Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identity and Structural Assimilation of Mexican-Americans

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

As members of a minority group become integrated into the dominant society, they may lose their ethnic identification through a process of assimilation. To test theories of assimilation, this project examines the self-identification of third and fourth generation Americans of Mexican ancestry, and how this self-identification is shaped by high levels of ongoing Mexican immigration. Using national-level census data and personal interviews conducted in two U.S. cities, the project makes special efforts to measure ethnic identification. It then uses quantitative and qualitative methods to first assess the impact of generation, educational attainment, and residential ethnic concentration of immigrants on Mexican-American intermarriage and the identity of children of such unions. It next examines how social context and culture shape the self-identity of later-generation Mexican-Americans. And it lastly draws out the implications of Mexican self-identity for deciding how to respond to questions in the U.S. census about ethnicity.