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RUNNING HEAD: Later-generation Mexican American students
Identifying and improving later-generation Mexican-American students’ academic
trajectory toward higher education: A conceptual model
Dr. Christina Chávez-Reyes
College of Education & Integrative Studies
California State Polytechnic University Pomona
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Abstract
Research on public education has focused almost exclusively on immigrants and
their children to the detriment of the needs and success of later generation Latinos. The
unwarranted assumption is that later-generation Latinos (third generation or more), of
which Mexican Americans are the largest group, have successfully integrated into the
U.S. social, economic and political spheres. However, later generations suffer from
academic neglect and low rates of college completion. The later generation Hispanic
population in 2035 (30%) is projected to by 7% in 2050 while first and second
generations are expected to decrease (Pew Hispanic Center, 2009). Thus, school
administrators must generate and operate from a comprehensive understanding of
LGMA to prepare schools that more adequately and effectively meet their needs.. Using
a literature review on later–generation Mexican Americans and the narrative analysis of
oral histories, this paper presents a cultural, socioeconomic, and educational profile of
later-generation Mexican Americans, culminating in the presentation of a strengthsbased and needs-based conceptual model that will improve later-generation students’
educational situation.
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Introduction
The increase in Latinos throughout the U.S. has created a rush to understand
this group to improve their rates of success. Research has focused almost exclusively
on immigrants and their children. In fact, the number of U.S.- born children of Hispanic
immigrants between the ages of 16-25 has reached 37% compared to 22% who are
unauthorized (Pew Hispanic Center, 2009). While these populations are among the
most vulnerable, the unwarranted assumption is that the later-generation Latinos (third
generation or more), of which Mexican Americans are the largest group, have
successfully integrated into the U.S. social, economic and political spheres.
Later-generation Mexican Americans experience relative stability in the working
class through semi-skilled and skilled jobs (Ortiz, 1996), and relatively stable high
school graduation compared to Mexican immigrants and second-generation Mexican
Americans1 (Gonzalez, 2002). Yet, they are part of the “large numbers of Latinos who
finish their secondary schooling and try to extend their education but fail to earn a
degree” (Fry, 2002, p. v). Despite their American citizenship and English
monolingualism, later generation Latinos have college attendance and completion rates
nearly equal to immigrant and second-generation Mexican Americans, making unlikely
the ascension of greater numbers of Latinos into the middle and professional classes.
Education is a major contributing factor for later generations’ social situations (X,
Z). First, human capital and labor market
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A challenge to understanding LGMA is the lack of large-scale studies that do not
disaggregate for generation. References and interpretations to LGMA may reflect the
primary ways most researchers disaggregate Hispanics by subgroup (Mexican) and by
foreign- or native-born.
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In schools, they experience academic neglect with regard to their specific needs
separate from Mexican immigrant and second-generation students (Chávez-Reyes, in
press). Second, later-generation Mexican American students tend to inhabit academic
spaces between high achieving and at-risk, which results in a lack of academic
belonging and low rapport with teachers and staff (Matute-Bianchi, 1991). Third,
teachers’, counselors’ and administrators’ misidentification of later generation Mexican
Americans as immigrant and second generation causes inappropriate academic track
placement. Lastly, families’ and schools’ low development of social and cultural capital
for greater access and completion of college degrees also makes later generation
Mexican Americans academically vulnerable (Chávez, 2007).
As a result, later generation Mexican Americans become part of the “neglected
majority” of high school students who graduate, with little or no direction about how to
enter the world of work or higher education. Little more is known about later generation
Mexican American students, seemingly because schools triage first the linguistic and
sociocultural needs of immigrants and children of immigrants. However, this approach is
likely to create lowered rates of success over time for the increased number of latergeneration Hispanics (currently 29%) once children of immigrants have children. This
circumstance implies that a larger population of later-generation Hispanics will inundate
schools, which have not generated a comprehensive understanding of their strengths
and educational needs. Latino administrators should be keenly concerned with
developing strategies to identify and improve the academic trajectory of the little
recognized needs of later-generation Mexican Americans.
