Gender and Assimilation: Assessing the Effects of Gender on the Ethnic Identities of Latinas/os

• In Event: 469 - Section on International Migration Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. Ethnic Identities and Boundary Movements

Abstract

Ethnic identities reveal collective consciousness and in particular for Latina/o immigrants and their families can indicate their integration and membership into ethnic groups. Assimilation theories provide a framework to address the ethnic identities of Latinas/os and their integration into ethnic groups in the US, but fall short by disregarding the analysis of gender. Thus, the 2004 Immigrant and Intergenerational Mobility Metropolitan Los Angeles dataset was used to examine the likelihood of Latinas/os’ ethnic identities. In the first model, gender is the main independent variable and this model found that Latinas have greater odds than Latino men to adopt a panethnic, hyphenated-American, or national origin identity compared to an American identity. However, the second model, which used the interaction of gender and parents’ nativity, found that the relationship between ethnic identities and parents’ nativity was not significantly different by gender. Overall, there are conflicting findings on the effects of gender and assimilation but this study suggests that Latinas/os have differing ethnic identities because of their social location within structures of power of gender, ethnicity, race, class, citizenship, age, and language.

Author

• Dana Chalupa, Michigan State University