Middle-class Mexicans Research Articles

Prostitutes and Guardian Angels: Women, Work, and the Family in Porfirian Mexico

I K E their counterparts in Europe and North America, middle-class Mexicans have often utilized gender and morality to delineate class boundaries and separate themselves from social others. During the regime of Porfirio Diaz (18761911), members of this class advocated a new cult of female domesticity in which they carefully prescribed women's role: women were to serve as properly educated mothers and guardian angels of the home. They thereby utilized gender not only as an important means of class differentiation but also as a way to champion moral reform. The Mexican bourgeoisie hoped to eradicate vice and inculcate values of thrift, sobriety, hygiene, and punctuality in succeeding generations of workers. In short, they subscribed to a developmentalist ideology, in hopes of turning a new, and feared, floating population (poblacion flotante) of rural and urban workers-born of the mining industry, the railroads, the textile industry, and factory production-into a peaceful, hardworking, and suitably motivated work force.' Middle-class Mexicans expected the state to regulate

Middle-class residential mobility in Mexico City: Toward a cross-cultural theory

Few social-psychological theories of intraurban residential mobility have been offered, despite a number of empirical studies of personal motives. A complete explanation of residential mobility would interrelate macroscopic economic factors with household preferences. A cross-cultural socio-psychological model is presented as a step toward a comprehensive theory. Data from an exploratory study of middle-class Mexico City residents are used to test the model. Results suggest that middle-class Mexicans decide to move because of space needs accompanying life-cycle changes, desire for home ownership, and environmental reasons. Home selection was primarily a function of availability, cost, and terms. Unlike North Americans, suburban Mexicans were uninterested in community activities and maintained close contact with relatives; central-city respondents enjoyed living in the city despite dissatisfaction with residence or neighborhood. Most would avoid the suburbs because of communication problems and distance from relatives. Results support the model and justify further testing and development.

An Analysis of Differential Assimilation Rates among Middle-class Mexican Americans

The investigation focused on the identification of variables which might help explain differential assimilation rates among middle-class Mexican Americans. The data were collected from a random probability sample of 151 middle-class Mexican Americans residing in Waco, Austin. McAllen, and Lubbock, Texas. Three Likert-type scales designed to measure various components of the assimilation process were developed out of items abstracted from standardized interview schedules. The multiple correlation technique was used to identify independent variables which contributed significantly to a regression model for explaining variation in scores on each of the three scales. The findings suggested that early socialization patterns incorporating a discontinuous status sequence and a lack of reinforcement as Mexican-American increase the probability that the individual will assimilate into the broader American cultural system.

Identification with Mexican family values and authoritarianism in Mexican-Americans.

In this study it was hypothesized that Mexican-American college students would score higher than Anglo-Americans on a family attitude (F) scale that reflected the values of the Mexican family. It was also predicted that the Mexican-Americans would score higher on the F scale because their family milieu is very much like that of the high authoritarians. The sample subjects were 70 Anglo-Americans not belonging to any identifiable cultural or racial minority group ranging in age from 18 to 24. They were all middle-class Catholic college students of an equal number of males and females. The California F scale consisting of 32 items was administered to all subjects. The results indicate that the Mexican-American subjects made significantly higher scores than the Anglo-Americans on both the F scale and the Mexican Family Attitude Scales. The Mexican-American females made higher scores on both scales than did any of the other 3 culture-sex subgroups. It is evident that the positive relationship between autocratic family ideology and authoritarianism found among high authoritarian Anglo-Americans is also evident in a cultural minority group. The results indicate that young middle-class Mexican Americans adhere to standards of conformity and authoritarian submission indicating a need to maintain the status quo and certainly to refrain from opposing it. Although this study employed quantitative techniques which are usually associated with the research of psychologists it confirmed the findings of anthropologists who had utilized different methods. Comparison of the family attitude pattern of the Mexican Americans with that of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans reveals that the Mexican American value system shows signs of Americanization in the form of a decrease in the authority of the male. The Mexican family values on which the Mexican Americans expressed more agreement than disagreement were those of conformity strict child rearing and authoritarian submission.

Responses to Interpersonal Conflict by Middle Class Males in Guadalajara and Michigan1

The subjects used in the research were middle-class males. While there is little detailed research on middle-class Mexicans (Wagley and Harris 1955) there are perhaps enough general observations to permit an estimation of the validity of the instrument. There is a consensus that the core of the Mexican male's self-concept is more deeply based on emotional relations than his American counterpart. In part this is expressed through friendship relations. The American concept seems to be more deeply associated with material achievements. Mexicans tend to define reality in terms of interpersonal relationships, while Americans are more prone to define the world in terms of external, objective relationships (Diaz-Guerrero 1959). In outlining the forms which this emphasis on the emotional and the interpersonal takes in Mexican society Gillin (1961) cites personalism as a unifying value in middle-class Mexican life. Drawing on many sources Gillin asserts that the middle-status Mexican requires strong personal in his social relations; trust is only extended to persons with whom such a relation exists. As Ramirez puts it, . . . the Mexican can cross himself, humiliate himself . . . but can't 'crack' himself, that is, let the outer world penetrate to his intimacy (1961: 99). In contrast, the American may enter into a relationship of impersonal confidence or trust without intimacy, a relationship unknown among Mexicans according to Gillin. Moreover, for Mexicans, personal worth derives more from intimate relations than from visible achievement.

The Mexican Image of Americans

States. Few images reach them through the printed word, and, although half of the movies shown each week in the Mexican theaters are about the United States, almost all are Westerns which depict an outmoded if not fantastic version of American society and culture. On the other hand, they have a good deal of experience with Americans directly. The majority of adult males in many small towns in such centrally located states as Michoacan or Jalisco have been in the United States, and in nearly every Mexican town and urban neighborhood will be found some residents who have visited the country. Millions of contrabandos, or wetbacks, cross the border each year for varying lengths of time, and virtually every Mexican has some close friend or relative who is a permanent resident in the United States. The number of upperand middle-class Mexicans who have been students in American universities and who thereby know Americans and United States civilization is small compared with that of lower-class migrants.