Kristin Hamon

The Dating Practices of Mexican American Adolescents: A Model for Assimilation or Resistance?

I have taught at Cesar E. Chavez High School for three years. Eighty-eight percent of the school’s population is comprised of Hispanic students. About ninety percent of that Hispanic population is Mexican American. Objective 3 on Dr. White’s Immigrant Literature syllabus explains that “immigrants typically assimilate and lose their identity within 1-3 generations.” Most of my students fall into this specific grouping. They are daily faced with choices of whether or not to assimilate at school. As a teacher, I am seldom privy to the private correspondence and daily lunchtime interactions that expose different accepted stages of assimilation. I was, however, given full “advantage” of being at school when a racial riot ensued between African American and Hispanic students. The Katrina evacuation had just occurred and several African American students from New Orleans had been transferred to schools throughout HISD. From the accounts of my students, it began with a joke that turned into a nightmare. An African American student told a Mexican American to “swim back” to “his country” (Gonzalez). Perhaps the student who chose to joke did not realize how fragile the harmony was between African American and Hispanic students at our school. The students started fighting and by the time the police showed up, the front lawn of Chavez was a blur of pugnacious students and parents, both physically fighting to defend their ethnic identity. I was shocked. None of this hostility every boiled over to this degree in my classroom, but I soon realized that I existed as a representative of a dominant culture whom students did not want to involve in this brazen battle between one another.

This realization led me to turn away from the publicized racial riots to the private patterns of their dating life – a more intimate and vulnerable aspect of their identity as Mexican immigrants. In fact, in a study at Stanford University, Michael Rosenfeld explains that intermarriage is “the most basic measuring stick for the social distances between groups” (152). I thought that perhaps those rioting were only a select group of students that held racist attitudes toward one another and that dating patterns might show a different segment of the population. I also wanted to learn if any patterns I found could expose the students’ various stages of assimilation and if I would uncover the same animosity in the dating patterns that I witnessed that terrible fall afternoon of the riot.

Understanding that only my students could speak for themselves about these private matters, I immediately turned to them for guidance. I posted a bulletin on “MySpace” (their preferred mode of communication) and personally interviewed several students. Many students revealed an unspoken social hierarchy that seems to exist within their family and at the high school. I was amazed to have students so openly explain their parents’ expectations and found it interesting that the most predominant and recurring comment first explained was that they were “absolutely not allowed to date any blacks.” I was initially shocked because I have seen a couple of Mexican American girls dating African American boys, but did not realize how much their choice socially ostracized them as a couple. This led me to ask about the “color code” that seemed to come up in several conversations. In fact, one of my students, Jennifer Sanchez*, outlined this apparent and unspoken dating hierarchal order set by her parents as listed below:

Most Desirable to Least Desirable Races (for her to date, according to Jennifer’s parents):

1.      White or Mexican (specifically from the same Mexican hometown as family)

2.      any Mexican

3.      any Latino

4.      Asian/Pacific islander

5.      then other (which would include every race not mentioned, according to Jennifer)

6.      lastly, African American

I was not taken aback to see African Americans listed later in the list considering the dissension that had been brought up and the riot between many students. I was, however, immediately struck by the placement of white students within the list. I did not understand why they would be listed so quickly, especially with all the racism and animosity that has been exposed during the recent discussions of new immigration policy and reform. I questioned several other Mexican American Immigrant students about this listing and they all seemed to agree with her. One student, Eliud Gonzalez* gave a possible suggestion for the unusual and early placement. He posited that many Mexican Americans dated white students to improve class and safety. He stated that “white people have more security. You have more opportunity to succeed with them instead of another illegal person.” He did admit, however, that although one’s family might accept a family member dating a white individual, that person would undoubtedly face relentless ridicule or misgivings from other Mexican families that assumed the son or daughter is only dating the “Anglo” for citizenship or “safety” (Gonzalez). This seemed to make sense because students were explaining the beliefs of their parents, many of whom are only first and second generations. Most of my students are third generation, coming to the states sometime in junior high.

