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TO AVOID FIN. rum-n on or baton dd. duo. h: DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution ABSTRACT AUTHORITY IN THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN FAMILY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BY Jane Bushong Haney The major purpose of this thesis is the presen- tation of patterns of authority in the Mexican-American family through a comparative review of the literature. In the first chapter I state the problem to which the presentation is directed, that of change and lack of change in authority relationships in the family in re- sponse to the changes in socioeconomic environment which occur when migration from rural agricultural or urban industrial communities takes place. Three major geo- graphical areas are chosen for the comparison--rural Mexico, the Southwest, and the Midwest. The first is taken as the cultural and ecological base line. The last two were chosen because they contain significant numbers of persons of Mexican descent. I also give a brief resume of some of the pertinent background to the problem. The second, third, and fourth chapters deal respectively with rural Mexico, the Southwest United Jane Bushong Haney States, and the Midwest United States. Both independent socioeconomic variables and dependent cultural ones are compared for the three areas. In the appendix I present a brief description of a Chi square analysis I attempted of the data available in the United States Census of POpulation, Special Report on persons with Spanish surname, 1960. The purpose was to compare rural and urban sectors of a controlled sample for further testing of the hypothesis. The fifth chapter presents my conclusions, namely that: (l) the greatest changes in ordering authority relationships within the family occurred between the two areas in which the greatest change in environment occurred, i.e., between rural Mexico and the Southwest; (2) such changes in authority that occurred between the areas where environmental differences were slight were basically intensifications of the changes encountered above; and (3) I suggest that conjugal ties strengthen and familial roles become less rigidly divided sexually in response to the pressures of learning a new culture. I also suggest that this may apply to interpersonal relationships between all nuclear family members, not just relations between husband and wife. AUTHORITY IN THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN FAMILY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BY Jane Bushong Haney A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Anthropology 1972 I"! A "" fl") ‘ l m \J ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the Mexican-American friends who helped me in interpreting some of the data. My thanks also are extended to the members of my committee: Dr. Joseph Spielberg, Chairman, and Dr. William Derman with- out whose patience and careful review of my work I could never have completed the work. My special thanks are for my husband, who has had to extend the most patience of all. ii Chapter I. II. III. Iv. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . The Problem. . . . . . . . Background of the Problem . . . . . . Studies of the Family . . . . . . . The Variables . . . . . . . . . . Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization . . . . . . . . . . MEXICAN ANTECEDENTS. . . . . . . . . History of Immigration . . . . . . . Donor Areas. . . . . . . . . . . Some Complications . . . . . . The Communities . . . . . . . . Patterns of Family Relationships. . . . Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . .' . . THE SOUTHWEST. . . . . . . . Mexican-Americans in the Southwest . . . Social Classes. . . . . . . . . . The Literature. . . . . . . The Independent Variables: Soci0* economic Setting . . . . . . . The Dependent Variables: Cultural Setting . . . . . . . . . . . Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . Authority in Each Dyad . . . . . . . THE MIDWEST O O O O O O I O O O 0 Introduction . . . . . . . . . Mexican Immigration Outside the Southwest. Literature Cited . . . . . . . . . The Independent Variables . . . . . . iii Page 25 25 30 33 35 36 56 58 6O 6O 65 68 69 78 97 98 103 103 103 111 112 Chapter Page The Dependent Variables . . . . . . 116 Conclusions of Analysis . . . . . . 130 The Dyads. . . . . . . . . . . 133 v. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. . . '. . . . 135 BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15]. APPENDIX A. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CENSUS DATA . 162 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Introduction Much anthrOpological literature has been devoted to studying social and cultural changes which occur when families migrate from rural to urban communities. To understand these changes it is necessary to study not only the specific cultural traits which are the results of change but also the processes of change. Social life con- sists of the actions and interactions of individuals or groups of human beings (Radcliffe-Brown l952:4). Pro- cesses of change in the form of social life include the pressures which induced the culture to adapt, the accept- ance or rejection of specific traits, and movement of the culture in a specific direction (Benedict 1934:47-49). The subjects of the present study are the Mexican- American people, who are represented in pOpular literature as people of rural agricultural background. This is not strictly the case; however, the earliest wave of immi- gration to the United States from Mexico in this century consisted largely of persons from small, rural communi- ties of the Central and Northern Plateaus who were mostly unskilled in any trade and had experience in farming (Gamio 1930; Humphrey 1948). These people had their counterparts in rural Mexico and the cultural attributes they possessed as recorded in the literature will serve as the base line of change for this study. I.e., the culture of the Mexican immigrant of the period from about 1910 through 1930 will be considered the traditional Mexican culture. There is some difficulty in defining the term "Mexican-American." The most often used approximation to the boundaries of the Mexican-American population is the term "Spanish—surname, which is used in the United States Census and involves a count of all persons in the control area with a Spanish last name. There are other persons in the United States with Spanish surnames, such as persons of Spanish descent, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Latin Americans, but most accept the Spanish-surname criterion as one which is in the Southwest mostly re- stricted to persons of Mexican descent (Penalosa 1967: 405; Heller l966:6). No such survey exists for states outside the Southwest, although the 1970 census is pur- ported to contain data on persons of Spanish surname for Standard MetrOpolitan Statistical Areas of high concen- tration of such persons outside the Southwest.1 A 1Personal communication in late 1971 from the United States Bureau of the Census. Reports were not available on Standard Metr0politan Statistical Areas Throughout this work I will refer to this pOpu- lation as "Mexican-Americans" and to the majority popu- lation of the United States as "Anglos" or "Anglo- Americans." The use of these terms is fairly standard- ized in the literature, especially that of recent years, and persons of Mexican descent themselves generally accept the term "Mexican-American" (Moore 1970:8).2 Three major geographical areas will be compared in this study, the first of which is rural Mexico, the base line. The second area is the first area settled by the Mexican immigrants who came in the early twentieth cen- tury. This is the area around the Mexico-United States border; primarily Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Cali- fornia. This area not only received the Mexican immi- grants in greatest concentration but also served as a "stOpping-off" place, especially Texas, for migration to other parts of the country. Colorado is included in the Southwest area because, (1) it was settled by Mexicans before it was settled by Anglo-Americans, (2) it still has a high concentration of persons with Spanish surname, and (3) it did receive many of the immigrants who are the subject of this inquiry. outside the Southwest at the time of presentation of this thesis. 2One relocated Texan Mexican- American woman pre- faces most statements to me about what her people do, think, or say, with "We Mexican-Americans. . . . The Midwest was chosen as the third area of study, or area "farther afield" in the United States for two reasons. (1) Little has been written about areas outside the Southwest and most of what is written is about the Midwest, not the East or far West; and (2) the university where this study was prepared is located in the Midwest therefore unpublished data on the Mexican-Americans of the surrounding area was available in the university library, and limitations of time and money made what first-hand observations went into the study necessarily restricted to this area. The Problem These three areas were chosen because I felt that comparison of the three should yield evidence to either support or disprove the following hypothesis.' Migration from rural agricultural to urban industrial areas will result in a breakdown of traditional familial authority. In the present study the traditional familial authority is based on ranking by sex and age. A corollary of this hypothesis is that changes in certain variables such as increased education, and employment of women and children, will lead to such a breakdown. "Migration" refers to, "a relatively permanent moving away of a collectivity called migrants, from one geographical location to an- other, preceded by decision making on the part of the migrants on the basis of a hierarchically ordered set of values or valued ends and resulting in changes in the interactional system of the migrants" (Mangalam l968:8). "Agricultural, rural habitat" refers to a way of life which involved small rural communities relying on farming or herding, and perhaps some gathering or hunting rounding out the economy. "Industrial, urban habitat" refers to a way of life in which the means to achieve sustenance is through wage labor, whether on large factory-farms, food- related industry, or other unrelated industry where the worker lives in communities of large population concen- tration and urban characteristics such as fire, police, social welfare, or educational services. "Authority" is legitimate decision making within a role hierarchy. The "ranking principles" of traditional Mexican authority relationships are (l) sex—-males have authority over females, and (2) age--elders have authority over younger persons. "Family" here refers to the nuclear family, or husband, wife, and their children. A "dependent variable" is a feature of the culture which changes or remains static in relation, positive or negative, to some other feature. In contrast, an "independent variable" is one which acts to compound or cause changes in other features. A decrease in importance in ordering family decision making of either the sex or age principles is expected because other studies of rural to urban mi- gration have found that such things as higher educational attainment, improved occupational status, change in household composition such as two generations only rather than three or more generations living under the same roof, and changes in adult marital status such as increased numbers of divorced or separated persons are found in concert with a decrease in traditional modes of ordering relationships. This situation is commonly referred to as a “breakdown" of the traditional family. A more complete listing of the variables studied in other analyses of change in authority or change in structuring of family relationships is presented under the heading "The Variables." Background of the Problem The area I refer to as "rural central Mexico" even in the 1960's was still primarily agricultural in economy and the residents depended on some form of agri- culture as their primary means of existence and resided in fairly small rural communities. After World War II, the vast majority of Mexican-Americans in the United States, both in the Southwest and the Midwest, were urban dwellers and dependent on wage labor for subsistence. What agri- cultural labor they performed was generally supplemented by paid industrial labor. The three areas offer a chance to compare data on variables that depend on the controlled variables: economy and urban or rural habitat. The urban industrial environments of the Southwest and the Midwest bear more resemblance to each other than they do to the rural agricultural environment of central Mexico from which the bulk of the immigrants of the early twentieth century came. It is reasonable to expect greater change in cultural configurations between the traditional culture and the first areas settled than between the first area and the subsequent areas settled as long as the environment of the traditional culture is different from that of the regions settled. Much of the industry in the Southwest depends upon agriculture such as bottling plants and packing houses whereas more heavy industries such as automobile plants and steel mills are located in the Midwest. The heavy industries might be expected to offer better occupational and economic opportunities and therefore better edu- cational Opportunities to the Mexican-American than can the milieu of the Southwest. This assumption would lead one to expect that Mexican-Americans of Midwestern or Northern cities would show cultural and social character- istics substantially different from Mexican-Americans residing in the Southwest. The results of one recent study of Mexican-Americans living in East Chicago, Indiana, showed that there was very little difference between the study group and their Southwestern counterparts and that, indeed, they fell within the range of experience of urban Mexican—Americans of the Southwest (Samora and Lamanna 1967zvi-vii). I stated that "family" will here be considered the nuclear family. There are two types of nuclear family; that of orientation, which includes ego's parents and siblings as well as ego; and that of procreation, which includes ego, his wife, and their children (Parsons 1943: 25). When I refer to "extended kin" I intend to include any person ego counts a relative who is not normally in- cluded in the nuclear family with which he presently re- sides. Authority here refers to legitimate superior- subordinate relationships and the right to make decisions. Ferdinand Tonnies proposed that some social relationships exist prior to individuals (natural will) while other social relationships are a result of an agreement among previously independent individuals (rational will). The gemeinschaft or natural will relationship may be superior- subordinate, equal, or mixed (respectively, father-child, siblings, and husband-wife) while the gesellschaft or rational will relationship is made only between peers (Heberle 1968:100). Since families are not composed of peers, relationships between family members must needs be through natural will in Tonnies's scheme. According to one account, authority has variously been defined as (l) the right of a person or office to issue orders, (2) a superior-subordinate relationship between two offices recognized as legitimate by both parties, or (3) a quality of a communication by virtue of which it is accepted (Peabody 1968:473). Authority, which is almost everywhere monopolized by men, involves the labelled, recognized, legitimized exercise of power. When women have and use power, in contrast, it tends to be unlabelled and often officially unrecognized is another definition of the concept (Lewin, 33 31. 1971: 2-3). Certain distinguishing features of the concept of authority do appear in most definitions: (1) authority, as Opposed to coercion and also persuasion, is legitimate, and (2) authority is commonly exercised within a hier- archy of roles, e.g., parent-child, employer-employee (Peabody 1968:474). Authority, then, is legitimate and takes place within a hierarchy of roles. The composition of the nuclear family as Richard Adams presents it in "An Inquiry into the Nature of the Family" may consist of paternal, maternal, and/or conjugal dyads (Adams 1960). Within each dyad is the possibility for a relationship of authority. The roles of each member of the dyad are defined by the culture in which they appear and sanction for authority or lack of authority within the dyad is given by that culture as well. 10 Studies of the Family One structural approach to studies of the human family which I find useful is the concept of dyads of relationship, explained above. According to Adams, there are three primary dyads in the group we call the nuclear family: (1) mother-child (maternal dyad), (2) father- child (paternal dyad), and (3) husband-wife (conjugal dyad) (Adams 1960). There is also a child-child dyad when there is more than one sibling.3 Adams considers these dyads, not the nuclear family, the basic units of kinship of which there are different possible combinations which may come about for maintenance of the community. Adams's thesis is that there are alternate ways in which basic kin units can be combined for community maintenance. The nuclear family occurs from time to time as the result of combining the roles of wife and mother (Adams 1960:41). Social organi- zation is flexible enough to permit different forms of the family group to exist together at any given time through possible combinations of the dyads. Raymond Smith studied one form of domestic organi- zation commonly known as the "matrifocal family,“ i.e., a woman and her dependent children. In this study he states that there is a sense in which it can be taken 3Adams does not discuss this possibility in his 1960 article. 11 for granted that the mother-child social relationship will be close due to the close biological relationship but this in itself does not explain the phenomenon of the mother- centered family--it is the way in which the male role is integrated into the family relationship and the way in which the mother-child relationship fits into the total structure that constitutes the problem (Smith 1956:224). Smith finds a correlation between low social status in a stratified society and the type of family system in which men seem to lack importance as authoritarian figures in domestic relations (Smith 1956:253). Smith finds there is a correlation between the nature of the husband-father role and the role of men in the economic system in British Guiana, suggesting that the low position of the Negro man in the class hierarchy limits him to low-paying jobs which require his absence from home much of the time just as the typical situation found in other "matrifocal" societies. Adams finds that in Central America the presence of woman household heads is definitely associated with the Ladino (non-Indian, or mixed) population, concentrated in certain regions, and more commonly associated with town dwellers than with the rural populace (Adams 1960:34) although he does not commit himself to an explanation he finds more acceptable than Smith's economic factors. 12 Nancie Gonzalez employs Adams's and Smith's con- cept of the "maternal dyad" in her study of Black Carib household structure. According to Gonzalez, the matri- focal family4 is limited in distribution throughout the world to "neoteric" societies whose traditional culture has been forcibly changed or dissolved through the inter- vention of forces from the "Western" world or to societies of mixed populations who have found themselves occupying a position between the two cultures from which they de- rived (Gonzalez l969:9-10). These societies with mother- centered household structure must be in a position of having to adapt to economic dependence on industriali- zation through migrant wage labor. Since they are not fully adapted to the industrial system they may appear to be "traditional,' but this is misleading. Gonalez stresses that "traditional" implies structural self-sufficiency supported by strong ideological sanctions while non- traditional societies do not provide such mechanisms and must constantly adapt to the new situations in which they find themselves (Gonzalez 1969:10). These are the societies Gonzalez calls neoteric. She states that in order to understand them one must study the conditions to 4Gonzalez calls such a family a "consanguineal family," defined as a coresidential cooperative group, ordinarily containing no married pairs, the core of which is made up of persons related to each other through con- sanguineal ties, especially a mother and her unmarried children (Gonzalez 1961:1273). 13 which they are adapted since they may not necessarily lose their traditional character immediately upon entrance into the industrial economy. Another fact Gonzalez would have us bear in mind is that the matrifocal household is never the only form in existence in a social system. There may be social and cultural pressures which may continue the adaptedness of the matrifocal household, especially in complex societies. Such institutions designed to take over partial functions of the family such as ”Aid to Dependent Children" cer- tainly make continuance of a residential grouping of only mother and child possible (Gonzalez 1969:138). The factors which Gonzalez finds necessary for appearance and con— tinuance of the matrifocal family system are: (1) mi- grant wage labor, (2) a "neoteric" quality, and (3) a preponderance of adult females over adult males (Gonzalez 1969:140), which brings me to a consideration of socio— cultural variables utilized in the present comparative study. The Variables Not only the above cited studies of change in authority in the family but also studies on rural to urban migration and on the "culture of poverty" provided me with guidelines to study in attempting to pinpoint changes in family authority. I had originally thought it would be possible to compare concrete examples of l4 decision making in each dyadic relationship in the nuclear family as they were represented for the three major geo- graphic areas. Little data of this type has been pub- lished, however, and I was forced to rely more on vari- ables that have undergone changes which would lead me to suspect that some change in an interpersonal relationship in a given family might occur. For example, it may be that women traditionally do not work outside the home or for wages even at home as in "cottage industry." In the new situation these women not only can but do hold jobs with salaries commensurate with the wages of male co- workers and may in some instances make more substantial incomes than their husbands. In such cases I would ex- pect the wife to have some say in major purchases, edu- cational pursuits, holiday plans, and other joint ventures as the husband is not the principle wage-earner and cannot stifle spending for the family by taking his paycheck out and spending it at the pool hall, for example. In an article in 1952, Oscar Lewis presented data to show how urbanization can be accomplished without breakdown or disorganization. He cited the following characteristics as evidence. There was family cohesive- ness; extended family ties increased in the city; there were fewer divorces and no abandoned mothers or children in his study; and there was much visiting back and forth with relatives in the donor village. Family authority 15 was not a consideration of the study but the variables chosen were quite similar to those utilized in studies of changing family authority, already cited. ~ """ Later, when Lewis had worked longer with the urban poor and had formulated the phrase "culture of poverty" and the attendant explanation of the universality of the culture of poverty, he listed the following among the characteristics of the urban poor he studied in Mexico City. These characteristics largely became my "dependent variables": low educational and literacy levelz/finem- ployment and underemployment, low wages, unskilled occu- \ pations, living in crowded quarters, relatively high Eincidence of the abandonment of mothers and children, trend toward mother-centered families, predominance of the nuclear family, and a belief in male superiority (Lewis l96l:xxvi-xxvii). He called these peOple marginal as they have low education and literacy levels, do not belong to labor unions, do not partake in social services such as "Social Security," etc. I selected these traits from among those listed because they bear a striking resemblance to those stressed in other studies. Recall that Gonzalez found that low-paid, migrant wage labor, marginality, and low occupational levels were important features in mother-dominated families. Mangalam (1968:2) discusses the development of the use of variables in understanding migration problems; l6 demographic variables such as age, sex, distance traveled, education, occupation and income as well as socio- psychological such as community identification, insti- tutional influence and motivation. Among the types of data Mangalam lists as necessary for the understanding of a migratory group are: (l) pOpulation characteristics (age, sex, etc.), (2) ecological factors, (3) historical time dimension, (4) technological base, (5) kinds of interaction, (6) socialization practices (education, family roles, etc.), (7) economy, and (8) amount of inte- gration into the new situation (Mangalaml968:15-l6). Miller and Swanson in composing a survey of six hundred mothers living in the Detroit area (not only Mexican—Americans) posed the broad generalization that industrial, "entrepreneurial" society had caused the breakdown of traditional authority in the family. In cases where the preindustrial family was patriarchal, i patrilineal, and patrilocal the pattern was most typically broken when methods of production became such that wives and children would participate almost on an equal basis with the husband/father (Miller and Swanson 1958:198). Schwarzweller used five control variables in a study of kinship involvement among Kentucky migrants: age, sex, level of schooling, social class, and length of residence outside the donor area (Schwarzweller 1967: 664). 