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mexican americans
and immigrant incorporation
y edward e. telles
29winter 2010 contexts
Contexts, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp XXXXXXXXXXISSN XXXXXXXXXX, electronic ISSN XXXXXXXXXX. © 2010 American Sociological Association.
All rights reserved. For permission to photocopy or reproduce, see http:
www.ucpressjournals.com
eprintinfo.asp. DOI:
10.1525/ctx XXXXXXXXXX.
The European American experience of incorporation is
often described using the language and framework of “assim-
ilation,” wherein immigrants or their descendants eventually
ecome an indistinguishable part of the dominant or main-
stream society. However, an increasing number of sociologists
argue that this may not always be true: today’s immigrants are
far less homogenous and encounter distinct circumstances and
conditions when they a
ive in the U.S. and as they become
part of its society. For example, unlike the immigration of pre-
dominately low-skilled Europeans in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, today’s immigrants are mostly from Latin America
and Asia, they have varied skills and educational backgrounds,
and many work in labor markets that offer fewer opportuni-
ties than before. The experience of today’s immigrants with
American society and culture, in other words, is more varied and
uncertain than the old models can allow.
At the extreme, pundits like political scientist Samuel Hunt-
ington have argued that some new immigrants have not assim-
ilated (or will not assimilate) and so they are a threat to
American national unity. Similar, though usually more muted,
claims about immigrant assimilation often involve cultural, eco-
nomic and political wo
ies about the new immigrants, which
incidentally were similar to those raised during previous cycles
of immigration. In any case, a careful
examination of the evidence is impor-
tant in order to design appropriate
immigration and immigrant incorpo-
ation policies.
For examining the full range and
complexity of the contemporary incor-
poration process, Mexican Americans,
with their history, size, and internal
diversity, are a very useful group. Thei
multiple generations since immigra-
tion, variation in their class back-
grounds, the kinds of cities and
neighborhoods they grew up in, and
their skin color may reveal much
about diverse patterns of immigrant
incorporation in American society
today. Unlike the study of most othe
non-European groups, the study of
Mexican Americans allows analysts to
examine the sociological outcomes of
adults into the third and fourth generations since immigration.
some history
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 30 million
people of Mexican origin cu
ently live in the United States,
and 13 million of them are immigrants. Mexicans comprise the
largest group of immigrants in the U.S.—28 percent—so what
happens to them and their descendants largely reflects what
will happen to today’s immigrants in general.
Moreover, Mexicans have been “coming to America” fo
over 150 years (before Americans came to them), and so there
are several generations of U.S.-born Mexican Americans for us
to study. (Ironically, analysts have mostly overlooked the fact that
Mexican immigration is part of the old, or classic, period of
immigration—seen as primarily European—as well as the new.)
Each of these generations, successively more removed from
the first-generation immigrant experience, informs our under-
standing of incorporation.
But first, we must start with approximately 100,000 Mexi-
cans who instantly became Americans following the annexation
of nearly half of Mexico’s one-time te
itory. Since that year, Mex-
ican immigration has been continuous, with a spike from 1910
through 1930. A second peak, beginning in 1980, continues
today.
Mexico shares a 2,000-mile bor-
der with the United States. Until
ecently, Mexican immigration has
een largely seasonal or cyclical and
largely undocumented. The relative
ease of entry and tight restrictions set
y the U.S. government on immigrant
visas for Mexicans have created a
steady undocumented flow, which
has increased in recent years. Demog-
aphers estimate that 7million undoc-
umented Mexican immigrants now
live in the U.S.
The issue of race has also been
important to the Mexican American
experience throughout history. The
U.S. based its conquest of the for-
merly Mexican te
itory (the cu
ent
U.S. Southwest) on ideas of manifest
destiny and the racial inferiority of the
Sociologists, public policy-makers, and the general public usually try
to anticipate how modern immigrants and their descendants will
ecome part of American society by comparing their experiences
to those of European immigrants a century or more ago.
Ph
ot
o
y
G
et
ty
Im
ag
es
,E
th
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ill
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area’s racially mixed inhabitants. Throughout the 19th and early
20th centuries, race-based reasoning was often used to segregate
and limit Mexican American mobility. However, prior to the civil
ights movement, Mexican American leaders strategically empha-
sized their Spanish roots and sought a white status for the group
to diminish their racial stigma.
These leaders associated their belief in whiteness with the
goal of middle-class assimilation, which they saw as possible fo
groups like southern and central Europeans, who were not
considered fully white at the time. Indeed, historians like David
Roediger show that European Americans were able to become
white and thus fully included in American society through state
enefits, such as homeownership subsidies, that were largely
denied to African Americans.
Mexican Americans didn’t, however, succeed in position-
ing themselves on the “white track.” Jim Crow-like segrega-
tion persisted against them until the 1960s, when a Chicano
movement in response to discrimination in education and othe
spaces emerged among young Mexican Americans. The move-
ment encouraged ethnic and racial pride by opposing contin-
ued discrimination and exclusion and drew on symbols of
historic colonization.