Just as Dr. White’s syllabus describes in Objective 3, these parents seemed to be trying to “maintain” their “distinct communities,” much to the frustration of their children. It was odd, however, that the parents would risk the defiling of their culture by allowing their son or daughter to date a white child. The “color code” seems to be dictating the rules of their created hierarchy and exposing that the children were desperately trying to break away from the “old world” and fully assimilate, much to their parents’ dismay. In fact, this understanding led me to a study regarding ethnic endogamy that explained first-generation Mexican American men to be the “least exogamous” and by the third-generation “the chances are actually higher that he or she will marry an Anglo than either a first- or a second-generation Mexican” (Mittelbach 54).

The other noticeable fact among the student interviews was a clear chasm that exists between African Americans and Mexican Americans. This schism seems to closely parallel the historical distance that has existed between Caucasians and African Americans within American society. I couldn’t help but wonder if Mexican Americans not only saw dating members of the dominant culture as a sign of assimilation and are choosing to mirror Caucasians’ dating practices as a form of assimilation. Dr. White’s Objective 3 explains this phenomenon by mentioning that “immigrants sometimes measure themselves against or distance themselves from minorities as a means of assimilating to the dominant culture.” Richard Rodriguez epitomizes this notion of the Mexican American narrative as he describes the ethnic gap by admitting that the sounds of black teenagers are “the sounds of the outsider” and are even characterized as “annoying” (232). Through this narrative, the reactions to the “black teenagers” push him further way from an identity as a minority and expose him more as an immigrant fully assimilated.

I also found it interesting that many Vietnamese students agreed with Jennifer*. Tien Pham* explained that her parents “are most comfortable with Asians because they can communicate with them better. The next would be White, then Hispanic and then African American...I think.” Again, with a culture that is stereotypically assumed to be the model minority  (desiring quick assimilation)– Asian families also discourage their children from dating African Americans – an ethnic group that has had the lowest intermarriage rate with whites. Therefore, I started to wonder if the “color code” had more to do with the social hierarchy than the desire to limit cultural “intrusion”. In fact, one of the sources that seemed to continually support many students’ arguments explained that the kind of “social barriers that exist between Whites and Blacks do not exist between Whites and Mexican Americans” (Rosenfeld 160). Therefore, the riot at Chavez could actually be seen as a parallel moment to many of the riots that were occurring during the Civil Rights era.

My studies seemed to lead me down a path to more inquiries. I am curious if Mexican Americans can continue to become increasingly assimilated if the acceptance and rejection of races in their social hierarchies mirror that of the dominant culture and model minority. Also, if Asian and Mexican American immigrants both see dating African Americans as “a step down,” then are we not facing a future that has rid itself of racism between all minority cultures except for African Americans (Gonzalez)? Will immigrants end up uniting in this way and assimilating to the dominant culture by simply choosing to reject the African American race? If I were to continue along this line of research, I would like to personally interview some of the parents of my students to get their opinion (without the bias of an adolescent). I would also like interview more African American students who have dated Hispanics and do more research on the paradigm of the African American minority as a way of discussing the similarities between the groups that seem to be ignored by Mexican Americans. This was overall a very enlightening research adventure and will no doubt keep my curiosity piqued when a student decides to discuss a new romantic venture.

*names have been changed to protect the privacy of my students

Works Cited

Gonzalez, Eliud. Personal Interview. 18 June 2008.

Mittelbach, Frank G. and Joan W. Moore. "Ethnic Endogamy-the Case of Mexican Americans." The American Journal of Sociology 74.1 (1968): 50-62. JSTOR. U of Houston, Clear Lake Lib., Houston, TX. 19 June 2008 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2775639

Pham, Tien. Personal Interview. 20 June 2008.

Rodriguez, Richard. “from Hunger of Memory.” Visions of America Handout: 229-235. Immigrant Literature - UHCL. Summer 2008.

Rosenfeld, Michael J. "Measures of Assimilation in the Marriage Market: Mexican Americans 1970-1990." Journal of Marriage and the Family 64.1 (2002): 152-162. JSTOR. U of Houston, Clear Lake Lib., Houston, TX. 18 June 2008 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3599784

Sanchez, Jennifer. Personal Interview. 19 June 2008.

White, Craig. “Graduate Immigrant Literature Syllabus.” Summer 2008.