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To gain a greater understanding of later generation Latinos, in specific Mexican
Americans, this paper reviews later generation Mexican American situation in relation to
Mexican immigrants and second generation, identifying their unique characteristics,
apparent strengths and unrecognized needs. Next, the paper presents a conceptual
model of later generation students to strategize how public schooling can improve their
educational trajectory especially as relates to gaining increased access to four-year
tertiary institutions of higher education. Finally, the implication of this model will be
discussed in light of the need to increase the educational capital of Latino students
across the board.
Understanding and identifying later-generation Mexican Americans
Ethnic/racial identification
Characteristically, later-generation Mexican Americans have been understood to
be inadequate imitations of Mexicans or white Americans. They no longer speak
Spanish but English exclusively, practice ethnic customs sparsely and sporadically,
move from ethnic enclaves to integrated or Anglo communities, and dress and behave
like “Americans.” From the Anglo perspective, they retain their Spanish surnames,
continue to marry within their ethnic group or other groups of color, and display ethnic
markers (t-shirts with ethnic slogans, tattoos, ethnic labels). Co-ethnics and Anglos tend
to identify Mexican Americans as too Mexican, not Mexican at all, or not Mexican
enough. For LGC, they do not identify themselves in negative terms, but rather
positively in relation to who they are as descendents of Mexican immigrants and as
native-born American citizens (Chávez, 2007; Macias, 2006). Ultimately, being Mexican
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American can be ambiguous, receiving both positive and negative recognition in social
interaction in and outside the ethnic community.
Ethnic identification wanes over generations. According to Ono (2002), third
generation Mexican Americans are only half as like to identify as “Mexican” and only
10% likely to identify similarly in the fourth or later generation. More recently, Pew
Hispanic Center (2009) presents a generationally view of ethnic identification. First, all
three generations were likely to identify by their family’s country of origin (97%-90%) or
as Hispanic or Latino (88%-82%), but second and third generations were more likely to
identify as American, 89% and 96% respectively. In first describing themselves, second
generation and LGMA use “American” (50%) followed by the country of heritage (32%),
while first and second generation prefer country of heritage, 72% and 41% respectively.
In racial identification, 16-25 year olds all three groups chose Hispanic/Latino (45%,
37%, 38%); the next preferred term of racial identification for all is “some other race”
(29%, 44%, 31%). Nearly a quarter LGMA (22%) identify as “White”, suggesting an
effect on with race and nationality, or with mixed parentage. Overall, a Hispanic ethnic
identity persists for LGMA. Other factors that can cause LGMA to identify with their
heritage group are discrimination and a dark skin color (Ono, 2002).
Later-generation Mexican American ethnicity can be understood through the
notion of biculturalism, symbolic ethnicity and strategic ethnicity. First, according to
Padilla (2006), biculturalism (when an individual is positively socialized into two cultural
groups and can exhibit and perform competently in both) is a viable psychological
outcome for later-generation individuals in American pluralistic society. The positive
identity associated with LGC ethnic loyalty, not necessarily cultural knowledge, offsets
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the psychological and emotional harm associated with discrimination. Symbolic
ethnicity, based on the unilinear model of assimilation, claims that later generations of
ethnic immigrants superfluously practice and identify with selective symbolic forms
(ethnic labels, artifacts, cultural practices), most exhibited in later-generation
descendants of European ethnic groups who choose when, where and how they identify
with the ethnic group with little or no social consequence (Gans, 1979; Waters, 1990).
Others (Alba & Nee, 2003; Steinberg, 2001) note that racialization of particular
immigrant groups, such as Mexican Americans, complicates symbolic ethnicity as U.S.born descendants subjecting them to continual prejudice through identification with
Mexican immigrants.
Strategic ethnicity takes into account the interaction with co-ethnics. Studying
third-plus Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, Duarte (2008), claims that LGC employ
symbolic, situational and strategic ethnicity to negotiate daily interaction with Mexican
immigrants, second-generation Mexican Americans and Anglos. However, if LGC
choose to align themselves with Mexican immigrants, they can be “othered” for their
assimilated preferences and lifestyle; white Americans may “other” them using
surname, phenotype and accent (Chicano English) (Duarte, 2008; Jimenez, 2008).