17 The "independent variables" which will be compared in the three areas to see if in fact my assumption was correct that Mexican immigrants of the early twentieth century were rural, agricultural people for the most part and that they and their descendants in this country have become urban, industrial people are as follow. The vari- ables habitat and occupation were expressed for rural Mexico in this manner: economy—-the economy is based on agriculture; most households depend on agriculture in some form for their support; occupation-~not only are men in- volved in farming but also men must be away from home a lot as a requirement of the economy and technology; habitat--most people live in rural villages; and sex ratio-~sexual composition of the population is not skewed. The dependent variables were extrapolated from the data on rural central Mexico bearing in mind the types of variables which previous works had used either in analyzing rural to urban migration or in studying change in family structure and authority. The dependent variables, and statements of the dominant patterns found in the literature on rural Mexico are as follow. Marital status: marriage is the normal adult state; and divorce is not common; separ- ation is more common than divorce. Family size: many children are desired. Socialization: informal learning 18 in the home is stressed where proper roles can be taught the children, adolescence increases the double standard of social expectations for the sexes. Education: formal education is not valued as much as informal education. Division of labor: labor is rigidly divided along sex lines and sexes are segregated in many activities. Authority: increased age brings respect and age ranks relationships even among siblings; males have authority over females in the family; and eldest sons have author- ity which is second only to the father. Socioeconomic unit: the nuclear family is the basic economic unit. Pattern of residence: temporary patrilocality is common. Position of women: not only are they ideally subservient to male kin but also women are protected from non-family contacts. Extended family solidarity: relationships with close extended kin continue in importance through adulthood. Understanding the interplay of the social inter- actional system of the migrants and changes in such vari- ables may be exemplified by considering the variable "occupation": rural peOple who migrate to a city have to earn a living from an occupation found in the city once they have migrated and not by following their earlier rural occupations. A change in occupation alone is sufficient to bring about significant changes in the social interactions of the migrants (Mangalam 1968:10). l9 Mangalam (1968:14) stresses that migration is an adaptive process, whose major objective is maintaining the equili- brium of the social organization with a minimum of changes and at the same time providing members with ways to over- come their adjustment problems. The following represent the type changes I would anticipate in the dependent variables andiresultant changes in authority. An increase in the number of divorced or separated adults would indicate a weakening of the solidarity of the husband-wife relationship. This would mean that the relationship of authority in this dyad is disrupted. A numerical predominance of one sex over another in adult years would cause such problems as a need for marrying outside the cultural group or un- married adults might be staying with married relatives rather than forming their own households thereby possibly disrupting the normal decision-making processes in that household. A decrease in family size might allow more freedom and therefore more equality to the mother who would not be as occupied with child rearing. If children are not taught their expected roles at home they will adopt whatever expectations are presented to them in school, or through the communications media. If adoles- cents have knowledge of the new culture which their parents have not, the parents may become subordinate to their children in circumstances requiring a knowledge of 20 this new culture. Adolescent girls when given the freedom to date may become accustomed to some say in the decision- making process. They may also demand more equality in the husband-wife relationship when they marry. An increase in the amount of formal education may lead to occupational mobility, which in turn will introduce the person to new expectations common to the members of the new occupational group. Education may also give children some superiority over less-educated elders and help to overturn the im- portance of age ranking. A more equalitarian division of household labor coupled with a lessening of the division into males--out of the house, females--in the house would be conducive to council-type family decision making due to the equal participation of members in1:esource manage- ment. If temporary patrilocality followed by neolocality is no longer prevalent young couples will not only have to fend for themselves economically but will be more alone in making major decisions rather than having help from the husband's parents. Finally, a lessening of mutual aid, advice, and visiting with extended kin would nearly close some avenues of help in stressful situations. At the same time it might allow a chance for vertical mobility for the nuclear family due to the opportunity to make decisions regarding this smaller family unit with no regard to extended family needs. This would allow resources to be allotted to a smaller group. 21 Methods The primary method is comparative. Three large geographic areas with a high concentration of people of the same cultural background are compared. Two major time periods are compared-~the early twentieth century and the 1960's. These comparisons are of the historical and social background and of the variables which affect authority relationships in the family. These comparisons are really of functional classifications, as Goodenough points out, as most comparisons are (GoodenOugh 1970:120). Although the variables are listed in statement form in the manner they appear in rural Mexico, their functional equivalents as I perceive them in the literature are com- pared for the other areas. Historical background of the immigrants is given although complete histories for the three regions is not given. The historical background is given to put the socio-cultural variables compared into perspective. The variables were arrived at through content analysis of the literature.5 In this case I limited the analysis to observations about family relationships, decision making in the family, and any feature which I expected to have some bearing on such relationships (such as variables other authors had utilized as cited above) 5I followed the method of analysis set forth in Levi-Strauss's "The Structural Study of Myth" (Levi- Strauss 1963). 22 or which the author himself considered causative in that particular instance. These became the base line which I compared with similar statements about the variables for the Southwest and the Midwest. Most of the material came from books, pamphlets, articles, and unpublished dissertations. Case examples and background data was obtained from the literature; statistics from the census data and from other studies which had utilized the data (e.g., Heller 1966 and Grebler, Guzman, and Moore 1970). According to Mangalam (1968:2), demographers have long recognized the need to employ both case and statistical methods but actual migration studies seldom do both. The attempt to do so was not altogether successful in this case as I attempted to do statistical analysis on a very poorly defined sample, statistically speaking, and obtained negative results.6 However, simple comparison of the figures available in census data has yielded valuable insights to such studies as those cited above. Also, a small amount of interview and participant observation on my part yielded some interesting results which are included in Chapter V. This data was not col- , lected in a systematic manner but most of it was not directly solicited so I have reason to believe in its 6See Appendix A for an explanation of my chi square analysis of the census data. 23 veracity. I cannot say that it truly represents the pattern of culture of the Mexican-American population of the Midwest or even of this community. Organization There are three chapters, one devoted to each of the three large areas to be compared, i.e., rural Mexico, the Southwest, and the Midwest. Each begins with a section on the background of the area in question with special stress on the time of the largest waves of Mexican immi- gration to the United States, 1910-1930. Mexico's his- tory, either pre- or post-Columbian, is not given although this history is certainly very important in understanding cultural features, as such a history would consume con- siderable time and space. Instead, the era 1910-1930 is taken as the historical base. The first of these three chapters deals with rural Mexico. This chapter presents the culture which serves as the base line for change in my comparative study. The Southwest and the Midwest are compared with the base line. The analysis is primarily intuitive. The data is complex, diverse, and does not lend itself to easy comparison. The population under consideration is very heterogeneous, there are vast difference in style and type of information available in the literature, and the limitations of time and money made first-hand study 24 of the Southwest and Mexican populations impossible, and severely limited the amount of such study in the Midwest. The comparison is necessarily somewhat sketchy since con- siderably different methods were used in the original research which I am comparing. CHAPTER II MEXICAN ANTECEDENTS History of Immigration Historical tracts and folklore indicate that there had been significant migrations of people from Mexico across the border to the United States long before these movements were controlled or formally recorded. No records at all were kept from 1886 to 1893 and for some years thereafter the statistics of migration were esti- mations. The first recorded waves of legal immigrants from Mexico occurred in 1909 and 1910 at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Total immigration to the United States had sharply decreased but Mexican immigration gathered momentum during the 1920's. The migrants were of many varieties--there were permanent legal immigrants, there were those who came for temporary employment but managed to stay, there were commuters, and there were the workers who came and went with the seasons following the crops (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:62-63).7 7The following introduction to Mexican immi- gration data is primarily from this source. 25 26 With the onset of World War I, the "push" outward of the Mexican Revolution which freed masses of people from social and geographic immobility in Mexico combined with the "pull" of American shortage Of domestic labor, and the rush of immigration was on. According to one source, apprehension in the United States about the volume of Mexican immigrants--nearly 500,000 on permanent visas during the '20's--were matched by Mexico's fears that she was losing too many of her ambitious peOple (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:65). The quota system began to be enforced for Mexicans as well as other immigrants but the proportion of immigrants from Mexico reached very high levels in spite of increased cost and difficulty of arranging a permanent relocation. As economic conditions became unstable in the United States with the onslaught of the depression of the '30's, Mexican immigration dropped sharply. Not only were less Mexicans migrating but also there were forced emigrations, known as "repatriations," of persons of Mexican parentage due in large part to the fear of their American neighbors that they were taking jobs and money the Americans should be getting (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:66). Also during this period Mexicans volun- tarily returned to their homeland probably because they were unable to improve their economic position in the United States. 27 There was once again a demand for labor in the United States with the beginning of World War II but Mexican immigrants were slow in responding. Mexico was herself enjoying more prosperity and Sheliad need of workers as the demand for some of her products grew on the world market (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:67). It was during this time (in 1942) that the bracero pro- gram was instituted, which was considered a war-emergency measure to provide government control of recruitment of temporary laborers, but which was continued until 1964 (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:67). Temporary and permanent migrations again increased significantly during the early 1950's. After World War II, the United States State Department wanted to terminate the bracero program but powerful farm lobbies persuaded Congress to enact Public Law 78 in 1951. This law enabled temporary seasonal workers to continue crossing the border (Samora 1971:19). The level of permanent immigrant totals kept 'rising steadily until 1963 when the requirement that a prospective immigrant have a certified job to go to--one that was permanent, legitimate, and could not be filled by local labor-~was adopted. Legal immigration experi- enced a sharp drop in 1964 and has levelled off since that time to an annual average of about 44,000 up until 1968 (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:69). In the years 28 1954-1964 Mexico provided more permanent-visa immigrants to the United States than any other country. 1965 saw a new ceiling placed on the number of Western Hemisphere nationals acceptable for immigration, and this plus the previously mentioned legislation of 1963 (job certifi- cation) was undoubtedly the cause of the levelling off of permanent immigrants in the late '60's (Grebler 1966: 1-34). With World War II and the great consequent demand for labor, illegal as well as legal immigrants increased greatly (Samora 1971:Appendix II). The largest number of illegal Mexican aliens ever apprehended were found and deported in 1954, shortly after which “Operation Wetback" was begun to systematically control illegal immigration (Samora 197l:8). With the curtailment of the bracero program in 1964, a great increase in the number of illegal aliens began again (Samora 1971:Appendix II). The immigrants first settled in the states along the border between the two countries, with Texas receiv- ing a vast number of immigrants due in part to its exten- sive mutual border with Mexico. From their base in the southwestern border states the immigrants began to Spread to adjoining states where the railroads and corn and cotton harvests offered opportunities for employment. After a few had migrated to areas outside the Southwest, the word spread and immigrants came to the Midwest and 29 other non-border areas directly from central Mexico (Gamio 1930:24-26; McWilliams 1949:184). A very simplified statement of the history of Mexican immigration to the United States drawn from the sources already cited might read something like the following. The early period of the Mexican Revolution provided the stimulus for persons to leave their native land, going north to a country whose large-scale farming and expanding industries could provide employment at sub- stantially higher wages than the Mexican economy could offer. The earlier adventurers were mostly young men looking for an economic start, who sent home for wives and children and encouraged friends and relatives to come to the same areas to seek a better life. These earliest settlements were generally close to the border and due to this proximity continued to attract more and more immi— grants forming communities of Mexican descent people in most of the cities of the southwestern United States as well as scattered towns that were born as railroad workers' or migrant laborers' camps. As the population in the early areas grew, industries and large-scale farming in more far-flung sectors began to encourage immigration of "cheap" Mexican laborers until there became scattered settlements of Mexican immigrants throughout the United States--for example, railroads and sugar beets brought the Mexican into the Midwest so that by the mid-'60's 30 the leapfrogging of immigrants into the Midwest and even the far West bypassing the border states was common. At the same time Mexican communities in the border states continued to grow as industry, especially agriculture- related industry, increased job opportunities for the immigrant. Donor Areas The 1970 Mexican-American Study Project at Uni- versity of California, Los Angeles, indicates that little is known of the location of the original home area of the immigrants; Mexican observers state that the more recent immigrants include quite a large prOportion of urban people as Opposed to earlier predominantly rural immi- grants and more of these seem to have come from the border states than previously (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970: 73). However, the earliest recorded immigrants came pri- marily from the central plateau of Mexico and secondarily from the border states (Grebler 1966:45). A good early investigation was carried out by Manuel Gamio, who had access to the records of money-orders sent from the United States presumably to relatives in the home areas of Mexico by Mexican immigrants from July and August 1926 and January and February 1927. The greatest number went to areas in the mesa central (central plateau) and a lesser number to the mesa del norte (northern plateau); the states with the greatest concentration of money order 31 receipts being Michoacén, Guanajuato, and Jalisco, with Nuevo LeOn, Durango, Distrito Federal, Zacatecas, and Coahuila following. States in the central plateau enjoy temperatures, altitude, and rainfall Which are ideal for growing crops and have always been quite heavily pOpu- lated by agricultural peOple (e.g., Jalisco, Guanajuato) but the excess poor laborers have had to emigrate periodi- cally to sustain themselves (Gamio 1930:3-23). In more recent years the states near the Mexico- United States border have had more emigrants to the north than in the earlier days of Mexican immigration. Recently, Chihuahua was the state of birth of 91 percent of a selection of almost 500 illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States and the state contributing the second larg- est number of such aliens was Durango (Samora 1971:92). In all the recorded periods of immigration, Mexican immigrants were largely confined to farm and unskilled industrial laborers and few were occupied in professional, technical, or even clerical trades. There was a disproportionately large number of male immigrants of fairly low age compared to older and female categories up until World War II, when women became more repre- sented in the total level of immigration (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:45, 77). In the farm and unskilled industrial labor force many men were accustomed to being away from home a lot. 32 The reasons for this were varied--work might be in fields outside the village, on distant haciendas, in a nearby or even distant city, or even require emigration to the United States. Regardless of the reaSons, the male has always been physically absent from the home much of the time (Lewis 1949:604). Since the history of Mexican immigration is diverse, consists of many elements of a total population, and has been extended through time it is necessary to arbitrarily establish a cut-off point when discussing characteristics of the donor population. I will use Gamio's 1930 study as a chronological base line, since just before that time was the first great wave of mi- grants from Mexico. The home areas of the donor population are rural, agricultural communities of central and northern Mexico. Several early ethnographies of representative communi- ties will be compared as well as some classical ethno- graphies from rural areas a little to the south, and some recent studies from central Mexico which include excellent discussions of relationships between family members will be compared with the studies of contemporaries of Gamio. The net result of these comparisons will be established as the base line of change for patterns of authority in the Mexican-American family. 33 Some Complications Just as there is no sure way of establishing an area of origin for the majority of immigrants so there is no way to establish their reasons for emigrating. The Mexican immigrants came to the United States for a variety of reasons but the earliest, according to Gamio, came to escape the disorders of the Revolution, to work for enough to eat, and possibly for a little excitement (Gamio 1931: 1-6). These reasons correspond well with a recently stated view that the "Latin American" view of work is not that work is an end in itself but rather it is a means to achieve necessities and some of the pleasures of life (Haddox 1970:24-25). The promise of sufficient employ- ment, the pull of industry in the cities and the decreas- ing returns of agricultural work are major reasons for the immigration. The country and culture they left is a very com— plex one and therefore statements such as "Mexicans did this . . . " or "Mexicans though that . . . " are suspect. Mexico was culturally the collective experiences of many past indigenous nations at the time of the Spanish con- quest, and since then she has had not only indigenous cultural features but also the experiences of the medieval Spanish culture to draw upon (de Anda 1969:43-44; Ramos 1962:36). 34 Recognizing the cOmplicated historical and cul- tural background of the immigrants and granting that the primary reason for their immigration was economic we can proceed to explore some ethnographies from the early twentieth century of rural, primarily agricultural com- munities in central Mexico. Those communities to be com- pared are Tepoztlan, Morelos (Redfield 1930; Lewis 1949, 1951, and 1970), an agricultural village located in a pocket between mountainous peaks at the edge of the east- ern escarpment of the central plateau; Mitla, Oaxaca (Parsons 1936), a trading town which used to be part of the Aztec empire, located south of the "key" area; Tecolotlan, Jalisco (Humphrey 1948), a town which was becoming industrialized at the time of the study; and Cheran, Michoacan (Beals 1944), the largest mountain Tarascan village and quite isolated until about 1937 when a highway was built linking Guadalajara and Mexico City bringing in outsiders. Several general studies will also be used--Covarrubias's extensive coverage of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Covarrubias 1947), which is south of Vera Cruz; Whetten's classic review of all of rural Mexico (Whetten 1948), and other general references (Holmes 1952; Shontz 1927; and Woods 1956). Nutini recently did a review of the literature on Mesoamerica and found it quite lacking in data on social organization (Nutini 1967:383). His analysis of the data was very helpful. 35 The Communities The communities cited are in the more heavily populated rural states of Mexico. A large prOportion of the inhabitants live in small rural villages and make a living from agriculture. Farmers tend to form such villages rather than living on isolated farms and travel back and forth to their fields. In this manner they have mutual protection and aid. Such rural communities are apt to have 5,000 to 10,000 peOple before they begin to take on the urban aspects of communities of 2500 in the United States (Beals 1944 and Whetten 1948). At the time of these studies done in the '20's through the early '40's the communities were primarily agricultural-~i.e., most of the residents made their living by farming. It is at this point that more recent studies of rural communities in similar areas of Mexico must enter the picture. At the time of these later studies--the '50's and '60's--the major economic focus of the towns was also farming. These communities are in the mesa central as are the studies contemporaneous with Gamio's information from the money order receipts, they are rural communities, and agriculture is the mainstay of their economy. I felt that I could make a useful comparison between the data on relationships between family members in the early studies and those in the later 'studies since they do have rurality, location, and economy in common. 