Mexican-Americans: The Ambivalent Minority - Tapa dura

Skerry compares the fortunes and outlook of Mexican Americans in San Antonio and Los Angeles. In Texas he finds a previously subjugated community emerging into the political mainstream; in California, despite greater material success, Mexican politicians obsessed with racial injustice. Skerry argues that Mexican American should seek to join the American mainstream and use their political influence to foster integration rather than raise a continual clamour about racial injustice. The latter course, which is becoming the norm of ethnic politics in the USA, will lead to increased ghettoization, a retardation of economic improvement in Mexican communities, and ultimately the undermining of the fabric of US society.