Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations
1-1-2003
Te gustaría casarte conmigo?: generational, gender, and group size effects on Latino intermarriages
Malin Louise Andersson Iowa State University
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Recommended Citation Andersson, Malin Louise, "Te gustaría casarte conmigo?: generational, gender, and group size effects on Latino intermarriages" (2003). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 19891. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/19891
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ~,Te gustaria casarte conmigo? Generational, gender, and group size effects on Latino intermarriages
by
Malin Louise Andersson
A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
Major: Sociology
Program of Study Committee: Jan L. Flora, Major Professor Betty A. Dobratz Jerry Garcia
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
2003 11
Graduate College Iowa State University
This is to certify that the master's thesis of
Malin Louise Andersson has met the thesis requirements of Iowa State University
~:
Signatures have been redacted for privacy 111
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES iv
LIST OF TABLES vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Problem Statement 2 Theoretical Overview 3 Gordon's theory of assimilation 5 Blau's social structure theory 6 Literature Review 8 Reviewing literature on intermarriages 9 Model Study 15 Hypotheses 18 Outline 20 CHAPTER 2. THE HISTORY OF LATINO IMMIGRATION 21 Mexican Immigration 23 Puerto Rican Immigration 26 Cuban Immigration 27 CentraUSouth American Immigration 29 Central American immigration 30 South American immigration 31 Dominican Immigration 32 Contemporary U.S. Inunigration Laws 34 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 36 Conceptualization 36 Current Population Survey 40 Variables 42 CHAPTER 4. DATA AND ANALYSIS 48 Generational Differences 48 Findings 56 Gender Differences 57 Findings 65 Group Size Differences 67 Findings 69 Concluding Thoughts 70 BIBLIOGRAPHY 73 1V
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Group size, all groups. 22
Figure 2. Length of residency, by Latino ethnicity, all groups. 25
Figure 3. Sex ratio, all Latino/as 18 years of age and older, all groups. 26
Figure 4. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency,
all Latinos. 48
Figure 5. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency,
Mexican origin. 49
Figure 6. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency,
Puerto Rican origin. 50
Figure 7. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency,
Cuban origin. 50
Figure 8. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency,
Central/South American origin. 51
Figure 9. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency,
other Spanish/Dominican origin. 52
Figure 10. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, all Latinos. 57
Figure 11. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Mexican origin. 58
Figure 12. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Puerto Rican origin. 59
Figure 13. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Cuban origin. ~ 59
Figure 14. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Central/South
American origin. 60 V
Figure 15. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, other
Spanish/Dominican origin. 61
Figure 16. Intermarried, division by sex, all Latino groups. 62 V1
LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Intermarriage regressed on length of residency and control variables. 53
Table 2. Intermarriage regressed on sex and control variables. 63
Table 3. Intermarriage regressed on group size and control variables. 68 1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Researchers have predicted for many years that fifty percent of the U.S. population will consist of non-white ethnic minority groups in the early 21St century (Suarez-Orozco and
Paez 2002; Johnson, Farrell, and Guinn 1997). Latinos and African Americans both make up roughly 12.5 percent of the U.S. population (Suarez-Orozco and Paez 2002). However, in early 2003, based on Bureau of the Census data, Latinos surpassed African Americans as the largest ethnic group (BBC News January 22, 2003; USA TODAI' January 21, 2003). This does not mean, though, that Latinos have not already had a significant impact on U.S. society. Mexicans in California and Texas, Puerto Ricans in New York City, and Cubans in
Miami have had an impact on politics, economics, and U.S. society for quite some time. In the future, being the largest minority will likely mean that Latinos will become stronger politically, economically, and socially. Nevertheless, given the uncertainty about what the future might bring for Latinos, it is easier to gain knowledge about the community in today's society than to predict what the future might hold for this fastest growing minority in the U.S.
It is true that Latinos have been present in the U.S. for centuries, but the question is, have they become a part of American society today, or are they still considered a segregated group of immigrants? How can we methodologically determine which of these two statements is true? An important sociological indicator of an immigrant group's level of assimilation into a host society is the portion of intermarriages between individuals in the dominant and immigrant group (Gordon 1964; Gurak and Fitzpatrick 1982; Arias 2001;
Hwang and Saenz 1990), as intermarriage is considered to be one of the final steps in the
process of assimilation. However, some researchers would disagree. For instance, Mareson 2
(1950-51) argued that intermarriage is not an index of assimilation, as an immigrant group might assimilate without experiencing high rates of intermarriages. Nevertheless, it can be argued that intermarriage is a positive indicator of assimilation, although there may be several others. Therefore, it is important to look at the portion of Latinos intermarrying non-
Latinos in order to gain knowledge about whether or not the Latino community is assimilating into U.S . society.
Problem Statement
Between 1990 and 2000 the U.S. Latino population grew by 58 percent (Suarez-
Orozco and Paez 2002). With this growing number of Latinos in U.S. society, it is timely and appropriate to study the group more intensely. These studies should include closer looks at demographics and social patterns, both as they relate to other immigrant groups' statistics and U.S . society as a whole.
It would also be valuable if such studies looked at the degree to which Latinos assimilate into dominant U.S. society. Since marriage has been found to be "the most profound and lasting human relation" (Blau, Becker, Fitzpatrick 1984:591) in society, the study of intermarriage between different ethnic groups is one of many ways to look at how well assimilated immigrant groups are. This can be based on the fact that intermarriage
"requires that the members of different social segments do not view one another as so alien that intimate relations are virtually inconceivable" (Blau, Becker, Fitzpatrick 1984:591), suggesting that both groups feel somewhat acculturated with the other group. Gordon (1964) suggests that ideally it is not only the immigrant group that changes to fit into the host society, but the host society also changes to better accommodate the immigrant group. Thus, 3 intermarriage has an impact on both the dominant and immigrant groups, which is why studies Of intermarriage are important in understanding the composition of both groups.
However, when searching for contemporary studies within this area, with comparisons between ethnic groups within the Latino population, one notices that there is a shortage of research. Therefore, it seems that a careful study of Latino intermarriage with non-Latinos is long over due. Thus, I argue that a study of this caliber is much needed and necessary for the Latino community as well as U.S . society in order to gain more knowledge of the issue at hand.
Now that the problem at hand has been stated, it is important to turn to the next part of this chapter: a theoretical overview.
Theoretical Overview
Even though there are several different theories to choose from when looking at intermarriage as an indicator Of assimilation, this study will follow the authors' decision in the model study by Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997)1 and use two models that have been widely recognized as appropriate when studying the phenomenon: Gordon's theory of assimilation and Blau's social structure theory. However, it is still important to briefly discuss some of the other theories, as they will give a somewhat different perspective on intermarriages. The ideas behind these theories have been put forward mainly by Portes and
Rumbaut, Almaguer, and Barrera, and can be explained to give more Of an insider's, i.e. the immigrant's, viewpoint of assimilation.
1 See further discussion on the model study in this chapter, under Model study. 4
Portes and Rumbaut (2001; 1996) have developed a theoretical approach that deals mainly with the assimilation of the second generation. They argue that the degree to which children of immigrants assimilate is based on three major factors: color, geographic location, and changes in the labor markets' structures (Portes and Rumbaut 1996). They also argue that differences in assimilation patterns between different groups can be attributed to factors such as the history of the first generation immigrants, the rate at which parents and children assimilate simultaneously, the levels of difficulty in economic and cultural assimilation for the second generation, and the resources available within the family or in the community to overcome such barriers (Portes and Rumbaut 2001).
Almaguer (1994) argues that in the process of racialization, which is a term used "to specify the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice or group" (c.f. Omi and Winant 1987:64), there are resemblances between material interests of "whites", depending on class, and structural racial ideologies. This
Marxist view inevitably led to a nationalization of the "construction of social boundaries around the white population" (Almaguer 1994:10-11), which Almaguer argues was based on race, rather than the Marxist term class. A consequence of this nationalization of race relations is that race relations often are seen as binary relationships (which creates confusion when a third group enters into the competition). However, people usually think that class and race are intertwined as to become one (like a slave and owner relationship), and that the relationship is based solely on the relationship between labor and capital (Almaguer 1994).
Thus, Almaguer is arguing that race, rather than class, has played an important role in forming the relationship between different groups of people in the U.S.
Barrera (1988) argues that there are four main institutions that have created a form of 5 internal colonialism, or institutionalized discrimination and segregation, for Latinos in the
U.S., namely: economic, political, educational, and residential conventions. Within the economic field this has been apparent through dual wages and vocational stratification, while in the political field gerrymandering and poll taxes have created separate systems for Latinos and Anglo Americans. In the educational field, the discrimination has taken part mainly through the segregated school system and unequal resources in schools, while residential segregation has been both formal and informal (Barrera 1988).
I will now turn to a deeper theoretical discussion on the two theories that will be used as a base for this study, Gordon's theory of assimilation and Blau's social structure theory.
