Durable Ethnicity: Mexican Americans and the Ethnic Core

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 6: Understanding Trends in Racial Identity

Abstract

Durable Ethnicity: Mexican Americans and the Ethnic Core is a mixed-methods study which shows the powerful role that ethnicity continues to play in organizing the lives of many Mexican Americans, even those who are four or five generations removed from their immigrant ancestors. It presents data from 70 in-depth interviews and over 1,500 surveys to show how Mexicans Americans living in San Antonio and Los Angeles construct their identities and attitudes related to ethnicity, nationality, language, and immigration in the context of a strong ethnic core - a set of interconnected forces involving structures and institutions that foster ethnicity. In Durable Ethnicity, the authors posit that the concept of the ethnic core serves as an important counterforce to mainstream forces, something which has been missing in assimilation and integration theories. Not only does the ethnic core help explain Mexican Americans’ ethnic maintenance as a group, but it also helps to explain important within-group variation by examining individuals distance from or interconnectedness with the ethnic core. Despite the existence of a strong Mexican American ethnic core, Durable Ethnicity illustrates how Mexican Americans are unequivocally American and how their orientation to ethnic identity and ethnic practices is oftentimes secondary to their sense of being and feeling American. Ultimately, the book presents a complex portrait of Mexican American identity and culture and argues that the future of Mexican American ethnicity will largely depend on how well the U.S. incorporates the millions of Mexican Americans currently living in the U.S. into the nation.

Authors

• Edward E. Telles, University of California-Santa Barbara

• Christina Alicia Sue, University of Colorado-Boulder