The present study examines the assimilation of Mexican Americans in the United States. Their relative non-assimilation into American society was first traced through three historical periods. These periods were Conquest and Conflict, which covered the period between settlement to the 1850's; Partial Accommodation, from the 1850's to the 1930's; and Towards Cultural Pluralism from the 1940's to the present. Although the group relations were very different in each of these periods, Mexican Americans did not Assimilate. In the contemporary period a more detailed analysis was undertaken. Gordon's model of assimilation was tested on a sample of Mexican Americans. This sample was obtained from NC-128 samples in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan and Texas. Due to the broad scope of Gordon's model, only four of the many possible hypotheses were tested. These four were: 1) an inverse relationship between Cultural Heterogeneity and Assimilation, 2) a direct relationship between Value Consensus and Assimilation, 3) an inverse relationship between stereotyping and assimilation, and 4) Structural Assimilation is a stronger type of assimilation than in Civic Assimilation. The two dimensions of Cultural Heterogeneity measured here were Spanish and Familism. Both of these were statistically significant in their associations with Structural and Civic Assimilation. The third hypothesis also found some support here, as the two measures of Stereotyping, Possibility of Integration and Perception of Prejudice, were statistically significant in their associations with Structural but not Civic Assimilation. In the fourth hypothesis, Structural Assimilation was also found to be a more significant type of Assimilation than Civic. It had more statistically significant associations with the independent variables than did Civic Assimilation. Also, these associations tended to be of greater strength as determined by the R's. Support could not be found here for the second hypothesis dealing with Value Consensus and either Structural or Civic Assimilation. In a cursory examination of sex differences, Mexican American females were found to be more susceptible to assimilation pressures than were Mexican American males. This was evidenced in the statistically significant differences in the strength of the associations between Structural Assimilation and the independent variables for females.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/298716 |
| Date | January 1981 |
| Creators | Salinas Villareal, Luis Lauro |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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