36 These later ethnographies are of the following communities: Ihuatzio, Michoacén, a village near Lake Pétzcuaro of descendants of the Lake Tarascans (Van Zantwijk 1967); San Francisco Tecospa, Distrito Federal, a village of Aztec descent (Madsen 1960); and Tonalé, Jalisco, a town of peasants and potters (Diaz 1966). Also included is a study of legitimacy which compared rural areas of Mexico with California Mexican-Americans (Borah and Cook 1966). In the following pages behavior of family members as recorded by the observing social scientists will be analyzed for content in the manner described in the section on methodology in Chapter I. The correlation of observations among the studies of different villages at different times was quite high, but all dissenting com- ments and observations are duly noted. From these gross statements of behavior are extrapolated some general patterns that I find to be present in these studies of rural Mexico. These patterns are based on sociocultural variables which will serve in concert with the attendant observations as the base line of change. Patterns of Familnyelationships Marital Status and Family Size Marriage is the normal state for adults and children are expected and desired. Unmarried adults 37 except for widows and widowers are very rare (Beals 1944: 177) and the married pair as part of the Spanish cultural heritage was the legal unit (Borah and Cook 1966:959). Widows and widowers tend to remarry.j Children are de- sired for continuance of the family for a supply of labor and social security (Shontz 1927:74; Lewis 1951: 353; Parsons 1936:71; and Humphrey 1948:252). In most of the communities large families are the ideal, however, due to disease, etc. this ideal may not be achieved. Birth control and abortion are primarily Opposed by men (Lewis 1951:290, 353—354) or quite unknown by both men and women (Covarrubias 1947:329), and in some cases the ethnographer knew that abortion or birth control was practiced but was not accepted and statistics as to its frequency were unknown (e.g., Beals 1944:164). Infants are given much affection and this close relationship generally continues between parents and the same sex child. Infants are held constantly by both parents and the relationship is only weakened when a new infant is born (Beals 1944:172). Whether or not divorce is traditionally common is debatable, but at any rate the anthropologists involved in the studies I have compared indicate that at the time of their fieldwork, divorce was not a commonly accepted practice in these villages. It was difficult to obtain a legal divorce--a man might divorce his wife for 38 sterility, poor housekeeping, or infidelity (Madsen 1960: 13; Humphrey 1948:252). A woman might theoretically get a divorce if her husband was unfaithful but in practice it was not common, as also a wife could get a divorce from a man who was cruel, did not support his family, was a chronic drunk, or was unfaithful or abandoned her (Beals 1944:192; Madsen 1960:13; and Parsons 1936:115). Cases of actual divorce or statistics of divorce were not reported, but the general impression was that it was in fact diffi- cult to obtain a divorce no matter what the grounds. It may be as Borah and Cook (1966:953) indicate, that in some areas divorce in pre-Christian Mexico had been rather common; but with the Spanish conquest came a heritage of Roman law in most areas except divorce, in which case the Catholic church's denial of divorce prevailed. The Spanish upper class at this time held the ideal of the chaste and obedient woman and the man with great sexual powers over women (Borah and Cook 1966:949, 960). Apparently even this tentative suggestion that divorce was not generally accepted in rural Mexico was either not a clearly established pattern or was changing in the younger generations, where at least informal separations were occurring at the time of some early fieldwork (Parsons 1936:116). 39 Extended Family Solidarity Although the mother has primary socialization responsibilities for the child, other close relatives help and much visiting, mutual aid, and collective discipline of young children occurs among siblings and other very close relatives. Nearly.any elder person in the household may reward or punish a child (Diaz 1966: 72-73). The kinship terminology reflects the closeness of the relationships--in daily use a child may call any older women and men "aunt" and "uncle" regardless of the degree of relationship; grandfathers may even infrequently be called "papa" and grandmothers "mother" (Diaz 1966:73; Parsons 1936:70). Socialization and Education As children get older, their parent of the same sex instructs them in the prOper activities for their sex and the teacher-pupil role keeps the parent-child relationship close (Diaz 1966:81). As the child reaches puberty and is learning actual adult activities the tie remains close (Beals 1944:174); but in the case of daughters, who generally move to theliusband's home at marriage, the relationship may be nearly discontinued unless the daughter returns home widowed, etc. (Lewis 1951:343); or marriage may have utterly no effect on the close mother-daughter bond (Diaz 1966:81). Children learn to work very young and are taught sex-related labor 40 and roles at home. Children are taught to work extremely early and learn to be independent (Madsen 1960:88; Covarrubias 1947:339; Beals 1944:173). Girls are taught by their mothers to do women's work-4i.e., jobs about the household and concerning goods, clothing, and children (e.g., making tortillas, weaving, spinning, grinding maize, cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, grinding coffee, caring for younger siblings, and going to the mill (Madsen 1960:12, 88; Lewis 1951:396; Beals 1944:194; and Redfield 1930:139). Boys are taught to do men's work by their fathers and in farming communities this is pri- marily learning the particular tasks of farming and tend- ing livestock (Madsen 1960:88, 90; Lewis 1951:338, 398; and Beals 1944:174, 176). At least in some cases learning of tasks by sex is so strict that solteros have a diffi- cult time—-a single man would not know how to cook and would have to rely on female relatives for food and single women who had fields would have to get them cultivated by male relatives (Beals 1944:190). At adolescence girls are more restricted than as children while boys gain even more freedom. By fifteen, boys are doing serious work on the farm. This brings improved status in the family since he is now nearly adult, and he gets more authority over younger siblings and is allotted a larger share of food, clothes, and money. In some cases youths would not be consulted in 41 family affairs unless they are quite old and single, or married (Beals 1944:176; Lewis 1951:398). It is at this time that the "street gangs" develop--young men stay away from home with other males their own age, gathering wherever in the village there is to gather and may not even take their meals at home (Beals 1944:174; Covarrubias 1947:280). Girls are generally punished more than boys and this discrepancy increases as they get older (Lewis 1951:334; Whetten 1948:395). Girls are usually kept at home even if boys attend school (Beals 1944:173; Lewis 1951:396) although school attendance by boys in some cases was recorded as being "sissy" (e.g., Lewis 1951:395). There is no clear transition between childhood and adulthood for girls as they may take over household tasks by about fifteen and may even marry by that age (Beals 1944:176; Madsen 1960: 88). Pattern of Residence and Socioeconomic Unit Ideally, newlyweds live with the husband's family until the first child is born, or at least for the first year and then establish a separate home (Beals 1944: 192; Diaz 1966:50, 67; Parsons 1936:66; VanZantwijk 1967: 74). They may establish residence on part of the paternal household plot. The nuclear family is generally the basic economic unit even when patrilocal residence 42 prevails (Diaz 1966:70). Several brothers with their wives and children may live on together after the death of older parents (Parsons 1936:66) or even regularly in the same compound as a joint family With the purse con- trolled by an old father and decisions settled by common consultation, although this is uncommon (Beals 1944:193). In some cases a widow continues living in her deceased husband's home until she remarries (Parsons 1936:67), and in others she will return to her own parents' home. The only case reported which does not exactly conform is Covarrubias's statement that the family consists normally of husband, wife, sons, and daughters, a grandparent from either side, and maybe a widowed aunt (Covarrubias 1947: 266). Covarrubias's data is on the Zapotec people of Tehuantepec, which is south and east of the central plateau and farther from the focal areas than even Mitla, the site of Parson's study, so this discrepancy may be regional or a feature of only Zapotec culture. Temporary patrilocality followed by neolocal residence appears to be the preferred residence pattern in the central areas. Familial Authority: Ranking Relationships between siblings are ranked by age and sex. It was found that siblings of the same sex associate more frequently than those of opposite sex (Lewis 1951:344) and male siblings have authority over 43 their sisters (Lewis 1951:344; Diaz 1966:83). Even in some cases the kinship terminology reflects differences between the sexes on the sibling level--e.g., in Mitla there were separate terms used between brothers and be- tween sisters and one brother-sister reciprocal as well (Parsons 1936:70). Older siblings are entrusted with the care of younger siblings and the older are expected to be more responsible; siblings even of the same sex are ranked according to age so they do not normally form alliances (Lewis 1951:343; Diaz l966:83).8 And yet relationships between siblings are closer than between less near rela- tives and for example financial aid in Cheran would only be given by an adult to his brother or sister (Beals 1944:101). The mother-son dyad is marked by close, affective ties and avoidance of much intimacy. The father-daughter relationship is marked by mutual respect and avoidance of intimate subjects or actions (Lewis 1951:343). The mother-child relationship is the strongest with great stress on the mother-son relationship (Lewis 1951:343). One ethnographer indicates that this goes so far that boys consider their mothers above sin and sex and mothers protect their sons above anyone else (Diaz 1966:79). 8This is in conformity with data on oldest sons and daughters. Eldest brothers are so much figures of authority that one would not let an elder brother know of a personal disgrace. 44 Daughters generally show affection for their fathers by serving them and the father shows affection for the daugh- ter by financially indulging the daughter (Diaz 1966:81, 83). There are respectful relations between the wife's parents and the son-in-law (Lewis 1951:349) but the daughter-in-law becomes the person of lowest status in the husband's family hierarchy (Diaz 1966:81; Beals 1944: 192). She is under the thumb of her mother-in-law and must perform all the tasks the mother-in-law assigns and serve the family. However, one study suggests that daughters-in-law in fact seem to get very similar treat- ment to that received by daughters, who also act as ser- vants to the family (Beals 1944:192). There are mutual respect relations between parents of a husband and wife but no obligations between them (Lewis 1951:349). Children must honor and respect their parents and other ascendants (Lewis 1951:411). It has already been stated that older siblings are in a position of authority in respect to younger siblings, and one case study of a family indicated that the husband not only had dominance over his wife due to his sex but also due to the fact that he was older than she (Lewis 1959:279). Children may be disinherited if they do not give aid and respect to aged parents; old people with dutiful children live well and the only unhappy old peOple were women without 45 children or husbands who existed with no real means of support (Beals 1944:101, 201). In Mitla respectful titles are prefixed to the personal name for persons of middle age (dag, meaning father, and nana——mother) and older men are called grandfather (Parsons 1936:83). Kinship terms reflect the stress on age or generational differences as well as sex differences. Although Beals (1944:100) reports that Spanish kinship terms which were absolutely bilateral and showed no age distinctions were employed in Cheran, most of the other studies indicate some stress on generation or age by the kinship terms. For example, in Mitla the typical Spanish bilateral terminology is used with the exception of ego's generation. In this generation sex differences are indi- cated by one term used between brothers, another between Sisters, and a brother-sister reciprocal term--but these terms are also applied to cousins (Parsons 1936:70). 4v Holmes (1952:98) found throughout Latin America that regardless of the type kinShip system, in behavior and in kinship terminology differences based on age pre- dominate and this is borne out by the fact that the use of the same term for cousins and siblings is common and relations between cousins are often quite like sibling relations with mutual aid and vising, children playing together, etc. (Holmes 1952:98; Parsons 1936:68; Lewis 1951:346). Respect is shown by children for parents by 46 using "usted" while parents use "tu" in referring to children; likewise a young wife may call an older husband "usted" while she is called "tu"--both of these pronoun usages reflect the superordinate-subOrdinate relationship between the kin so named (Lewis 1951:298). The tu-tu pronoun set is used between most husbands and wives, sweethearts, same age children, and older close age- mates to show equality (Lewis 1951:299). Although the kinship system is variously defined as "bilateral" or "like ours" (Holmes 1952:100-101) the male line seems to receive more stress than the female line, that is, there is a trend towards patrilineality (inheritance through the male line), and as already mentioned, patrilocality (residence with the husband's family). Holmes reported that there was a trend toward patrilineality throughout Latin America as evidenced by the following facts: (1) there were no cases in which there was a clear tendency toward matrilineality--all Latin American systems were either bilateral or patri- lineal--and (2) relatives beyond second or third gener- ation are usually not recalled but those on the father's side are more apt to be recalled than those on the mother's side (Holmes 1952:100-101). VanZantwijk (1967: 76) states that in Ihuatzio there were indeed fifty clear patrilineages in the population. 47 If properties are small, sons are apt to get the entire lot rather than dividing it between a son and daughter (Beals 1944:90); and the pattern of residence tends to make daughters the ones absent from the home when parents die as they live with their husband's family; and only those children living at home inherit property (Parsons 1936:67). Boys seem to be generally more favored as a birth choice than girls (Lewis 1951:345; Madsen 1960:73). A child may be considered an orphan if his father has died or left his mother, even if the mother is still living (Beals 1944:173), and rights to make decisions regarding a child who has lost both parents were ideally to go first to the father's father, then the mother's father, then the father's mother, then the mother's mother, etc. (Shontz 1927:75-76). In the ancient Tarascan empire, occupations as well as property were hereditary in the male line (VanZantwijk 1967:46). These preferences seem to indicate a skew of the bilateral system towards stress on the male line. The eldest son has a favored position in the family and once he has reached responsible age where he can work he is second only to the father in authority. When the father gets aged the eldest son will handle any family treasury and act as family head (Beals 1944:90). Land and property generally passes from the father to the 48 oldest son (Covarrubias 1947:286; Madsen 1960:14). The oldest brother may discipline younger siblings when the father is absent even when a child (Lewis 1951:343), and there is such respect demanded for an oldest brother that a man in trouble is more apt to ask assistance from a compadre than an older brother (Whetten 1948:398), and a boy's older brother will never be in his "gang" because he could never relax in the presence of such a respect- demanding figure as his older brother. This last con- tinues into adulthood and results in groups of friends who are age—graded (Diaz 1966:47, 52). Position of Women Women ideally are to be chaste and pure--to this end they are protected and sheltered from all influences outside the home. In actual practice, girls receive more punishment during childhood than boys and with adolescence their movements are confined while boys gain more freedom (Lewis 1951:395; Humphrey 1948:253). A father may demand his daughter leave home if she does not remain chaste (Lewis 1951:339). The civil code (1927 translation) stated that a woman under thirty years of age could not leave home without parental permission except to marry, so even if this rigid standard was not kept it may have been the ideal (Shontz 1927:76). Fathers were protective and jealous of their wives and daughters in Tecolatlan (Humphrey 1948:252) and such protection from outside 49 influences must have been more than just ideal as one of the immigrants Gamio interviewed9 was working in the United States as a dance hall girl because she had no job skills and she felt that it was acceptable there but would not be at all respectable at home [in Mexico]. Actual behavior apparently varied widely--all the way from a male informant stating that women do not think and men have to do it for them and beat them if they are nOt submissive (Parsons 1936:112) to the report that women use strong language, are very frank, and are socially and economically independent (Covarrubias 1947: 339). The male anthropologists found it difficult to get to talk to women inside the home if the husbands were not home: this was a phenomenon commonly reported (Beals 1944:3; Diaz 1966:47; and VanZantwijk 1967:74). Division of Labor The roles within the family of father and mother were strictly defined as to sexual division of labor and masculine superiority. The father is to be the bread- winner or primary wage-earner (Humphrey 1948:252), is not to be bothered about petty details of day-to-day life in the household, may do major household repairs but not simple housework, inflicts punishments on the children for their most serious offenses (Lewis 1951:334), and 9E1isia Silva (Gamio 1931:159). 50 spends most of his time outside the household in his fields or doing other similar work (e.g., clearing brush, building household buildings, doing irrigation and road work, tend- ing livestock, hunting, fishing). The mother, in contrast, spends most of her time inside the house. She has primary responsibility for the care and conduct of the children and even does the day-t0- day discipline of them; although the husband generally earns the money, wives hold it and do most daily buying; the mother prepares all food for the family, grinds corn or goes to the mill, sews and mends and irons clothing for the family, does the marketing; in some cases going to church seems to be closely linked with the wife's role (Woods 1956:236). Women are reported to seldom work in the fields, but one report indicated that the roles of husband and wife varied according to the socioeconomic position of the family--that in a peasant family the women might work in the fields with her husband and he might help with heavy chores around the house (Whetten 1948:39). The sexual division of labor that was roughly women--house, men--out-of—house was borne out in some places in the marketplace in that foods and things pre- pared in the home were sold by women but herbs, pulque, etc. were sold by men (Beals 1944:83). In other places women did all the transacting and men knew little of 51 the prices, etc. (Covarrubias 1947:274; VanZantwijk 1967: 74). Madsen (1960:10, 81) indicated that ancient Aztecs buried a newborn girl child's unbilical cord in the hearth and a boy's in the battlefield and that at the time of his study the practice continued in that a girl's would be placed under the metate and the boy's under a maguey palm so they would learn their respective roles of housewife and farmer. The ideal place for women was definitely the home: one informant told Gamio (1931:61) that woman " . was made for the home and for nothing more than that." Boys and girls are recorded as not playing or going about together by Humphrey (1948:253), Parsons (1936:93), Whetten (1948:393), and Lewis (1951:291) but Beals reported that in Cheran boys and girls played to- gether a lot until they were about eight or ten. In most cases, it appears that ideally boys and girls are to be kept separate in work and play situations (VanZantwijk 1967:75). A good example of this is the widespread oppo- sition that greeted coeducational classes in the federal elementary schools that were instituted in the rural areas after the Revolution (Parsons 1936:93). Indeed, in 1942 when Véjar Vasquez was Secretary of Public Edu- cation, an admitted reactionary, a law was passed banning coeducational classes and providing that boys' classes be taught by men and girls' classes by women so that 52 children would learn the roles prOper to their sexes (Whetten 1948:393-394)! Upon divorce, the Civil Code (1927 translation) provided that male children greater than three years of age should be given in custody to the father, female children of this age to the mother, and all children under three to the mother (Shontz 1927:75). Familial Authority: Decision Making Respect for the father of the family is indi- cated by not bothering him with household details; not drinking, smoking or swearing in his presence; children not touching him; by honoring him even when grown by not building a better house or trying to live better than him; or by not fighting or discussing sex or intimate subjects in his presence. Any or all of these are found singly or in combination in the studies. One study also suggests that part of the reason the father must be accorded such respect is that the whole family's social position is determined by that of the father (Diaz 1966: 102). Another indication of respect is that in most cases the father is served meals before any other family member, then sons, and the women eat last showing respect for the men. The only case where it was reported that the whole family sits together was in one study of Tepoztlan, where if a male guest was present he and the 53 father ate together while the wife served but the family normally sat together for meals (Redfield 1930:86). Familial authority may take many forms, all the way from the father making all even minor decisions up to the mother actually controlling major decisions. For example, one of Lewis's (1959:282, 284) informants in Tepoztlan gave minute daily instructions to all the members of his family controlling their movements and even controlling all the money for the family-~he went so far as to even purchase clothing for his wife and daughter without ever consulting them. Another informant had the final say in major decisions such as the type education most benefitted the eldest son, major household pur- chases, whether to sell the produce to certain people, etc., but his wife made the day-to-day decisions for the family and did the daily purchasing. Lewis suggested that as the latter informant was older than his wife, had a relatively high economic status, and lived with his mother he found it fairly easy to keep the traditionally expected male dominance; but the former man was away from home much of the time, was very poor, and lived away from his parents and therefore had to prove his control of the family constantly. Control of the family earnings seems to be a fairly good indicator of the seat of decision-making power. In some cases, the father may even ask advice of 54 his own father before making such a major eXpenditure as rent or purchase of land, supplying pottery or other goods to a buyer, or emigrating to a new area for a chance of increased economic status (Diaz 1966:70; VanZantwijk 1967:74; and Whetten 1948:396). One study indicated that though the father had ultimate authority, in daily prac- tice he generally controlled his sons and let the wife carry responsibility for daughters and daughters—in-law (VanZantwijk 1967:74). The father's control over the sons may or may not extend after the latter's marriages-- Parsons indicated that sons were absolutely controlled by their fathers as long as they were members of the paternal household; they received food and clothing from the family but all earnings went to the father for dis- persal; but when a son left the paternal household he might be given a piece of land or he might work for some- one else and no matter where he went he ceased to be under his father's control anymore (Parsons 1936:67). Even single men become independent decision makers when they leave the parental roof. For our purpose of establishing a base line for change we will assume from the data cited that in the family of residence; be it nuclear family of orientation, nuclear family of procreation, or nuclear family with extensions the father has ultimate say in more important decisions and behavior will differ in different families 55 and under different circumstances. If an elderly paternal grandfather lives with or near the family he may be con- sulted; a son's subservience to his father will probably nearly cease when he moves out of the former's home and establishes his own home for the simple reason that he is now head of his own family. When several generations may be involved in the decision-making process is when several generations are living together such as when newlyweds are staying with the paternal family or have established a home on the paternal land. Wives apparently have a great deal of say in day-to-day affairs and may even have power to influence major decisions but their decisions are generally subject to approval by the husband. Behavior ranges all the way from the ideal stated in the civil code10 to the possi- bility that a wife may actually be the informal leader of the family even if the father is the formal leader because she may manipulate decisions in the direction she chooses (Diaz 1966:88). Financial responsibilities re- ported fall along a wide range of variation as well. This variation ranges from not only family finances but also movable prOperty coming under the control of the wife of the male household head (VanZantwijk 1967:74-75). 10I.e., a wife must live with her husband and follow him wherever he fixes his residence, obey him in domestic matters, education of the children, and manage- ment of their property (Shontz 1927:75). 56 Conclusions Very simply stated, the general configurations of the basic variables that have been elaborated above are: Marital Status 1. Marriage is the normal adult state. 