Gordon's theory of assimilation
The long-established theory used in discussions and analyses of intermarriage is an assimilationist theory created by Milton Gordon (1964). To better understand his theory it is important to discuss such closely related concepts as social structure and culture. Gordon
(1964) treats these two concepts as being on each side of "the coin of human life" (Gordon
1964:32). He describes culture as social heritage, something that is passed down from one generation to another and teaches us how to act. Values, beliefs, and skills, "non-material culture" (Gordon 1964:33), are passed down, as are artifacts, or "material culture" (Gordon
1964:33).
Gordon calls social structure "the set of crystallized social relationships which its
[society's] members have with each other which places them in groups, large or small, permanent or temporary, formally organized or unorganized, and which relates them to the major institutional activities of the society, such as economic and occupational life, religion, 6 marriage and the family, education, government, and recreation" (Gordon 1964:30-31).
These social relationships should not be occasional, but rather must demonstrate discernable patterns in order to be worthy of study. In this definition of social structure, groups can be either primary or secondary. The primary group, such as family and other intimate social groups, is one where socialization first occurs and all of one's personality, not just segments of it, is shared with other group members. In the secondary group, such as interest organizations, relationships are more impersonal and do not contribute to socialization as much as the primary group does (Gordon 1964).
Immigrants' cultural traits and social structure are not the same as those of the dominant group. Therefore, it will take the immigrant some time to establish new relationships and gain knowledge of the new culture and social structure. This process starts through acculturation, wherein the immigrant learns about the new culture and adopts some of its practices, and may move on to structural assimilation, which usually signals the improvement of the immigrant's socioeconomic status (Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997).
Following these steps towards full assimilation, the immigrant then might marry into the dominant group, which Gordon calls "marital assimilation" (Gordon 1964:71).
Blau's social structure theory
Blau defines social structure "as referring to the distributions of a population among different social positions that reflect and affect people's relations with one another" (Blau
1977:28). This social structure is a combination of several parameters, which are axes along which people in the population are distributed (Blau 1977). Since people can hold positions on several different parameters at the same time, "social structure may be considered a 7 distribution in a multidimensional space" (Blau, Becker, and Fitzpatrick 1984:589).
Parameters can be either nominal or graduated, the first dividing "the population into subgroups with distinct boundaries and without an inherent rank order" (Blau 1977:31).
Examples of nominal parameters would be race, religion, and sex. Graduated parameters rank people on axes based on status (Blau 1977). Examples of such statuses "include wealth, income, social standing, education, and power" (Kytina, Blau, Blum, and Schwartz
1988:648). Furthermore, the distribution among nominal parameters refers to heterogeneity, while the distribution along graduated parameters relates to inequality (Blau 1977). The degree of heterogeneity could be explained further as:
... the probability that two randomly selected persons do not belong to the same group. For any nominal parameter, the larger the number of groups and the more evenly the population is divided among them, the greater is the heterogeneity. Thus, a community's ethnic heterogeneity is greater if there are many than if there are few ethnic groups; but it is not so great if most people belong to one ethnic group as it is if the population is more evenly divided among several. (Blau 1977:31)
Inequality can be measured in two different ways. By looking at the difference in status between two or more people compared to the average of that status, measures of inequality can be devised. However, inequality can also be measured by looking at the concentration of a status within certain groups, such as wealth in the hands of the rich (Blau 1977).
Thus, contrary to Gordon's theory of structural and cultural assimilation, structural theory does not focus on "the influences of a person's positions but on the influences of a collectivity's degree of differentiation, in a single dimension or in a combination of several"
(Blau, Becker, and Fitzpatrick 1984). Structural theory explains the effects a population, rather than an individual, has on social interactions and relations. The theory is based on two assumptions: that people in close proximity (through race, religion, origin, education, occupation, and social class) are more likely to have social relations with each other (Blau, 8
Becker, and Fitzpatrick 1984), and secondly, that the greater the accumulation of the same cultural and social traits between two or more people, "the greater will be the likelihood that meaningful social relations will be established" (South and Messner 1986:1410). However,
"everybody is assumed to have ingroup preferences" (Blau, Becker, and Fitzpatrick
1984:590), meaning that, when possible, people will choose partners or friends with traits that best match their own attributes. Thus, if one's own group is smaller, or does not include people that match one's attributes, one is more likely to have friends and/or partners outside of one's own group. This "implies that group size and the proportion out-married are inversely related" (Blau, Blum, and Schwartz 1982:47). Thus, "Blau's principal theoretical objective is to make explicit just how structural arrangements constrain or facilitate opportunities for contacts, thereby influencing the observed volume of social interaction"
(South and Messner 1986:1411).
Since a theoretical overview is part of a foundation for a study, but not nearly enough to base the study on, it is also necessary to take a closer look at issues, concepts, and patterns in studies of intermarriages. Aliterature review of such studies follows.
Literature Review
The initial research for this thesis started in the fall of 2002, when information on different assimilation models was collected for a term paper. In this process, I developed an interest for the causes and effects of ethnic intermarriages. Since I already had a great interest in the Latino population and given the facts that the Latino population is the fastest growing and largest ethnic minority in the U.S., the choice of which group to study was fairly simple to make. 9
The literature review, the theoretical overview, as well as the background on Latino immigration2, have been based on both articles and books. By back tracing through references from the initial sources used in the term paper and by taking classes related to the subject matter, more secondary information was found and used. Most of the articles have been located through Journal Storage: the Scholarly Journal Archive (or more commonly known as JSTOR). This online archive of scholarly journals is an independent non-profit organization, and was established in August 1995 (JSTOR, 2002). The rest of the articles have been collected at the Iowa State University Parks Library, as have most of the books used in this thesis. Other books have been retrieved at the Sociology-Economics Reading
Room3 in Heady Hall, and the rest of the books are from classes in the Master's program, or even from my undergraduate studies.
To fully explore possible ways in which intermarriages could be researched, it will be necessary to look not only at research carried out on intermarriage between non-Latinos and
Latinos, but also other immigrant groups in U.S. society, and, in one case, intermarriages in another country. In order to make this section more comprehensive, it will be helpful to ask some questions, such as: What are some of the trends and findings in the research regarding intermarriage between groups of immigrants and Americans? Is there any specific study that could serve as a model for this research?
Reviewing literature on intermarriages
Studies on intermarriages seem to have peaked during the 1980s, while numerous
a See further discussion on the background of Latino immigration in Chapter 2. 3 The Sociology-Economics Reading Room is a smaller staffed library funded by the joint efforts of the Sociology and Economics Departments, which has existed since 1943 (The Reading Room Now and Then n.d.). 10 studies were found that were written before the 1980s, in the 1990s and into the 21St century.
Thus, the literature review covers a plethora of studies covering a span of roughly sixty years, from approximately the 1940s to 2002.
As can be expected from doing research on U.S . society as a whole, most recent researchers have used quantitative data in order to generalize different views and patterns.
Several of these researchers used the Public Use Microdata Samples (PUNS) (Arias 2001;
Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan 1990; Rosenfeld 2002; Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997), which is a randomly selected sub-sample from the U.S. Census data, although some used the full data from the U.S. Census (Neer 1974; Labov and Jacobs 1986; Qian, Blair, and Ruf
2001). Researchers focusing on a particular region or even a specific city were more inclined to use marriage licenses as their data source (Mittelbach and Moore 1968; Lee, Potvin, and
Verdieck 1974).
Much of the research has found that there are generational differences in intermarriages in the U.S. For instance, in their study of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles,
Mittelbach and Moore (1968) found that exogamy increases as the immigrant group becomes more assimilated. Qian, Blair, and Ruf (2001) found that Asians born in the U.S. were more likely to intermarry than Asian immigrants, and that immigrants who did intermarry more often married non-Asians than other Asian ethnicities. These findings were similar to those of Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997), who found that Asian Americans who are highly acculturated (measured by English fluency and time lived in the U.S.) were more likely to marry outside their own group than those Asian Americans who were not as acculturated.
Along with generational differences, research also shows that there are clear gender differences between men and women in how likely they are to intermarry. Some research 11 shows that women are more likely to intermarry, while other suggest that men are more likely to intermarry. Heer (1974) used 1960 and 1970 Census data when studying intermarriages between European Americans and African Americans. He found that during that decade there had been a real increase in intermarriages between these two groups.
However, African American men married European American women more often than
African American women married European American men. Also, in the study of African
American intermarriages with European Americans, Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan (1990) found that gender plays an important role in the rates of intermarriage and that African
American men tend to intermarry more than do African American women, although they could not explain why men intermarry more than women.
Indicating that African-American intermarriages might have different patterns than other ethnicities, these gendered findings have been contested by other researchers studying other ethnicities. Mittelbach and Moore (1968) carried out a study of Mexican Americans in
Los Angeles, using marriage licenses issued in Los Angeles as their data, in which Mexican
Americans were identified by a Spanish last name. Their findings indicated that exogamy was higher for Mexican American women than men. The same findings have been indicated in studies of Asian Americans. Kitano, Yeung, Chai, and Hatanaka (1984) compared the intermarriage rates of Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans in Los Angeles and Hawaii, finding that Asian women tended to intermarry with other nationalities at a higher rate than do Asian men. Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997) also found that Asian women tend to marry outside their own group more than Asian men.
