Mexico and the United States contribute to a border much of which is formed by the Río Grande, a major river known as the Río Bravo in Mexico. This international border is the longest in the world between an economically developing country and one with an extremely developed, industrialized economy. This immediacy has influenced Mexico’s internal and external migration patterns, prompting several million Mexicans to move north to the border region or to the United States itself. It has also affected the culture of both Mexico and the United States, fostering the development of a number of communities along the border that mix the cultures of both nations.
American culture has been predisposed by the objective of E pluribus unum and by the democratization of American society. The people who came to the United States brought their culture with them and once here, they borrowed from each other. Seeing that the United States became the favored destination of people leaving their homelands in search of a new country, American culture became a rich and complex blending of cultures from around the world. Generation by generation, decade by decade, American culture has received infusions of new elements from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. African Americans, for instance, brought forth the improvisational music and rhythms of blues and jazz that became the nation’s most globally popular cultural form. An American can savor the flavors and foods of many parts of the world and can hardly read a novel that does not partake of regional culture or immigrant backgrounds. (Byrne, Terry (2005)
Mexicans place a high worth on family and conventional standards. Even though women make up an increasingly large part of the labor force (about one-quarter in the mid-1990s), many women continue to work within the home. Children, especially in middle-.......