2. Divorce is not common; separation is more common than divorce. Family Size 3. Couples desire many children. Socialization and Education 4. Informal learning in the home is stressed. 5. Formal education is not valued as much as informal education. Division of Labor 6. Sexes are segregated in many activities. 7. Labor is rigidly divided along sex lines. Authority 8. Increased age brings respect. 9. Males have authority over females in the family. 10. A corollary of the age and male dominance vari- ables is the authority which eldest sons have, second only to the father.. 57 Socioeconomic Unit 11. The nuclear family of husband, wife, and children is the basic economic unit. Socialization and Adolescence 12. Adolescence increases the double standard of social expectations for the sexes. Pattern of Residence 13. Temporary patrilocality followed by neolocality is common. Position of Women 14. Women are protected from non—family contacts. Extended Family Solidarity 15. Relationships with close extended kin continue in importance throughout adulthood. These cultural variables are dependent on continuation of the particular cultural, economic, historical, and physi- cal environment which prompted their adoption. Several other pertinent variables which might be considered independent in that they were part of this environment Economy and Occupation 16. The economy is based on agriculture; most house- holds depend on agriculture in some form for their support. 58 17. Men must be away from home a lot as a require- ment of the economy and technology. Habitat 18. Most people lived in villages which remained rural in character until they had quite sizable pOpulations. Sex Ratio 19. Sexual composition of the population is not skewed. The literature has described that most of the earliest immigrants to the United States were males seeking better employment, thus the sexual cOmposition of the immigrant population was skewed. Summary Sources indicate that most Mexican immigrants to the United States came from rural central Mexico in the early twentieth century as a result of a growing United States economy's "pull" and the "push" of the Mexican Revolution. A number of studies of villages in central Mexico at the time of these early migrations and recent wOrks on similar villages were analyzed for their content on division of labor, marriage and divorce, economy, socialization and education, interpersonal family re- lationships, decision making in the family, and terms for 59 respect and kinship terms. Any other information which appeared to reflect on superordinate-subordinate or authoritarian behavior in the family was also duly noted. CHAPTER I I I THE SOUTHWEST Mexican-Americans in the Southwest The five states included in the 1960 Census of Population Special Report on persons with Spanish surname, i.e., Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas comprise the border area between the United States and Mexico. This area is generally referred to in the liter- ature as "the Southwest." This was the first area of the United States to receive a sizable number of Mexican immi— grants in the massive immigration which began in the early twentieth century (Gamio 1930:23; Moore 1970:2). Also, the Southwest was once a part of Mexico and therefore has many inhabitants who are second, third, and even fourth generation Mexican—Americans (McWilliams 1949:59). Due to these two factors the Southwest has by far the great- est total number and largest concentration of Mexican- Americans of any region of the United States. According to Moore (l970:2), the early history of the Mexican con- tacts with Anglo—Americans in these border states set 60 61 the stage for the large-scale immigration from Mexico in the twentieth century.ll Continuation of the history of Mexican immi— gration to the United States is neceSsary before making a comparison of the variables that were present in rural Mexico and their counterparts in the southwestern United States. The border states passed into United States con- trol from 1836 to 1853 through rebellion (Texas), war- fare (Texas and New Mexico), and purchase (Arizona and New Mexico). The Mexican colonists were scattered through the valleys and mountain passes and at first welcomed the American troops as protection from Apache raiding parties, but by 1886 the last of these had been controlled. At this time, Texas was going through a great economic change from a primary dependence on large live-stock ranches to enclosure and small or medium-sized ranches which soon gave way to cotton production. This change in the eco- nomic base took place between 1875 when barbed wire was invented and 1890 when cotton had become king in Texas. It was the development of cotton as the primary cash crop that Opened the door to Mexican immigrant labor in Texas. 11The following outline of the early history of the Southwest is from Moore 1970:11—20 and McWilliams 1949:167-175. 62 In Nex Mexico, overgrazing of the land by sheep herds, erosion, and federal use for homesteads, forests and railroads of former grazing land forced most of the small herders and farmers (both Mexican and Anglo), into wage labor by about 1900. Even earlier, wage labor became the rule for the small farmer or herdsman in Arizona. By 1880 the Indian resistance had collapsed, large-scale mining was underway, and the railroads began building in earnest. The gold mines in California brought large numbers of Anglos to the former Mexican state. The legality of large holdings of land by Mexicans that had been grants by the Mexican government was soon questioned. When the railroad entered the scene bringing more and more Anglos to California in the land boom the end of Mexican Cali- fornia was at hand. In all the border states by 1900 Mexicans, both the old residents and new immigrants had become a minority. The first great change in the economy of the Southwest was brought about by changes in agricultural technology. Agriculture in the Southwest went through several stages. First was the age of cattle and sheep, which came and went quickly due to overexpansion of the herds and land holdings coupled with droughts. This was followed by a boom in dry farming such as wheat which ended due to a series of great droughts after 1885. The 63 climax was the advent of irrigation farming after the Reclamation Act of 1902 which authorized great reservoirs. in the border states (McWilliams 1939:38-194). The following example is from the history of the growth of agribusiness in California. In 1893 the sugar beet saved the California fruit industry, which irri- gation had made possible, from overexpansion and bank- ruptcy but drove the small farmers from the lands they had settled (McWilliams 1939:88). As the beet industry grew, prosperous farm communities were Converted to sugar beet plantations run by cheap unskilled labor whose pro- fits left the community and went to the controlling cor- poration. With World War I Mexican immigrants began to flow into the beet fields--they were trucked in in units of 1500 to 2500--and from 1914 to 1930 Mexican labor was the main source of cheap labor utilized in the beet regions of California (McWilliams 1939:128) after the 1924 immi- gration quotas eliminated oriental competition (Kiev 1968: 10). Wages were kept at rock bottom by the easy accessi- bility of fresh recruits from across the border, and cities were forced to take on the extra burden of un- employed laborers during the off season. These Mexican laborers by and large never returned to Mexico at the end of the harvest season but instead settled into the cities and towns (McWilliams 1939:149). 64 Throughout the Southwest at the same time as the agricultural industry was emerging, other economic trans- formations were occurring. Mining had encouraged Anglo settlers to flood into the border states that had been primarily settled by Mexicans. Westward expansion brought the railroad industry with its huge demands for unskilled labor. The railroad industry had the largest demand for cheap labor—-in fact, Moore (1970:21) states that most of the Mexican laborers who entered the United States in the first twenty years of the twentieth century may have worked on them. So far the border states have been described as develOping industrially with a concomitant need for cheap unskilled labor. Equally important was the urbanization of the Southwest. Towns and cities sprang up as settlers moved in, more developed or grew larger as great numbers of laborers poured in, and the growth of transportation brought in more peOple in a spiral of growth. In 1900 about 70 percent of the population of the Southwest was rural, a considerably lower percentage than in the rest of the United States. By 1940 urbanization in the border states had rushed ahead of the rest of the country (Moore 1970:32-33). This cursory review of the early history of the border states is extremely simplified. The position of the Mexican settlers was different in each state at the 65 time of United States takeover. In Arizona and New Mexico, Mexicans had been among the finest families in the area as well as among the poorest sectors. In Texas the position of all Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the state was viewed as inferior as the state became the holding area for cheap labor to be shipped to other parts of the country. Social Classes One complication to consider is the existence of social classes even among minority people. Madsen (1964) defines the classes he finds among Mexican-Americans in Hidalgo County, Texas with the following cases: 1. The lower-lower class. "Pablo is a member of this lowest economic level. . . . He is twenty years old and lives with his illiterate parents in their rented, three-room house. He was born in Texas but his [parents] came from . . . Mexico . . . Pablo's father is proud that in normal times he can support his family without his wife's help. . . . Pablo's mother . . . prides herself on her cooking. Pablo attended school for five years and then left to work in the fields. His English is broken. . . . Twice he has joined labor crews and gone north for the season. Most of his pay is turned over to his father to pay for his keep and repay his debt to his parents. . . . He hOpes to have enough money to buy a small house before he marries. . . . Sometimes, he sees himself driving an automobile [when he thinks of the future]. . . . If Pablo ever buys his car he may incite envy among his friends. He may then search out new friends who also own cars. . . . In this way, he would enter the upper level of the lower class" (Madsen 1964:32). 2. The upper-lower class. "Antonio and his wife, Lupe, are members of the upper-lower class. They are making monthly payments on the purchase of the small frame house in which they live. For 66 three years, Antonio has been employed as assistant gardener by a hotel. . . . He is pleased with his job and his pay. . . . Lupe works in a cannery plant during the harvest season every year. While she is working, her teen-age daughter does the housework and takes care of a younger brother. The elder brothers work in the fields during the crop-picking season. Once they went on a cotton-picking trip to the north in the car of their first cousin. During the off-season . . . they take jobs as cleaning men and wholesale house employees. Both brothers say they would like to finish high school but feel they are too old now. One is sixteen and the other seventeen. The combined family income is sufficient to meet the payments on the house and furnish it adequately. . . . Their second-hand car is battered but shining and well serviced. Antonio . . . contemplates the possibility that his boys might join leg d3 media in the ranks of the middle class" (Madsen 1964:33-34). The lower-middle class. "Fidencio and his wife Virginia are . . . lower-middle class Latins. They live on a farm in a drab house with their two daughters. Fidencio has been planning to paint the house for several years but all his extra cash goes for . . . farming improvements. He regrets that he has no sons to help him with the work. Both daughters go to high school but their father regards this endeavor as a waste of time. . . . One daughter . . . dreams of becoming a nurse but she knows that her father would never consent. [Fidencio] likes to hire a field hand to assist him whenever he can afford to do so. His wife and daughters help in the fields but he never mentions this fact to others. One day he hOpes to own enough land so that he can hire a crew to take in the harvest. . . . On Sundays, Fidencio puts on his suit and takes his well- dressed family to church in their pick-up truck. Their appearance gives no hint that they work on the land" (Madsen 1964:37-38). The upper-middle class. "Anita Flores is defi- nitely upper-middle class but conservative Mexican— Americans disapprove of her. After finishing high school and a course in a beauty school, Anita married a Latin college student and worked for two years to put him through school. Shortly after the birth of their son . . . her husband was drafted and later killed in action. She has not 67 remarried. A year after her husband's death, Anita used his GI insurance money to buy the small beauty shop she now operates in an Anglo shopping area. . . . Now she has three assistants and only works on the hair of old and favored customers. All of her customers are Anglos as are many of her friends. She lives in an apart- ment on the Anglo side of the tracks. . . . No one has heard her speak Spanish for years. She has even changed her religion and today attends a Protestant church. Anita's son, John, has been well educated. He and his mother always speak English at home. . . . Today he is an outstanding student at the University of Texas. He plans to enter medical school after obtaining his B.A. degree. John seems destined to embark on a successful career as a member of the upper class" (Madsen 1964 41).12 5. The upper class. "Paul, the son of an upper-class Latin lawyer, has a degree from business school and is in business today with two Anglo partners. He is doing very well financially. Socially, he is seeking complete assimilation in the Anglo world. . . . Outwardly, there appears to be no question of his acceptance in Anglo upper-class society. . . . When Paul came home from college on a vacation one time, he told his mother about a real or sensed insult he had received from a professor about being a Mexican-American. 'I wish I could get every drop of Mexican blood out of my veins and change it for something else,‘ Paul said to his mother. . . . His children will have only half of his complaint because their mother is an Anglo" (Madsen 1964:43). No other reference gives such a detailed differentiation of representatives of the social classes found in the study groups, although many authors do discuss at least 12Notice that language use has to do with social class in this description. Most writers agree that use of Spanish as the primary language goes hand in hand with conservative familial roles and decision-making styles while use of English in the home is generally found in more "progressive," i.e., acculturated, homes. See Tharp, et al., 1968:404-412. 68 two distinct classes, something like "103 ricos" (the rich) and "105 de abajo" (Literally, "those below"; i.e., the poor [e.g., Tuck 1946:133]). The Literature Basically two eras were compared for derivation of information about the variables. The earliest writ- ings were in the 1920's, many in the '30's and '40's; and most literature of these decades seems to have been devoted to discussing the "odd family life" or living conditions of "those Mexicans" or were patronizing attempts to explain these to the Anglo majority. Notable exceptions are the works of Carey McWilliams, Beatrice Griffith's American Me, Ruth Tuck's Not With the Fist, and the works of Robert Jones, who observed in 1948 (Jones 1948:450) that, "References to family life are scattered and seldom documented" in the then over 3000 books, pamphlets, and articles relating to Mexicans in the United States. In the 1960's a true scientific interest in the Mexican- Americans in this country develOped in the anthropological . 13 community. l3Margaret Clark published Health in the Mexican- American Culture in 1959, but most other reliable refer- ences from the "later era" were published after 1960. 69 The Independent Variables: Socioeconomic Setting Within the region of the Southwest, the majority of Mexican—Americans live in Texas and California. To- gether in 1960, these two states held 82 percent of the Mexican-American pOpulation of the region and the three remaining states had only 18 percent of the total popu- lation. The metropolitan area of Los Angeles alone had more Mexican-American residents than the three smaller states combined (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:15). Local variations within and between the five southwestern states Show important differentiations in the living conditions of Mexican-Americans. For example, a large proportion of the Mexican—American population of Texas is concentrated in the relatively economically underdevelOped southern part of the state, whereas Mexican-Americans are more evenly distributed in Cali- fornia, which on the whole provides a less underdeveloped environment than other Southwest states (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:15). In the 1960 census about 35 percent of all Spanish-surname families in the Southwest had incomes of less than $3000 a year, the poverty line accepted for the census. This reflects the high unemployment rate among Mexican-Americans. In 1960 more than twice as many Mexican-American men were unemployed as Anglo men, and a relatively low proportion of Mexican-American women 70 worked. Also, not only is there unemployment but much employment is in low-skill manual, low-paying jobs--57 percent of all employed Mexican-American men versus 26 percent of Anglo men (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:20). The Mexican—American Study Project at UCLA con- cluded that the relative socioeconomic status of Mexican- Americans in the Southwest has improved on the whole, but slowly. Much of the improvement is a result of the fact that over half the interstate moves of Mexican-Americans between 1955 and 1960 were to California; over half of all new Mexican immigrants in the same time period went to California; and California offers the best economic Oppor- tunities to Mexican-Americans (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:28). Three classes of nativity or three generations are accounted for in the 1960 census: foreign born, Mexico (first generation); native of mixed or Mexican parentage (second generation); and natives of native parentage (third generation). The mixture by generations varies for the five southwestern states. New Mexico has more third generation Mexican-Americans than the other Southwest states and the least first generation Mexican- Americans. California has the greatest percentage of first generation immigrants (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:29). 71 The independent variables as found in the data on rural Mexico were as follows: 16. The economy is based on agriculture and most households depend on agriculture in some form for their support. 17. Men must be away from home a lot as a requirement of the economy and technology. 18. Most people live in villages which remain rural in character until they reach quite sizable populations. 19. Sexual composition of the population is normal, i.e., is not skewed toward either a preponderance of males or of females. I choose to consider (17) above an independent variable in that the absence of the husband/father from the home should have some bearing on factors such as his ability to remain aloof from daily family affairs, his command of respect from his children, and his role as the provider figure who necessarily must work outside the home. If a culture is well adapted to its environment one would expect a change in that environment to be accompanied by a subsequent change in the culture. 72 Data from various sources were compared and were analyzed for existence of information regarding the vari- ables derived from the rural Mexico area. Since these sources are all from the Southwest, which is defined as a five-state area, no statement of the cities or regions studied will be presented before the analysis of the data. Economy and Occupation 16. Rural Mexico: The economy is based on agri- culture; most households depend on agriculture in some form for their support. Early sources stress the importance of agri- culture, especially migratory labor. They range all the way from indicating that employment outside the village is so hard to come by that agriculture and trade within the village are the major forms of subsistence (Burma 1954:11) through indicating that unskilled industrial labor was the main economic attraction for the immigrant population in the early twentieth century (Tuck 1946:30). Many parents of second generation children are migratory laborers (Bogardus 1929:282) although the children may not be employed in agriculture. A survey of 294 women indicated that 269 of them lived on farms; early immi- grants moved to the area to work on fruit and vegetable farms and packing plants; and most unskilled industrial laborers in this Texas city had at one time or another 73 been farm laborers or were still semi-migratory (Allen 1931:132). Even in the studies in which industrial employment was important there was a tendency for city dwellers to partake in agricultural labor. In one study the "average" father's income for the year came half from the sale of calves and a beef steer for slaughter and half from labor away from home in mines (Burris 1944: 501). Work for immigrants in one study city was fairly balanced between railroad work and farm labor (Tuck 1946: xvii-xviii). Even industries may have been agricultural as was the pecan—shelling available to over fifteen thou- sand persons, mostly Mexican-American, in San Antonio (Shapiro 1952:231). What industries were employing Mexican-Americans were low paying. One study indicates that nondurable goods industries were the primary employers of Mexican-Americans although quite different industries employed Mexican- Americans even in different regions of the same state. It was found that there is a negative rank correlation14 between levels of earnings and the prOportion of Mexican- Americans employed in that industry (Meyers 1953:500-503). Although migrant farm labor still plays a part in the economy of the Southwest (Rubel 1966:15-16) the 14That is, on a rank scale from 1 to 10, as one variable proceeds to the next higher rank or "2," the other variable will move in the Opposite direction, or from "10" to "9." 74 studies from the last decade indicate that the overwhelm- ing majority of Mexican—Americans in the Southwest is now sustained by local industries. For example: wage labor came to be the means by which Mexican-Americans were able to survive while retaining their non-productive herds or fields (Gonzalez 1967:54), canneries and packing plants as well as land products such as oil and salt offer work to the Mexican-American (Madsen l964:7), and World War II offered young Mexican—Americans a chance to break into industry and to gain higher occupational skills through use of wartime training in factory work and use of the GI bill for education (Penalosa 1969:410). In all states in the Southwest at all periods of time Mexican—Americans were underrepresented in high- grade, high—pay occupations (Grebler 1966:45; Heller 1966: 12). h 17. Rural Mexico: Men must be away from home a lot as a requirement of the economy and technology. Only the early literature specifically mentions this point. It would seem that in the first decades of the twentieth century when agriculture and especially migratory agricultural labor were the only economic Opportunities open to the Mexican-American, this variable must indeed have held true. McWilliams (1949:172) states that by 1940 almost 400,000 persons, of whom two-thirds were Mexican—Americans, followed the migratory trail of 75 cotton from the growing areas of southern Texas north- eastward and back for the harvest. Burris (1944:501) found that men were employed about half the year away from their homes either in mines or sugar beet fields. How- ever, as the middle of the century came near industriali- zation and urbanization were already changing the face of the Southwest at a rapid pace. The literature does not indicate to what extent urban dwellers are employed outside the city of their residence, but it appears that much employment is now much closer to home than was the case in the recent past or in rural Mexico. Habitat 18. Rural Mexico: Most people live in villages which remain rural in character until they have quite sizable populations. Most of the literature, both early and recent, indicates that this is decidedly not the case in the Southwest. Jones (1948:450) stated in 1948 that Mexican- Americans generally lived in rural areas or in ethnic communities where the per capita income was low but McWilliams (1949:57) stated that in 1930 already over 50 percent of the total Mexican-American population of the Southwest lived in urban areas and that they were much more urbanized than contemporary Mexicans. Bogardus (1943:56-58) wrote about the gangs of Mexican-American 76 youth that were found in Los Angeles, which in 1943 already was inhabited by many Mexican—Americans. All of the recent works contain data that indi- cate that industrialization and urbanization became in- creasingly important in the Southwest after World War II and that presently most Mexican-Americans liVe not in small towns but large cities; that indeed by 1960 four- fifths of the Mexican—American pOpulation in the Southwest was urban (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:16). Sex Ratio 19. Rural Mexico: Sexual composition of the population is normal. In nearly all periods where data is available there were more male than female Mexican immigrants ex- cept for the total since World War II, which shows more females-~probably, in the opinion of the author of the comment, a reflection of priorities for immigration of family members of former immigrants and provisions for war brides (Grebler 1966:44). During the war, over 300,000 contract workers came from Mexico to help on farms and railroads, and they were seldom accompanied by their families, thus skewing the sexual balance of the Mexican-American population even more than it had been due to the earlier pattern of male-dominated immigration (Jones 1948:452). 