Not only does the generation of the immigrant and gender play a role in the likelihood of intermarriages, but the size of the group has also been found to have some importance. 12
Studying interethnic marriages in Singapore, Lee, Potvin, and Verdieck (1974) used marriage licenses to determine intermarriages. They were able to distinguish that Chinese, who at the time of the study constituted 76 percent of the population in Singapore, were the ones least likely to intermarry. Malays, who constituted 15 percent of the population, were much more likely to intermarry, as were the Indians, who together with Pakistanis constituted 7 percent of the Singaporean population. This suggests that as a group gets larger, people in this group are less inclined to marry outside of their own group, while smaller groups are more likely to marry outside of the group. Alba and Golden (1986) drew similar conclusions. They studied the difference in intermarriages between Americans with European and non-European ancestry, finding that the latter group is more likely to intermarry than the former and that smaller groups are more likely to intermarry than larger groups, when the preference for intra-matTiages is the same. Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997) suggest that intermarriages might be a result of the sex ratio within a specific group. Thus, the rates of intermarriages for a group could be explained by the inaccessibility of appropriate mates within one's own group (Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997).
Some studies also suggest that there are regional differences between the level of intermarriages in the U.S. Kitano, Yeung, Chai, and Hatanaka (1984) found that while the rank order from highest to lowest rates of intermarriages in Los Angeles was Japanese,
Chinese, and Korean, it was the reversed in Hawaii (Korean, Chinese, and Japanese). They explain these regional differences as being size related to a degree, but most of all, they were generational; that is the groups that had migrated earlier were more likely to intermarry than
were more recent migrants. Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan (1990) found in their study of
African American intermarriages that region plays a big role in the rates of intermarriages. 13
When intermarriages occur between African Americans and other Americans they do so more in Western region states than anywhere else in the U.S., which the authors explain is based solely on where one resides and not on sex, which was the other independent variable.
Looking closer at inequality and intermarriages, Davis (1941) studied the relationship between caste societies (the Hindu, Brazilian, South African, Hawaiian, and Nazi caste systems) and intermarriages. In his study, he also looks at the probability of hypergamy, which he defines as "a form of institutionalized intermarriage whereby the men of a higher caste-group may marry women of a lower group, but not vice versa" (Davis 1941:381), as this is one possibility of intermarriages in a society ranked by castes. Without suggesting that intermarriage was frequent, he found that in non-racially based caste societies intermarriages between different castes were more tolerated. However, in racial based caste societies even hypergamy seemed impossible, as the caste system's fundamental base was race.
A person's religious affiliation also seems to play an important role in the likelihood of intermarrying or not, and has been argued to play more importance than ethnicity or nationality (Reeves Kennedy 1944). Reeves Kennedy (1944) studied the differences in intermarriages between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in New Haven. She found that
Catholics, including Irish, Italian, and Poles, almost always married other Catholics, and that intermarriage among nationalities subscribing to Catholicism was very common. Protestants
(British-Americans, Germans, and Scandinavians) preferred that their spouse be Protestant, while again the nationality within this group seemed to matter less. Jews almost exclusively married other Jews, and Reeves Kennedy (1944) claims that they seemed to be the most endogamous group of those studied. Thus, she states, "while strict endogamy is loosening, religious endogamy is persisting and the future cleavages will be along religious lines rather 14 than along nationality lines as in the past" (Reeves Kennedy 1944:332 [originally in italics]).
Labov and Jacobs (1986) concluded that, when studying intermarriages, both cultural and structural factors should be taken into consideration. They studied intermarriages in
Hawaii between "racial, occupational, age, prior-marital status, and residential groups"
(Labov and Jacobs 1986:79), using State of Hawaii Vital Statistics and the U.S. Census. They came to the conclusion that there has been an increase in intermarriages between these different groups from the 1950s to the 1980s, although not as high of an increase as anticipated by the authors. Taking cultural factors into consideration, Alba and Golden
(1986) studied the differences in intermarriages between Americans with European and non-
European ancestry, finding that the latter group is more likely to intermarry than the first and that people of ethnically mixed background are more likely to marry outside of their ethnic groups.
People intermarrying have also been found to have certain demographical features.
Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan found in their study of African American intermarriages that those who intermarried "tended to be younger, more likely to have been married before, and more distant in age from their spouses (i.e. both younger and older)" (Tucker and Mitchell-
Kernan 1990:209). In his recent study, Rosenfeld asked the questions "Are Mexican
Americans assimilating, and if so with whom? To what extent are Mexican Americans already assimilated?" (Rosenfeld 2002:153). In order to answer these questions, Rosenfeld
(2002) used PUMS and came to the conclusion that Mexican Americans intermarry with
Anglo Americans in substantial numbers, but that the group hardly intermarries with African
Americans.
Finally, some researchers have set out to test the importance of models of 15 assimilation. In her study, Arias (2001) uses the 1970, 1980, and 1990 PUMS to prove that classic assimilation models still are useful. She looks closely at Cuban Americans and their nuptiality patterns, and finds that the classical models, such as Gordon's (1964), are still very useful and correct despite the critique that has erupted the last decade.
Summarizing the literature review, we can see that there are clear trends within the literature on intermarriages. To name a few, there seem to be generational difference between those intermarrying, with later generation immigrants intermarrying more. Women seem to intermarry more than men do, even though this does not hold true for African Americans.
The size of the group the immigrants belong to also has an impact on whether or not they are likely to intermarry; the smaller the immigrant group, the more likely its members are to intermarry. Finally, region, religion, culture, and ethnicity all plays an important part in whether or not an immigrant intermarries or not.
Since the first question (What are some of the trends and findings in the research regarding intermarriages between groups of immigrants and Americans?) now has been answered it would be reasonable to turn to the second question: Is there any specific study that could serve as a model for this study? There is one study in particular that will serve as a model for this thesis in regards of its design, data usage, theoretical selection, and choice of
variables. The most appropriate study found was carried out by Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre
(1997) and focused on Asian American intermarriages, and concentrated specifically on six
Asian ethnicities.
Model study
The Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997) study was chosen as a model for this study 16 since it presents not only the two theoretical approaches that have been found useful, but also because of the choice of variables in the study. For their study, these researchers chose one structural and one assimilationist theoretical approach, as they argue that this will explain both individual and structural levels of intermarriages (Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997).
The assimilationist theory that they chose to use in their study is based on Gordon's work from 1964. According to Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997), Gordon's approach explains the transformation the immigrant goes through: from being culturally different, which would prevent intimate relationships with the host culture, to overcoming barriers that eventually will lead to higher chances of intimate relationships (intermarriages). The structural approach is delineated by Blau's work, which Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre argue to be "the most representative ... of the structuralist view" (1997:760). According to Hwang, Saenz, and
Aguirre (1997), Blau argues that relationships between different groups are not based on the willingness to assimilate, but rather the possibility of doing so. These "possibilities" are based on structural constraints such as the size of the group and the availability of partners within and outside one's own group.
The variables that Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997) decided to include in their study were based on the two theoretical approaches discussed above. For Gordon's assimilationist view, Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997) divided the variables into those of acculturation and structural assimilation. They used immigration status and ability to speak
English as acculturation variables. For immigration status, they coded three different groups: native born (highest level of acculturation), early immigrant, or recent immigrant (lowest level of acculturation). The ability to speak English was coded from more fluent to less fluent, with more fluent being a sign of a higher level of acculturation than less fluent. For 17 the structural assimilation variable, they chose to use only education, although they considered occupational status and income as well. Education was considered to be the best measure of structural assimilation of the three, since occupational status and income would limit the sample to those who are employed. Also, the authors argue that the three variables would measure the same thing, socioeconomic status, and therefore would "introduce multicollinearity" (Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997:763) to the study.
The macro-structural variables related to Blau's theoretical approach that Hwang,
Saenz, and Aguirre (1997) used are community, group size, sex ratio, and internal diversity.
The researchers operationalized community as a geographical group of at least 10,000 inhabitants ("a PUMS area" [Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997:764]). Group size was measured by taking the natural logarithm for each Asian ethnicity within each community,
while sex ratio was measured by "the number of men per 100 women of the same group in
the PUMS area" (Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997:764). Finally, internal diversity was
measured by comparing each of the six ethnicities' educational distribution to that of three
groups outside each specific Asian community (Anglo Americans, the other five Asian ethnicities, and non-Asian minorities).
Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre's (1997) findings show that Asian Americans who are
highly acculturated (measured by the fluency of English and length of stay in the U.S.) are
more likely than those who are not highly acculturated to marry outside their own group.
Based on the sex ratio variable, they also found that women tend to marry outside their own
group more than men. However, their findings did not support the structural assimilationist
claim, since there appeared to be a negative relationship between education and
intermarriage. 18
With a theoretical background and a grounding literature review, followed by a model study, there is now a great deal of background for forming a new study. As a first step, it will be useful to develop hypotheses that I can later fail to reject or reject by testing the data.
Hypotheses
From the review of roughly sixty years of studies above one can clearly see several patterns. Will some of these patterns still hold true, or will they be proven wrong through this study? Most importantly, will these trends hold true for Latino immigrants or not? With the guidance of Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre's (1997) study, and influenced by other patterns found in the literature review, I have selected three hypotheses to examine.
