A majority of my ministry (about 99.9%) involves 2nd-7th generation Hispanics with the emphasis being on the ones that are fully assimilated into American culture and although they speak or understand Spanish, they prefer English.
It continues to amaze me when I see churches pour all of their resources allocated to connecting with Hispanics into either something in Spanish-only or some sort of hip-hop/urban ministry. I’m not saying either one is bad or that there isn’t a need, it’s just when you do that you are targeting the minority, literally. In Texas 60% of Hispanics are considered 3rd generation or beyond yet only 1% (15 out of approximately 1,500) of Hispanic Baptist churches in Texas target that group specifically. There are some that do offer an English service but only the 1%-ers do everything in English.

What happens is that they either leave the church altogether or end up at a predominately Anglo church that is more relevant to their likes. The problem is that although they are very similar to their Anglo counterparts they are still Hispanic and have a deep-rooted sense of familia or family. I plan on going deeper on this topic in upcoming posts but I want to show you a part of an article I found online at Globalization Partners International that will provide some insight into what I’m talking about.

The following is from the post titled “Hispanics become second largest USA consumer market” by by Carolina I. Pérez.

Hispanics now make up the second largest consumer group in the USA after non-Hispanic whites, who are the largest group with 200 million. One in every six U.S. residents is now Hispanic. The 2010 Census is expected to count 50 million Hispanics, whose population in America has increased 42% over the past 10 years, compared to 5% growth for the rest of the population.

Obviously this will have a major impact on many companies’ decisions involving Hispanic website localization and translation into Spanish for online marketing materials. But the issues are more complex, as U.S. Hispanics represent a swiftly changing demographic, where the English language is gaining strength, yet Latino branding and identity holds sway.
A return to a market with “traditional values?”

A recent article in Advertising Age speculates that one of the most remarkable aspects of U.S. Hispanic consumers is how closely they resemble the idealized “nuclear family” image of the 1950s. Hispanics are young, with a median age equivalent to that of the general populace in the USA in the 1950s, and are more inclined than the rest of the population to live in large, traditional, married-with-children families with lots of participation from grandparents.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hispanics are more likely to eat family meals at home and spend less on alcohol. Like the nuclear families of the 1950s, Hispanics are moving to the suburbs, tend to be community-oriented and have high aspirations for their children. This presents potential for a growing and strong market for the same consumer goods and services that the nation consumed as a whole when baby boomers were young. Ironically the highly strategic Hispanic market is gaining significant strength just as baby boomers are moving into retirement.
Hispanics make up a changing, youthful market segment

Hispanics will likely account for a boost in consumer spending as baby boomers begin moving into retirement in large numbers around 2015. Over one third of Hispanics are children under 18 years of age, and 91% of Hispanic children were born in the USA. In contrast, only 47% of Hispanic adults were born in the U.S., which has great implications on how Hispanics overall will acculturate. Youthful, U.S.-born Hispanics typically attend public schools, rapidly gaining English language skills and adapting to U.S. culture more quickly than their parents did.

Over the next 10 years, as millions of bilingual Hispanic teens come of age and enter the workforce as young adults, their consumer behavior is likely to move closer to that of other non-Hispanic young adults. The large size and heavy geographic concentration of this segment of the Hispanic population makes it likely that Hispanic culture will remain strong, even among U.S.-born children.
Language and cultural branding issues

One of the biggest challenges for online marketing professionals is how to reach young, acculturated bilingual Hispanics, who choose products differently than their parents (who didn’t grow up in the USA) and don’t spend as much time with Spanish-language media.

Yet, young bilingual Hispanics still feel a deep sense of Latino identity. The message? Even English-only campaigns aimed at this group will need carefully selected Latino branding, icons and psychographics for years to come.

The English language is making gains as the language that U.S. Hispanics are most comfortable speaking. Recent research reveals that 27% of Hispanics are most comfortable speaking the English language with another 17% comfortable in both the English language and the Spanish language. This means that 44% of the demographic (nearly half) is currently at ease in English. As the large, youthful portion of this consumer segment, born in the USA, reaches maturity, preference for and comfort with English will only increase.