Vilma Ortiz

Intergenerational Change in Ethnic Identity in the Puerto Rican Family.

This research focuses upon intergenerational changes in ethnic identity within the family. The analysis is guided by the theoretical postulate that ethnic identity is influenced by receptivity to external influences stemming from the host society and by length of exposure to the new host environment. Findings indicate that both education and age at arrival have significant independent effects upon the ethnic identity of mothers, fathers and children and that the childs education and age at arrival are significantly and independently related to changes in ethnic identity in the family.

Racial Identity and Racial Treatment of Mexican Americans

How racial barriers play in the experiences of Mexican Americans has been hotly debated. Some consider Mexican Americans similar to European Americans of a century ago that arrived in the United States with modest backgrounds but were eventually able to participate fully in society. In contrast, others argue that Mexican Americans have been racialized throughout U.S. history, and this limits their participation in society. The evidence of persistent educational disadvantages across generations and frequent reports of discrimination and stereotyping supports the racialization argument. In this paper, we explore the ways in which race plays a role in the lives of Mexican Americans by examining how education, racial characteristics, social interactions, relate to racial outcomes. We use the Mexican American Study Project, a unique data set based on a 1965 survey of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and San Antonio combined with surveys of the same respondents and their adult children in 2000, thereby creating a longitudinal and intergenerational data set. First, we found that darker Mexican Americans, therefore appearing more stereotypically Mexican, report more experiences of discrimination. Second, darker men report much more discrimination than lighter men and than women overall. Third, more educated Mexican Americans experience more stereotyping and discrimination than their less educated counterparts, which is partly due to their greater contact with whites. Lastly, having greater contact with whites leads to experiencing more stereotyping and discrimination. Our results are indicative of the ways in which Mexican Americans are racialized in the United States.

Migration and Marriage among Puerto Rican Women.

Research on immigrant women in the last ten years has focused on developing a gendered understanding of the relationships among family, work, and migration. From this emerges a view of women as active agents in the migration process – using migration as an economic option that deals with gender ideology and practice. Migration among Puerto Rican women is an interesting case study with which to examine these relationships given the prominent role of women in this migration history and that the role of family characteristics have not been sufficiently studied with this population. This paper examines the effect of family indicators on migration from, and return migration to, Puerto Rico among women in the 1980s. It appears that women use migration to gain independence as single women and mothers since unmarried women were more likely to migrate from Puerto Rico than married women. On the other hand, we see evidence of a traditional route in which women follow men in the migration stream since women recently married were more likely to migrate from, and return to, Puerto Rico. Women married for longer periods of time are the least likely to migrate. Finally, it appears that women use migration to counter limited marriage opportunities in Puerto Rico since unmarried women were less likely to return there and since there were more changes in marital status after women migrated to New York than after returning to Puerto Rico.

Too Few Good Men? Available Partners and Single Motherhood among Latinas, African Americans, and Whites

The authors test whether structural indicators of mate availability—Wilson’s marriageable pool and sex ratio arguments—help explain individual-level racial/ethnic differences in the prevalence of single motherhood among young women. Using the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) data for greater Los Angeles, they add mate availability measures to individual-level models. Quantity alone (sex ratio) is unrelated to single motherhood, but relative availability of employed men accounts for a significant share of what otherwise might be considered individual-level differences among immigrant Latina, native-born Latina, Black, and White women. Higher rates of single motherhood for native-born Latinas and Blacks appear to be partly due to poor marriageable pools.

Latinos and Industrial Change in New York and Los Angeles

That the nature of American cities has changed over the last 30 years is well established. We have seen a dramatic decline in the production sector overall, referred to as the deindustrialization of America (Bluestone & Harrison, 1981), and an increase in service-oriented jobs, particularly in the finance and the information-processing areas.

Language Background and Literacy Among Hispanic Young Adults

This paper examines the relationship between language background and literacy among Hispanic young adults drawn from the Young Adult Literacy Survey, an assessment of literacy skills among a nationally representative sample of 21- to 25-year-olds. Hispanics were found to have a significantly lower level of literacy than whites and their literacy skills also varied considerably among monolingual English, bilingual, and monolingual Spanish speakers. However, the disadvantaged backgrounds of Hispanic young adults explained a considerable amount of the variation among these language groups. Moreover, among bilingual respondents, there were no effects of frequency of using, or proficiency in, Spanish. Thus Spanish language background did not have an overwhelming negative effect on English literacy. These results suggest that pronouncements about the negative effects of bilingualism in the Hispanic community are largely unwarranted.

Longitudinal Research at the Turn of the Century

Longitudinal studies provide useful and unique data for social science research but are labor intensive and expensive. Key to conducting a successful longitudinal study is the ability to locate respondents in the follow-up effort. We conducted a 35-year longitudinal study among Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, California, and San Antonio, Texas. In this article, the authors describe (a) the individualized approach used in searching and (b) how recent technological developments have provided extensive sources of information that facilitated the searching process. The authors locate 79 percent of their sample. This study differs from previous longitudinal studies in that (a) the population is ethnic, urban, and working class; (b) more than 30 years had passed since the original study; (c) the authors built on a study not originally designed as a longitudinal effort; and (d) there had been no contact with respondents in the intervening period.

Third Generation Disadvantage among Mexican Americans

Among Mexican Americans, generational differences in education do not fit with assimilation theory’s predictions of significant improvement from the second to third generation; instead, education for third generation remains similar to the second generation and falls behind that of non-Hispanic whites. Scholars have not examined this educational gap for recent cohorts, nor have they considered a wide range of economic outcomes by generation. Using a nationally representative sample of young adults from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, we examine various educational and economic outcomes among second- and third-generation Mexican Americans and compare it to whites and blacks. We find that third-generation Mexican Americans have similar outcomes to the second generation and lower education and economic levels than whites and blacks, even when controlling for key factors. Our findings reveal limitations to assimilation theory and suggest that the persistent low status of third-generation Mexican Americans may be largely due to their racialization. These findings coupled with prior research on Mexican Americans point to a consistent pattern of third generation disadvantage, which stands in contrast to second generation advantage.

Towards unifying racial and ethnic paradigms

ABSTRACT Bridging the divide between the ethnic/assimilation and the race literatures has long vexed sociologists. Valdez and Golash-Boza are to be commended for the intellectual effort they display in this article to engage this messy and contentious relationship. The distinction between the ethnic paradigm which produces assimilation projects and the racial paradigm which produces structural racism projects is important. I further this by noting that the process involved in the racial paradigm is racialization. I engage three examples: Mexican Americans, African-Americans, and white Americans. Together, these provide clarity to the discussion of how to pursue a unified approach.