Only a fewMexican Americans today can trace their ances-
try to the U.S. Southwest prior to 1848, when it was part of
Mexico, but this experience arguably has implications for the
Mexican-origin population overall. This history of colonization
and subsequent immigration, the persistence of racial stigma-
tization by American society, and the particular demographics
involved in Mexican immigration and settlement make the Mex-
ican American case unique and informative.
the mexican american study project, 1965 to 2000
In 1993, my collaborator, Vilma Ortiz, and I stumbled upon
several dusty boxes containing the questionnaires for a 1965
epresentative survey of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and
San Antonio. We believed that a follow up survey of these
espondents and their children would provide a rare but much-
needed understanding of the intergenerational incorporation
experiences of the Mexican American population. Indeed, based
upon this data set, we initiated a 35-year longitudinal study. In
2000, we set out to re-interview 684 of the surviving respon-
dents and 758 of their children.
The original respondents were fairly evenly divided into
three generations: immigrants (1st generation), the children
of immigrants (2nd), and the grandchildren of immigrants (o
later generations-since-immigration—the 3rd+). Their children,
then, are of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th+ generations. Using thei
esponses from 2000, we examined change across these fou
generations regarding education, socioeconomic status, lan-
guage, interma
iage, residential segregation, identity, and
political participation.
We found that Mexican Americans experienced a diverse
pattern of incorporation in the late 20th
century. This included rapid assimila-
tion on some dimensions, slower assim-
ilation and even ethnic persistence on
others, and persistent socioeconomic
disadvantage across generations.
In terms of English language acqui-
sition and development of strong American identities, these
Mexican Americans generally exhibit rapid and complete assim-
ilation by the second generation. They show slower rates of
assimilation on language, religion, interma
iage, and residen-
tial integration, although patterns can also indicate substantial
ethnic persistence. For example, 36 percent of the 4th gener-
ation continues to speak Spanish fluently (although only 11
percent can read Spanish), and 55 percent feel their ethnicity
is very important to them (but, often also feel that “being
American” is very important to them). Spanish fluency clearly
erodes over each generation, but only slowly.
The results for education and socioeconomic status show
far more incomplete assimilation. Schooling rapidly improves
in the 2nd generation compared to the 1st but an educational
gap with non-Hispanic whites remains in the 3rd and even by
the 4th and 5th generation among Mexican Americans. (This
stands in contrast to the European immigrants of the previous
century who experienced full educational assimilation by the
3rd.) Although we see that conditions for Mexican Americans
in 2000 have reportedly improved from their parents in 1965,
the education and socioeconomic status gap with non-His-
panic white Americans remains large, regardless of how many
generations they have been in the U.S. The 2000 U.S. Census
30 contexts.org
The experience of today’s immigrants with
American society and culture is more varied and
uncertain than the old models can allow.
Ph
ot
o
y
G
et
ty
Im
ag
es
,S
pe
nc
e
Pl
at
t
showed that, among 35 to 54 year olds born in the in the U.S.,
only 74 percent of Mexican Americans had completed high
school compared to 90 percent of non-Hispanic whites, 84
percent of blacks, and 95 percent of Asians.
The graph at right illustrates the contrasting incorpora-
tion trajectories for Mexican Americans on Spanish language
etention and education. While we see a large gain in educa-
tion between immigrants and their 2nd-generation children,
there is a slight decline in education to the 3rd and 4th gen-
eration. Figure 1 also reveals a slow but certain linear trend
toward universal English monolingualism. In other words, edu-
cational assimilation remains elusive, but complete linguistic
assimilation—or the loss of Spanish bilingualism—is nearly
eached by the 5th generation.
Indeed, consistent with at least a dozen other studies, ou
evidence suggests that when the education of parents and othe
factors are similar across generational groups, educational attain-
ment actually decreases in each subsequent generation.
the continuing importance of race and
ethnicity
A high percentage of the Mexican Americans in our study
claim a non-white racial identity. Even into the 3rd and 4th gen-
erations, the majority see themselves as non-white and believe
they are stereotyped because of their ancestry. Nearly half report
personal incidents of racial discrimination. Race continues to be
important for them, and Mexican continues to be a race-like
category in the popular imagination in much of the Southwest.
In addition, the predominance and undocumented status of
Mexican immigration coupled with large doses of anti-Mexican
nativism may stigmatize all members of the group, whethe
immigrant or U.S.-born.
In many places, Mexican Americans are intermediate in
the racial hierarchy, situated between whites and blacks (and
newly a
ived Mexican immigrants). Our survey did not directly
examine the process through which race or racial stigma lim-
its Mexican Americans. However, based on our in-depth inter-
views and other evidence, it seems that this occurs through
oth personal and institutional racial discrimination as well as
through the internalization of a race-based stigma (which may
affect life strategies and ambitions, especially during school-
ing). The geographical proximity of