Since much of the research reviewed found generational differences in their studies of assimilation through intermarriage, it is useful to see if there are generational differences for
Latinos in this study as well. This will be tested by looking at the differences in the relationship between length of residence in the U.S . (U.S . born, recent, or early immigrant) and intermarriage. For instance, higher rates of intermarriage for Latinos in the U.S. born group compared to the early immigrants would suggest that assimilation through intermarriage is higher for later generations. The first hypothesis, in which assimilation will be measured by length of residency in the U.S., is therefore:
The longer Latinos have had an opportunity to assimilate, the more likely are they to
intermarry with non-Latinos.
Another distinct trend in the literature review was the differences between men and
women in rates of intermarriage. For most minorities it seems as though women are more 19 likely to intermarry into the dominant culture, although African Americans seem to differ from this with more men than women intermarrying. Based on this information, the second hypothesis of interest for this study would therefore be:
Based on earlier research on intermarriages, Latinas (females) are more likely than
Latinos (males) to intermarry with non-Latinos.
Next, the research also suggests that the size of the minority group matters, as individuals in smaller groups are more likely to intermarry (which might be explained by inaccessibility to appropriate mates within their own group). Since the five groups of Latinos
that will be discussed in this thesis are different in overall group size, I will compare these
groups and see if the smaller ones of the five groups tend to intermarry more, while the larger
tend to intermarry less. Hypothesis number three will be tested with region as a control
variable, based on Blau's theory of proximity, and states thusly:
The smaller in size a Latino group is, compared to other Latino groups, the more
likely people in this group are to intermarry with non-Latino partners, when
controlling for region.
Now, as the topic of this thesis has been introduced, literature has been reviewed, and
three hypotheses have been stated, it is time to test these hypotheses and analyze the result to
better understand the concept of Latino intermarriages as it relates to assimilation in U.S.
society. Therefore, we will turn to an outline of the thesis, which will state the contents of
each chapter and form a view of what is to come after this introductory chapter. 20
Outline
Chapter 2 —The History of Latino Immigration will follow this introductory chapter, which has set the guidelines for the study. Here, I will take a closer look at the flows of migration from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central/South American countries, as well as the
Dominican Republic throughout the history of the U.S. The chapter will also include a brief overview of contemporary migration laws in the U.S.
The methodological approaches and techniques that were applied for this study will then be described to give a clear view of how the data has been used. In Chapter 3 —
Methodology, I explain the variables that will be used for the study, modifications in their measurement, and why they will be used. As with the theoretical approaches, some of these variables will follow the model study by Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre (1997), while the data being used will be slightly different from that of the model study. In this thesis, the Current
Population Survey (CPS) will be used to describe the rates of intermarriage in the Latino community, instead of the PUMS, which was used in Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre's (1997) study. This chapter will also contain a section on conceptualization of different terms and concepts, so that their meaning is clear to the reader.
In Chapter 4 —Data and Analysis, I explain the characteristics of the data and present the analysis. Finally, concluding thoughts will be presented with a focus On similarities and differences between the literature reviewed and results obtained in this study. Lastly, I make suggestions for future studies.
I now turn to the second chapter, which, as explained above, will deal with Latino immigration. 21
CHAPTER 2. THE HISTORY OF LATINO IMMIGRATION
Although the U.S. is often referred to as a nation of immigrants, immigration is also referred to as the "oldest national problem" (Stockwell 1927:742). Thus, U.S. laws on immigration have tried to control those flows of immigrants and have responded to changes in such flows. Immigrants to the U.S. have come from all corners of the world, in different numbers, and in different ways. The pan-ethnicity that the term Latino suggests will doubtlessly have limitations in this discussion on immigration since the migration patterns and waves for each nationality/ethnicity are different. Thus, this chapter will investigate patterns of migration of five Latino groups (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central/South
American, and Dominican) separately, and after this presentation, the chapter will turn to a brief discussion on contemporary immigration laws in the U.S.
In this chapter, I chose to let Dominicans represent the group of "other Spanish", which is what it is named in the original data set. According to CPS, other Spanish can include the following: Dominican, Spanish, Spanish Basque, Filipino, Haitian, as well as several other categories (Current Population Survey Help 2003). Dominicans have been chosen as the representing group out of these, based on Census data that indicated that people of Dominican origin were the third largest Latino group in the U.S . in 1997 (Census Brief
2000). I also confirmed this by carrying out a cross tabulation of nativity and Spanish ethnicity based on the CPS data used in this study, which showed that Dominicans were the largest Latino nativity represented in this category.4 a Dominicans make up 255 out of the 605 people of 40 different nativities who claim to be "other Spanish". Most of these Dominicans, 208, live in the Northeastern region, 37 in the Southern region, 7 in the Western region, and 3 in the North central/Midwestern region (CPS original data set 2002). 22
First, I will present a figure that will give a visual concept of the five different Latino groups when it comes to actual size of the groups in the original data set.
Group size, all groups
20000 - 18000 16000 14000 size 12000 10000 group i ■Group size 8000 6000 Actual 4000 2000 0 Mexican origin Puerto Rican Cuban origin CentraUSouth other Spanish/ origin American Dominican origin origin Group (N=29 419)
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 1. Group size, all groups.
As one call see, the largest Latino group by far is the one of Mexican origin, which can probably be related to the long history between Mexico and the U.S., the close proximity of the two countries, as well as the fact that Mexicans easily can enter by land. The second largest group is persons of Central/South American origin, which is a group of fairly recent immigrants. The third largest group, those of Puerto Rican origin, is only a little bit larger than the fourth group, those of other Spanish/Dominican origin. Finally, the smallest group consists of those of Cuban origin, which might be explained by the fact that the sending country is fairly small. Interestingly enough, we can easily see that the four smaller groups
(Cuban, other Spanish/Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Central/South American origin) 23 together are fewer than the group of Mexican origin.
Mexican Immigration
The first group of Mexican "immigrants" in the U.S. is a special case due to the fact that a significant portion of this group changed countries basically over night without moving anywhere. As a result of the U.S. —Mexico war between 1846 and 1848, Mexican land, in what now is the Southwestern and Western states of the U.S., became part of the U.S.
(Almaguer 1994) at the end of the war through the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Suarez-
Orozco and Paez 2002). This new area of the U.S. was thus mainly populated by Mexicans, with ranchero elites at the top of the class stratification (Almaguer 1994). Mexicans were treated differently according to their skin color, meaning that Mexican Indians were regarded as lower class people. It was common at the time for Anglo American men to marry daughters of Mexican land owners, in order for Anglo Americans to secure land in this new part of America (Almaguer 1994).
Since then, the relationship between Mexican immigrants and U.S. society has been a push and pull relationship in which Mexican immigrants have been used as labor whenever it has been convenient for U.S. society. Before World War I, Mexican immigrants were welcomed as low-wage workers in the railroad and beet industry in the Midwest (Garcia
1990). However, as the Depression hit in 1929, attitudes towards Mexican workers hardened and they were often fired by employers who preferred to employ and support Anglo
Americans (Garcia 1996).
For more than 20 years, Mexicans were allowed into the U.S. as farm laborers through the bracero program. This was agovernment-operated attempt to take care of labor 24
shortage on U.S. farms by letting five million Mexicans enter the country between 1942 and
1964 (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2002). During the existence of the program there were clear rules
of deportation if the workers tried to establish work elsewhere in the U.S. or Wlthln a
different business from that of which they were allowed to enter the U.S. (Trumpbour and
Bernard 2002).
According to Suarez-Orozco and Paez (2002) the Mexican migration patterns have
been characterized by circular migration for quite some time, at least up until the 1980s when
permanent settlement in the U.S. became more common. Suarez-Orozco and Paez (2002)
suggest that many Mexicans carried out seasonal work in the U.S., moved back to Mexico
when they were finished with their assigned jobs, only to return to the U.S. the following
year for more work. The authors (Suarez-Orozco and Paez 2002) suggest that this pattern of
migration is a reaction to the degrading treatment of these immigrants by U.S. society, in
which the Mexicans have not been welcomed as permanent residents and therefore not as citizens.
So, do Latinos of Mexican origin, being the largest Latino group, have a different distribution between U.S. born, early, and recent immigrants compared to the other Latino groups? The figure below compares the timing of immigration to the U.S . for the various
Latino nationality groups.
Among immigrants of Mexican origin the U.S. born group is definitely larger than the two Mexican-born groups, reaching almost sixty percent. The group of recent immigrants is larger than the group of early immigrants, reflecting a major surge of Mexican workers and their families during the good times of the 1990s in the U.S . 25
Length of re s ide ncy, by Latino ethnicity, all groups
All Latinos (n=29419)
other Spanish/ Dominican origin (n =2392)
CentraUSouth American origin (n=4490) p Recent imrigrants Groups ■ Early immigrants Cuban origin U.S. born (n=1064)
Puerto Rican origin (n=2828)
Mexican origin (n=18645)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 2. Length of residency, by Latino ethnicity, all groups.
Then, is there a difference in the distribution of the sexes within each of the five
Latino groups, as this might have an impact on the rates of intermarriages? The figure below includes adults who are 18 years of age or older, since this can be interpreted as the age at
which one becomes a legal adult (although in some states one can marry before turning 18).
