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C Ch ha ap pt te er r 1 17 7 Immigrant Accommodation and Intra-Ethnic Friction: The Case of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in San Antonio RICHARD C. JONES INTRODUCTION “The Changing Heartland,” the “Hispanic Disapora,” “Tragedy in a Place of Quiet Serenity” are bylines of popular articles that have captured the attention of Americans in the past few years and placed on the map towns such as Morganton and Siler City, North Carolina; Rogers, Arkansas; Dalton, Georgia; Denison, Iowa; and Garden City, Kansas (Foust et al., 2002; Yeoman, 2000; Campo-Flores, 2001; Fountain, 2002; Stull and Broadway, 2004). Latino immigrants, especially Mexicans, have arrived in homogenous rural communities of the Midwest and traditionally bi-racial communities of the South, in such numbers that the only way to express it is demographic metamorphosis . At the same time, communities with long histories of immigration continue to receive immigrants and are finding challenges as they reshape urban landscapes. Such is the case of San Antonio, Texas. Located in a border state, San Antonio has a Mexican-American population that traces back generations. It also has experienced substantial Mexican immigration in recent decades. One might suspect that given its legacy with Mexico and having a large Mexican-American population in place, this community would provide a relatively friendly environment that would readily accommodate the newer Mexican immigrants. As we shall see, this is not the case for a number of reasons. This chapter investigates the spatial patterns and the accommodation (social and cultural adjustment to the larger society) of Mexican immigrants in relation to Anglos and Mexican Americans in Bexar County (San Antonio), Texas — a metropolitan county with 1.4 million persons in 2000. Census tract data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census; photographs; and household interviews are employed to describe and visualize these patterns. This chapter spotlights first-generation immigrants — not the second and later generations that are the focus of most assimilation studies. Obviously, changes in the attitudes and behaviors of the immigrants themselves cannot be used to form final opinions on accommodation. However, in the U.S. (as in San Antonio) a 60 percent increase in Latino immigration over the 1990s suggests that first-generation assimilation (or lack of it) is an important issue that researchers and policy makers would be wise to address now, rather than defer to future generations. ACCOMMODATION OF MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE SOUTHWEST The literature reveals two separate processes involved in immigrant accommodation: (1) integration, defined as social interaction with the host society at various levels, and (2) acculturation, defined as adoption of host society cultural traits. These are, in fact, two distinct dimensions of accommodation, suggesting a typology (Figure 17.1). A situation of low acculturation and high integration is exemplified by many Chinese, Asian Indian, and Arab communities in the United States. These groups provide a good example of selective acculturation (Portes and Rumbaut, 1996) — the adoption or exercising of cultural traits that benefit their integration (such as education, hard work, and honesty), while rejecting others that impede it (such as aberrant religious or marriage practices). 222 Richard C. Jones Conversely, an ethnic group may lose or be forced to abandon its culture, and at the same time lack any significant societal contacts. The situation of high acculturation and low integration would apply to an urban immigrant underclass such as “Cholos” (chicanos) or black Caribbean and African migrants, who acculturate into dysfunctional inner-city subcultures, and thus remain isolated and marginalized, a process termed dissonant acculturation (Portes and Rumbaut, 1996; Berry, 1990; Hintzen, 2001; Smith, 2001; Stoller, 2001). Integration accompanied by acculturation is exemplified by Western European groups that have been in the U.S. for generations and are ethnically and culturally indistinguishable from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) mainstream. Finally, the joint absence of both acculturation and integration is exemplified by Hmong and Mexicans. These groups are separated by low socio-economic status and discrimination from the traditional mainstream, but they are not socialized into an urban underclass. Figure 17.1 Immigrant Accommodation Typology, with Examples The literature recognizes several barriers to integration that tend to separate different immigrant groups on the integration dimension of the above typology. These include: (1) discrimination toward that group by the host society, (2) the pressure to conform to dissonant norms, (3) lack of incentives to interact with the larger society, (4) low levels of community and family resources, and (5) immigration status. These barriers are represented by the horizontal dashed line...

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