77 In the Mexican-American Study Project report it is stated that in the period 1960 through 1964 the sex ratio of Mexican immigrants still showed the historical majority of males especially in the productive age groups, but in more recent years the sex ratio shows a drastic reversal in favor of women. The authors suggest that the restrictions of the job certification program (described in Chapter II) may have accounted for the larger per- centage of women, wives of former immigrants as mentioned above, rather than males (Grebler, Guzman and Moore, 1970:71). There has been considerable change in the inde- pendent variables as enumerated above as compared to rural Mexico. Even in the early part of this century industry was replacing agriculture as the major provider of subsistence for the Mexican-American family. Although it cannot be stated with certainty, there is probably less need for men to be away for extended periods of time due to work requirements. Throughout the history of immigration of Mexicans to the United States in this century there has been an imbalance in the sex ratio in favor of males and only recently have women begun immi- grating in any numbers. Last but most strikingly different from the base line is the final variable : the Mexican-American population of the Southwest is 78 decidedly urban in character as Opposed to their counter- parts discussed in the chapter on rural Mexico. The Dependent Variables: Cultural Setting Marital Status 1. Rural Mexico: Marriage is the normal adult state. Only the early literature specifically mentions this point and these sources are not in agreement. Al- though Tuck (1946:114) states that there was no thought of marriage as impermanent even in second and third generation Mexican-Americans in her California sample; Allen (1931:132) a little earlier found that nearly one- third of her sample in a Texas rural farm area were un- married although her sample was entirely adult women. At the same time Bogardus (1929:279) found that young marriages were taking place quite frequently, generally with partial parental approval as marriage was considered permanent and one might as well accept a new son or daughter-in-law. Apparently marriage was still considered per- manent ideally, but dynamic situations were forcing acceptance of non-lasting marriages in some instances. 79 2. Rural Mexico: Divorce is not common; separation is more common than divorce. Again, there is little agreement on this point. Two early sources would indicate that divorce and sepa- ration are common enough that social acceptance is granted if the general Opinion of the community is that the divorce was for sufficient cause. Allen (1931:139) found that the deserted wife was a "surprizingly common figure" due, in her opinion, to the Opportunities avail- able for a man unhampered with a wife and children to have money and fun; and Tuck (1946:128) found that friends who divorced for "intolerable" conditions were still accepted but not those who dissolved marriages just to "have a good time." In contrast, Madsen (1964:57) indicates that in the area he studied in southern Texas marriages were usually enduring due to the difficulties of terminating the bonds which a marital alliance forms between two entire families. Again, there are indications that change is occurring. The acceptance of the impermanence of marri- age in certain instances is found. Family_Size 3. Rural Mexico: Many children are desired. Children are stated to have been an asset to the migrant laborer as they can also work in the fields. The 80 average Mexican-American family in a 1943 (Russell 1943: 217) study of 200 families of school age children in Texas was 6.1 persons, much larger than the contemporary Anglo- American family. In some cases a person with no children may take as his own the child of a relative to raise, especially if he is more financially successful (Allen 1931:135). Tuck's 1946 (Tuck 1946:120) work found that changes in this pattern were most obvious in second and third generations: the second generation newlywed girl resolves to have only as many children as she can provide for. Although in the 1960's sources some younger families favored birth control; no matter what age, the respondents desired to have children. It was suggested that childbearing is still considered a privilege and obligation of a married woman (Clark 1959:119-120) and a common statement by women regarding use of contra- ceptives was, "My husband wouldn't like it" (Clark 1959: 126). However, there is some indicating that younger informants favor the practice of family planning: in a survey of women in Los Angeles and San Antonio, 70 percent of those under thirty years of age stated that having children was the most important thing that a married woman could do but over 90 percent of women over fifty had the same response (Grebler 1966:361). The statistics 81 indicate that large families are more frequent for Mexican-Americans than for Anglo-Americans. The proportion of families with four or more children is twice as high among Mexican-Americans as among Anglo-Americans; and the fertility ratio15 for the Spanish-surname population of the Southwest in 1960 was 156, compared to 135 for non- white and 100 for white or Anglo (Grebler, Guzman and Moore (1970:16). Most of the sources then, indicate that there is still a high desire for large families and a positive value placed on childbearing for a married woman. Indi- vidual cases may not conform to the overall norm: one husband started taking his wife over the border to Mexi- cali, Mexico after the second child to a famous abortion- ist because he said that he, "Didn't want all those kids and couldn't support them" (Clark 1959:123). Socialization and Education 4. Rural Mexico: Informal learning in the home is stressed. Tuck (1946:108) found that although girls were still assigned household tasks they no longer felt them- selves a necessary part of the home's functioning as their mothers did at their age. Clark (1959:134-136) found that most families assigned children regular work, 15The number of children under five years of age divided by the number of women aged fifteen through forty- nine, multiplied by one thousand. 82 such as washing dishes, sweeping, ironing, dusting, etc. for girls and burning trash, yard work, helping clean the car, mending household objects, etc. for boys. She also found that independence in children was encouraged in the home learning situation: e.g., parents would not inter- fere with completion of an assigned task that a child was performing, fathers would not take the tools away from a son and do the job themselves, and parents would seldom give very detailed instructions to a child about a specific task. This home training was designed to pre- pare the children for their roles as adult members of the culture (Clark 1959:140): girls worked closely with their mothers preparing for their future positions as wives and mothers while boys were prepared for their future position outside the home. There seems to be some difficulty in that there are no clearcut expectations of teenaged boys whereas there are such expectations for girls (Clark 1959:140). 5. Rural Mexico: Formal education is not valued as much as informal education. If the sources are accurate, the average length of formal education of Mexican-Americans is getting a little longer but the lack of value placed on formal education is little changed. E.g., the early sources indicate that only about half of the children of pecan- shellers attended school full terms in San Antonio 83 (Shapiro 1952:233) and in Tuck's 1944 sampling (Tuck 1946: 63) in California one—quarter had no schooling at all. Nearly as many of the immigrants in this study had less than five years of formal education but over half had taught themselves to read and write Spanish (Tuck 1946:63). Still more recently similar statistics prevail: in 1960 Mexican-Americans over the age of fourteen averaged four years less schooling than Anglos and one and oneehalf years less than the "non-whites" (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:18); and the median number of school years for urban MeXican—American males was 8.1 compared to 11.0 for Anglo males in 1960 (Heller 1966:14). The proportion of Mexican—American youths from sixteen to nineteen who "drop out" is much higher than the same age Anglo youths (Heller 1966:51). Although in some cases formal edu- cation has been attained, some educated Mexican-Americans aspire to skilled trades and professions but are unable to attain them. One example was given in Bogardus's 1929 article: a fairly well educated boy was found picking nuts because he had been rebuffed and reminded he was a "Mexican" when he had applied for better work (Bogardus 1929:278). Other youths would rather leave school but stay due to parental pressure, like sixteen-year-old Frank, who is two years behind in school. "Frank's father sometimes discovers that Frank hasn't been to school and threatens him with a beating. Frank then 84 leaves home for a couple of days . . . he thinks his own family is against him" (Clark 1959:67). Although Moore (1970:117) found that higher edu- cation and careers were still alien for women and a work- ing wife was considered an embarrassment by most Mexican- American men, Clark (1909:140) found that girls were ex- pected to get as much formal education as possible. Heller (1965:82) found in a study in a Los Angeles high school of senior Mexican-American boys that 44 percent expected to go on to college and only 5 percent of their fathers actually went to college, and yet she elsewhere stated (Heller 1966:40) that formal education is still generally not valued for children as "they will have to work" anyway. Apparently the gain in formal education has been very slight, very slow, and such gains have not done much to enhance the occupational positions of the achievers. Division of Labor 6. Rural Mexico: Sexes are segregated in many activities. One author (Clark 1959:152) indicates that men generally meet their friends in the local cantinas or pool halls but some bring them home. At that time, their wives and children usually go to another part of the house and leave the men alone. These outside contacts 85 are permitted for men as they are expected to engage in activities outside the home (Rubel 1966:101). These activities serve to allow the father to filter relation- ships outside the family down to the family through a group of his age peers (from whom the family will draw godparents [Moore 1970:1041). No women were present at either of two political rallies Rubel attended in Mexiquito so politics was reserved for the men (Rubel 1966:125). Grebler (1966:364) suggests that increasing use of television for recreation may reduce the attraction of the corner bar for the tired Mexican-American man com- ing home from work, and that urban life offers recreational alternatives to the all-male group of intimates, but there are no examples that this pattern is in fact being adOpted at a significant rate. 7. Rural Mexico: Labor is rigidly divided along sex lines. There is great diversity in the patterns of sexual division of labor as reported in the literature on the Southwest. Of 269 women living on farms, 152 did farm work with the men in one early Texas study (Allen 1931:135); while pecan-shelling was found to be often a family affair, with whole families taking work home and spending their "leisure time" picking pecans in another Texas study (Shapiro 1952:230). Others state that division of labor within the family was still sharply 86 defined between the sexes—-women were not to work outside the home and men were not to do housework (Jones 1948: 451; Moore 1970:105, 117). Again as in the data on rural Mexico there are many casual references to the fact that church is the province of women, although men would be resentful of anyone who slighted their Catholic faith because they attend church infrequently (Heller 1966:19). These patterns of sexual division of labor may be at least partly attributable to different socioeconomic classes.l6 Apparently on the very lowest economic level cooperation may take place due to absolute necessity, while on the next higher level the ideal traditional value of strict sexual division of labor can be adhered to.17 This hypothesis seems to be borne out in Tucson in that Tharp, gt_gl. (1968:412) found a greater, more rigidly defined sexual division of labor in the "least acculturated" group which was also generally the poorest economic echelon ideally but there was some cooperation when necessary. Basically there is an egalitarian division of household tasks in the modern Mexican-American family of 16Refer to the section on social classes above, from Madsen 1964:32-43. 17Compare this to Whetten 1948:105. Whetten also discusses how economic position or "social class" deter- mines to what extent sexual division of labor is practiced. 87 the Southwest, with female specialization in a restricted domestic sphere—-in the San Antonio-Los Angeles household survey the answer "both" not "husband" or "wife" was the majority's answer to questions about who should paint rooms, make expensive purchases, make holiday decisions, and punish children; but the majority answered "wife" to who might take care of the children during the night or wash dishes (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:363-364). Women are sometimes employed outside the home, but these jobs are in "women's work"—-c1eaning, domestic help, etc. (Kiev 1968:18). Authority 8. Rural Mexico: Increased age brings respect. Traditionally, relationships between family members are ranked by age with elders in positions of more authority than younger members. This remains generally true for Mexican-Americans in the Southwest, but abso- lute respect by adolescents and younger children for their parents is an area of change. Grandparents and grandchildren normally are quite close--they joke and play together, but children tend to obey orders of grand- parents, too. Aged parents were generally cared for at home if at all possible. One informant told Kiev (1968:36) that children do not take care of their parents as much as they did 88 before in Mexico and are more interested in themselves and in having good times. The respect title "don" is still applied to very old men, generally those over eighty years of age (Romano v. 1960:970). In Tuck's (Tuck 1946:105) California city, the second generation (teen- aged) found they had difficulty looking to their parents and other elders for sure guidance because they were able to see their parents fumbling and bewildered in a strange society. In fact, when a boy becomes a "pachuco" (youth gang member; often the term is equated with only delin- quent gangs) the father may be afraid of him rather than vice versa (Bogardus 1943:61). However, Rubel (1966:59) found that respect for one's elders is still a major organizing principle of the Mexican-American family as evidenced in cases where a child hits a parent and is advised that there may be divine intervention (Rubel 1966:63). 9. Rural Mexico: Males have authority over females in the family. The early sources stress that family authority was vested in the principle wage-earner who was typically the father, sometimes the oldest brother or the father's father, and that this authority of the principle wage- earner extended even to grown children who had their own homes (Jones 1948:451). This person in authority did not expect to be questioned directly about a decision (Tuck 89 1946:110). The mother might act as the agent of the father's authority to the children but the father still dominated except in a few completely disorganized families (Griffith 1948:94). By the 1960's, however, there was some change in this pattern. Female college students in one study had a strong competitive striving toward increased authority in the family (Ramirez 1967:8). Wives sometimes defied their husband's authority although it was still the ideal, e.g., one woman took a bus downtown to get her husband ' out of a picture show so he would not lose his cannery job; and one wife would not let her husband buy a new car by trading in both the old car and an old pickup truck-~they decided to keep both (Clark 1959:150-151). Wives through possible employment have some economic independence from their men; children through school have some independence from their elders. The men are often dependent on their wives' income and the childrens' con- tacts with the new culture and so the father's strong role is undermined--the problems of the man's changing role shows up in drunkenness and promiscuity according to one analysis (Kiev 1968:18, 56). One middle-aged woman stated that, "Nowadays a man and his wife may talk things out. . . . In those days there was only one word [the husband's]" (Rubel 1966:63). 90 And yet, in the same city where the wife decided that one new car was not better than two old vehicles, one husband got advances on the prune—picking salaries of his wife and four children and spent it drinking with friends, leaving his wife no alternative but to laugh the matter off (Clark 1959:150-151). This data is all concerning the husband-wife relationship. Apparently, these roles conform less to the ideal of male superiority than is popularly imagined. It is difficult to judge to what extent the relationship conformed to the ideal in rural Mexico, so an accurate comparison is impossible. However, the modern observers seem to be of accord that although the ideal is still absolute dominance by the husband, in practice this is not the case. Especially in second, third, and fourth generations the trend toward "talking it out" between husband and wife is more popular than heavy-handed dominance. 10. Rural Mexico: A corollary of the age and male dominance variables is the authority which eldest sons have, second only to the father. A boy's closest relationships atlome are with his brothers, who are ranked by age. The older brother must be obeyed and treated with respect. When the father dies, the eldest son takes his place as head of the family until he marries and sets up a new household, at which time the next older brother is in charge. The 91 adolescent boy assumes the role of guardian of his sisters and younger brothers in extension of his father's role; he is even sometimes called "padrastrito" (little step- father [Clark 1959:l33, 155]). Younger children are in awe of the oldest brother almost as much as of their father, and physical punishment may be in the hands of the oldest brother. Telesforo remembers puncturing his foot as a child. The decision to take him to the local hospital was made by the oldest son in this fatherless family (Rubel 1966:179). In the United States the older brother is also the link with the outside world through his school con- tacts and greater facility with English which his father is not (Heller 1966:35). Socioeconomic Unit 11. Rural Mexico: The nuclear family of husband, wife, and children is the basic economic unit. The literature is basically in accord on this point. There is a preference for the separate nuclear family household as the smallest socioeconomic unit (Burris 1944:500; Gonzalez 1967:62) and the nuclear family commonly serves as the property-holding group, not the extended family (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970: 352). The kinship terminology reflects the importance of the nuclear family, although this importance is 92 certainly not limited to purely economic value. Denotative terms are used for nuclear family members, while classi- ficatory terms are used for other members of the system (Rubel 1966:142). Indeed, the nuclear family is the basic social unit in the Mexican—American system. Rubel (1966:142) noted that the stipulated range of social responsibility for one voluntary association did not extend beyond the nuclear family: Gonzalez (1967:63) found that even compadrazgo (godparenthood) which normally extends the kinship network outward was confined to family members and had the effect of intensifying already exist- ing kin ties.18 Socialization and Adolescence 12. Rural Mexico: Adolescence increases the double standard of social expectations for the sexes. Even the earliest studies indicated that second- generation teen-aged girls were beginning to demand the freedom which Anglo girls had. They did not want to be watched and some ran away to marry as they were not allowed to date, but mothers still tried to maintain control of their daughters and ensure that they were not out with boys unsupervised (Tuck 1946:112). Some 8Compadrazgo is an important feature of the Mexican soEial system. It was not included in the analy- sis on rural Mexico because it was my intent to limit the comparison to nuclear family interrelationships, and compadrazgo is used to extend, not entrench, familial ties in the traditional culture. 93 teen-aged girls did date at that time, some few even got pregnant without marrying, but their families generally took in the infants (Clark 1959:139). One informant stated to Madsen (1964:53), "Soon virginity will be un- known among our unmarried girls as it is among the Anglos." The old custom of giving freedom to adolescent boys had brought on trouble in the new society. In the United States, a sixteen-year-boy is not considered pre- pared for the responsibilities of home and family, formal education demands that he remain dependent longer, and there are few recreational outlets for the youth. The youth in the new culture may take to going out with a street gang and may get involved in delinquency.19 Although the most effective control of teenagers comes from the opinions of their age mates, "The amount of control exercised over adolescents depends on whether the parents are receiving public assistance, whether only one or both parents are in the home, and whether or not there are older brothers in the family. There is more control if the father or an older brother lives in the home" (Clark 1959:138). 19See, for instance, Griffith 1948:75; Heller 1966:36; and Tuck 1946:112. 94 Pattern of Residence 13. Rural Mexico: Temporary patrilocality is common. Although the nuclear family residence group is the ideal and is numerically most common, such arrange- ments as the following can be found. Domingo and Ava Marquez live with their five children in a five-room house. Domingo's two married sons and their families live in a duplex on the rear of the same lot, one on each side of the duplex . . . one has a wife and four children and the other has a wife and one child . . . all share the only bathroom in Domingo's house and use the same refrigerator. The duplex really serves as an extension of the paternal household. . . . The children mix, eat, and sleep in all parts (Clark 1959:149). Houses are frequently enlarged as sons bring wives home increasing the size of the family. The modern solution to patri- local residence is the house trailer. For example, Gonzalez (1967:43) found one lot with a two-story house with three trailers which housed the two married sons and one married daughter and their respective spouses in the trailers and the elderly head of the household, one unmarried daughter, and three other unmarried relatives in the house. 95 Position of Women 14. Rural Mexico: Women are protected from non- family contacts. It was apparent to Arthur Rubel (1966zxxvi) after one year in Mexiquito that participant observation was not able to provide information about women. Men tended not to volunteer information about their wives or mothers and key informants were unaware or unwilling to discuss the activities and attitudes of women. Women are to be protected from the outside world by their menfolk (fathers and husbands) and are to experience their most meaningful relationships within the family. The visiting of other households by males is controlled and limited. To visit while the husband is away is looked on as very suspicious behavior (Moore 1970:105; Romano V. 1960:973). Occasionally there are bad examples of what can happen if women are not protected and traditional norms are not followed: Reynaldo and Flora are considered the height of impropriety in a couple--Reynaldo assaulted his own father when he was young and went to jail; he is now alcoholic and could not get a "prOper" woman to stay with him; Flora supports him with money she gets from an Anglo lover (Madsen 1964:49-50). 