[rmnunez]

I wonder about this perception of a cultural clash,and most of all of this idea there is any sort of "culture" to preserve,protect or promote in the US.

Can anyone describe the traditional US costume; a top hat and coat tails a la Uncle Sam, cowboy in denim with chaps, OD fatigues with combat webgear, florid and colourful short sleeves with bermudas and white shoes? How about the traditional cuisine; hot dogs, pop-corn and peanut butter? They profess transplanted, and it seems fiscally-premised, religions, speak a transplanted and somewhat corrupted language and subscribe to also transplanted social or political notions. There is no US "culture", the finer people there favour European cultural expressions.

Then there's this idea the hispanics bring with them some sort of different cultural "baggage". This wouldn't be any alleged "gangsterism", some narcotics-premised social structure, any tendency to impregnate teenagers, indolence, low respect for the law or proclivity for menial jobs. These aren't cultural traits and under scrutiny are indistinguishable from prevailing practices among non-hispanics north of the border. I can find only 2 fundamental differences between hispanics and non-hispanics in the US and I've mentioned them before; greater anti-interventionism and more Catholicism.

Hispanics are generally law abidding and hard workers, they will often accept lower paid positions because whatever they are offered the pay is on average 6 times more than they get for the same job in Mexico. They are dutyfull parents who make tremendous sacrifices to maintain numerous dependants, reliable debtors who timely comply with financial obligations. In this they are not very different from other non-hispanics in the US. They are respectful of the law and more so because they are generally in some administratively irregular status in the US which could result in their deportation, or they mistakenly believe such could be the case. Generally they fear the presence of law enfocement because in their own countries the police and military tend to be abusive and repressive of people in the lower rungs of the economic scale.

People in the US might be put at ease if they could appreciate how similar hispanic and European cultures are. Both are generally mercantilist, value education, the family, justice, equity and social responsibility. Music, literature, plastic and scenic arts are very similar in hispanic and non-hispanic societies of the US. The anti-interventionist trait would seem a "positive" in many ways and can naturally be explained by this shared experience among so many hispanics in the US The Catholicism is somewhat nominal, but this doesn't translate into much except in isolated issues like abortion, the death penalty and humanitarian concerns.