Abstract
We examine the issue of identification stability for U.S.-born Mexican Americans, by far the largest of the ethnic groups growing as a result of contemporary immigration. We demonstrate a significant exodus from the group as identified by the census. Although changes in the wording of the census question may have contributed to this loss, a major portion, as revealed by comparisons of birth cohorts across the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses, occurs because individuals who identified themselves as Mexican American at an earlier point in time do not do so at a later point. In addition, there are exits that occur between generations because of past intermarriage, evident in the number of non-Hispanics who claim Mexican ancestry. The losses appear to be accounted for by two kinds of identity shifts: toward identities that have a mainstream character and thus appear reflect conventional assimilation; and toward identities that have a pan-ethnic character, i.e., with Hispanics or Latinos. These exits are selective, but in complex and partially off-setting ways. Nevertheless, the comparison of the characteristics of U.S.-born members of the Mexican–American group over time is likely to be affected by changing patterns of identification.
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Notes
The other issue regarding question changes and their effects concerns the placement of the Hispanic-origin question, which in 2000 for the first time preceded the race question. However, the evidence on this score is that the main impact was on non-Hispanics, who were more likely to answer the question in 2000 than in prior censuses (del Pinal 2004, pp. 9–10). In addition, the Census Bureau’s reinterview survey after the 2000 Census showed a high level of consistency in reporting Hispanic versus non-Hispanic origin and Mexican origin specifically (del Pinal 2004, pp. 16–17).
This loss cannot be explained by the allocation process, i.e., the Census Bureau’s procedure for attributing values to missing data, for the Hispanic-origin question. It is the case that a relatively high proportion of U.S.-born Mexican Americans as identified in the PUMS resulted from allocation in 2000 by comparison with prior years (4.1% vs. 1.3% in 1980 and 1990). But it is also true that in 2000 a relatively high proportion of the cases allocated on the Hispanic-origin item were captured by the Mexican category (5.3% vs. less than 2% in prior censuses). These differences are in the wrong direction to contribute to an explanation.
We feel additionally confident about this claim based on analysis of the Hispanics of Texas that we do not report here. Limiting the analysis to those born in Texas before 1980, a population that is overwhelmingly Mexican by descent, we find that the pan-ethnic category (Hispanic without a specific origin reported on the Hispanic-origin question) grew very robustly in the 1980–2000 period. Some of this expansion could have been due to the shift in question wording in the 2000 Census but not all of it, since it was already apparent in 1990. The details are available on request from the authors.
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Alba, R., Islam, T. The Case of the Disappearing Mexican Americans: An Ethnic-Identity Mystery. Popul Res Policy Rev 28, 109–121 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-008-9081-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-008-9081-x