96 Extended Family Solidarity 15. Rural Mexico: Relationships with close extended kin continue in importance through adulthood. The Mexican—American family "continues to be an extended type of family with strong ties spread through a number of generations in a large web of kinship. These ties impose obligations of mutual aid, respect, and affection . . . " (Heller 1966:34). Ibr example, cousins joke together, relationships with aunts and uncles are somewhat formal and respectful but their children often live together part of the time, one can still call on kin for economic assistance when necessary, for advice, moral support, and companionship (Clark 1959:156-157); and visiting goes a long way toward maintaining primary focus on the family (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:353). Visiting is often the major form of recreation for women and is confined to relatives. Migratory labor trips may be planned to include visits to relatives living in other parts of the country (Madsen 1964:46). There is some evidence that kinship is taking second place to other interests in selected cases: in the big city youth gangs, a boy will usually go to a gang activity before he will go to a family activity (Heller 1966:57); and both high and low income families show an increasing dependence between husbands and wives to the exclusion of other kin for advice, financial 97 problems, and personal problems (Grebler, Guzman and Moore 1970:356-357). Analysis What are the basic areas of change encountered in these variables? First of all, in second and later generation Mexican-American families there seems to be an interest in controlling family size although large families are generally still a positive goal. Divorce is no longer absolutely impossible and is accepted in cases where the community finds there was due cause. Education is progressing, but very slowly. Apparently this is not due to a lack of interest in formal education but due more to a lack of benefits accrued from achieving further education.20 It has been suggested by one study that there is a shift away from dependence on close extended kin to a closer dependence between the conjugal pair, but most of the other sources find there are still close relations, mutual aid, and expectations of advice from these close kin. In terms of authority within the family, the major area of change appears to be in the relations and expectations between adolescents and their parents, or in the second and succeeding generations. The role of the adolescent boy actually has not changed 20Heller (1966:49) suggests that sympathetic teachers in high school can "make or break" Mexican- American youngsters; most cases of college-bound youth would attribute their success to an understanding teacher. 98 but in the new society he is not allowed to participate as a full adult at sixteen years of age so is in a state of limbo. Adolescent girls are demanding the freedom that Anglo girls have in the spheres of dating and edu- cation. This freedom tends to prolong the adolescence of girls, who were often married and performing functions as wife and mother in rural Mexico at the age when Mexican-American girls are now still in public high schools. Changes in the expectations of adolescents have caused them to suspect the validity of parental authority, both paternal and maternal. Parents are observed fumbling and imprOperly culturally equipped to cope with some of the situations with which they are faced in the new culture. Their fumbling causes the adolescent to look elsewhere for a model for behavior and younger children may look to the teen-aged older sibling as his model because of the youth's more constant exposure to the new culture. Authority in Each Dygd Following Richard Adams's analysis (Adams 1960) of family relations by major dyads a brief comparison is here presented of the superior-subordinate or egalitarian relationships between family members in pairs. I have not limited this to maternal, paternal, and conjugal dyads but have considered family members in pairs for an ideal family of father, mother, two brothers, and two 99 sisters. The comparison is between the data on rural Mexico and the Southwest. Although there were several very helpful references for Mexico, by far the best coverage of family relationships in the Southwest appears in Rubel's Across the Tracks (Rubel 1966). By necessity, this comparison is primarily between rural, central Mexico as a whole, and a town in southern Texas. a. Husband-Wife. Mexico: The father is the breadwinner and has the right to be outside the house without question, is not to be bothered with household details (Humphrey 1948:243, 247; Woods 1956:233-234; Lewis 1949:602). The wife is to stay in the house and obey her husband (Diaz 1966:40, 46; Humphrey 1948:243, 247; Redfield 1930:85, 87). Southwest: Basically there is an egalitarian division of labor in the household, but husbands demand the right to go outside the house without accounting for their whereabouts. Wives demand more voice in family decisions about spending money, education for the children, etc. (Rubel 1966:101; Grebler 1966:363; Griffith 1948:94). b. Mother-Daughter. Mexico: Ties are close through adolescence due to the teacher-pupil situation in informal education. The relationship may be severed when the daughter marries, but she is never unable to return when widowed to her mother's home (Beals 1944:17; Lewis 1951:343). Southwest: The relationship is close. 100 The mother tries to ensure chaperonage for the daughter, the daughter may remember that "my mother was my best friend" (Rubel 1966:64). There is a relaxing of the formality in the relationship: one daughter was amazed when a few years ago her mother tOld her she could smoke in her presence (Rubel 1966:60). c. Mother-Son. Mexico: Mothers were considered above sin by their sons and sons were protected above anyone else—-their relationship was to parallel the relationship between the Virgin and Christ (Diaz 1966:79). Southwest: The ideal is still the same, but perhaps ties are not quite as demanding. One son moved to a town ten miles away from his mother after marriage so he could attend a local college and to avoid conflicts between his parents and his wife in spite of his mother's crying (Rubel 1966:58). d. Father-Daughter. Mexico: There was great respect and mutual avoidance of any intimate subject or action. The father indulged his daughter financially and the daughter showed affection by serving her father (Lewis 1951:342; Diaz 1966:81, 83). Southwest: One young female informant had always called her father "Papa," never "Daddy" and they had kept their distance from each other (Rubel 1966:64). 101 e. Father—Son. Mexico: The teacher-pupil aspect had kept ties close, but sons would not drink, smoke or swear in their father's presence. Sons were under their father's control as long as they were members of the paternal household (Beals 1944:170, 172; Humphrey 1948:252; Diaz 1966:89; Parsons 1936:67). Southwest: Fathers suffer a loss of respect from their sons when the son becomes more adjusted to the new culture. Divine intervention may be expected if a son actually hits his father, but fathers may be afraid of delinquent sons (Heller 1966:37; Bogardus 1943:61; Tuck 1946:105; Rubel 1966:59, 63). f. Sister-Sister. Mexico: Sisters are ranked according to age so they do not normally form alliances but relationships are closer than with more distant relatives (Lewis 1951:343). Southwest: Visiting close female relatives (especially mother and sisters) is one of the major recreatons of married women. Close relations between sisters continue after marriage (Grebler 1966: 353; Rubel 1966:78). g. Sister-Brother. Mexico: With adolescence, boys have some authority over younger siblings of both sexes. Male siblings generally have authority over their sisters (Beals 1944:176; Lewis 1951:344; 398). Southwest: The adolescent boy assumes the role of guardian of his sisters and younger brothers but 102 is also the link with the outside world so in some in- stances his authority is more respected than the father's (Heller 1966:35). h. Brother—Brother. Mexico: Teen-aged boys have authority over younger brothers. Such respect is demanded for an older brother that a man in trouble would be more likely to seek assistance from a compadre (Beals 1944:176; Lewis 1951:398; Whetten 1948:398). Southwest: Boys have their closest relationships with their brothers, and brothers are still ranked by age (Madsen 1964:54). The most change is in the relationship between the teen-aged child and the traditional parent. Youth wants freedoms that their Anglo peers have; age requires the respect they would traditionally receive. CHAPTER IV THE MIDWEST Introduction A recent study in East Chicago, Indiana, indi- cated that there was little difference in cultural pat- terns of Mexican-Americans in the Midwest and those of their southwestern counterparts (Samora and Lamanna 1967: v—vi). In this chapter a comparison will be made be- tween the variables in rural Mexico, the Southwest, and selected midwestern areas. Greater differences were anticipated between the dependent variables in rural Mexico and the Southwest than between the Southwest and the Midwest due to the urbanness of both of the latter areas. Mexican Immigration Outside the Southwest Mexican-Americans are present in areas ranging from New York to Washington but especially in the Midwest. They do not represent large numbers in any location out- side the Southwest--in 1960 there were not over half a million Mexican-Americans outside the Southwest com- pared to over three million in the southwestern states; 103 104 in 1966 the ratio was 665,000 to 4,300,000 (Samora and Lamanna l967:v). Many of the midwestern Mexican-Americans came directly from Mexico, but many more came first to the Southwest and then they or their children or grand- children migrated to the northern industrial cities as these cities began to exhaust their local labor supply (Goldner 1959:Ch. l).21 The need for labor was in such areas as: the sugar beet harvest in the northcentral and western states; tanneries, meat-packing plants and steel mills in Chicago; auto plants in Detroit; steel mills in Ohio and Pennsylvania; and railroad maintenance in all states (Moore 1970:22). Regardless of what occupation these peOple had in Mexico before migrating, in the United States they were often limited at first to rail- road "shovel" labor or maintenance and migratory agri- cultural labor (Macklin 1963:25; Humphrey 1945:913). Much of the data available is for Michigan, a state that has received many Mexican—American immigrants since the early twentieth century. A short summary of the history of the Mexican-American population of Michigan follows. One part of the migration from the Southwest, primarily Texas, to the Midwest has been going on for decades: the annual seasonal migration of agricultural 21All references to Goldner 1959 are made with chapters, not pages. The copy I used was on microfilm and did not have the pages numbered. 105 workers (Choldin and Trout l969:1; Merlos 1970:5). Al- though such migration continues, in recent years there is purported to have been a decline of available agri— cultural labor for the migrants due to increasing use of mechanical field equipment (Choldin and Trout 1969:l). Michigan has received her share of these seasonal mi- grants. Over the past century her population growth has been more rapid than that of the nation as a whole due primarily to natural increase but also substantially aug- mented by the pattern of migration (Goldberg, g£_al., 1960: 1). In every decade since 1870, more migrants have come to Michigan than have left the state. Well over a million net inmigrants (that is, gross immigrants minus gross emigrants) were added to the state during World War I and the post-war expansion (the years 1910-1930, those in which total Mexican immigration to the United States was so great). In one study it was found that over 80 percent of the Mexican-American residents were migrants from other states in the United States, 54 percent of which were from Texas (Rodriguez-Cano l966:8). Another study indicated that 81 percent of the Texas Mexican— Americans came from counties in the Rio Grande valley; around San Antonio; and the eastern part of the state in the Corpus Christi area (Choldin and Trout 1969:16). By the 1940's there was a positive balance of 330,000 new residents due to immigration (Goldberg, et a1. 1960:1). 106 This immigration total was exceeded only by California, Florida, and Washington in the entire nation (Goldberg, g£_gl. 1960:1). Presently the Mexican-American population of Michigan is about 150,000 persons year-round and nearly 50,000 more persons in the summer months when the crOps are ready for harvest.22 Nearly 90 percent of these Mexican-Americans are United States citizens (Merlos 1970:5). Although railroads and migratory agricultural labor were the primary opportunities for Mexican-American migrants other industry recruited those who were able to make the adjustment to the assembly line pace (Humphrey 1945:913). During layoffs the Mexican-American worker has often taken less-skilled, lower-paying work, especi- ally in the fields (Humphrey 1945:913), and those employed in the sugar beet fields found that the seasonal nature of the work and the low pay and poor living and working conditions necessitated working in the cities closeby during the winter months (Humphrey 1945:917). The earn- ings of the betabeleros (beet workers) were so low that sometimes they had to remain in the Midwest over the winter months rather than return to Texas or Mexico because they had no money for return fare and were in— debted to the sugar company's store (McWilliams 1941:181). 22Merlos l970:5; based on figures of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. 107 Over the past sixty years Michigan has witnessed an increasing concentration of her population in the southern half of the lower peninsula, especially in the urban areas. Although at the end of the nineteenth cen- tury the total pOpulation of the state had dispersed throughout the geographical area, by the early twentieth century the pOpulation was becoming concentrated in the southern part of the lower peninsula so that by 1958 91 percent of the total pOpulation of the state was located in this area (Goldberg, eE_§l. 1960:10). Therefore in- migrating to the state as a whole over the past twenty years has been a function of the ability of the southern half of the lower peninsula to attract immigrants (Gold- berg, e£_gl. 1960:11). In this southern region there are eleven Standard MetrOpolitan Statistical Areas: Bay City, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, and Saginaw; and in 1960 the addition was made of Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, and Muskegon (Goldberg, 2E_gl. 1960:11). These metropolitan areas held three-fourths of the pOpulation of the state in 1958 (Goldberg, g£_al. 1960:11). The Mexican-American pOpulation of the state is no exception to this concentration. Choldin and Trout's 1969 study was of eight south-central Michigan counties in which nearly all of the Mexican-American population of Michigan resides, outside of Detroit. Most of these 108 have a major city in which the Mexican-American pOpulation is centered and industries where the Mexican-American people are employed, as in the following examples.2 The Newaygo-Grant counties area in western Michigan was one of the rural areas--there were about seventy-five families which were mostly year—round farm workers. The Adrian area is an area in southeastern Michigan in which most Mexican—Americans have "well-paying factory jobs." Adrian has auto or aluminum plant employment but there is also agricultural labor. The Lansing area--1ocated in the central part of the state-—is an area in which most Mexican—Americans are employed by the many factories in the city with construction playing a secondary occu- pational role. The Grand Rapids area is an urban area surrounded by farms, located in western Michigan, and Mexican-Americans may work these farms but they are mostly employed in the non-union shops. The Saginaw area in eastern Michigan has the highest Mexican-American pOpu- lation in the sample where most permanent Mexican-American residents_are factory workers but farm labor, especially in sugar beets, is available for the summer migrants and as a supplement to factory wages. The Flint area is a city where the Mexican-Americans are not at all clustered into a "colony" and most are employed in the auto or auto- related plants. 23The examples are from Choldin and Trout 1969: 333-382. 109 Detroit, Michigan was settled by Mexican-Americans who were railroad and migratory agricultural workers but the auto plants soon became the most desirable employers due to the higher pay. When the Depression struck, masses of Mexican-Americans became unemployed. Many found jobs with the government relief programs; eventually many came to be on public welfare due to the 1937 rule that aliens could no longer be employed in the relief programs (Gold- ner 1959:Ch. 1). Other Midwest areas received Mexican-American migrants for similar reasons and they settled in similar ways. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Mexicans were early attracted by the 30¢ per hour pay in the steel mills which was so much better than the 35¢ a day they could expect to earn in Mexico, and the steel companies offered hous- ing, as did the railroad companies throughout the Midwest (Goldner 1959:Ch. 1). The Mexican-American population of Chicago, Illinois grew through direct recruitment of the industries, word of mouth from Chicago residents to relatives and friends back "home" about the pay, and migratory laborers stranded over the winter in the city (Goldner 1959:Ch. 1). Samora and Lamanna (1967:1-5, 10-11) found that the Mexican-American colony in East Chicago was founded by persons recruited primarily from northern Mexico for work in the Standard Oil Company refinery and the Inland Steel 110 Company around the turn of the century when the industrial boom began in the Chicago-Calumet region. Mexican-Americans went to Minnesota in response to the demand for sugar beet workers. By the 1930's packing plants began to offer fairly steady employment but with the Depression the beet companies hired the unemployed Mexican-Americans from the cities, such as St. Paul, and remained one of the major employers of Mexican—Americans in Minnesota (Goldner 1959:Ch. 1). In Macklin's study of Toledo, Ohio, she found that most of the Toledo Mexican-Americans were from the central and northern plateaus of Mexico or from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and that the latter was by far the more common "homeland" (Macklin 1963:24). Toledo was an early railroad center, is a natural port, is close to the Midwest oil fields, and also is located in the center of a major farming area. A demand for labor at the turn of the twentieth century brought in many differ- ent immigrant groups, including the Mexican. By 1930 there were over four thousand Mexicans in Ohio, mostly concentrated near Toledo. The hard conditions of mi- gratory agricultural labor made the city more attractive here (Macklin 1963:35) as it had in the Detroit area and other urban areas. Although industry offered better pay than agriculture, the labor which Mexican-Americans did was mostly unskilled. This unskilled labor made the 111 Mexican immigrant horizontally mobile (i.e., moving from job to job, place to place, but not "advancing") at the time when industry was beginning to require specialization for vertical mobility (Macklin 1963:41). The Mexican- American was therefore prettvaell limited in his employ- ment opportunities, his low pay limited his housing and education opportunities, which in turn limited his chances of bettering his occupation. Literature Cited The sources used for the analysis to follow con- cerned the following locations: Stockbridge, Michigan (Rodriguez-Cano 1966), a small rural community located about forty miles southeast of the state capitol; all areas outside the Detroit Standard Metropolitan Statis- tical Area with Mexican—American pOpulation concen- trations of one hundred or more, which turned out to be exclusively the southern half of the lower peninsula (Adams 1970; Choldin and Trout 1969); Detroit, Michigan as presented in numerous perceptive articles by Norman Humphrey; and Lansing, Michigan (Merlos 1970; Bustrillos 1963; and King and Gregory 1961) the capital of the state having many industries and a Mexican-American pOpulation of 1200 families with over 13,000 Mexican-American people altogether in the surrounding county (Merlos 1970:5). The King and Gregory thesis was not particularly helpful because data purported to be about Lansing families was 112 in reality taken from a few sources on the Southwest and augmented by some impressions. Also East Chicago, Indiana, a highly industrialized city in one of the largest metro- politan centers in the United States (Samora and Lamanna 1967); and Toledo, Ohio, a city with much industry located in the heart of a vast agricultural region (Macklin 1963) were studied. The Independent Variables Economy and Occupation 16. Rural Mexico: The economy is based on agri- culture; most households depend on agriculture in some form for their support.24 The Immigration Act of 1924 halted European immi— grants and Opened up the sugar beet fields of the Midwest to Mexican immigrants and Mexican—Americans from Texas—- in Michigan, Minnesota, and North Dakota Mexican-Americans were between 75 and 90 percent of the field labor supply (McWilliams 1949:181). In one area in southeastern Ingham County, Michigan, where the economy is based on livestock and farming, the study was of Mexican-American people of which over 80 percent were migrants from out of state, 54 percent of which were from Texas (Rodriguez-Cano 1966: 8). At the same time midwestern industries were attract- ing Mexican immigrants-~e.g., about 1916 immigrants from 24As was done in the analysis of the Southwest data, the headings used are the results of the analysis on rural Mexico, the base line. 113 central Mexico appeared in Chicago to work in the packing plants, steel mills and foundries, iron and cement, and railroads but now is more evenly distributed. For example, in Lorain, Ohio there is a colony of 7500 Mexican-Americans which began when the National Tube Company (affiliate of U.S. Steel) imported 15,000 Mexicans from Texas and drew in Mexican beet workers from the surrounding areas. These Mexican—American people are no longer concentrated in these industries (McWilliams 1949:222; Gamio 1930:25). Many migratory laborers were stranded in the Midwest when the season ended, and Mexican colonies develOped in the cities when these people were unable to go back to the Southwest (McWilliams 1941:15). The pattern of employment in Michigan ranged generally from agriculture and railroads, moved through the packing houses and fertilizer plants; and finally some individuals moved into the auto plants due to the higher wages, but not all could tolerate the swift tempo. During layoffs the Mexican worker has often taken less- skilled, less-paid work, especially in the fields (Humphrey 1945:913). From half to two-thirds of all occupations in the Midwest Mexican-American population were Operative positions. Since 1940 there has been a steady decline in farm laborers, and there seems to be a pattern of "inheritance" of factory work by the second generation. Clerical, sales, and service occupations are generally 114 under—represented, and construction has recently become a compliment to agricultural migratory labor (Adams 1970: 36; Choldin and Trout 1969:23). The Midwest Mexican-American is mostly employed in industry. Agricultural migratory labor may be used to supplement the income or in slack seasons. Recall that the baseline was agricultural and that Mexican—Americans in the Southwest were found to be quite industrialized much like those in the Midwest. 17. Rural Mexico: Men must be away from home a lot as a requirement of the economyand technology. Although railroads (and beet fields) were among the original attractors of Mexican immigrants, more have found employment in such places as restaurants, dry- cleaners, trucking firms, and other establishments closer to home that do not require long migratory periods (McWilliams 1949:221-222). Yet migratory agricultural labor plays an im- portant part in the economy of the Mexican-American mid- westerner as it does for his southwestern counterpart. For example, McWilliams cited one emigrant agent in San Antonio as recruiting 6000 laborers each year for one company alone (McWilliams l941:5). However, it is families who are imported in mass numbers, not just male workers. For instance, one typical travelling unit will be, "Senor and Senora, their married children and in-laws, 115 the grandchildren, and a few uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and remote cousins" (McWilliams 1941:11). It is reasonable to conclude that the man must spend less time away from his family in both industriali- zed areas, Southwest and Midwest, than in rural Mexico. Even when migratory agricultural labor provides sustenance, families generally remain together. Habitat 18. Rural Mexico: Most people live in villages which remain rural in character until they have quite sizable populations. By the 1930's 85 percent of the 70,000 Mexican- Americans living in the Midwest lived in cities (McWilliams 1949:57). The approximately eight million people in Michigan includes approximately 100,000 Mexican-Americans --of those outside the Detroit Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, 75 percent live in cities of 50,000 to 250,000, 12 percent in rural areas, and 12 percent in towns of 2500 to 25,000 (Adams 1970:34; Choldin and Trout 1969:10). Sex Ratio 19. Rural Mexico: Sexual Composition of the pOpulation is not skewed. Nearly one—third of the Mexican immigrants to northern settlements have been single men, and many intermarried with Anglo girls (McWilliams 1949:221; 116 1941:15). Mexican-American men predominated over women in the 1950 and 1960 censuses for urban areas in Michigan, and many were single (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Charac- teristics of the Population 1950; 1960; Goldner l959:1; Humphrey 1943:358). In East Chicago, there was an excess of males over females in all ages over twenty-four years (Samora and Lamanna 1967:32). In a recent study of Michigan the sex ratio among Mexican-Americans was found to be quite even, reflecting the fact that most migrants are coming in family groups and in cases where there were single male migrants, time has allowed reconstitution of families (Choldin and Trout 1969:10). It would appear that the sex ratio was imbalanced toward a predominance of males in the Midwest Mexican- American pOpulation until recently. This is becoming more balanced presently. The early imbalance coincides with a similar condition in the Southwest. Both areas did have an early preponderance of males, unlike rural Mexico. The Dependent Variables Marital Status 1. Rural Mexico: Marriage is the normal adult state. Marriage is considered desirable for all adults and solteros are pitied (Macklin 1963:152). In the 117 sample of Michigan Mexican-Americans not living in Detroit, 90 percent had male household heads but the sixty—nine female household heads tended to be older than the male household heads (Adams 1970:34); 95 percent of the adults were married, 2 percent widowed, 2 percent single and 1 percent divorced or separated in the sample with male household heads, and of those with female family heads 34 percent were widows, 25 percent separated, 23 percent divorced, 7 percent single, and 10 percent married but the main source of income (Adams 1970:35). This variable appears to be little changed and remains fairly stable throughout the three areas. 