Why Hispanics do not automatically mean Spanish
Stereotypes. Stereotypes are often oversimplified assumptions that one particular individual possesses the characteristics associated with the class due to his or her membership in it.
We’ve seen stereotypes being applied to races, genders, religious groups, etc. and unfortunately Hispanics are no exception. One of those characteristics often oversimplified is the assumption that just because someone is Hispanic, looks Hispanic or has a Hispanic name, it automatically means that particular individual automatically speaks Spanish or thinks like any other Spanish-speaking Hispanic.
With that in mind, some of the questions your business should be asking at this point include: What language does my target population speak? How much of an impact does Cultural Heritage play in their decision process? Am I relying on stereotypes to deliver my branding message?
Therefore, as a starting point to answer these important questions, we would like to share the descriptions used by Geoscape that provide a fantastic view into the differences that exist amongst Hispanics due to many factors such as the number of generations, length of time living in the US, etc. often referred to as “Hispanicity” which is understood as a very particular type of acculturation.
- Americanizado (Americanized) – About 15% of the total Hispanic population. This category describes those individuals that were born in the US, whose families have been living here for at least three generations and that still preserve a few Hispanic cultural practices. Nevertheless, as expected, Americanized Hispanics first language is English and speak almost no Spanish whatsoever.
- Nueva Latina (New Latina) – About 26.5% of the total Hispanic population. This category describes those individuals that were born in the US, but whose families have only been living here for a couple of generations. For that reason, they still preserve some Hispanic cultural practices yet their exposure to the English language through most of their life means they prefer to interact with others in English, even though some still speak Spanish.
- Bi-Cultural – About 27.5% of the total Hispanic population. This category describes individuals that immigrated to the US when they were very kids or young adults. Therefore, they bring with them most of their Hispanic cultural practices and quickly learn to interact in English, so that they can be considered Bi-lingual in the sense that they can speak both English and Spanish almost at the same level.
- Hispano (Hispanic) – About 17% of the total Hispanic population. This category describes individuals that immigrated to the US when they were already adults and have been living here for at least a decade. For that reason, they bring and preserve most of their Hispanic cultural practices and prefer to interact with others in their native language – Spanish – even though most of them speak some English.
- Latinoamericana (Latin American) – About 14% of the total Hispanic population. This category describes individuals that immigrated to the US very recently – within the last 10 years – so they basically preserve all their Hispanic cultural practices and still identify themselves much more with their home country than with the US. As expected, this particular group tends to always interact in Spanish, and in many cases speaks no English whatsoever.
These guidelines can help businesses understand what type of Hispanic they should be “speaking” to based on their target population, and explains why the use of Spanish on certain contexts – such as mobile phones and video games – has a bigger impact and faster ROI than in others – such as services for retirees. But yet again, attempting to group over 15% of the population in the United States in only 5 categories probably still qualifies as stereotyping and should serve as a reminder that more research is needed, and that there’s no real substitute for talking to your customers, knowing who they are, what they need, and how they like to communicate with you.
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