Study: Only 10% of Mexicans identify themselves as Americans

Carolyn Hileman - The Voice* | May 3, 2008

The report — based on the study and book titled “Generations of Exclusions: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race” (Russell Sage Foundation, 2008) — concluded that ethnic assimilation among Mexican Americans is slow. The results, which are drawn from a longitudinal and intergenerational research study that updates “The Mexican American People” (1970), measured various markers of assimilation over a nearly 40-year time span. “These findings support the view that Mexican Americans are part of an ethnic political community with a distinct ethnic and political sensibility,” said the study’s authors, UCLA sociology professor Edward E. Telles and UCLA associate sociology professor Vilma Ortiz. For instance, when asked to name their ethnic identity, most respondents replied that they were Mexican or Mexican American. Smaller percentages identified as Chicano, Latino, or Hispanic. About 10 percent did not mention an ethnic group, preferring a term such as “American.”