Spanish-Speaking People in the United States: Some Research Constructs and Postulates

Abstract

Adequate, and reasonably current, research information on specific ethnic groups is a constant problem to the diligent social science researcher. All too often the studies containing adequate or current data on minority groups tend to treat them collectively, superficially, or in passing, and many specialized studies often lack the kind of useful real specificity that is sought. In addressing itself to this problem, the American Ethnological Society has done a great service to the academic world by publishing the papers and proceedings of the annual meetings, illustrative of which is the 1968 Proceedings dealing with the Spanish-speaking people in the United States.** The 1968 Proceedings includes the papers presented at the Annual Spring Meeting (Detroit, May 3-4, 1968) of AES. Of twelve papers (a 13th paper is a student contribution, winner of the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize, on economic variables and types of household composition in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana), the major concern is with Mexican-Americans, and furnishes a number of valuable studies on various facets of the new and energetic identity which Mexican-Americans are achieving. Included are two generally theoretic papers which deal with Sampling and Generalization in Anthropological Research on Spanish-speaking Groups (Thomas Weaver); and Social Class, Assimilation and Acculturation (Joan W. Moore). Weaver cautions against the generalizations that are derived from socio-anthropological data dealing with 5.1 million Spanish-speaking persons living in the United States and who represent many different national origins and suboultures; and he notes cogently (as an illustration), that although more than half the total of the Spanish-speaking population in New Mexico lives in urban areas, only two dissertations