Hey, I’m Americano!

There are 43,530,000 Hispanics living here in the U.S.A. 1 According to the 2004 Synovate Hispanic Market Report, 67% of Hispanics say that they feel more comfortable speaking Spanish, 19% indicated they preferred English, while 14% said that they felt comfortable speaking both languages. Where do I fit in? I come from an interesting background. My father is from Havana, Cuba. My mother is of Spanish decent, but was born and raised in the capital city of Manila in the Philippines. Both are fluent in English and Spanish. My father came to the USA in 1959 at the age of 9 years old. His family had been prominent leaders in Cuba but was forced to come to America due to political problems as a result of Fidel Castro’s take over. My mother came here at the age of 25 after marrying my father.

I was born and raised in the U.S, in the heavily Hispanic populated city of Miami, FL; which many joke is its own country! My family is considered upper middle class, and although my parents created such a culturally diverse background I grew up very Americanized. I grew up listening to my father’s old Beatle’s albums and watching Saved by the Bell, a popular sitcom in the late 80’s, early 90’s. Yet, I understood who Celia Cruz was and loved going to my grandma’s to eat arroz con pollo. Although we spoke Spanish, English was the predominant language spoken at home. It seemed to be the same with most of my friends. We spoke English with each other. We listened to Hip Hop and Rock music, played pee wee American football, and just did very American things, yet we were classified as Hispanic. How would I be targeted from a marketing perspective? Don’t get me wrong for one second, I love being Hispanic, yet from a marketing aspect, there is no way that you can successfully target me from a traditional Hispanic approach.

Marketers must understand my culture to be able to effectively reach me. They need to know that I consider myself Hispanic yet very American. I am patriotic and when visiting another country, I identify myself as American not Hispanic. They need to know that I love Salsa music, pan con lechon 2 and un batido de mamey 3, yet must keep in mind that I also like hip hop and rock music, New York Strip Steaks, and a good ole root beer float!

Growing up in Miami I was exposed to Spanish language advertisements, many of which I could not relate to. They were obviously created for Hispanic immigrants. I never felt that the advertisements were targeting me. It seemed to be either one extreme or the other; these extremes being either targeting recent immigrants or the Anglo market alone. I have seen recent trends on my college campus of magazines targeting college age Hispanics using Spanglish 4 as a major communicator. These magazines also portray Hispanics as being urban, or associated with the Hip Hop culture. It is important that marketers understand that young Hispanics are as heterogeneous in terms of pop culture, as our fellow Anglo Americans.

Marketers must listen to and research us. They must identify our needs and how we live our lives. Being Hispanic is complex. We come from places like Houston, Cuba, New York City, and Colombia. Some of us prefer English and listen to country music. We are intellectual and well traveled. We live amongst the lower class, and are leaders of global economic growth. We are Americanos…

Jorge Soto
jl*****@*************su.edu

1. Synovate, 2004 U.S Hispanic Markey Report, pg 19
2. Pork Sandwich
3. Milkshake made from the mamey fruit.
4. Code Switching or mixing words from different languages; in this Case, English and Spanish.

Student in the Hispanic Marketing Communication Program at Florida State University http://hmc.comm.fsu.edu