A. Mexican immigrants struggle to achieve upward mobility.
B. The two main reasons upward mobility is difficult for Mexican immigrants are a lack of education and work skills.
A. Staying in one place and unwillingness to move outside the community hampers upward mobility.
B. Illusions surrounding the American/California Dream also thwart upward mobility for Mexican immigrants.
C. Lack of education and a changed U.S. economy undermined chances for upward mobility for Mexican immigrants.
D. The U.S. hourglass economy and gaps in income and education between Mexican immigrants and white Americans continue to thwart upward mobility.
E. To succeed, many Mexican immigrants feel like they must separate themselves from their own ethnic conclaves.
A. Until educational opportunities and work skill training become readily available to Mexican immigrants, it is unlikely they will achieve upward mobility in significant numbers. Introduction
Mexican immigrants continue to struggle in the U.S. to achieve upward mobility. Though previous waves of immigrants to the U.S. arrived unskilled and uneducated like many Mexican immigrants, never before have so many immigrants arrived from one country or settled into so relatively few states. Because of this, Mexican immigrants have reached critical mass in many areas like Southern California. This enables Mexican immigrants to form much greater cohesion than previous immigrant groups, a fact that often males them less likely to move outside their own culture. As well, Mexican immigrants are unlike previous waves of immigrants in that they are more likely to remain unassimilated by choice or circumstance, with reasons ranging from ethnic pride to legal status. Such demographic and cultural trends are changing the very concepts of assimilation and the American ôMelting Potö that have been the goals of U.S. immigrants for over a century. Perhaps the biggest reason up...