2. Rural Mexico: Divorce is not common; separation is more common than divorce. In the Michigan sample outside Detroit, those adults where household heads were male there were 95 percent married and only 1 percent divorced or separated while those with female household heads had 34 percent widowed and the percent separated and the percent divorced were nearly identical (Adams 1970:35). Divorce is not frequent but voluntary separation and desertion are since "a large proportion of immigrant unions have never been formalized" (Humphrey 1943:14). Divorce is not regarded as negatively as it was in Texas or Mexico according to Macklin (Macklin 1963:155).25 25A Mexican-American acquaintance of mine has remarried, both times to Anglo girls, and refers to his 118 Family Size 3. Rural Mexico: Many children are desired. Children are wanted and welcomed--the average number in Toledo was five, and women wanted daughters who could "understand" a mother as a son cannot (Macklin 1963: 174). The average family size of a group of migrants near Stockbridge, Michigan was only 3.6 persons but 68 percent of the children were between the ages of one and fourteen (Rodriguez-Cano 1966:17). The mean household size was 5.5 outside the Detroit area and the range was up to fifteen persons (Adams 1970:35). For 1942 and 1952, Goldner's figures are slightly lower, but family size was larger than the contemporary Anglo family, and there were fewer children reported per family for the second generation than for the first (Goldner 1959:Ch. 3). (Most large households are headed by men who came in the 1940's and 1950's; earlier and more recent migrants are less likely to have large households (Choldin and Trout 1969:10). The family size of the sixteen female homemakers inter- viewed in Bustrillos's study was larger than any other sources indicate-~six had over ten children, three had over six, and the rest had six to nine children (Bustrillos 1963:51). first wife as his "real wife." When questioned why, one is informed that the children were a product of this union. 119 Many children are still a positive goal, although just as in the Southwest, there is a trend in younger families to limit the number of children.26 Socialization and Education 4. Rural Mexico: Informal learning in the home is stressed. "El no tiene abuela" is a bit of Mexican folk wisdom employed by toledanos to describe someone who behaves imprOperly or foolishly. This aphorism epitomizes the importance of one's kin group: if he "has no grandmother"--if he is without familia--he would have no way to learn the accepted norms and values of his society (Macklin 1963:146). The mother is expected to transmit behavior patterns to the Child although husbands will tend young children. Children are seldom left at home and older siblings early learn to act as child tenders at public affairs (Macklin 1963:174-177). It is difficult to assess change in this variable, but it appears to be fairly stable. Children are ex- pected to learn from observing their elders in all three areas studied. 26Often when my husband and I are introduced by Mexican-American friends to other Mexican-Americans the introduction, "This is my friend Joe and his wife" is followed shortly with, "They don't have any kids." Chil- dren are important to these people and they take notice when others have no children. 120 5. Rural Mexico: Formal education is not valued as much as informal education. Most educated people were in the cities, and less educated persons were located in the rural areas. The median in Michigan was six years formal education (Choldin and Trout 1969:14). Other sources also indi- cate fairly low attainment of formal education: the average educational level of the total of a group of migrant agricultural laborers was 3.7 years--but there was a great deal of difference between young and old persons in the sample. A total of 16 percent of the older persons were completely illiterate (Rodriguez-Cano 1966:12). Over half of the heads of household had six or less years of schooling according to several studies (Adams 1970:36; Bustrillos 1963:65; Goldner 1959:Ch. 1); in one instance it was found that the seCond generation averaged nine years of schooling while their parents averaged 2.9 (Goldner 1959:Ch. 3). The proportion of Mexican-American youth attend- ing college was far below the state or national averages and the age group 16-18 has a high drop-out rate (Choldin and Trout 1969:14).27 27Bill, a Mexican-American salesman of office equipment, told me that his wife, who is in graduate school at the university, would like to go "home" to Texas but he wants to go to medical school and does not think his Chances would be as good there. He was a medical corpsman in the army while his wife was an undergraduate and he has always wanted to become a doctor. He has a four-year degree but is not presently enrolled in any classes. 121 Formal education has not helped the Mexican- American obtain increased income or a better way of life. It is therefore still not as important to Mexican-Americans in either the Southwest or the Midwest as to their Anglo counterparts. Division of Labor 6. Rural Mexico: Sexes are segregated in many activities. Although in migrant laborers' families wives and Children worked alongside the men in the fields, women, especially married women, are seldom found working out- side the home and have little chance for contact with the outside, including the Anglo world (Macklin 1963:52). One socially concerned matron . . . followed the Anglo pattern of attending various meetings where she interacted extensively with Anglo-Americans. For a time, she was escorted home by various Anglo-American men who had also been participants in the meetings. Soon her husband, who had had no objections to these arrangements himself, was forced not only to deliver her to meetings, but also to wait for her, because he had become the butt of such ribald joking from his toledano acquaintances (Macklin 1963:164). Boys and girls may play together until they are eight or ten, but in Toledo the Catholic Church could not get youth groups started because the parents were worried about their teen-aged boys and girls using the same stairs to get into the church (Macklin 1963:180). At dances, men huddle together drinking or conversing, leaving their wives to talk together-~there seemed to 122 be less segregation of the sexes than reported in Mexico but the "buddy" served to reinforce male solidarity (Macklin 1963:170-173).28 The female is generally limited in social relationships to a network of female kin while the all- male interaction such as drinking and joking at the cantina are much the same in the Midwest as they were in Mexico (Macklin 1963:165-168). This variable has remained rather stable in all areas. 7. Rural Mexico: Labor is rigidly divided along sex lines. The Mexican woman has no other concept of her role than that of a housekeeper with children. The exigencies with which her mate's departure pre- sent her give her as recourse only the acquisition of another mate (Humphrey 1943B:l4). The daily activities of the sixteen Lansing homemakers were housework (Cleaning, ironing, mending, washing clothes, etc.) child care (tending the children) and husband service (cooking, serving him meals, serving his requests). The one unemployed husband took over pre- paring family meals, and the working mother often left dishes and housecleaning to other family members (Bustrillos 1963:60). In Toledo, there was much marked 28At a party celebrating the fifteenth birthday of a Mexican-American girl that I attended recently the men stood around in groups talking and drinking and the women and children sat in chairs around the dance floor chatting. Many did dance, however, when the dance was over they tended to split again. 123 separation of the sexual roles that Macklin had to get help from some male friends so that her information would not be limited to only female data (Macklin 1963:10).29 Women and children are to be found in the house most of the time. The woman cares for the children and provides for her husband's needs. Unmarried women are expected to stay home and help (Macklin 1963:61, 158). The husband is at work much of the time during the day and has supper when he gets home. He is then free to leave and generally does a couple of days a week (Macklin, ipid.). Some unmarried women do work, but lack of formal education and skills limit the job opportunities. There were only three nurses in the population of nearly 600 households in Toledo, and only three secretaries. Other girls worked in restaurants, as factory operatives, and in other low-paying jobs (Macklin 1963:53). There is in all three areas a rather marked sexual division of labor in occupations. Household division of labor is more flexible and depends on indi- vidual circumstances. 29Santiago has just returned to work after a pro- tracted sick leave due to a heart attack. He said that he was glad to be back at work because his wife said he was in the way around the house. While he was home he painted some baseboards and did some minor repairs but he often went for a walk to get out of the house and let his wife do her work. 124 Authority 8. Rural Mexico: Increased age brings respect. One informant said this about old peOple: "Mexi- cans [Mexican—Americans] tend to think in terms of what to do for them——Americans tend to think in terms of what to do with them" (King and Gregory l96l:8). Although age is still ideally respected, second generation Mexican- Americans are becoming reluctant to keep aged parents (Goldner 1959:Ch. 4). Macklin found no one referred to by the title "don" and was told that there was really "no one here in Toledo who deserves the title," indicating that age alone was not enough to deserve that respect (Macklin 1963:169). In the Stockbridge sample, 16 percent of the single men were told to go for migrant labor by their fathers (Rodriguez-Cano 1966:34). Parents continue in some cases to make decisions for their older children but this is not always the case. In some instances, parents cease to take direct responsibility for their children when they move from the parental home. This is one of the areas of change. Both in the Southwest and in the Midwest age does not have unquestioned authority. This may be a result of the migration of young families without older parents or of the unfamiliarity of older peOple with the "new culture." 125 9. Rural Mexico: Males have authority over females in the family. In the Stockbridge sample, 58 percent of the male respondents reported that they alone made the decision to come to the area for migratory work; and 27 percent of the males said the family as a whole made major decisions-- reasons given for consulting the wife were such as "she works so she has a say"; in Toledo wives were also con- sulted on major decisions (Rodriguez-Cano 1966:34; Goldner 1959:Ch. 3; Macklin 1963:158). The male household head feels ill at ease when he is out of work and is aware of violating a major obli- gation as head of the family (that of food provider) and yet wants to maintain the respect of his wife and chil- dren. Sometimes he may desert the family to look for other work, and many even go permanently to Mexico leav- ing the family behind due to his lack of self-esteem (Humphrey 1944:622). Some problems may come about as a result of mixed marriage between persons of Mexican and non-Mexican extractions and their different cultural expectations of each other. For example, "Mr. G's American wife worked in a factory and received high wages. He stayed at home, dressed in a white shirt and lounging robe. He regarded himself as a gentleman of independent means. He issued orders to his wife . . . meanwhile spending her money on expensive luxuries . . . " (Humphrey 1943B:13). Ideally a 126 woman should be submissive, but a too strict husband was sharply criticized for calling all the time to make sure his wife was home (Macklin 1963:158). In Mexico the status hierarchy in the family runs in the order father, mother, son, daughter from high to low position with four fairly distinct levels and a large gap between father and daughter; but in the Midwest there were only two planes with son about equal to father and daughter at a level equal with mother (Humphrey 1944:626). 10. Rural Mexico: A corollary of the age and male dominance variables is the authority which eld- est sons have, second only to the father. By about 1937 rules making aliens ineligible for WPA jobs caused quite a barrier to Mexican-American laborers, but in a number of cases American-born sons took over supporting the parents (Humphrey 1945:922) thus undermining part of the seat of paternal authority. In many cases the older brother may act as a surrogate father and discipline younger siblings (Macklin 1963:183) and the oldest boy may assume powerful parental functions which he could exercise only over his sister at home because he is the mentor of American ways and knows what is right and what is wrong in the American culture (Humphrey 1944:625).3° 3OI was about to leave a dinner party that was part of the birthday celebration mentioned earlier. I found the father of the girl and his other younger 127 Socioeconomic Unit 11. Rural Mexico: The nuclear family of husband, wife, and children is the basic economic unit. Little is explicitly stated about this. The nuclear family is the most common family residence pat- tern in Michigan (Choldin and Trout 1969:10), and the nuclear family ceases to be a productive economic unit in urban life according to one author (Goldner 1959: Ch. 4). It is reasonable to assume that just as in the Southwest the nuclear family is the major socioeconomic unit. Socialization 12. Rural Mexico: Adolescence increases the double standard of social expectations for the sexes. "Dating" is seen more often than in Texas or Mexico but still is not too common. A "well-brought-up" girl is not allowed to invite her noxig over unless they are serious (planning marriage) (Macklin 1963:153). Parental control is still great compared to Anglo stand- ards. The pastor told of a twenty-three-year-old girl brothers all engaged in a heated discussion with their eldest brother. He had just been served, and was dis- gusted with the father of the girl for not making prOper arrangements so that relatives would be served first. He felt that his family was made to look foolish, for not doing things properly. I found out later that this eld- est brother was sick after he got home because he was so upset. 128 who could not get permission from her parents to date who eloped with a young man after the second secret date (Samora and Lamanna 1967:35). Pattern of Residence 13. Rural Mexico: Temporary patrilocality is common. There is no pattern of residence preference of whether a couple settles near husband's or wife's kin. There is a preference for a home near some bilateral kin (Macklin 1963:63, 148; Humphrey 1946:433). Although people prefer a separate household for each nuclear family at least one-third are actually living in some sort of extended family housing arrangement. Economic circum- stances often force the Mexican immigrant to live in areas of cheap rentals and often to keep roomers. When- ever possible, the roomers are kin. Kin ties are strengthened by such an arrangement (Humphrey 1946:433). Position of Women 14. Rural Mexico: Women are protected from non- family contacts. The husband still protects his wife from suspicious speech and behavior on the part of other men. This pro- tective function was invoked to prevent a wife from "Americanizing" herself or her home as in the case of 129 Mr. S, who called Mrs. T a bad name because she had taken Mrs. S to a theater one afternoon (Humphrey 1944: 62).31 Extended Family Solidarity 15. Rural Mexico: Relationships with close extended kin continue in importance through adulthood. Settlers in Michigan and Ohio maintain kinship ties in Texas by making visits and sending money back to relatives. The migrants have tended to move in chain migration--one-third had relatives and one-fourth friends in the first city in the Midwest in which they settled (Choldin and Trout 1969:17-18). A breach of the expected reciprocity between kin shows how important are these expectations: A toledana, newly delivered of her third child, had to rely on a friend of three years' acquaintance for postpartum assistance in the home, such as baby- sitting. . . . Although she herself had only a brother in Toledo, she bitterly resented the in- difference of her husband's family. There were three unmarried girls in his family of orientation, none of whom had "time" to stay with his wife and take charge of the household for a few weeks. This woman lamented . . that an "outsider" was doing more than her own family was doing (Macklin 1963:150). 311 worked night shift as did Armando and had known him for some time when one night my husband did not come for me at quitting time. Unable to get an answer by telephone, I asked my co-workers if any could take me home. Armando obliged, and when he dropped me at home he waited until my husband came out to the door to see who was there, and said, "I brought her home, Joe." Only then did he return to his car, having safely delivered me to my husband, who had left the telephone off the hook. 130 Toledanos frequently introduced a relative by the kin term only-—Macklin suggests that this functionally points up the importance of the kin tie by a subordi- nation of the person (Macklin 1963:147). Also, compadrazgo was used in Toledo to intensify a set of already existing relationships rather than extend kinship relationships (Macklin 1963:191). Conclusions of Analysis There is more similarity in the independent vari- ables between the Southwest and Midwest than between either of these and the "base line." In both areas in the United States, the great majority of Mexican- Americans live in urban areas. Also, in the United States most Mexican-Americans are employed at least part of the time in non—farm labor. Although many Mexican— Americans in this country came as migrant agricultural laborers, home was generally near the fields and in cases of industrial employment, jobs are generally located at least in the same city as the city of residence. For most of the history of Mexican immigration to the United States, the sex ratio has been skewed to a predominance of young, single males. Although the sex ratio is now evening out in both areas, it has been skewed for most of the history of Mexican-American population of this country. 131 As to the dependent variables, divorce is somewhat more acceptable to urban Mexican-Americans than to rural Mexicans. Younger couples in both the Southwest and Mid- west are beginning to plan the siZe of their families but children are still wanted and large families desired. Although there is not a great deal of difference between actual levels of education between the Southwest and Mid- west populations, there seems to be a slightly higher value placed on education for Midwest youngsters--less of an attitude of, "What difference does it make, I'll only have to work anyway" as there was found in most Southwest studies. In both areas in the United States, sexes are still segregated in public activities and women are still protected from non-kin relationships. There seems to be a trend toward greater equality between husbands and wives but this cannot really be said to be a function of job equality for women as in neither the Southwest or the Midwest are working women commonplace. Perhaps this trend toward equality could better be expressed as a solidification of husband and wife in the face of a strange culture and new situations for which their back- ground has not prepared them. In all three areas, the rigidity of sexual division of labor appears to be a function of the socio- economic class. In the poorest farming families the entire family will work in the fields but when it becomes 132 economically feasible to divide labor into the ideal "women--house; men--out of the house" dichotomy such division more closely approaches the ideal. In all three areas, the eldest brother is an authoritarian figure but in the United States this authority becomes even stronger in certain instances. In some families oldest sons are more respected than fathers because the sons are the more integrated part of the family and therefore "know the right things to do" which fathers may not. In the United States, styles of residence are even more varied than in rural Mexico. Humphrey's and Macklin's data seem to indicate that the milieu of the northern industrial city puts even more pressures on the family than does the urban Southwest. In Detroit there were sizable numbers of abandoned women with children; families took in boarders unknown to them due to a short- age of inexpensive housing; and various forms of extended family residence groups were encountered. One aspect of retaining relations with extended kin which appears in the Midwest is a sort of migration back to the Southwest. Families living in the Midwest arrange visits "home" (to Texas for the most part) as often as possible. Visiting back and forth between families and friends and other family members in the Southwest and Mexico is accepted as one reason for the 133 continuance of traditional cultural features in the South- west. A similar process appears to be at work in the Midwest. The Dyads The information about interpersonal relations in the family is sketchy but an approximation follows. Husband-Wife. Most major decisions are made after consultation between a husband and wife (Goldner 1959:Ch. 3; Macklin 1963:158). Father—Son. Sons are nearly equal to the father in authority (Humphrey 1944:626, 922). Father-Daughter. No sources specifically dis- cuss this relationship although the variables would lead me to suspect that restraint still marks this relation- ship. Consider the fact that parents in Toledo were distressed about the single staircase at the church: one of a father's duties is to protect his women from outside forces, and that includes his daughters. Mother-Son. The mother-son role was traditionally marked by respect and there is no reason to suspect that this does not continue to be true in the Midwest. Sons have considerable authority in the family so mothers have much to be proud of and mothers are still protected so sons can respect them. 134 Mother-Daughter. Women want to have daughters .because daughters can understand the problems of a mother better than a son can (Macklin 1963:174). Siblings. Insufficient data is available to further break down this set of relationships into brother- sister, etc. Older siblings are still given authority over younger ones (Macklin 1963:174-177). Siblings are generally still separated by sex and do not form a solid front; boys are groomed to outside friends and girls are trained to confine themselves to a close circle of female kin (Macklin 1963:165). The most change from traditional relationships appear in the roles husband-wife, which are considerably more equalitarian roles than traditionally, and father- son, in which the son has gained considerable authority at the father's expense. Even these patterns of change, however, do as Samora and Lamanna found in their study, fall within the range of experience of the southwestern Mexican-Americans. CHAPTER'V SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The major hypothesis of this study was that families of a cultural group wherein authority relation- ships are ranked by sex and age will exhibit a decrease in either one or both of the ranking principles when they migrate from rural agricultural areas to urban industrial areas. The analysis of the literature showed that there was little difference between patterns of authority in the Midwest Mexican-American families and the Southwest Mexican-American families and that both did differ some from rural Mexico. The comparison was made between rural Mexico as the base line of change and Southwest Mexican-Americans and Midwest Mexican-Americans. The Southwest United States; the states of Texas, California, Colorado, Ari— zona, and New Mexico; has the largest concentration of persons of Mexican descent of any place outside Mexico. The Midwest United States; mainly Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Minnesota; has some concentrations of persons of Mexican descent in the major urban areas and 135 136 scattered clusters of Mexican-Americans in the rural areas. The Southwest and Midwest are highly urban, industrial- ized areas while the base line, "rural Mexico," by defi- nition is rural and agricultural.' Therefore according to the hypothesis, more change should have been encountered in patterns of familial authority in the Southwest as compared with rural Mexico than in analogous patterns in the Midwest as compared with the Southwest. The dependent variables in rural Mexico were de- fined as follows. There was marital stability, large family size, fairly little attainment of formal education, socialization stressing proper sex roles, rather rigid sexual division of labor the ideal, male and age domi- nance, nuclear families the major socioeconomic units, commonly temporary patrilocality followed by neolocality, and great extended family solidarity. The method used in the comparison was content analysis of selected ethnographic and sociological litera- ture on each of the three areas. The results for each area were then systematically compared and contrasted. What few changes