Later-generation Mexican American ethnic identity is shaped by contact with a spectrum
of co-ethnics and Anglo individuals (Chávez-Reyes, 2010a), which offers positive or
negative psychological outcomes that shape racial and ethnic identity and determines
peer affiliations.
Language use is an indicator of ethnic identification. Historically speaking,
Mexican population has aligned with the traditional view of the language assimilation of
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immigrants in the U.S. That is, that with in three generations the heritage language is
lost. In Pew Hispanic Center (2009) there was an inverse relationship between first and
third generation Hispanics in speaking and reading English and Spanish well or very
well. Forty-eight percent and forty-four of the first generation sample claimed to speak
and read English well and 89% and 90% claimed to speak or read Spanish well. On the
other hand, 97% or more of LG Hispanics spoke and read English well while only 38%
and 26% spoke and read Spanish well. Likewise, LGMA reported viewing popular
media mostly in English (69% music and 89% television), still almost a third viewed
some television in Spanish. LGMA self-reported data suggest that some degree of
heritage language survives passed three generations.
Unlike, the eastern and southern Europeans, on which the language assimilation
theory is based, Latinos’ language maintenance is influenced by the continual influx of
Spanish-speaking immigrants (Jimenez, 2008; Linton & Jimenez, 2009) and the
preservation of a speech community (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002). Linton and
Jimenez (2009) found that certain metropolitan areas with high concentrations of
Spanish-speaking immigrants presented opportunities to practice and re-acquire
Spanish in platonic and romantic relationships, rewards from speaking Spanish in the
labor market, and bilingualism as an option in social identity, all encouraged bilingualism
for LGMA. Thus, while most LGMA do not possess a strong command of the Spanish
language, they may view it, in whatever form they possess, as a significant part of their
social identity (X).
Social Status
Education
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Current educational attainment of LGMA compared to preceding generations
indicates that an upward trend from first generation to third generation. Macia (2006)
claims that high school and college education increase across three generations.
However, the rate of increase between the two is markedly different. Mexican
immigrants have an approximate high school graduation rate at 22% while third
generation Mexican Americans increases to 36%--a 14% increase. On the other hand,
immigrants have a college graduation rate at roughly 5% and third generation
individuals’ increase to 10%, a lower rate for third generation Whites (27%) and third
generation Black (15%). Thus the college rate over two generations increases only by
5%, suggesting that LGMA have less human capital to initiate a middle-class trajectory.
Comparatively, generation is a factor in how successful Hispanics youth are in
schools. Table 1 presents recent findings from the Pew Hispanic Center (2009) data for
16-25 individuals.
Table 1. High school drop out rate and completion rate, college rate of enrollment, and
value of education by generation
Educational Factors
Generation 1
Generation 2
Generation 3
High school drop out rate
33%
9%
12%
High school completion rate
60%
89%
84%
College enrollment rate (with high
29%
school diploma)
The belief in “college education is
94%
important”
Note. Adapted from Pew Hispanic Center (2009).
46%
35%
86%
84%
Table one indicates the academic vulnerability of Hispanic immigrant students
and the resilience of second-generation students. Significant here is the apparent
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diminishing gains later generations experience in these categories. Even with English
monolingualism and citizenship secured third-generation respondents are less likely
than second-generation respondents to believe that education is important to their
success.
Even after finishing high school, LGMA view education as a lesser option. Table
2 shows the educational aspirations of 18-25 years-olds through third generation.
Table 2. Educational aspirations of 18-25 years-olds through third generation
Educational Aspirations
Generation 1
Generation 2
Generation 3
No more education after high school
36%,
10%
19%
Bachelors degree or more
29%
64%
54%
Some college or two years
8%
17%
13%
Technical or trade school
10%
3%
2%
Intend to finish high school
7%
1%
3%
Note. Adapted from Pew Hispanic Center (2009) Figure 6.4
This table indicates that later generations are less likely than the second
generation to see formal education as a viable option after graduation. Even though
54% of LGMA see themselves completing a Bachelors degree, only 35% are enrolled in
college after high school completion. In spite of the historical trajectory for Mexican
Americans to enter the workforce after studying the trades in high school, only 2% of
LGMA today see this as an option, likely as a result of the extreme decrease in the
availability of these jobs as well as high schools all but eradication of vocational training
from the curriculum. Given the labor market requirements in an information society and
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global economy, the 19% who have no intention of pursuing formal education of any
kind after graduation makes them high vulnerable to economic and social hardship.
