Mexican and american cultures

SANTIAGO SANCHEZ
GLOBAL BUSINESS
CRN 33087

July 14, 2010
Mexican and American Cultures
The word “Culture” have been defined by different ways during history, determining that are the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, norms, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group. Nowadays, the business international environment creates the combination or dailyrelations of different cultures around the world. This is why the importance of the understanding and comparison of these cultures in order to build better dealings between them. In my case, the Mexican culture it is located as my larger culture, but as international student the American culture becomes an important part of my life. In this paper, I will compare the Mexican and American culture form mypersonal experiences and the influence of their norms and values into my life.
I born in Chihuahua Mexico, my culture is defined as Hispanic. Been proud of my roots is one of the most important lessons my parents gave me during my life. I remember when I was in high school and I use to hate come here to United States with my family to shopping or just travel. This was because I had a wrongconcept of the American culture. My society had always a bad critic for the American culture, which it is not true when you really understand it. In my childhood memories, the religion had played an important part in my life. I use to go to church every Sunday just for family tradition and because that was the place to see my friends that day. Christianity is the larger religion in Mexico and for that;it is a very strong institution in my society. The religion in my country has the power to control people’s behavior and be part of the solution for politics situations. On the other hand, the family values like respect, honor, and union are one the best things I got from my culture. My grandfather use to tell us stories about the importance of these values and the consequences when you refusethem also. The old Mexican traditions still very strong today. Three months ago, I went to a festival in my hometown to see my sisters’ daughter performing some dance show from her elementary school. I got very surprised that she was performing the same dance I performed in elementary school about the Mexican revolution about fifteen years ago. It seems like Mexican education tries to teach all thesekids repeatedly where they come from. Finally, the Mexican holydays, its food, language, and traditions are more than unique as any other culture and more than necessary to understand and analyze in order to do business in this country.
When I was 18 years old, I came here to United States to study my collage and start learning about the American culture. The first problem coming to thiscountry was its language. I took some English classes in Mexico but it is never the same than take all your classes in foreign language. Because El Paso is consider by Mexican people like “almost Mexico” for all Mexican nationals living here, it was no possible to see the difference between cultures until I went more inside United States. In 2006, I made an internship in Orlando, Florida with DisneyWorld. From this experience, I learned everything about the American culture in its society and the workplace. I first have to mention that this was my first full time job in United States. The first quality that got my attention was all the perfect administration that the staff was managing in our first collage program orientation. It was the first time in my life that I saw ten staff peoplemanaging two hundred new students with no trouble (as Mexican this is unbelievable because even government in my country is a mess). Because in this organization I saw very high levels of uncertainty avoidance; people from everywhere, low power distance; there were no barriers between boss and employee, high Masculinity; no gender distinction and high collectivism; people working together for certain...