The sex ratio for the group of Mexican origin is the most even one out of all the groups in the figure, meaning that both Latinos and Latinas in this group are close to fifty percent. The group of Mexican origin is the only one that shows a slightly higher percentage 26 for meat, while all the other groups favor women.
Sex ratio, all Latino/as 18 years of age and older, all groups
all Latinos (n=19 103)
other Spanish/ Dominican (n=1 627)
CentraUSouth American origin (n=3 154) ■Latina Group _ ~ ~ Cuban origin (n=843)
Puerto Rican origin (n=1 860)
Mexican origin (n=11 619)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 °Jo
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 3. Sex ratio, all Latino/as 18 years of age and older, all groups.
Puerto Rican Immigration
The island of Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory in 1898 when Spain lost the
Spanish-American war and its largest remaining colonies to the U.S. (Moll and Ruiz 2002).
As a result, Puerto Ricans became citizens of the U.S., while still being considered Latinos.
Being U.S. citizens was a positive aspect for Puerto Ricans, as it allowed them to move to the mainland freely; however, they were caught between the characteristics of being U.S. citizens and cheap "immigrant" labor (Whalen 2001). Consequently, Puerto Ricans were often seen as unwanted labor in the U.S. due to the fact that they were U.S. citizens and could not easily be deported when their labor was no longer needed, as was the case with other
Latino immigrants (Whalen 2001).
The largest wave of Puerto Ricans came to the U.S. mainland (Moll and Ruiz 2002) 27
between 1945 and 1965, a wave that has been estimated to include hundreds of thousands of
people (Martinez 2002). These Puerto Ricans settled mainly along the East Coast, especially
in New York City where 79 percent of the Latino population in 1950 was Puerto Rican
(Trumpbour and Bernard 2002). The city in the U.S. with the second highest proportion of
Puerto Ricans was Chicago, while Philadelphia was a close third (Whalen 2001). Most of
these Puerto Ricans were drawn to the cities because of the immediate need for labor in the
manufacturing sector. However, when these industries faced serious declines in the 1980s, it left many of these Puerto Rican immigrants poor and unemployed (Trumpbour and Bernard
2002).
Figure 2 indicates that among the group of U.S.-born Latinos, the group of Puerto
Rican origin seems to follow the same pattern as those of Mexican origin. Close to sixty
percent of Puerto Ricans in the continental U.S. were born there, while in contrast to those of
Mexican origin, early immigrants are second largest, and recent immigrants the smallest group. Migration to the mainland since 1990 has been quite modest. The sex ratio for the
group of Puerto Rican origin shows about aten-percentage difference in favor of Latinas.
This is the group that shows the largest difference between Latinas and Latinos (Figure 3).
Cuban Immigration
Post-revolutionary Cuban immigration can be divided into two distinct waves. The first group to arrive, which did so in the 1960s, is often referred to as the group of "Golden
Exiles" (Martinez 2002:64) since these immigrants were mostly professionals (Torres 2001), highly educated (Martinez 2002), and had high social standing in their home country (Stepick and Stepick 2002). Escaping the Castro regime, this first wave was a result of "the failure of 28 the Bay of Pig invasion" (Stepick and Stepick 2002:76), and received economic assistance from at least one program set forth by the U.S . government: the Cuban Refugee Program
(Stepick and Stepick 2002).
In the late 1960s and 1970s, after the professional Cubans, came the less fortunate exiles, those without economic means or social connections: the working class Cubans.
However, the enclave created in Miami by the Golden Exiles benefited these immigrants
with the security of jobs within their own community (Stepick and Dutton Stepick 2001). A
visa waiver program for Cuban children, called Operation Pedro Pan, was put into system in
the early 1960s (Torres 2001). With the help from a headmaster in Havana, Cuba, the U.S.
Embassy in Cuba, and a Catholic priest in Miami, children without relatives in the U.S. could
be admitted as refugees and placed in homes all over the U.S . until it was possible for their
p arents to enter the U.S . on the g rounds that they now had relatives in the U.S . 5 (Torres
2001). Thus, even though some Cubans did not have relatives in the U.S., there were
loopholes in the law that made it possible for Cubans to enter the U.S.
In 1980, another large wave of Cubans arrived in the U.S., which was called the
Marielitos since they were sent out from the port of Mariel in Cuba (Torres 2001), an action
initiated by the Castro government. However, as these roughly 125,000 Marielitos (Martinez
2002) did not fit the image of Cubans as light skinned and educated andlor hard working
people, they were viewed as outcasts not only by the Cuban community but by U.S. society
as well. Thus, they were often portrayed by the media as "the criminal Latinos", although, in
a recent study by Martinez (2002) this stereotypical behavior has been proven wrong.
5 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 initiated selective immigration by giving priority to people who had relatives that were U.S. citizens (Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952). 29
Looking at Figure 2 with the division of U.S. born, early, and recent immigrants, we can see that these coincide with the waves of migration discussed above. Close to half of all
Cuban immigrants are actually early immigrants to the U.S. prior to 1990, which is suggested by the literature as well. The sex ratio for those of Cuban origin shows that Latinas outnumber Latinos by about five percent (Figure 3).
CentraUSouth American Immigration
Central America consists of seven countries: Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Because most of the countries in this region are marked by similar patterns of political tension and economic decline as reasons for migration (Rodriguez 1987; Menjivar 2000) they will be discussed as apan-ethnic group, even though "there are important social and cultural differences among them" (Menjivar
2000:8). South America will also be discussed as a single group, even though homogeneity is not a pattern of the region since the countries of South America are quite heterogeneous in their migration patterns and their culture. However, some similarities can be found, in particular if these patterns are compared to Central American immigration.6
This combined group has a very interesting division between the three groups of U.S. born, early, and recent immigrants, since they are almost the exact same size (Figure 2). The heterogeneity of this set of immigrants may contribute to the evening out of numbers between the three different groups. However, the sex ratio for this group seems to follow the average of all the Latino groups, with slightly more Latinas than Latinos (Figure 3).
6 Also, do to limitations in the literature on South American immigration to the U.S., this discussion will no be as extensive as the discussions on the other Latino groups. 30
Central American immigration
According to Repak (1994), Hondagneu-Sotelo (2002), and Wallace (1986), Central
American migration has been characterized by gendered migration. Repak (1994) argues that as more U.S. women joined the workforce in Washington, DC during the 1960s and 1970s, there -was an essential call for childcare, a call answered by a large wave of female Central
American immigrants. Hondagneu-Sotelo (2002) argues that the same patterns of gendered immigration from the Central American countries have occurred in California, as well as in other states. She calls these women who work in the unorganized private social service sector with jobs such as nannies and maids (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2002; Wallace 1986) "braceras"
(Hondagneu-Sotelo 2002:259), alluding to the governmental braceros program for Mexican immigrant farm labor 1942-1964. These types of gendered immigration continued throughout the 1980s (Repak 1994) and later (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2002).
During the 1980s, the civil wars and conflicts in various countries across Central
America increased the immigration to the U.S . (Repak 1994; Suarez-Orozco and Paez 2002), leading to that "the 1980s were characterized by large-scale emigration from war-torn areas in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua" (Suarez-Orozco and Paez 2002:10). For example,
Hernandez Sancho (2000) claims that "when the Nicaraguan people were repressed, they initially reacted not by engaging in violent opposition but by fleeing" (Hernandez Sancho
2000:105). Hernandez Sancho (2000) argues that the repression of the Nicaraguan people was enforced by the socialist Sandinista government, while others would argue that a great deal of the repression occurred as a result of the involvement of the U.S. government supporting the anti-Sandinistas, or the contras (Bulmer-Thomas 1987).
In recent years, Central American immigration has diminished somewhat by the 31 repatriation of Central American youths involved in street gangs (Vigil 2002; Davis 2000).
These youths are often deported without a trial (Davis 2000). On a different note, Central
American immigrants are struggling in the effort to keep their own cultural identity among larger groups of Latinos in larger cities, such as Mexicans in Los Angeles and Cubans in
Miami (Davis 2000).
South American immigration
Compared to Central American immigrants, South American immigrants in the U.S. usually have a higher education and had a higher status in their home countries (Mahler
1995). He explains this by pointing out the difference in the number of borders that needs to be crossed and how this increases the cost for South Americans. As Salvadorans only have three borders to cross before they reach the U.S., it does not cost as much to do so. However, for South Americans, the trip to the U.S. is much more expensive, leaving the option to emigrate open mainly to the middle class and those even higher up the socioeconomic ladder.
Consequently, South American immigrants to the U.S. usually have a university degree, are small business people (Mahler 1995), or are highly skilled workers (Diaz-
Briquets 1991). The emigration from South America to the U.S. has therefore been referred to as the brain drain of South America by some authors (Rockett 1976; Diaz-Briquets 1991).
In contrast, it has also been argued by other authors that the emigration from South America relieves the strain on unemployment rates in the region (Diaz-Briquets 1991). South
American immigrants are also more likely than Central Americans to have had English language classes in their home countries, which furthers their advantage when they come to
the U.S. (Mahler 1995). 32
Many of the South American immigrants are in the U.S. as a result of the economic decline in the area in the 1980s and 1990s. The numbers of South Americans in the U.S. is fairly small, and there is no larger ethnic community for South Americans (Mahler 1995).