Occupation & Income
The social and economic difficulties that accompany legal and unauthorized
immigration, it goes without saying that first generation Hispanics have higher rates in
poverty (29%) and decrease in second and third generations, 19% and 21%
respectively (Pew Hispanic Center, 2009).
As a result, 45% of LGMA household has incomes in 2008 between $25,000 and
$74,999, and 33% made $75,000 or over. Just over half live in their own homes
compared to 57% of second generation2 and 30% of first generation individuals. These
numbers suggest that the vast majority of LGMA are fairing well compared to first and
second generations. Yet, it also masks the possession of social and cultural capital that
is required to maintain this socioeconomic status. Trejo (1997) claims “Mexican
Americans earn low wages primarily because they possess less human capital than
other workers, not because they receive smaller labor market rewards for their skills” (p.
1264). This point suggests that LGMA require more marketable education and skills for
the global and information society.
Later generations: Strengths and needs
The strengths of LGMA reside in their familiarity with U.S. culture, proficiency in
standard American English, and knowledge of U.S. institutions. For generations, they
have gained more education gain more income, and better occupations than previous
generations. They speak predominantly English, celebrate American cultural traditions
2
This number may be inflated and may not have taken into account the current
foreclosure rate and the fact that this population was targeted for sub-prime loans.
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and own their homes. In every way they are American. However, structural assimilation
has eluded them, as LGMA have not been able to gain greater access to the
professions, higher education and political office. In our credentialed society, education
is at the root of this situation.
Unlike Latino immigrant groups, LGMA have acculturated to the point that
academic support through bilingual education, ELL instruction, and programs to orient
immigrant families to American society and schools are not necessary. Instead, they
require the same educational interventions as working-class students and other racial
and ethnic minority students, who have been historically and socially excluded. LGMA
students’, their parents’ and grandparents’ academic relegation to general or lower
tracks has created a lack of access to social and cultural capital necessary for higher
education. Before providing these interventions, LGMA must be recognized and their
specific social context and circumstances understood.
A conceptual model of later-generation Mexican American students
The conceptual model in Figure 1 prioritizes LGMA’s need for social and cultural
capital as the underlying precept to their social context and circumstances. First and
foremost, the viewer must understand that context and circumstances are the result of a
generational progression, and not a single generation. That is, what is represented as
third generation or later is predicated on the perseverance and success of previous
generations. The model presents characteristics and circumstances of later generations
from the micro level (home and family) and the macro level (society).
Insert Figure 1
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Home
There are three significant aspects of LGMA home life of later generations
focuses on American cultural influences, Mexican cultural influences and working-class
status. Later-generation Mexican Americans, as citizens, have access to American
mainstream culture through cultural discourse and artifacts. They grow up with relatively
the same American cultural references as White peers: baseball as the national
pastime, American cuisine, popular television programming and musical influences,
fashion trends, slang (Chavez, 2009). In the Fuentes family, despite the
multigenerational ethnic contact at home, American culture became a primary cultural
reference for third-generation children as their childhoods and adolescence revolved
around the American trends of their peers in their predominantly white working-class
neighborhoods and schools. Third generations members listened to rock ‘n’ roll, wore
denim jeans and t-shirts or poodle skirts and saddle shoes, went to drive ins and
amusement parks, played little league baseball and ate burgers, fries and coke. Each
subsequent generation participation and consumed the cultural activities and products
of their time.
Speaking English was at the root of American cultural participation and
consumption. Even though they may speak a nonstandard dialect of English, Chicano
English (Fought 2006), English dominance is a norm in later generation Mexican
American homes. The abandonment of Spanish as an ethnic identifier is may not be
completely lost, however. Intermarriage and geography can have an effect on how
much, if any Spanish, is still spoken in the later generation home. If a home has a
Mexican immigrant or second-generation Mexican American parent, children may have
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more exposure to Spanish (X, Y) and develop bilingual or receptive proficiency (ability
to understand but not speak). The closer a LGMA family is to the Mexican border and to
an ethnic enclave Spanish and Spanglish may also be part of LGMA students’ language
repertoire (X, Y). Even though, LGMA continue to see Spanish proficiency as significant
to their ethnic identity.
