The pressure of the American culture on the lives of Hispanics in their day-to-day activities outside the home (ie at school, at work, etc) as well as the Hispanic influence from family and friends is creating an environment that promotes biculturalism. Hispanics living in the US are constantly balancing the presence and influence of both the American and Hispanic cultures in their lives and assign more weight to one or the other depending on the situation and occasion. Due to the competing influences, it is difficult for one culture to completely overpower the other. There are a number of reasons, covered throughout this report, that serve as checks and balances to prevent any particular culture from suppressing the other. There are situations when one is more dominant than the other and vice versa, but for the majority of Hispanics both cultures play and will continue to play an important role. It is for this reason that among unacculturated, bicultural, and acculturated, the Hispanic segment expected to grow the most is biculturalism.

This is the first report Mintel has prepared on the topic of Hispanics and American Culture and Identity. However, readers of this report may be interested in other titles in Mintel’s Multicultural series, including Hispanics and Online Shopping – US, May 2014 and Hispanics and Social Media – June 2014.

In this report Mintel includes analyses of the consumer data by level of acculturation. As defined by Merriam-Webster, acculturation is the cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture. In other words, it is the process whereby Latinos learn about and embrace the mainstream culture while also maintaining their culture of origin. The acculturation algorithm developed by Mintel is based on 1) the language Hispanics speak at home and 2) the culture Hispanics consider that is most dominant in their lives – the American or the Hispanic culture. Results of the algorithm indicate that the bicultural segment is the largest segment, followed by the unacculturated segment. The smallest of all three is the acculturated segment.

Figure 1: Hispanics by level of acculturation, March 2014

Base: 1,002 Hispanic internet users aged 18+

Source: Mintel

The following table includes some key demographic information that helps put the acculturation groups in context.

• Unacculturated Hispanics skew female and tend to have a lower household income. While they are distributed across all ages, they are more likely to be in the 25-34 age range.

• Bicultural Hispanics skew toward males and tend to be younger.

• Acculturated Hispanics tend to be very young, as one third are aged 18-24. They tend to live in households with higher household incomes and are almost equally likely to be male or female.

For further information about acculturation, please refer to the Acculturation section of this report.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned exclusive consumer research through GMI in partnership with Offerwise to explore Hispanic consumers’ habits and attitudes toward American culture and identity. Mintel was responsible for the survey design, data analysis, and reporting. Fieldwork was conducted in March 2014 among a sample of 1,002 Hispanic adults aged 18+ with access to the internet.

Please note that our surveys are conducted online in the participant’s language of choice (ie English or Spanish). Hispanics who are not online are not included in our survey results.

Mintel has also analyzed data from Experian Marketing Services, using the Simmons NHCS (National Hispanic Consumer Study). The Experian Marketing Services, Simmons NHCS was carried out during November 2012-December 2013, and the results are based on the sample of 23,689 adults aged 18+, including 7,101 Hispanics, with results weighted to represent the US adult population/US adult Hispanic population.

Note: When Experian Marketing Services, Simmons NHCS results are presented by language spoken at home, the sum of the subsegments may not add to the total, due to the fact that some respondents answered “some other language.”

While race and Hispanic origin are separate demographic characteristics, Mintel often compares them to each other. Please note that the responses for race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, or other race) will overlap those that also are Hispanic, because Hispanics can be of any race.