- Posted By: Myriam Grajales-Hall
- Written by: Graciela Eleta, Univision Insights Blog
Though Santa permeates the holiday season for all nationalities in the U.S., in Hispanic households you are likely to see a Nativity scene displayed in homes along with a jolly, old fellow and stockings adorning chimneys. Besides cookies and milk for Santa, Hispanic families might also leave water and fresh grass for camels as children await Three Kings Day, or “El Día de los Reyes,” which is celebrated on January 6.
All retailers would benefit by marketing to Latinos whose Christmas season extends into the first week of January. Mintel 2010 holiday shopping research shows that Hispanics outrank other consumer groups in their levels of holiday participation. The Christmas season means more gift buying for Latinos since they tend to have on average more children than non-Hispanic families and large extended families. Consider these unique points:
- There are more people living in Hispanic households, 3.4 vs. 2.5
- More children live in the Hispanic home, 53 percent vs. 31 percent
- The median age for Hispanic homes is 28, compared to 40
And when comparing buying patterns, Hispanic women over-index in many key categories such as beauty, apparel and groceries compared with the total population. Latinas hold the household purse strings – they have more people to shop for, especially during the Christmas season. Electronics also play a big part in the way Hispanics live in the U.S. by being able to connect to family in their country of origin on Smartphones, land lines and computers. All lines will be buzzing starting on Christmas Eve or “Noche Buena,” when most Latinos begin to celebrate leading to Christmas at midnight, rather than reserving festivities for Christmas morning.
Much like Thanksgiving, for Hispanics, Christmas Eve will be brimming with bountiful tables filled with either sweet-smelling tamales or hallacas, roasted “lechon” (pork), “jamon” (ham) and perhaps “coquito” – a creamy Puerto Rican coconut variation of eggnog made with spices and rum – to name just a few. Traditional “musica naideña” or “villancicos” (carols) will fill homes in combination with better-known U.S. Christmas carols.
With more children born to Hispanics in the U.S. each year and continuous immigration to the U.S., the Latino influence on trends, traditions and shopping habits is the new American reality.
The Christmas season is a time to connect with family both near and far and to celebrate culture and tradition.
Source: Univision Insights Blog, Celebrating Christmas and Latino cultural traditions, by Graciela Eleta, December 19, 2011.
- Posted By: Myriam Grajales-Hall
- Written by: Elizabeth Ellers, Univision
“We want to target acculturated Hispanics.” “Our general market campaign already reaches acculturated Hispanics.” “Spanish language advertising won’t be needed when Hispanics become acculturated.” According to the Univision Insight Blog, these are some of the common challenges to Spanish language media and Spanish language advertising, yet they represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the acculturation process among American Hispanics. Language use and acculturation are not synonymous, and the process of acculturation is fluid.
Acculturation – the result of contact between two different cultures – is not a binary characteristic like gender or employment. In fact, with many variations, acculturation is multidimensional. Individuals engage in the process of acculturation in different ways depending on whether they are native- or foreign-born, their age, who they marry, their geographic location, their employment and many other factors.
Language is just one of a number of dimensions on which Hispanics, and other ethnic groups, adapt to the prevailing U.S. culture. This spectrum includes food, entertainment, political engagement, leisure activities, fashion and values/mores. Focusing on the growing use of the English language by Hispanic-Americans presumes that acculturation and English language fluency are the same, when they are not.
Yankelovich MONITOR has found that 80 percent of Hispanics agree that “Immigrants to this country should be prepared to adapt to the American way of life” yet 87 percent also agree that they “Feel the need to preserve my own cultural traditions.”
A few illustrations of this dynamic in everyday life:
Walmart stocks its Hispanic Supercenters with both dried beans in bulk and Welch’s squeezable grape jelly, because Walmart has learned that Hispanic moms are shopping for family meals in which she values traditional foods and also shopping for her children who have acquired a taste for PB&J at school.
According to The Associated Press-Univision Poll conducted in 2010 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, 41 percent of Hispanic-Americans observe Semana Santa (Holy Week) while 75 percent celebrate the Fourth of July. Two of the most popular foods among Hispanic-Americans are beans and rice AND macaroni and cheese.
One in five Hispanic-American men watched both the Super Bowl AND the World Cup tournament in 2010, again demonstrating that adopting some aspects of non-Hispanic American culture is not done at the expense of retaining an important part of Hispanic popular culture.
Hispanics are as likely to eat peppers (54 percent) as they are to eat pickles (53 percent), and almost as likely to eat bagels (53 percent) as tortillas (66 percent).
We also see examples of “neo-acculturation,” in which Hispanics experiment with some aspects of American culture, trying them on for size, so to speak, but then returning to their roots. Marriage and parenthood is often a trigger, when Hispanic-Americans re-assert the importance of carrying on their language, values, cultures and traditions to the next generation.
Language use is itself conditional and is more accurately a reflection of a bi-cultural way of living than of the process of acculturation. Bilingual Hispanics (and most Hispanic-Americans have some fluency in both English and Spanish) switch between languages by setting and context. They may conduct business in English, listen to music on a Spanish-language radio station, attend a movie in English, worship in Spanish, and so forth. The explosion in technology over the last two decades has made it easier for Hispanic-Americans to retain their use of Spanish and their connection to their country-of-origin through email, online newspapers, internet phone calls and video. Maintaining the use of Spanish is natural and organic and provides a rich tie to the Latin culture.
Most of the more than 50 million Hispanic-Americans move fluidly between two cultures, adopting American values AND retaining an emotional connection with the Latin culture through language and content that they connect with.
Source: Univision Insights Blog, “Acculturation is not a one-way street” by Elizabeth Ellers, August 23, 2011.