Perhaps the most difficult question to answer has been what is the continuity and
change of Mexican culture in later-generation Mexican American homes. Most research
only focuses on three generations focusing on transmission of language (Villanueva,
1996), familism (the value of family) (Keefe, 1982; Vega, 1990). Only a few studies exist
with individuals in fourth and fifth generations (Keefe & Padilla, 1987; ) Many of these
however, investigated unrelated individuals, obscuring the actual socialization and
transmission process of Mexican culture from one generation to the next and beyond.
Chávez (2007), which studied five generations of a single Mexican American family, is
the only study that has illuminated which Mexican cultural values persist.
Perhaps the strongest value that persists is buena educación, the inculcation of a
value for social harmony through respectability and responsibility. Here, LGMA are likely
to continue to place importance on developing character, respectability and good
comportment, the cultural capital not emphasized by schools which affects Mexican
students’ performance and experience in school (Valenzuela, 1999). Additionally, LGMA
maintain familial relationships and social networks (value of familism) and a strong work
ethic (Weaver, 2002). While possessing an American mainstream cultural dominance,
Mexican culture’s collective orientation (family and social harmony) and the value of
relationships (Valdés, 1996) challenge later generation students to make meaning of the
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decontextualized nature of school (X). Further, Chavez (2007) suggests that a strong
work ethic and leads later generation Mexican Americans to the labor market in
adolescence because schools do not provide a positive experience for LG students to
consider it a viable option to the workplace.
Least studied with Latinos, let alone LGMA, is the influence of social class. With
greater attention given to immigrants and poverty, LGMA consistent working-class
status seems less crucial to address. Yet, working-class families teeter precariously on
the edge of poverty. Working-class families, supported by semi-skilled and skilled
hourly-waged blue- to low white-collar jobs, are vulnerable to shifts in the global
economy as jobs are outsourced. Metzgar (2005) claims the working class consists of
the traditional “blue-collar” workers,…includ[ing] men and women of all colors”, and the
larger percentage of “clerical, retail sales, and other kinds of ‘service’ workers” (p. 200).
He hypothesizes that working class culture is “character-oriented, present-oriented, life
as tangled web of relationships, anti-status, more parochial, stronger loyalties to
persons, places, groups [and] institutions” compared to the middle class, who are
“achievement oriented, future-oriented, [and] cosmopolitan”3.
The differences in working-class status and middle-class status have been shown to
result in different educational performance (Brantlinger, 2005; Heath, 1983; Lareau,
2003) Working-class students tend to be tracked into the general and vocational tracks
(Oakes, 1985); Working-class parents compared to middle-class parents are less likely
to strategize and prepare at home or at school to secure academic advantage for their
children; Working-class parents prepare young children for basic literacy rather than the
Characteristics of working-class and middle-class culture are adapted from Table 6 in
Metzgar (2005).
3
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critical literacy developed in young middle-class children. Even though working-class
parents may enact more parent involvement strategies than previous generations
(Chavez, 2007; Diamond & Gomez, 2004; Lareau, 2000) their efforts do not result in
greater educational attainment in their children. The implication is that working-class
parents, who only receive high school education, do not develop and/or learn to activate
the social and cultural capital (Lareau & Hovat, 1999) that middle-class parents use to
privilege their children in schools.
Neighborhood
Where neighborhoods are concerned, this model reflects three populations of
LGMA. One is the LGMA locked into generational poverty in inner city areas, similar to
inner city populations of African Americans. Moore and Pinderhughes (1993) refer to
this group as the underclass, immigrants and later-generation Latinos trapped in poverty
and can been seen in Dohan (2003) who studies the work life of Mexican immigrants
U.S.-born Mexican Americans in these communities. A small middle class exists, which
tend to reside in Anglo dominant communities (Bean, Trejo, Capps & Tyler, 2001).
Focusing on the working-class LGMA in Anglo dominant or mixed ethnic
neighborhoods, communities were LGMA reside tend to reflect their working-class
social, cultural and educational capital.
