Cost of Being a Mexican Immigrant and Being a Mexican Non-Citizen in California and Texas

Abstract

This study examines the labor market costs associated with being foreign-born and not having U.S. citizenship among Mexicans in California and Texas, the two largest states. Data from the 2000 5% Public Use Microdata Sample are used to conduct the multivariate regression analysis. The results show that being an immigrant, particularly a non-citizen immigrant, is associated with lower hourly wages in California as compared with Texas. The results also indicate that these costs are greater for those who arrived after 1990, especially in California. Findings suggest that Mexican immigrants faced harsher social context in California in the post-IRCA (Immigration Reform and Control Act) period, as represented in anti-immigrant policies and sentiments. Partly, larger population concentration of immigrants, especially non-citizens, could be a source of intensive within-group labor market competition among the foreign-born workers.

Prevalence and correlates of perceived ethnic discrimination in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos Sociocultural Ancillary Study.

“…Among other factors, immigration history and current economic factors influence the regions in which members of different Latino background groups live. The degree of discrimination targeted towards members of a particular ethnic or racial group may vary, in part, as a function of the prevalence of that group within the larger community (Card, Mas, & Rothstein, 2007) and competition among groups for resources (Ayón & Becerra, 2013; Takei, Saenz, & Li, 2009). …”

Latino family mental health: exploring the role of discrimination and familismo

“…Anti-immigrant policies, particularly those proposed and implemented in the Southwest region of the United States (Rubio-Goldsmith, Romero, Rubio-Goldsmith, Escobedo, & Khoury, 2009; Takei, Saenz, & Li, 2009) can accelerate the stress and fear experienced by immigrant populations thus potentially impacting the Latino community’s mental health and overall wellbeing. Yet, the Latino community’s value of familismo , their strong ties to immediate and extended family members, can be protective of their wellbeing (Parsai, Voisine, Marsiglia, Kulis, & Nieri, 2009).…”

The Specter of Racism in the 2005–6 Immigration Debate: Preserving Racial Group Position

“…This evidence lends credence to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's (2002) claims of the Latin Americanization of race in the US: that race relations are based on pigmentocracy where lighter skinned Latinos and other races occupy a second tier status below whites and that the third and bottom tier is 'a collective black' comprised of dark-skinned Latinos, blacks, and Southeast Asians. Today, Latinos in general (Canales, 2007) and Latino immigrants in particular (Takei et al, 2009) are still concentrated in low-wage jobs. Bonilla-Silva (1999) argues that racial ideology in the Western world has fundamentally shifted in part because of the increased presence of racial 'others' due to immigration, and he claims that this shift in racial ideology serves to reinforce the existing power of whites.…”