Bachata (and reggeaton) are way older that 15 years. I already covered reggeaton. Bachata is from the Dominican Republic, it was born of bolero and its oldest song is from the 60s. Like reggeaton, Cuban son and PR salsa (all are close cousins) it was the music of the poor and underclass.
 
EOS-HDC

EOS-HDC

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
769
Tijuana, B.C, Mexico
The music scene certainly is not as notorious and big as in the US but there's plenty of new artists and music but you need to get out of your way to find it, television on the other hand, well, it's stagnant due to failure to invest and to take risks keeping same old formula, and with new technologies companies can't seem more slow to react.

In the case of culture like machismo, that's something very ingrained in the society, but the roles are changing especially in the big citys where or you adjust yourself or you will barely sustain yourself and a family.

In small towns the dynamics are similar to when I was born, so not a lot has changed, you will find the nicest people and the best food in small towns but machismo is more prominent there.
 
Joeytj

Joeytj

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,673
WONK said:
i wasn't judging mexico. i was judging those that are in the us that happen to be mexican which in most cases happen to be mexican americans.
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It's really just like any other immigrant group. Immigrants tend to hold on to a condensed notion of what their heritage is, like Irish celebrating St. Patrick's Day more in the U.S. than in Ireland. The equivalent is Mexican-Americans celebrating Cinco de Mayo, which isn't a major holiday in Mexico, only in the state of Puebla (from where a lot of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. decades ago, were).

And, like BronzeWolf said, you might think banda hasn't changed in the last 20 years, but it has, it's just that you might not like it (I don't, and I think it sounds the same as well, but there's plenty of other stuff Mexicans listen too that has changed).
 
Ary F.

Ary F.

Member
Oct 30, 2017
736
Joeytj said:
Ahhhh. You should take a trip through major Mexican cities.

Americans are always listening to rap, pop and country, so?

Ok, first, remember that the type of Mexican that migrates to the U.S. are different than the ones that remain. For the most part. And also, what immigrants listen too or cherish about their culture, is also different from what Mexicans living in Mexico do. Those of us who live in Mexico don't feel the need to do "Mexican things" in order to keep our identity. My family living in the U.S., ironically, watches more novelas than we do south of the border.

We watch HBO every Sunday too. (Ok, well, half of Mexico is watching the Luis Miguel Netflix series, but that's still kind of proves we do change, lol).

I live in Mexico and 95% of the music I listen to is in English, and the same goes for millions of Mexicans, especially on the border, just like a lot of cosmopolitan people around the world. American culture is very much present in Mexico as well.

I do a lot of other typical "Mexican" stuff, like speaking Spanish in everyday life, some of the food I eat, TV I watch and political topics I care about, I work in Mexico, shop, etc., but most of the stuff is what any other 30-year-old would do, I suppose.

Having said all that, it's obvious that we're going to have strong cultural and social customs that slowly change, just like any other country with a lot of history and traditions. We're always going to eat tacos, like to listen to cumbias in weddings and watch soccer. And there are things that need to change, no doubt about it, especially in how little diversity there is still in our media (although I think that's changing thanks to Netflix and technology in general).
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This. My family south of the border is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar more liberal than my family in the states. I remember when gay marriage in Mex was legalised, the family south of the border were happy (although their reasoning for wanting the ban to be lifted was conservative: children of gay parents ought to be raised in a two parent household etc.) while my family in California were bitching "What has Mexico come to?" Alot of them are from rural Sinaloa, most never got beyond a primary school education. I'm the second of my generation to go to univeristy and the first one to do it in Europe, but alot of them reacted negatively when I told them. They're slowly progressing, albeit kicking and screaming. My parents however will always be stuck in the 50s....and they're in their 40s. Can't win them all OP.
 
Mozendo

Mozendo

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Oct 25, 2017
2,229
Pacific North West
Person who idolizes Mexico & Mexican culture despite not being Mexican here, never change your imagery <3

WONK said:
it also prevents young people from being their own person or introducing new things or improving on their culture. i mean mexico is like 80 percent catholic last i remember. you dont think that leads to alot of problems? i live in america and even i know as a mexican american that if you don't fall in line when it comes to religion you aren't going to have a great time.
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I live in a part of Washington state that has a lot of Mexicans and I work with kids and at-risk teens.
From my experience the kids don't have an issue of being themselves, if I were to guess why it'd probably because of how society has been more accepting and there's been a push with the school system to talk about LGBT issues, bullying, etc.
 

