Social Mobility in a Mexican-American Community

Abstract

An analysis of social mobility of Mexican-Americans in Southern California indicated that the second generation is the most upwardly mobile and measures highest on several indices of socioeconomic status and acculturation compared with immigrants and descendants of Spanish colonial settlers. Upward mobile Mexican-Americans do not shed their ethnic identification significantly, and Catholicism rather than Protestantism is found to be most associated with upward mobility. It is the shedding of lower-class culture rather than ethnicity which is most related with upward mobility.