Mahler (1995) also points out that the sex ratio for South American immigrants is almost equal, whereas Central American women in the U.S. outnumber men.
Dominican Immigration
The long relationship between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. developed during the 1840s when U.S. President James Polk made the decision to recognize the independence of the island. In the decades following this event in 1845, the relationship was mainly built on the fact that the U.S. was planning to take over the island (Aponte 1999).
The main wave of Dominicans started arriving in the 1960s, after the death of the
Dominican dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (Aponte 1999). Before this major wave,
Dominican immigrants to the U.S. were mainly people of the elite and privileged middle class, however, with the major wave came people of all classes and in large numbers (Aponte
1999). Much of the literature in the past has suggested that most Dominican immigrants have a rural background (Ugalde, Bean, and Cardenas 1979). However in challenging the literature, Ugalde, Bean, and Cardenas (1979) argued that only twenty-four percent of
Dominican immigrants were rural, based on a 1974 survey. Just as with Puerto Rican immigrants, a great deal of Dominican immigrants, especially women, worked in the manufacturing sector. Thus, as this industry declined, it had a major effect on the economic status of Dominican immigrants (Davis 2000).
According to Aponte (1999) the flow of Dominican immigrants has remained 33 constant, which has meant a steady growth of the Dominican population in the U.S. Out of the Dominican immigrants with permanent residency in the U.S. in the 1990 Census, sixty- five percent live in New York (Aponte 1999). The Dominican population often faces the same racial barriers as African Americans due to their skin color, and sometimes claim a dual ethnicity (Newman 2002). According to Davis (2000), the Dominican population in New
York will soon surpass the Puerto Rican population, which has been the largest Latino group in New York for decades (Davis 2000). Funkhouser and Ramos (1993) argue that some
Dominicans choose to migrate to Puerto Rico instead of the U.S. mainland, due to the cultural similarities between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Duany (1992) argues that compared to the immigrants who arrive on the U.S. mainland, these immigrants tend to be "more educated, white-collar, older and married" (Funkhouser and Ramos 1993:542).
For Latinos of other Spanish/Dominican origin the U.S. born group is overwhelmingly larger than the other groups, reaching above seventy percent. The other two groups are fairly small, but the group with early immigrants is slightly larger than that of recent immigrants. This might be a factor of the mix of Spanish ethnicities in this group, including European Spanish ethnicities (Figure 2). Latinos of other Spanish/Dominican origin follows the Latino average for sex ratio, with slightly more women than men in their group who are 18 years of age or older (Figure 3).
Now that the flows of migration from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central/South
America, and the Dominican Republic have been briefly explained, it is appropriate to look closer at the major laws that have directed the control of immigration in recent decades. 34
Contemporary U.S. Immigration Laws
The act of 1986, referred to as the amnesty law (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2002; Gonzalez
Baker 1997), legalized those immigrants who had lived in the U.S . illegally since before
1982 (Immigration Reform and Control Act [IRCA] of November 6, 1986). It also made it illegal for employers to knowingly employ or recruit immigrants who were not legal workers.
Cubans and Haitians entering the U.S . without any documentation and continuously living in
the U.S. since 1982 were given permanent resident status through the 1986 act, while certain
aliens were given the right to visit the U.S. without a visa (Immigration Reform and Control
Act of November 6, 1986). The law was passed in order to get a better control on
immigration dynamics. But, while applicants for legal immigration declined, IRCA did not
have any lasting effects on undocumented immigration (Gonzalez Baker 1997). It has been
estimated that the amnesty law affected close to three million undocumented immigrants in
the U.S. (Gonzalez Baker 1997), whether they returned home, delayed their arrival to the
U.S., or received legal status in the U.S. (Gonzalez Baker 1997).
In 1990 there was a serious review of all previous immigration laws, which resulted
in the Immigration Act of November 29, 1990. In short, this law "revised all grounds for
exclusion and deportation" (Immigration Act of November 29, 1990), as well as altered the
employer sanctions that were established under the 1986 law.
Finally, the 1996 immigration law established stronger controls at the U.S. borders
and put restrictions on benefits for aliens (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of September 30, 1996). The Act led to an increase in staff, improved
technology and equipment, and increased border control, with the Southwest border being
"remodeled" the most. The results "heightened immigration enforcement along the border 35 and boosted criminal-alien removals of Mexican and Central American males" (Hagan and
Rodriguez 2002:190). Punishment for entering the country illegally or with illegal papers was increased, detention space was enlarged, deportations were reformed (now called removals, which include denial of entrance at the border as well as deportation from within the country) (Hagan and Rodriguez 2002). Prohibitions against reentry after being deported due to illegal residency were lengthened (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of September 30, 1996). Still, there is little evidence that these measures have noticeably slowed the flow of undocumented workers across the border (Hagan and
Rodriguez 2002).
The second provision of the 1996 law restricted social benefits for aliens. This meant that in order to obtain these benefits, proof of temporary or permanent residency had to be given. These benefits included such things as obtaining a driver's license, Social Security benefits, Federal public benefits, and higher educational benefits. The law also required that sponsored immigrants have an affidavit, which meant that the immigrant would have legally binding financial support during her/his stay in the U.S. (Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of September 30, 1996).
I will now turn to the chapter that will explain the methodology of this study. Here the methods of the study will be made clear, concepts and terms will be explained, and variables discussed, in order to make the process of the study more comprehensible. 36
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY
In this chapter I will first conceptualize important terms, in order to create a better understanding and consistency for these concepts throughout the study. The chapter will then go deeper into the different methodologies that were used in this study. This section will be divided into two main parts; a clarification of the data set from Current Population Survey
(CPS) and an explanation of the variables used in the data analysis of this study.
Conceptualization
The research that has been carried out and literature that has been published on intermarriages have had different ways of conceptualizing terms frequently used within this area. In order to get an understanding of the concepts that will be used throughout this study and how they have been used in other literature, they will need further explanation in order to clarify their meaning.
One of these concepts is assimilation, which Gordon (1964) explained as being the final product of a complex system including several factors and variables. "Generally the concept of `assimilation' presupposes a distinction between a majority and minority group"
(Lee, Potvin, and Verdieck, 1974:112). White Stephan and Stephan (1989) argue that in the process of reaching full assimilation, the minority is altered considerably more than the majority, losing some of its values and identities along the way. In the search for a definition for the term assimilation, one has to consider the difference between a classical and modern definition, which can be explained through two different approaches. The first of these two approaches is the classical or linear approach, which views the process of assimilation as a 37 straight line where the previous stage leads to the next, and the final stage is full integration into the new society, as with Gordon's definition above. Even though some immigrants might not reach the final stage, the process is still viewed as linear (Park 1928). The other approach is the modern or multilinearlbi-dimensional one, where there are several alternative outcomes to the process (Neto 2002; Sayegh and Lasry 1993). Sayegh and Lasry (1993) and
Casas and Pytluk (1995) propose an alternative to the classical or linear models, which they call an orthogonal approach. This approach suggests that "identifying with one culture in no way diminishes the ability of an individual to identify with any other culture" (Casas and
Pytluk 1995:173). In this thesis, the concept of assimilation will mean integration of immigrants or succeeding generations into U.S . society to the extent where they function and
"feel" like Americans. Nevertheless, this might mean that the person still engages in practices that are specific to the person's culture of origin or identifies as being part of a
Latin nationality group. Thus, even though a person of a minority group who intermarries may be heading towards full assimilation, i.e. becoming more American, s/he can still identify as Latino.
Assimilation has sometimes been used interchangeably with another term: acculturation (Gordon, 1964). However, the concept of acculturation can better be described as being a process of cultural exchange in which the final product is assimilation. Gudykunst and Kim (1997) argue that acculturation is a process of resocialization that occurs when strangers enter into and interact with a new culture. It "comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups"
(Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits 1936:149). This resocialization can lead to the stranger 38 fully absorbing the new culture, absorbing it to a certain extent, or even refusing or failing to absorb it. It might also result in changes in both or either of the cultural groups (Berry 1997;
Berry, Kim, Power, Young, and Bujaki 1989). Gordon (1964) also argues that "the changes may take place in the cultures of either one of the two groups or there may be a reciprocal influence whereby the cultures of both groups are modified" (Gordon 1964:62), suggesting that both the immigrant group and the host society change to mesh better with the other. In this thesis, the concept acculturation will be used to describe a process, which ultimately could lead to full assimilation.
A third explanation might be needed for the term immigrant and succeeding generations versus that of a permanent or legal resident. In this thesis, the term immigrant
will be used to describe the immigrant her/himself and the generations of offspring of the immigrants. Some differences should be noted in the usage of the term, though. First, the
second generation of immigrant groups, which are children who were either brought here by
immigrant parents before adolescence or were born in the U.S. to foreign parents (Portes and
Rumbaut 2001), will be referred to as the second generation immigrants. Second, even
though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and thus not technically immigrants, the term
immigrant will be used for this group in order to make the comparisons between the five
Latino groups consistent. Finally, the differences between different generations will not
necessarily be described as second, third, et cetera, but rather by using the labels U.S. born,
recent, or early immigrants (Hwang, Saenz, Aguirre 1997). A U.S. born Latino/a can thus
mean a person who is the fifth generation of Mexican origin, but who still claims to be
Mexican. Newman (2002) argues that the second generation assimilates better than their
parents "as they move through ... [the] school system and rub shoulders with outsiders who 39
do not share their culture" (Newman 2002:56). Some differences can be mentioned in the
ways that boys and girls of the second generation are socialized. Smith (2002) argues that
girls of Latino origin often are socialized into developing soft skills, which are useful in
acting as a cultural and lingual translator between their parents and institutions in U.S.
society.
