This study explored community building as a method for addressing the problems faced by Mexican Immigrant and Mexican American communities. One of the assumptions that underpinned this study is that community building can be used to counteract racist attitudes toward ethnic minorities. Historically, people of Mexican descent have been the victims of such attitutudes have found their way in oppressive social and economic policy.

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Contrary to Texas Ranger myth, Stephen F. Austin's settlers were not the first Texas Rangers to ride across Texas. As early as the 1540s, almost three hundred years before Austin arrived in Texas, mounted Spanish subjects on the frontiers of northern New Spain ranged, scouted, pursued, and waged offensive war against Chichimeca enemies. These methods were employed and accepted actions on the hostile frontier, and were also the characteristics Texans so highly revere in Ranger traditional lore. Several of these colonial military and ranching families from Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, settled Texas in the first half of the 18th century. They intermarried and developed kinship bonds and were community leaders. In the 1820s, and 1830s Spanish surnamed descendants of early military men and ranchers became acquainted with newly arrived Anglo-European settlers. Friendships and alliances were forged based on political ideology and even kinship. As the winds of rebellion blew, several of the leading military and ranching families chose to fight for Independence in the Army of the Republic. They also joined the ranks of the Republic of Texas Rangers, and finally the Texas Rangers. Despite their loyalty, they lost political powers as more Anglo-Europeans arrived. Tejanos lost property, status and ultimately their right to be identified as Texas Rangers. The object of this work is to contribute a small piece to the literature regarding the development and evolution of ranging traditions from a southern to northern frontier perspective. The military and law enforcement traditions of colonial era New Spanish soldiers and ranchers were passed on to their Tejano descendants through continuous participation in ranging and ranching activities within their communities. Tejanos participated in the Independence of Texas, the Republic Rangers and the Texas Rangers throughout the 19th century, and based on connections with Anglo settlers may have taught Anglos mounted ranging technique, and how to survive on the Texas frontier.

Rolando Hinojosa's Klail Citv Death Trip Series purports to give a picture of life in the Texas Rio Grande Valley from roughly the 1930s to the present. Much of Hinojosa's attention is directed toward the tensions that characterize relations between the mexicano and Anglo cultures. Hinojosa's novel sequence in large part documents the ever-increasing acculturation and assimilation of the mexicano into Anglo society.

Using the National Survey of Hispanic Elderly People, 1988, this study examines the support system of the Mexican American elderly and their utilization of formal social services. Two major research questions were addressed: 1) How does the Mexican American family provide assistance to their elderly family members? and 2) How does the bureaucratic structure affect the Mexican American elderly's access and utilization of formal social services?

While the social sciences have interrogated religious conversions as intensely social, historically situated phenomena, literary studies has not focused the same scrutiny on these textually rendered events and the forces that shape them. This dissertation explores religious conversion and resistance to conversion in African American and Mexican American autobiography from 1965 to 2002, with attention to conversion's social context and its potential for harm. Constant change and the negotiation of resistance and assimilation to the dominant culture are seminal topics for ethnic Americans; the conversion narrative is therefore often seen as a normative genre in ethnic writing, particularly ethnic autobiography. For the most part, religious conversion in African American and Mexican American autobiography has either been ignored or misread as normal and beneficial, even though the binaries of black Christianity versus Nation of Islam, and Catholicism versus Protestantism are sites of religious and racial ambivalence in these two ethnic traditions. The autobiographical texts of Malcolm X, Oscar Zeta Acosta. Amid Barak, and Richard Rodriguez call into question rosy views of conversion and suggest that we need to examine how conversion stories sometimes erase difference and cover over discourses of power. The American multicultural ideal of religious pluralism has meant that critics are too ready to praise religious conversion in America as advantageous or beyond the ken of criticism because religious belief is seen as belonging to the untouchable arena of cultural identity.

This is a thesis conducted qualitatively using the Grounded Theory approach where in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 legal Mexican Americans in order to understand how social media affect Mexican Americans' social identity. This effect was understood by discovering the relationships between social identity theory and integration. Results showed that Mexican Americans felt that social media helped them with their English skills and connected them to their friends and family in Mexico. Mexican Americans were able to use social media to connect to their in-group community, and Mexican American community leaders were able to connect Mexicans to their in-group within specific areas of the United States. Mexican Americans interviewed said they often felt disconnected from Americans who had spent their whole life in the United States. In regards to social media and disconnect, Mexican Americans felt that online news, especially news sites' comment boards, poorly represented their culture, often focusing on the negative more than the positive.

The Vietnam War brought many changes to society in that it soon became one of the most controversial wars in United States history. There was a tremendous loss of life as well as a rift in the nation with the rise of anti-war protest. Those drafted for the war primarily came from low-income and ethnic minority communities. While all who served deserve to be recognized, there is one group that has gone largely unrepresented in the history of the war. Mexican American serviceman served and died in large numbers when compared to their population. In addition, they also received high honors for their valor in the battlefield. Yet, the history of the war has been largely focused on the experience of the Anglo and Black soldier. This is due in part to the existing black-white paradigm of race that has existed in United States society, which places all other ethnic minority groups in the margins of major historical events. Biased Selective Service Boards contributed to the already existing race and class discrimination that existed among the elite class in society. This study utilizes interviews, oral histories, autobiographies and anthologies as its main source of information of Mexican American Vietnam War servicemen. Due to the lack of historical material in this area, most information on participation and casualty rates are estimates conducted by professors such as Ralph Guzman, from the University of Santa Cruz. Guzman took the number of Spanish surnamed casualties in the southwestern states to calculate an approximate number of total casualties. The major aim is to highlight the contribution of the Mexican American serviceman in Vietnam and to emphasize the patriotism that existed in the Mexican American community as much as it did in the Black and Anglo communities. By providing information in the area of American identity, race relations, the draft and volunteerism as well as the sacrifice of Mexican American lives at the time of the Vietnam War, this study hopes to initiate the inclusion of Mexican Americans in the general history of the war. Keywords: Mexican American, Chicano/a, Selective Service , draft boards, whiteness, New Standards Men, Project 100,000, Lyndon Johnson, League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC), Medal of Honor, sacrifice, patriotism.

The question of immigration has always been a part of American thought. It is often said that all Americans are immigrants; that the only real American is the Indian. But this assertion is open to argument as the anthropologist tells us that the Indian is but the descendant of some other race which came to these shores thousands of years ago. Be that as it may, the fact remains that this country is peopled by representatives of many races and nationalities, many of whom were born in a foreign land. … In this study of Mexican immigration, the subject has been prefaced by a general survey of immigration to America from the beginning of the colonial period to the present time, in order that the reader, as well as the writer, may acquire a better understanding of the main theme.

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