Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica2025-01-302025-01-302007Vasquez, J. M. (2007). Across borders, across generations: Immigration, assimilation, and racial identity formation in multi -generational mexican american families (Order No. 3275638). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (304901686). Retrieved from https://uoregon.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/across-borders-generations-immigration/docview/304901686/se-2https://hdl.handle.net/1794/30377321 pagesThis dissertation investigates how racial identities of Mexican Americans both change and persist inter-generationally within families. Using purposive and snowball sampling, I interviewed three-generation middle class Mexican American families in California. I conducted in-depth interviews with sixty-seven members from twenty-nine three-generation families (Mexican immigrant grandparents and their children and grandchildren born in the U.S.). Two questions inspire this inquiry. First, what are the families’ trajectories of racial identification and incorporation across the three generations? Second, what familial and social forces influence each generation’s racial identity formation? My research elaborates on and refines existing theories of assimilation and racial identity formation by using a generational, family-centered approach. I evoke and utilize the categories of "thinned attachment" and "cultural maintenance" to capture trajectories of assimilation across generations. My study suggests that eight factors are significant in shaping racial identity development and incorporation patterns: spouse/partner, personal traits (phenotype and name), cultural toolkit, gender, social position, social context, institutions, and immigration/citizenship status. Intergenerational family memory (knowledge and stories transmitted through generations), parental ideologies, and historical context are also significant in shaping both racial identity and incorporation trajectories. My research finds that assimilation, as a mode of structural incorporation, is predominant among the families interviewed. Structural assimilation influences racial identity formation in two bifurcated ways: it prompts a loss of Mexican affiliation or sparks a desire to retain a Mexican-oriented identity. Public and institutional discrimination have a tremendous impact on Mexican Americans’ racial identity. Historical period is also influential: the Civil Rights’ Movement offered a new racial rhetoric with which to combat racism and promote visibility. Finally, third generation Mexican Americans range from displaying flexibility in their identification options to being highly racialized in a way that makes Mexican American identity not a matter of choice. This research extends racial identity and assimilation theories by highlighting the mechanisms that drive these processes. Neither racial identity nor assimilation are straightforward progressions but, instead, develop unevenly and are influenced by family, society, and historical social movements.en-USCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USsocial sciences, assimilation, families, immigration, Mexican-American, multigenerational families, racial identityThesis / Dissertationhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5948-4244