As for the term Latino, it has been chosen in contrast to the term Hispanic (Pardo
1998) mainly because the term Hispanic "emphasizes the population's link with `Hispania,'
or Spain" (Suarez-Orozco and Paez 2002:4). Latino is a relatively new term that does not
have any racial identifications, based on the fact that aLatino/a can be light skinned, dark
skinned, and anything in between (Suarez-Orozco and Paez 2002). Being a relatively new
term, Latino is also used more by younger generations and is self-identified by Latinos, while
the term Hispanic suggests "Spanish conquest and colonization" (Davila 2001:16). Even
though Latinos might not share the same culture or history, they do have two things in common: a history of neo-colonial relationships with the U.S. in their home countries and being viewed by other U.S. residents as immigrants (Sanchez 2002). Thus, the term Latino includes immigrants to the U.S. from all of Latin America and not just those countries associated with Spain as the term Hispanic would suggest, meaning that Brazilians are included in the equation (Davila 2001), as well as Haitians. Also included among Latinos are those born in the U.S. of Latino immigrant parents or otherwise self-identifying as Latinos,
Hispanics, or with a Latin nationality group. Ideally, a study would contain separate records for all countries of Latin America, however, due to data constraints I have to divide Latinos into five different groups: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central/South American, and other
Spanish, including Dominicans. 40
Finally, since U.S. society is such a diverse society, assimilation through intermarriages would not necessarily mean only marriages between Latinos and European
Americans. Intermarrying with other groups, such as African Americans, Asian Americans, et cetera, could also be a way of assimilating. Therefore, the term non-Latinos will be used to
include all groups but Latinos, such as European Americans, African Americans, Asian
Americans, et cetera. In this thesis, intermarriages between different Latino groups will not
be examined. However, each Latino group will be compared with one another based on their
rates of intermarriages with non-Latinos. This conceptualization is based on the discussion
on assimilation above, where intermarriage is a form of assimilation into the dominant
culture. Thus, only intermarriages between Latinos and non-Latinos are of interest to this
study, as an intermarriage between two different Latino groups, such as a Mexican man and a
Puerto Rican woman, would not be an example of an assimilationist intermarriage between a
person of a Latino ethnic minority and a person of the dominant culture.
I will now turn to an explanation of the Current Population Survey, and then to the
part of this chapter that will further explain the variables that were used in the study.
Current Population Survey
I chose to use the Current Population Survey, rather than the decennial census, for
this study based on one major reason: I wanted to look at individual behavior rather than
using aggregated data. When I began this study, the Public Use Micro Sample (PUNS) for
the 2000 Census was not yet fully accessible to the public, while the CPS for 2002 was
accessible through the Office of Social and Economic Trend Analysis at Iowa State 41
University. Thus, the choice was easy to make and was a choice based on accessibility. I will
now turn to a brief history and explanation of the CPS.
As early research on the U.S. labor force was based on guesses and estimates, a need
for more accurate measurements became crucial in the 1930s and 1940s. Known under many
different names, what we now call CPS was structured to measure unemployment in the U.S.
on a monthly basis and has continued to focus on the labor force. Even though CPS is mainly
a statistical database for U.S. labor force information, it also contains demographic statistics
and is commonly used by social scientists for demographic studies (Current Population
Survey 2002). Being administered by the Census Bureau, the CPS uses a sample of about
50,000 households. These households are located in all fifty states as well as the District of
Columbia, and rotate on a 4-8-4 month basis. This rotation means that a household is
included in the sample for four months, then left out for eight months, and finally included
again for four months. The household is then excluded from subsequent samples. Participants
must be at least fifteen years old and cannot be in the Armed Forces. Interviews are carried
out through personal or telephone interviews (Current Population Survey 2002).
The person responding to the questions is usually the owner of, or the one that rents
the dwelling in which the people in the household reside, depending on whether the dwelling
is owner- or renter-occupied. This person answers questions regarding both her/himself and
the other people in the household. If this person is not able to answer questions referring to
the other household members, CPS contacts these people so that the questions may be answered properly (Current Population Survey 2002).
The sampling design of CPS is divided into three main steps. The first step involves selecting a subset of counties in each state that represents the labor force characteristics of 42 counties not selected. This is done by defining the primary sampling units, then locating these units within every state, and finally selecting a sample of these units in each state. The second step of the sample design is to select the sample of households within each unit, a sample that is called the ultimate sampling unit. This sample is a selection of households that should represent "the total civilian, noninstitutional population" (Current Population Survey
2002:3-7). The third step is an ad hoc step referred to as a "field subsampling" (Current
Population Survey 2002:3-14). This occurs when an ultimate sampling unit consists of more than fifteen households. In that case, a subsample of the unit is selected in order to reduce the costs of data collection and to make the data more convenient to handle (Current Population
Survey 2002).
Variables
The CPS variables that were used in order to make the data analysis of this study possible need to be clarified and explained before we take a closer look at the outcomes of the analysis. Some of these variables were original variables from CPS, while others had to be created from the original variables. The original data set consisted of 217,219 cases.
The first step was to create a data set of only married people. This was done by selecting only married people, with spouse present, from the data set and then simply create a
new data set, which consisted of 87,824 cases. The second step was to create a variable for intermarriage, as it did not already exist in the original data. This was important since such a
variable would show a count of those Latinos in the sample who are intermarried. Creating
this variable was done by, first, deleting the cases which had not specified any ethnicity.
Next, all those couples in which neither of the partners had ascribed to any Latino ethnicity 43 were cleared, along with those couples where both partners were Latino. This left only those people who were intermarried, with one of the spouses being Latino. Since most of this work had to be carried out in Microsoft Excel, as some of the commands necessary does not exist in SPSS, all of these people then had to be located in the data set with only married people through their personal identification numbers. Giving one value for intermarried, while all other married people in the data set were given a different value for not being intermarried, the intermarried variable was created. The non-Latino spouses were then deleted from the data set. Thus, the final data set, which was used to test the hypotheses, consisted of all married Latinos with anon-Latino spouse.
Another issue that the data set created was how to divide the whole Latino community into distinct ethnic groups. As discussed earlier, ideally every country would be represented. However, the only "Spanish" ethnicities mentioned in the data set were Mexican
American, Chicano, Mexican and Mexicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central/South American, and other Spanish. Therefore, the groups had to be formed from these categories, as no other variable could be located to expand the number of ethnicities. The categories in the original
CPS data set were self-identified and did not include a category for ethnically mixed background. Thus, the five Latino ethnic groups used to test the hypotheses in this research are Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central/South American, and other Spanish/Dominican. I realize that from a sociopolitical standpoint bringing together the different versions of
Mexican identities might not be appropriate. However, since place of origin (Mexico) is more important for this study than precise ethnic self-identification, Ifound this to be 44 necessary. Thus, those identifying as Mexican-American, Chicano, Mexican, and Mexicano were combined into one category.
To test the first hypothesis, a measurement of assimilation was needed for the independent variable. Therefore, it was assumed that the longer an immigrant has lived in a host society, the better assimilated s/he would be (Hwang, Saenz, and Aguirre 1997). One way to measure this would be to look at when the immigrant moved to the U.S. permanently.
However, as the data set had seventeen different values for this variable, three more distinct values were recoded for use in cross tabulations: U.S. born, early, and recent immigrants.
U.S . born would be those respondents who claimed not to have moved to the U.S . permanently (i.e. they would have been born in the country), while early immigrants moved to the U.S . before 1990, and recent immigrants moved to the U.S . after 1990. 1990 was used as the division here, as 1990 corresponds with major changes of U.S. immigration laws, from the amnesty law in 1986 to much more strict laws in 1990 and 1996. The independent variable used to test the second hypothesis was sex. Sex was measured with two values, male and female, an original variable that was not changed. However, a new variable was created for the independent variable for the third hypothesis, regional group size for each Latino group. In this variable, each Latino respondent was assigned the actual group size of her/his group in that region, based on the original data set. The regions included the standard Census categories of Northeast, North central/Midwest, South, and West.
As indicated earlier, he final data set contained only married Latinos and had 10,241 cases. I ran cross tabulations for the first two hypotheses from this data set, to better see the
~ Usually, Mexican Americans and Chicanos are either U.S. born or have strong personal connections to the U.S., while Mexican and Mexicano are either foreign born or have strong personal connections with Mexico (Pardo 1998). 45 relationship between the independent and dependent variables. However, in order to better prove the relationships between my dependent variable and my independent variables, I chose to run regressions for all three hypotheses. I used logistic regression since my dependent variable, intermarriage, is dichotomous, or discrete. Had my dependent variable been continuous, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression would have been more appropriate
(Whitehead n.d. ).
