Becoming Neighbors in a Mexican American Community: Power, Conflict, and Solidarity

Chapter 2. Theorizing about Mexican American–Mexican Immigrant Relations in "Occupied Mexico"

Chapter 2 Theorizing about Mexican American–Mexican Immigrant Relations in ‘‘Occupied Mexico’’ If they’re going to be here, they should learn the language and not have everything geared to them in Spanish. I hate that . . . They want to bring their customs here instead of getting used to our customs.  , sixty-two-year-old Mexican American The United States is the land of milk and honey. I’ll never memorize what it says on the Statue of Liberty, ‘‘bring me your huddled masses,’’ and we have always accepted people as long as [they] are European. My father will tell you that this is occupied Mexico. ‘‘You’re lucky we [Mexicans] have let you stay here this long,’’ he’ll tell people.  , forty-six-year-old Mexican American The views of La Puente residents Silvia Bravo and Denise Villarreal represent two of the most popular perspectives on race/ethnic relations, the assimilationist and the power-conflict perspective. While each perspective has numerous variations, they nonetheless represent two distinct approaches that are used by members of the academic community and by the general public to understand race/ethnic relations and immigration (Mario Barrera ; Frankenberg ; Omi and Winant ).1 As Silvia Bravo’s comments illustrate, the assimilationist perspective tends to be characterized by an emphasis on integrating into U.S. society by acquiring the English language and middle-class, Anglo American values and traditions. Assimilationists often equate the experiences of Mexicans with those of Southern and Eastern European immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century. The underlying belief is that Mexicans, like Irish, Italian, and Jewish Americans, will gradually assimilate into the dominant society. The process of assimilation is perceived as inevitable and desirable, reinforcing the perception of meritocracy and that all racial/ethnic groups have equal opportunities to ‘‘become American.’’2 Oftentimes underlying this perspective is the ideology of Anglo superiority where the Spanish lan18 guage and other Mexican cultural practices are seen as distinct and inferior to the English language and dominant U.S. values. While they also vary, power-conflict views such as Denise Villarreal expresses contest the assimilationist perspective by delineating the vastly different forms of incorporation and receptions encountered by Southern and Eastern Europeans and Mexicans in what her father refers to as ‘‘occupied Mexico.’’ Power-conflict theorists focus on the persisting inequalities of power and resources as they are structured in society. The two perspectives articulated by Silvia and Denise have influenced and reflect respondents’ worldviews. Since assimilation has been the prevailing expectation in the United States, the La Puente residents included in this work are negotiating their acceptance, perpetuation, and rejection of assimilation and its corollary ideology—Anglo superiority. For Mexican Americans such as Denise Villarreal who are chafing against the racial/ethnic hierarchy underlying the emphasis on assimilation, their sense of intra-ethnic solidarity and political mobilization are connected to their adoption of various power-conflict views of race/ethnic relations. To analyze Mexican Americans’ relations with Mexican immigrants, I draw on both the assimilationist and power-conflict paradigms. Individuals such as Silvia Bravo who support the underlying tenets of the assimilationist paradigm contend that they have ‘‘played by the rules,’’ have learned the English language, and so should others. They are typically more likely to express intra-ethnic antagonism for what they perceive as greater individual and institutional acceptance of the Spanish language. Likewise, individuals such as Denise Villarreal who challenge the assimilationist paradigm and see the historical and contemporary commonalities that Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants share are more likely to be creating public spaces where the Spanish language can flourish and to be uniting with immigrants in the struggle for social justice.3 Though these two paradigms are useful for providing a framework for conceptualizing respondents’ narratives, given the position of Mexican Americans in the United States’ racial/ethnic hierarchy, this study moves away from the assimilationist approach. To better understand the complexities of race/ethnic relations, I adopt what Almaguer () describes as an ‘‘integrated approach.’’ This integrated power-conflict perspective emphasizes the significance of structural factors and ideological processes on race/ethnic relations. While I also consider the salience of cultural factors (language, traditions, and values), I do so within the context of these structural factors and ideological processes. Organized into four main sections, this chapter presents the theoretical Theorizing about Mexican American–Mexican Immigrant Relations 19 framework...