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Expressing similarities and differences: Latin@ voices from metropolitan Miami

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Abstract

How similar to or different from each other do metropolitan Miami’s Latin@s currently view themselves as they interact in a distinctive Hispanic-dominant space? To investigate this question, Latin@ college students from seven ethnicities/nationalities prominent in the region were interviewed and asked to identify both what they viewed as commonalities shared by all Latin@s in the area as well as what differentiates them. Through content analysis the authors find complete overlap in the top three themes interviewees reported for both similarities and distinctions (language, culture, and food). However, a closer, qualitative analysis of what respondents actually say explains this apparent conundrum. When discussing food, for instance, respondents cited commonalities in terms of ingredients but explained that groups prepare them differently. The authors utilize various demographic, theoretical and analytical approaches to explain the results, concluding that there are simultaneously forces binding and separating the region’s Latin@s.

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Notes

  1. Direct quotes of interviewees in this article all derive from the original transcripts. The authors, however, occasionally smoothed them to make them more comprehensible; added words are identifiable by brackets [].

  2. The terms Latin@s and Hispanics are used synonymously in this article to reflect their usage among those studied and among the researchers.

  3. “Metropolitan Miami” is used interchangeably with “South Florida” in this article and is defined as the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach.

  4. This policy resulted in legal status for Cubans setting foot on US soil whereas those who were intercepted at sea and thus did not touch soil could be, and typically were, repatriated.

  5. Data are from factfinder.census.gov and reported by city.

  6. For a visual, visit http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/infographic-behold-this-map-of-miamis-racial-segregation-6565562.

  7. Data obtained from Table 5 of the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, located at https://www.dhs.gov/yearbook-immigration-statistics-2014-lawful-permanent-residents.

  8. The term “identity” is problematic given that, as a noun, it implies an essentialist, fixed ontology. We prefer using “identification” (as argued by Brubaker and Cooper 2000), which communicates how people produce, reproduce and transform their identifications.

  9. Participants were screened such that only those of one nationality/heritage were included in the study. Thus, for example, a student with a Nicaraguan father and a Cuban mother was excluded. We did this to mitigate against respondents feeling pulled in different directions in their interviews.

  10. See http://www.fiu.edu/about-us/.

  11. Credit for bringing the ajiaco metaphor to our attention is given to Elena Cruz.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

    Sarah J. Mahler

  2. National Research Institute for Child and Family Studies, Boys Town, NE, USA

    Jasney Cogua-López

  3. Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

    Mayurakshi Chaudhuri

Authors
  1. Sarah J. Mahler
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  2. Jasney Cogua-López
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  3. Mayurakshi Chaudhuri
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Correspondence to Sarah J. Mahler.

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Mahler, S.J., Cogua-López, J. & Chaudhuri, M. Expressing similarities and differences: Latin@ voices from metropolitan Miami. Lat Stud 16, 21–42 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-018-0116-0

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