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.