Socially Mobile Mexican Americans and the Minority Culture of Mobility

Abstract

Based on 50 in-depth interviews and extensive fieldwork, this article contributes to the literature on inequality and middle-class minorities by examining socially mobile Mexican Americans—those who were raised in low-income households, but who are now middle class. Mexican Americans who achieve extreme rates of intergenerational mobility straddle class and ethnic contexts, a position that is accompanied by a set of challenges that are unique to middle-class minorities. Socially mobile Mexican Americans retain an enduring familiarity with poverty and must manage intra-class relations with poorer coethnics, who often request financial and social support. As they enter white professional milieus, they must also manage interethnic relations with whites who do not view them as bona fide members of the white middle class. These challenges reinforce class and ethnic boundaries and lead middle-class Mexican Americans who grow up disadvantaged to adopt a minority culture of mobility that manifests through group-specific mobility strategies embedded in ethnic communities, such as creating and joining ethnic professional organizations.

Becoming Overweight without Gaining a Pound: Weight Evaluations and the Social Integration of Mexicans in the United States

“…Festinger () distinguished between lateral comparisons with peers and upward comparisons with higher status groups and argued that upward social comparisons involve social processes in which people adjust their opinions or judgments to match those held by groups they are most “attracted to” or wish to belong. This idea is similar to Alba and Nee's () description of how immigrants attempt to integrate with higher social status groups such as middle‐class whites through acculturation (Alba and Nee ; Vallejo ). Interpreted in this light, the greater tendency to self‐evaluate as overweight among more integrated Mexican women may come about because they have incentives to adjust their weight norms to match those held by non‐Hispanic white women.…”

„Másoknak ez munka, nekem szívügyem” Az etnicitás szerepe a diplomás roma nők munka-család konstrukcióinak alakulásában

“…Ezt az eredményünket leginkább a mobilitás kisebbségi kultúrájának nevezett jelenség szakirodalmába ágyazottan tudjuk értelmezni. Az alacsony jövedelmű, kisebbségi (etnikai) csoporthoz tartozó családokból származó, kiemelkedő iskolai teljesít-ményük révén szellemi, professzionális munkakörökben dolgozó, felfelé mobil középosztályról szóló nemzetközi szakirodalom egy része a mobilitás speciális útjáról, kisebbségi kultúrájáról beszél elsősorban a stigmatizált kisebbségek esetében (Neckermann et al 1999, Vallejo 2012. Neckermanék e kultúrát úgy írják le, mint olyan viselkedési stratégiák, gyakorlatok, ismeretek és szimbólumok készletét, amelyek a felfelé mobil, stigmatizált 10 Tartsuk ezt szem előtt például akkor, amikor a munka fontosságáról beszélünk.…”

Soul work and giving back. Ethnic Support Groups and the Hidden Costs of Social Mobility

“…This question is whether those who achieve middle-class status through extreme long-range intergenerational mobility (that is, become college graduates with a working class, poor family background) suffer in terms of their psychological well-being. For Afro-Americans, the literature speaks about costs which arises from alienation from their co-ethnic Blacks (Afro-Americans), and condescension from white middle-class counterparts who do not consider the new arrivals bona fide members of the middle class (Cole and Omari, 2003;Vallejo, 2012). These factors account for the acute and chronic stress experienced by many stigmatised members of minorities who have a poor family background yet succeed in majority middle-class dominated professions.…”