Doctoral Dissertation Research: Immigration and Trajectories to the Middle Class

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-0623695 Jennifer Lee Jody Agius University of California, Irvine This research studies the incorporation trajectories of the Mexican origin middle-class, an often neglected segment of the U.S. Mexican population. A number of scholars contend that Mexican immigrants and their children face limited prospects for successful economic and socio-cultural incorporation into the middle-class, and that Mexican immigrants and their children are prime candidates for downward mobility into a minority underclass culture. On the other hand, immigrants who achieve upward mobility are expected to incorporate into the white middle-class. However, some scholars have recently theorized that upwardly mobile immigrants and their children, like Mexicans, may incorporate into a minority middle-class culture. The goal of this study is to examine the trajectories of upwardly mobile Mexicans to determine whether they are incorporating as middle-class whites or as middle-class minorities. The research studies three distinct measures of incorporation: patterns of giving back to coethnics; participation in voluntary associations among the Mexican middle-class; and racial/ethnic identification. To answer the research questions at hand, the study draws on multiple methods: in-depth structured interviews with members of the Mexican-origin middle-class; participant and nonparticipant observation of a Latina professional organization; and analysis of the National Survey of Family and Households. This study contributes to both the immigration and race/ethnicity literatures in a number of important ways. First, the research remedies the shortcoming in Portes and Zhou's (1993) theory of segmented assimilation, and also tests Neckerman, Carter, and Lee's (1999) theory of the minority culture of mobility that proposes that immigrants and their children may take multiple pathways into the middle-class. Second, the research examines whether the Mexican-origin middle-class displays patterns of giving back that mirror the collectivist orientation exhibited by African Americans, or whether they more closely resemble the individualistic orientation exhibited by middle-class whites. Third, the research goes beyond the study of second-generation adolescents and focuses on adults. Finally, the study moves beyond the traditional binary black/white paradigm by examining the racial/ethnic identity options and constraints among Mexicans in the United States, who identity neither as simply black nor white. More broadly, the study will provide insight into the economic and sociocultural incorporation processes of one and a half, second, and later generations of the Mexican origin middle-class population. The study has relevance for public policy since it offers an in-depth understanding of a population that is often touted as unassimalable, vulnerable to downward mobility, and likely to remain poor for generations to come.