Deleted member 36708

Banned
Dec 23, 2017
8,802
I hope to never go to Mexico. Friends go to Rocky Point several times a year. I just don't trust it. I cant shake the feeling of something bad happening.
 
Mr. Wonderful

Mr. Wonderful

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,285
gutter_trash said:
it's the case for 2nd gen and 3rd gen for any ethnicity. Tend to hold onto "values" but those values are from decades past meanwhile the motherland has modernized.

I'm a 1st gen Portuguese immigrant in Canada and I find that many other 2nd and 3rd gen people here from the Portuguese community are stuck with 1950s and 1960s values, meantime Portugal has modernized, secularized and liberalized .

Italians living in North America is even more intense compared to their more liberal and modern cousins back in Italy.
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Yeah, same goes for a lot of German, Irish, Scottish, Polish, etc. communities, too. In trying to find an identity for themselves or celebrate their heritage, people a're no longer connected with that country's culture, but some increasingly weird snapshot of that culture from 50 to 100+ years ago.

Which can be appropriate, since, I mean, that's where a person's heritage diverged and may have evolved from, but it can still take on some oddness at the same time.
 
Beardz

Beardz

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
284
Mexican living in Mexico here.

I love the "traditional" Mexican culture, you know, mariachi music, little towns, people riding horses. Food like pozole, tacos, etc.

That's not my everyday life, but I enjoy it a lot!
 

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RM8

RM8

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Oct 28, 2017
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JP
Young people don't listen to Selena or whatever old school Mexican American singer you think about when you think about Mexico. There are young musicians who are popular and write creative and fresh music. Mariachi and other traditional kinds of music exist and are popular as a product of Mexico having a very deep and old culture.

There you go!
 

vicisac

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
113
That's because the north american culture is weird. You are not actually connected to Mexico or Mexican culture and how it actually evolved, but as with the other cultural teams in the US, they'll take a snapshot of their culture from 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and every single "latino" thing in North America will conform to that snapshot, convinced that that is Mexican culture and since that is what is authentic, it will never change or evolve.

The actual Mexican culture is quite different from Americans with Mexican heritage.
 

ISOM

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
2,684
Tron1 said:
Yes
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You're the pot calling the kettle black with those generalisations. People right now fear going to the U.S with all the gun related stories and Trump being president. But you would tell them that U.S is largely safe right? The same goes for people in Mexico.
 

Deleted member 4869

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,753
Tron1 said:
Yes
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You are probably judging the entire country based on what you hear/read in the news. I don't blame you, as it is an easy trap to fall into.

Consider that if we were to judge the US based on what the news tell us (or heck, what we read on ERA every single day), it would be apparent that the US is a massive hellhole not fit for human life.

But countries are big, and full of variety. Come to Mexico one day. Shake away your fears. I promise you will have a great time. There's a good reason Mexico is the primary choice for American retirees. :)
 
RM8

RM8

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Oct 28, 2017
7,898
JP
vicisac said:
That's because the north american culture is weird. You are not actually connected to Mexico or Mexican culture and how it actually evolved, but as with the other cultural teams in the US, they'll take a snapshot of their culture from 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and every single "latino" thing in North America will conform to that snapshot, convinced that that is Mexican culture and since that is what is authentic, it will never change or evolve.

The actual Mexican culture is quite different from Americans with Mexican heritage.
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It's incredible how our neighbors don't know shit about our country, it's just hard to believe. And the world sees us through America's wonky eyes :(
 
Big-E

Big-E

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Oct 25, 2017
3,169
This happens a lot with immigrant communities. My grandparents had this picture of Italy in their heads from the 40s and 50s and felt that modern day Italy is the same. On the other side, my other grandmother feels the same way about France. Immigrant communities who don't go back to often romanticize the time they were there and are not cognizant of how it is now.
 
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