Having graduated top of her class in law school and now works as a high- powered attorney, Brenda, carrying a large designer bag and leases a spacious house in an exclusively white neighborhood, is a second-generation Mexican American who has defied odds in the eyes of many people. How so?
Compared to other races, Mexican Americans have been the least educated in the United States. An exuberant 47.3 percent of Mexican Americans compared to the 23 percent of African Americans, 15.2 percent of Asians, and 13.7 percent of Caucasians did not graduate high school in 2008. The statistics are overwhelming. The alarming distinction has caused scholars and policy makers to doubt if Mexican Americans will ever be able to achieve social mobility and incorporate themselves into the middle class. However, Jody Vallejo, author of Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican American Middle Class, demonstrates that Mexican Americans like Brenda have not all gone downwards in mobility, but instead are becoming a part of the middle class.
The purpose of the book is to bring attention to and show the pessimistic public a more complete view of the Mexican American middle class by examining their “mobility paths, lived experiences, and …show more content…
Thus, Vallejo makes a significant contribution to the research on Mexican Americans. The book appropriately expands on the assumptions about assimilation and the means in which immigrants and their following generations combine into the existing middle class. The strength of Vallejo’s book includes the plethora of data and extensive interviews she gathers to bind to support her arguments. But because this is wholly academic writing, a downfall is that this book may not reach out to a wide, varied audience. The research is also relatively new, which means we have so much more to
Compared to other races, Mexican Americans have been the least educated in the United States. An exuberant 47.3 percent of Mexican Americans compared to the 23 percent of African Americans, 15.2 percent of Asians, and 13.7 percent of Caucasians did not graduate high school in 2008. The statistics are overwhelming. The alarming distinction has caused scholars and policy makers to doubt if Mexican Americans will ever be able to achieve social mobility and incorporate themselves into the middle class. However, Jody Vallejo, author of Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican American Middle Class, demonstrates that Mexican Americans like Brenda have not all gone downwards in mobility, but instead are becoming a part of the middle class.
The purpose of the book is to bring attention to and show the pessimistic public a more complete view of the Mexican American middle class by examining their “mobility paths, lived experiences, and …show more content…
Thus, Vallejo makes a significant contribution to the research on Mexican Americans. The book appropriately expands on the assumptions about assimilation and the means in which immigrants and their following generations combine into the existing middle class. The strength of Vallejo’s book includes the plethora of data and extensive interviews she gathers to bind to support her arguments. But because this is wholly academic writing, a downfall is that this book may not reach out to a wide, varied audience. The research is also relatively new, which means we have so much more to