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Reviews
| Mestizo in America: Generations of Mexican Ethnicity in the Suburban Southwest. By Thomas Macias. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006. Tables, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. xii + 175 pp. $45.00 (cloth); $19.95 (paper).
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In this volume, Thomas Macias alleviates the dearth of research on middle-class, multigenerational Mexican Americans. Mestizo in America aims to address ways that immigrant groups and their descendents are incorporated into American life. Utilizing the Current Population Survey for statistical data and applying ethnographic methods to investigate categories of race and ethnicity, Macias conducted fifty interviews with people who reside in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, and San Jose, California. Central findings include how generational acculturation is manifested through home ownership in suburbs, participation in ethnic professional organizations, and English-language use. Macias's concept of "disembedded culture," where ethnic culture is acquired externally, is also critical for understanding third-generation Mexican American identity development. |
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Macias explains how mestizaje—defined as the social construction of Mexican ethnicity within the United States—is constructed in his participants' daily lives. His analysis of identity validation through food, Catholicism, traditional gender roles, and fluency in Spanish illustrates the importance of mestizaje for the third-plus generation. |
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Methodologically, Macias provides a fresh approach to social categorization. Without taking a homogenized, panethnic stance, Macias presents interview excerpts that explain distinct social, personal, and professional experiences. Furthermore, he adequately provides historical antecedents of Chicanismo and suburban residential settlement. His focus on Latinos in the suburbs is a welcome addition to this emerging field of research. |
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Quantitatively, his data reveal the importance of studying the Southwest, where the majority of Mexican Americans reside. The data also reveal a growing Mexican American middle class that has increasing educational attainment, varied occupational status, and higher levels of income—all factors of improved social mobility—that demonstrate the necessity for this study. For a better understanding of assimilation, Macias also operationalizes rates of intermarriage by providing both individual and social structural explanations. |
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Theoretically, Macias employs a critical assimilationist perspective that places identity formation at the core of defining Mexican ethnicity in the suburban Southwest. Macias develops the term "errors of assignment," which constrains the degree to which identity—and mestizaje—can be considered voluntary. His respondents provide many accounts of how their identities have been wrongly assigned by non-Mexican Americans. In addition, he asserts that within a predominantly white context, the third-plus generation can "imagine" being Mexican without having to live among co-ethnics. In a broader context, however, Macias shows how Mexican Americans are not equally welcome into the folds of American society. The need to conform to dominant cultural expectations for mainstream acceptance reflects the confluence of acculturation and structured assimilation. |
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Although Macias makes significant contributions with this book, there are missing components. For example, rather than solely taking a middle-class approach toward community participation, Macias's analysis would improve if he considered the working-class underpinnings of his participants' desire for civic participation. He discusses a fluid, middle-class existence without delineating those who are born working class and eventually become middle class. Another component that could have enhanced Macias's argument is how outward appearance, or style of dress, also signals incorporation into mainstream Anglo culture. |
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Overall, Mestizo in America provides an in-depth analysis into the Mexican American middle-class experience. Macias thoughtfully ends the book with the conclusion that mestizaje remains ambiguous with all of its historical complexities. He leaves readers pondering how outside forces continue to shape ethnic identity both individually and collectively. By understanding the social application of racial and ethnic categories on this generation of Mexican Americans, Macias helps us to evaluate societal expectations through a generationally focused and class-based lens.
Judith Perez
Fordham University
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