there were occurred mostly in the position of the husband-father. Authority is still vested in this role in both areas in the United States. In the Midwest, however, he allows more equality to his wife and shares decision making with her. In addition, sons enjoy a favored position because they can mediate 137 between the father and the Anglo culture. This is also true in the Southwest, however, and is different only in degree from the pattern exhibited there. Both the Midwest and Southwest samples are pri- marily urban peOple and both are generally industrial employees whereas the occupation of the base line popu- lation was predominantly farming. The biggest differences in the dependent variables, those which are influenced by changes in the socioeconomic setting, between the two areas are as follows. Although it is preferable to live near some bilateral extended kin, no type of temporary patrilocality was noted in the Midwest as it was in the Southwest. The Southwest Mexican—American pattern of familial authority exhibits a more egalitarian relation- ship between husband and wife. There is‘a decline in parental authority over adolescents and a simultaneous lessening of respect for the parents' knowledge than what is found in the base line. The economy at the base line was agriculture--in the Southwest it is industry; the base line was rural--in the Southwest the milieu is urban. The studies also exhibit marked differences between gener- ations and there are generally rather distinct differences between the findings of early and late studies. Another phenomenon found in both areas in the United States as well as in urban Mexico (Lewis 1952:39) is the extension of ritual kinship relationships to persons who are already 138 kin, that is reinforcing of kin ties through ritual kin obligations (Grebler, §t_al. 1970:355). The authors studied all make the assumption that there are differ- ences in retaining of the traditiOnal values regarding family roles and authority between small rural communi- ties and large urgan ones even within the United States. The most difference noted in familial authority patterning did indeed occur between rural Mexico and the first area settled in the United States, the Southwest. What further changes occur farther afield appear to be continuations of the change noted in the Southwest. The hypothesis, then, is proved, with reservation. There does appear to be a positive relationship between urbani- zation and industrialization of the Mexican-American people and a greater equality between sexes and age levels in the family. However, the changes are slight and much of the change which is found is noted in second and succeeding generations. The changes in patterning of familial authority found may therefore be a function of adaptation not only to the process of urbanization but to the process of assimilation into the culture of the majority population as well. Since these two adaptations are occurring more or less simultaneously, it is diffi- cult to isolate the effects of either one. One recent sociological study of Mexican- Americans in the Midwest began with the following intro- duction: 139 Most studies of Mexican—Americans have been written by anthropologists whose concern has been cultural values, norms, and behavior patterns. This has lead, to an image of the Mexican-American as a passive receptor of a traditional culture which has held him back in the process of assimilation into American society. . . . If our picture of the Mexican-American in Michigan fails to resemble that drawn by anthro- pologists in the Southwest . . . we can only respond that in a dynamic and mobile situation one should expect no less . . . (Choldin and Trout 1969:8-9). In fact, one would expect to find a great deal of differ- ence in a dynamic situation but as Samora and Lamanna found in East Chicago and as I found in this comparison of the literature there is surprisingly little change in familial authority throughout the sample. Given the pressures of the urban, industrial habitat, the pressures to conform to a different culture, and different communi- ties and histories, why is this the case? First of all, the base line in rural Mexico is not a case of cut and dried male-dominance, age-dominance authority relationships. Women have traditionally had considerable coercive and persuasive powers although they lacked legitimate authority. A principal difference en- countered in Mexican-American families in this country is that men may openly confer with women in the decision- making process. Perhaps the fact that aged parents and other older relatives were sometimes left behind coupled with the greater exposure of children than adults to the dominant culture contributed to the diminishing of the automatic authority of age. However, maleness and age 140 are still the major ranking principles in Mexican- American families in this country. ' One of the most important factors influencing the continuance of traditional cultural patterns includ- ing those regarding family authority, is the persistent influx of fresh immigrants from Mexico. In a study of migration to cities from a Kentucky rural community, Schwarzweller found that the new city migrants were dis- satisfied with their new community if there was frequent interaction with the parental family back in the rural community (Schwarzweller 1964:416). There seems to be a similar situation for the Mexican-American people. Until the end of the bracero program in 1964, great numbers of these seasonal workers came into this country each year and had contact with the permanent Mexican- American residents of the host communities. These con— tacts reinforced the traditional values of the permanent residents and reminded them of what life is ideally like in the culture of their parents or grandparents (Macklin 1963:13; Clark 1959:32; Gonzalez 1967:29; Kiev 1968:12). Although this program is curtailed, there is still some Mexican immigration. Another factor which helps preserve the tra- ditional norms is visiting. There is considerable visit- ing back and forth between relatives throughout the areas. Midwestern Mexican-Americans plan vacations to homes of 141 relatives in the Southwest; Mexican-Americans in Texas and the rest of the Southwest maintain contact with rela- tives in Mexico, and if close enough may go across the border to a curandero (folk healer) or other functionary in the traditional culture; and relatives in Mexico and the Southwest may plan migratory agricultural labor trips to parts of the country where they have kin. All of these visits re-confirm the traditional cultural values. When Mexicans first came to this country they were often isolated and formed relatively isolated en- claves of Mexican—Americans in cities and towns (Grebler et_al. 1970:89). Also, the element of time has played its part. The group is relatively new to this country. The first large wave of immigration from Mexico occurred in the 1920's. Whatever gains the new— comers could achieve in the era of prosperity were wiped out during the Great Depression. . . . The next large influx of immigrants came in the 1950's and the 1960's. . . . Even the indigenous "Spanish Americans" of the Southwest can be viewed as a rela- tively recent immigrant group. . . . Most of these peOple . . . lived in such geographic and social isolation that they began to move into modern America only after World War II (Grebler et a1. 1970:10). . . . Some of the nonagricultural jobs typically held by Mexican-Americans also tended to insulate them from contacts with the larger community. This was true for mining . . . usually located in remote, isolated places. And it was also true for railroad cars or other makeshift accommodations near the tracks . . . (Grebler et al. 1970:89). This isolation prevented all but minimal interaction with members of the dominant culture. Not to be overlooked is the importance of the retention of a distinct language 142 which provides solidarity for the group but isolates it from the Anglo group. Visiting, new immigrants, and iso- lation all promoted a retention of use of the Spanish language and among the working class it is still the primary language used in the home. Madsen's (1964:32-43) examples of persons of different social classes included use of English in the home only among upper middle and upper classes. The Spanish language is a shared charac- teristic (Clark 1959:24) which unites the working-class people. Finally, some of the values of the traditional Mexican culture are shared with the culture of working- class Anglo-Americans, that segment of the total American culture with which they have most contact. Choldin and Trout suggest that among these values is familial orien- tation (1969:10) and Macklin (1963:17) found that most of the Anglos with which the Mexican-Americans had contact in Toledo were working-class peOple of EurOpean descent and new arrivals from Appalachia. All of these shared certain strategic values about family authority with the Mexican-Americans such as, "woman's place is in the home," and "a man's home is his castle." Mexican-Americans interact with these peOple at work and in the neighbor- hood, as the working-class Anglo is the one with which he must compete for housing and with which he shares his low-skill, low-paying occupational status. Recall that 143 most Mexican-Americans in both the Southwest and Midwest were limited in income, education, and occupation and are therefore mostly lower and lower-middle class status. Most change in authority in the Mexican-American family that has occurred as a response to the pressures of industrialization and urbanization has been in the second and succeeding generations. Goldner (1959:Ch. 3), in a study of selected northern urban areas, cites the following as indicative of the greater changes in the second generation of Mexican-Americans: the second generation is more upwardly mobile and occupationally more diversified, has "more democratic" family patterns, and belongs to "more urban" and "less traditional" organi- zations than the first generation. Goldner further dis- tinguishes three distinct effects which urban life has on the traditional family, which are responsible in his Opinion for the changes above. The individual, rather than the family, is the productive economic unit; roles of family members are modified; and the size of the up- wardly mobile family decreases due to the fact that economically, children are liabilities since they are required to attend school and are forbidden to work (Goldner 1959:Ch. 4). The changes that have occurred are in response to certain pressures of the urban industrial habitat. Among the strongest pressures to adapt have been from the public 144 school system and the employer. There are many commercial aspects of industrial society that also had lasting effects on the life of the Mexican-American migrant. Insurance agents, small loan companies, peddlers, and door-to-door salesmen initiated the migrant into the urban industrial society and continued to influence his life (Tuck 1946: 101). Several of the researchers I reviewed suggest that the public school system in this country exerts the greatest pressure to change on the Mexican-American family. Public co-education has dealt a huge blow to the sheltering of girls (Tuck 1946:125). Integrated schools and interested teachers have been found to be of great importance in determining the continuance of a formal education on the part of Mexican-American youth (Heller 1966:87). And finally, it is in school that children are indoctrinated in and exposed to the dominant culture, which may give them an advantage over their parents in matters requiring knowledge of the dominant culture. This has been instrumental in decreasing the automatic authority of age. As Goldner found, familial roles are modified in the urban industrial situation. Kiev found that the woman's role remained fairly constant in the changing family but the male role changed and evidence of the strain of change was drunkenness and promiscuity (Kiev 145 1968:56). Moore had the same findings, and cited the relatively low rate of female juvenile delinquency com- pared to other ethnic groups and to their male counter- parts as indicative of consistent roles and role expec- tations for females (Moore 1970:116). The importance that occupation has in influencing family authority has been dealt with earlier. Many of the jobs Mexican—Americans had served to isolate them from the Anglo society, but industrial jobs served to intro- duce the worker to Anglo culture through his co-workers. Even these contacts are often minimal, however. For example, the assembly line in an auto plant moves too rapidly to allow much discussion between workers. One study of authoritarianism as an approach to interpersonal relations both intrafamilial and extra- familial found that certain minorities in a Los Angeles survey (termed "Negro" and "Mexican") were highly authori- tarian in comparison to the "white" control population. These minorities were frequently confined to manual occupations, and the survey found a definite correlation between manual jobs and high authoritarianism (MacKinnon and Centers 1956:615). This is a statistical correlation and a sociocultural explanation for the phenomenon is not cited. I suspect that, although this study raises an interesting possibility, the "highly authoritarian" sample may have responded with what they considered the ideal 146 answers. Careful fieldwork in other studies has indi- cated that the correlation MacKinnon and Centers indicated is not found. In summary, certain family roles and authority relationships have changed to meet changing circumstances. In the case of urban Mexican-American families, there appears to have been more change in the male role and expectations than in the female role. Women still find their major role as wives and mothers, but men find their role shifting ideally from authoritarian to egalitarian. The large, complex city affords more diversity in life- styles and therefore more diversity in styles of intra- familial relationships than does the small town or less metropolitan city. The Mexican-American Study Project found that Albuquerque and San Antonio samples were con- siderably more traditional than the Los Angeles sample (Moore 1970:117). The traditional pattern of family authority is as functional in the city ghettos as it was in the rural community of the recent past. It functions most efficiently where members of the society know personally most of those other persons with whom they come in con— tact and where the family unit is fairly self-sufficient. It functions less in the densely populated city where each member of society is required to work for or with others to make a livelihood and where there is 147 considerable contact with a different, dominant, socio- cultural system (Rubel 1966:206). The traditional cultural patterns provide the basis for a close-knit social network (Macklin 1963:270). This type network becomes mal-adaptive in the industrial, urban society and the network of social relations be- comes more loose—knit. Here a consideration of Bott's hypothesis regarding the interrelatedness of conjugal roles and social networks is in order: The degree of segregation in the role-relationship of husband and wife varies directly with the connected- ness of the family's social network (Bott 1957:60). The more connected or close-knit the network, the greater the degree of segregation between the roles of husband and wife; the more loose-knit the network, the lesser the degree of segregation between these roles. I.e., when many of the peOple a person interacts with also interact with each other, then that person's network is close- knit. The members of this network tend to reach a con- sensus on norms and exact pressure on each other to con- form with the norms and keep in touch with each other and even help each other if necessary. If both partners come to marriage with such close-knit networks and the conditions allow continuance of these patterns, then the marriage will be superimposed on these relationships and the spouses will be drawn into relationships outside the family of procreation (Bott 1957:60). This holds true in 148 rural Mexico, where ties with members of the family of orientation remain very close even after marriage. Each partner will get emotional satisfaction from these outside relationships and will demand 1eSS of the spouse. Strict segregation of conjugal roles will be possible as each partner has outside help available. This appears to be the situation in the traditional Mexican family, where the husband has his circle of male friends as well as family and the wife has her female relatives to turn to and segregation of household tasks is pretty rigidly sexual. The situation is different when the peOple with whom ego interacts do not know each other but are all known to ego, i.e., his network of relationships is loose- knit. There is apt to be more variation in norms and assistance will be less available. If both partners come to the marriage with such loose-knit networks or con- ditions cause their networks to become loose-knit after marriage, they must seek emotional satisfaction and help with family tasks from each other which couples with close-knit networks can get from outsiders (Bott 1957:60). Such a situation prevails in the large industrial city for the Mexican-American who has left most of his extended family behind and migrated in with perhaps just his wife, children, an aged mother, and has only a brother and his wife living in the same city. This man and his 149 wife must rely more on each other than on any other per- sons because most of their kin do not reside near them and most other interaction is with co-workers, neighbors, or other individuals who do not generally know each other. It is in this situation that we found a more egalitarian relationship between husband and wife. What of the position of children? I think the network hypothesis can be extended to the children as well. Not only will the relationship be more egalitarian between a husband and wife whose networks are loose-knit but there will be more equality for children who have something to bring to the family (their greater knowledge of the dominant culture) when that family has few outside contacts to which it can turn for assistance. The changes in patterns of family authority found in this study were greater between rural Mexico and the Southwest than between the Southwest and the Midwest. Both the Southwest and the Midwest Mexican-American are predominantly urban. The urban, industrial milieu leads to a loose-knit network and therefore promotes closer, more equalitarian relationships within the nuclear family. The most traditional patterns of family authority were found in Mexican-American families living in ghettos located in large cities or in rural areas or small towns; the greatest changes in familial authority were encountered in Mexican-American families living in large cities in 150 more dispersed settlement. The greatest changes are found in the second generation, where time has coupled with the conditions of urban life to promote adaptation to the new situation. There is much room for further study of urban Mexican-Americans. I think it would be worthwhile to study a very dynamic group of urban Mexican-Americans for purposes of testing some hypotheses suggested in the literature reviewed. Among these are: is compadrazgo really used to entrench kin relationships or is it simply less important in the urban situation? Also, are such organizations as welfare agencies actually providing enough significant services that are traditionally provinces of the family to cause changes in family roles and authority? Studies of this nature would indicate the ways in which a culture can adapt to a dynamic situ- ,” ation by use of different resources than those tradi- tionally available. B IBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY ADAMS, MARGARET JOHNSON. 1970 Aspects of intra-community residential mobility among Mexican Americans in Michigan. Unpublished M.A. Michigan State University. ADAMS, RICHARD N. 1960 An inquiry into the nature of the family. In Essays in the science of culture, in honor of Leslie A. White, Gertrude Dole and Robert Carneiro, Eds., New York, Thomas Y. Crowell. 30-49. ALLEN, RUTH A. 1931 Mexican peon women in Texas. In Sociology and Social research 16: 131-142. de ANDA, JOSE. 1969 Mexican culture and the Mexican American. In El grito: a journal of contemporary Mexican- American thought 3(1): 42-48. 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The purpose of this analysis was to provide a fairly small-scale, controllable test of the correlate of the major hypothesis. This correlate is that certain variables such as occupation will change when other factors such as education change in the urban industrial situation. Each aspect of the variables was listed as a separate variable in the analysis. The following vari- ables were listed for the categories Male Urban, Female Urban, Male Rural Non-Farm, Female Rural Non-Farm, Male 162 163 Rural Farm, and Female Rural Farm. It was expected that there would be significant differences between these categories. One run was used for the statistics for Foreign Born (first generation), one for Natives of Foreign Parentage, Mexican (second generation), and one for Natives of Native Parentage (third generation). Variables 1-14 were defined as independent; variables 15-29 were defined as dependent. 1. same house as 1955 2. different house in 1955 3. living in Mexico in 1955 4. single 5. married 6. separated 7. divorced 8. widowed 9. no schooling 10. elementary school 11. high school 12. college 13 total employed 14. total with income 15. living in household 16. living in group 17. husband-wife family 18. other male family head 19. female family head 20. professional occupation 21. managers and officials 22. clerical 23. sales 24. foremen 25. Operators 26. private household 27. service 28. labor, farm 29. labor, other 164 When the resultant chi square analysis proved inconclusive, the variables were compared in another way in an attempt to ensure that the analysis itself was not at fault. The first time each data card held statistics for all the states and independent cards were used for the categories, male urban, female urban, etc. The second time the reverse was done. The conclusions were the same. The chi square test is a very general test which can be used whenever it is desirable to evaluate whether or not frequencies which are empirically obtained differ significantly from those which would be expected follow- ing the set of theoretical assumptions involved (Blalock 1960:212). Chi square is obtained by first taking the square of the difference between the observed and expected fre- quencies in each cell. This figure is then divided by the expected number of cases in each cell in order to standardize it. The sum of these quantities for all cells is the value of chi square. The larger the difference between observed and expected frequencies, the larger the value of chi square (Blalock 1960:213). Chi square will be zero only when all observed and expected frequencies are identical. The test of chi square is a test of the null hypothesis. In this case, the null hypothesis was that 165 there is no significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Chi square does not state whether a relationship is negative or positive, just the strength of the relationship. ‘In the example of a con- tingency table given, the two variables were "third generation single urban males" and "third generation urban males living in same house as 1955." To obtain the expected frequency for any cell, multiply the two marginal cells corresponding to the cell in question and divide by the final total in the total column. In this case for cell a: 19097 x 116591 / 350782 = 6374. This is the expected frequency. Note that the observed frequency is 6036. Then another table must be set up in which the expected frequency for each cell is subtracted from the observed frequency and this amount squared, then divided by the expected frequency. These values are then added for all the cells and the total of all observed frequencies is subtracted (Blalock 1960:216-217). This number is chi square, the amount of significant difference involved. In the 2 x 2 table (only two variables compared, such as Table I) it is necessary to compute only one expected frequency for if one value is filled in for any one cell the other values are completely determined since expected frequencies must have the same marginal totals TABLE I CONTINGENCY TABLE FOR THE VARIABLES SINGLE, MALE URBAN AND SAME HOUSE, MALE URBAN FOR THIRD GENERATION Cell 3GSglMUr 3GSaHoMUr Total a Ariz. 6036 13061 19097 b Calif. 8020 73710 81730 c Colo. 11064 14649 25713 d N. Mex. 45200 29132 74332 e Tex. 46271 103639 149910 Totals 116591 234191 350782 167 as observed frequencies. We therefore have only one degree of freedom. Checking the table of probable distribution of chi square, we find that for one degree of freedom, 50 percent of the time chi square will be .455 (Blalock 1960:452). .None of the chi squares in my sample was as high as that value, and any percentage less than 50 percent could be attributed to chance. Therefore my statistical test showed that I must accept the null hypothesis, i.e., I must accept that there is no signifi- cant relationship between the dependent and independent variables according to my statistical test. Mangalam discussed the impracticality of the use of census data because the questions are not particularly sociological in nature. He suggests combining age and marital status as an indicator of position in the life cycle and combining income and employment under tenure status (Mangalam 1968:3). More specific questions such as age of the household head, income for families of all generations both for female family heads and male family heads, length of employment in the present occupation, etc. might be more comparable. llllllllllllll"1111111)le"11111111155 1229205