Later-generation Mexicans in Los Angeles moved to suburban areas after WWII
as part of the great economic boom (Chávez, 2007; Duarte, 2008; Macias, 2006;
Ochoa, 2004), which resulted in an increase in standard of living between immigrant
and second generations (Gonzalez, 2002; Sanchez, 1995). Likewise, LGMA in rural
areas, some the children of those who served in the American armed forces in WWII,
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experienced an increase in standard of living making them distinct from immigrants and
second generations (Bettie, 2003; Menchaca, 1995). Both these populations saw
diminishing gains in the third generation, which may be the source of little educational
gains.
Brown (2007) suggests that the diminishing gains may also be manifested in the
delayed spatial assimilation of LGMA in Los Angeles. She found that LGMA experience
consistent rise in median income through later generations is not the result necessarily
of spatial assimilation—living in middle-class Anglo dominant neighborhoods. Instead,
LGMA do not gain access to these social networks until third generation, which supports
the notion that later generations do not have direct access to social and cultural capital
associated with middle class status.
School
Despite being U.S. citizens and English dominant, schooling remains an issue for
LGMA. As indicated earlier the overall trend for later generations is diminishing gains as
high school graduation becomes consistent but college completion after second
generation. To understand LGMA academic experience certain misconceptions must be
corrected and trends illuminated in racial/ethnic identity, school belonging, experience in
the classroom, and experience with teachers/school personnel.
Perhaps the most challenging task for personnel is identifying and locating
LGMA. One reason is because LGMA ethnic identity is American dominated with
persistent Mexican cultural features, a nuanced ethnic identity not fully understood by
school staff and personnel who tend to identify them as either Mexican immigrant
students, cholos or Anglos (Matute-Bianchi, 1991). Later generation Mexican Americans
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can have a strong affiliation with a variety of social groups, as later generations are
more likely to have cross-ethnic relationships (Brown, 2006). Although no large-scale
studies exist on LGMA ethnic identity, individual studies suggest that LGMA are social
adapters (Matute-Bianchi, 199; Keefe & Padilla, 1987). For example, Duarte (2008)
studying LGMA in Los Angeles found that LGMA befriend both Mexican immigrants,
second-generation Mexican American and Anglos given the composition of their
neighborhoods. Chávez-Reyes (2009) similarly suggests that LGMA citizenship and
dominant American culture in the home and neighborhood create the possibility for
Anglo and Mexican American friendships, as children were raised with an egalitarian
strategy to dealing with racism and discrimination.
Academically, many are placed in general track, like other working-class
students, where they tend to perform as average students, receiving no attention from
teachers or counselors for either excelling or failing (Bettie, 2003; Chavez, 2007;
Espinoza-Herrold, 2003; Matute-Bianchi, 1991). LGMA students feel unmotivated to
perform well in school as classes are boring and unchallenging. Overall, they feel
neglected or invisible which leads to a low sense of belonging to school. Low rates of
participation in extracurricular activities and low rapport with teachers and other school
personnel also contribute to this consequence. Latinos student in general claim that
teachers and other school personnel do not forge meaningful relationships with them in
ways that would make them feel welcomed and cared for, a factor associated with una
buena educación. The end result is restricted access to academic knowledge and skills
for college preparation as students are in academically unchallenging courses do only
enough to pass to graduate high school.
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Society
Implications
Chart 1. Macro and micro strategies to improving later generation Mexican American
student performance
Micro Strategies

Combat stereotypes and misinformation through training teachers and staff to
understand distinct background of academic needs of immigrant, second
generation and LGMA

Identify LGMA “average students” in general tracks
o Suggest track/program change toward higher education or career path
o Provide academic support to bridge transition

Develop social capital through encouraging participation in school sponsored
extracurricular activities (clubs, sports)

Train teachers/counselors to develop positive relationships with LGMA to
strengthen social networks for access to knowledge about higher education and
careers
Macro Strategies

Multiple pathways model to Comprehensive High schools

Develop strength-based family involvement programs to inform about educational
and career options
o Develop a academic/career planning module for LGMA
o Develop workshops to inform parents of academic and career options for
their children
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