Several new variables were created in order to run the logistic regressions. For all three logistic regressions, a second recoiling for length of residency was necessary. Instead of using the first recoiling of the length of residency variable, which was used in the cross tabulation for the first hypothesis, I decided to recode the variable into a decennial recoiling.
The original seventeen values for this variable all had time frames of varying lengths, as did the first recoiling of the variable with three categories, and it was therefore recoiled into decennial values in order to make the outcome of the logistic regression easier to read.
Finally, income and actual group size were recoiled into thousands in order to get beta slopes that would be easier to read (or not as small). For age, metropolitan status, and sex, the original variable was used without any recoiling.
For the first hypothesis, I ran a logistic regression in order to test the actual significance of the independent variable, length of residency. Also, dummy variables were created for each of the five Latino groups. These dummy variables were necessary in order to compare the correlation between length of residency and intermarriage while controlling for the Latino ethnic groups. I then ran five different logistic regressions to test which one was most significant, each of these logistic regressions with only four out of the five dummy variables. It turned out that the logistic regression without the group of Mexican origin 46 showed that the group of Mexican origin was most different from the other groups. In this logistic regression all other groups had positive slopes in relation to the group of Mexican origin, saying that all other groups are more likely to intermarry than individuals in the group of Mexican origin. Therefore, the group of Mexican origin was left out as the point of comparison.
For the second logistic regression, testing the second hypothesis, the same dummy
variables for each Latino group were used as control variables. For this logistic regression, a new variable was created as well: sex ratio. Sex ratio was calculated by taking the number of
Latinas (females) in each Latino group in each region, dividing that number by the total
number of Latino/as in that group in that region, and multiplying the result by 100 in order to
get percentages (resulting in twenty new values for this variable). These numbers were then entered for each Latino/a in the second data set as a sex ratio variable. For the testing of this
hypothesis, the group of Mexican origin was again left out as the point of comparison, based
on the same discussion as above.
For the testing of the third hypothesis, dummy variables were created for each region, so that a respondent either lived in a region or not. This variable was necessary in order to compare the correlation between group size and intermarriage while controlling for region in
the third hypothesis. When running four different logistic regressions, only three out of four
regions were included at a time, as the fourth one would be used as the point of comparison
for the other regions. In the logistic regression where the Southern region was left out, all the
other three regions had positive slopes compared to the Southern region, indicating that
Latino/as in these three regions were more likely to intermarry than Latinos living in the
Southern region. Therefore, the Southern region was omitted as the point of comparison. 47
I now turn to the presentation of the results of the study, along with the analysis of those results. This will then be followed by some concluding thoughts and comments. 48
CHAPTER 4. DATA AND ANALYSIS
I will now test the hypotheses that are the foundation of this study. Below I will present the data and the findings of each of the three hypotheses and my interpretations of these findings. Following this section will be some final thoughts and conclusions, as well as suggestions for further study.
Generational differences
The first hypothesis was to test if there are any generational differences in Latinos' patterns of intermarriage. It stated: "the longer a Latino has had an opportunity to assimilate, the more likely that individual is to intermarry with non-Latinos." The hypothesis was tested by cross tabulating the intermarriage variable with the assimilation variable, while controlling for Latinos and non-Latinos the first time and for all five Latino groups the second time. I failed to reject this hypothesis, meaning that as a Latino assimilates, the likelihood of getting married to someone outside of one's own Latino group increases.
I will now present the data for the first hypothesis, first for Latinos as a community, then for each of the five groups of Latinos, and then finally juxtapose the community as a whole with the five groups, so that they can be compared to each other in order to figure out
which of the groups have a stronger relationship between assimilation and intermarriage.
As one can see from the figure below, roughly 33 percent of married Latinos who are
U.S. born are intermarried. They are followed by early Latino immigrants, of whom 11 percent are intermarried. For the recent Latino immigrants who are married, only around 6 percent are intermarried. This shows how the three different groups (U.S. born, early and 49 recent immigrants) choose their partners either inside or outside their own group based on how long they have had a chance to assimilate, i.e. been permanently residing in the U.S.
Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, all Latinos
Ioo - 90
so 70 i 60 Intermarried % 50 ■Not intermarried 40 30 - 20 10 0 U.S. born (n=3702) Early immigrants Recent immigrants (n=3997) (n=2542) Length of residency
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 4. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, all Latinos.
Does this pattern hold true for all the separate Latino groups? Let us take a closer look at the cross tabulations where I divide the Latinos into the five groups discussed earlier in this thesis (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central/South American, and other
Spanish/Dominican).
Latinos of Mexican origin seem to follow roughly the same pattern as the Latino community as a whole. For those married Latinos of Mexican origin who are U.S. born, roughly 27.5 percent are intermarried, while the numbers for Latinos of Mexican origin who are early and recent immigrants are 6.5 and 4 percentage respectively, which is slightly lower than the average Latino group. Compared to the Latino community as a whole, people of 50
Mexican origin seems to intermarry a little bit less and choose to marry those within their own group of origin more often than the average Latino.
Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, Mexican origin
100 -~ 90 80 70
60 O Intermarried °Io 50 ■ Not intermarried 40 30 20 10 0 r I t U.S. born (n=2545) Early immigrants Recent immigrants (n=2279) (n=1643) Length of residency
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 5. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, Mexican origin.
Latinos of Puerto Rican origin follow the same pattern as the Latino community as a whole. However, U.S. born Puerto Ricans intermarry at a higher rate than the Latino community does. Forty-four percent of U.S. born Puerto Ricans marry non-Latinos rather than marrying people of the same origin, which is higher than in the Latino community as a whole. This holds true for early and recent Puerto Rican immigrants as well, since the percentage of intermarriages in both these groups are higher than for the whole Latino community. 51
Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, Puerto Rican origin
. , . . ~ .,~~M~.~,.~~.._~...~a._~.~_~.m~ ~d~ ...... ~. ... ~ ~„~~.~,~,,.,~. .~~ 100 90 80 70 60 % 50 ■Not intermarried 40 30 - -- ~ 20 _ ~ 10 0 t U.S. born (n=342) Early immigrants Recent immigrants (n=353) (n=101) Length of residency
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 6. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, Puerto Rican origin
Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, Cuban origin
100 90 80 70 60 % 50 ■ Not intermarried 40 30 20 10 0 U.S. born (n=93) Early immigrants Recent immigrants (n=281) (n=103) Length of residency
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 7. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, Cuban origin. 52
U.S. born Latinos of Cuban origin intermarry in larger numbers than the average
Latino group, with almost 55 percent doing so. For the other two groups, early and recent immigrants, the percentages are very close to those of the Latino community. Over all,
Latinos of Cuban origin follow the same pattern as the average Latino group, with most people intermarrying in the U.S. born group, and least in the recent immigrant group.
Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, CentraUSouth American origin
100 -~-~ 90 80 70 60 Intermarried % 50 ■Not intermarried 40 30 20 10 0 U.S. born (n=148) Early immigrants Recent immigrants (n=910) (n=594) Length of residency
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 8. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, CentraUSouth American origin.
For those Latinos of Central/South American origin that are U.S. born about half are intermarried and half of them are not; in fact, there are only two more people inten~iarrying than marrying someone from their own group. Also, the rates for the early and recent
Central/South American immigrants are slightly higher than those of the average Latino community, but still following the trend of a positive correlation between length of residency and intermarriage. 53
For Latinos of other Spanish/Dominican origin the intermarriage rate among married couples for each of the three groups (U.S. born, early, and recent immigrants) is about ten percentage points higher than those for the entire Latino community, suggesting that Latinos of other Spanish/Dominican origin choose to intermarry, rather than marry other Latinos, more than the average Latino. Nevertheless, Latinos of other SpanishlDominican origin who intermarry still follow the trend of intermarriage of the average Latino community.
Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, other Spanish/Dominican
90 80 - 70 60 50 Intermarried 40 - ■ Not intermarried 30 20 10 0 U.S. born (n=574) Early immigrants Recent immigrants (n=174) (n=101) Length of residency
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 9. Intermarried and non intermarried by length of residency, other Spanish/Dominican.
So how do these groups compare to each other? By comparing all of the U.S. born groups, we see that Latinos of Cuban origin are most likely to intermarry (55 percent). They are followed by Latinos of Central/South American origin (51 percent), Latinos of Puerto
Rican (43 percent) and other Spanish/Dominican origin (41 percent). Finally, Latinos of
Mexican origin intermarry at 28 percent, only reaching about half of the interlliarriages of 54
Latinos of Cuban origin. For the group of early immigrants, Latinos of Puerto Rican,
Central/South American, and other Spanish/Dominican origin intermarry at about a rate of twenty percent. Latinos of Cuban origin marry less at about 13 percent, while again, Latinos of Mexican origin intermarry the least, with only about five percent among the early immigrants doing so. Finally, for the recent immigrants, Latinos of other Spanish/Dominican origin intermarry the most at fifteen percent, Latinos of Central/South American and Puerto
Rican origin follow at about ten percent, Latinos of C~:ban origin at about five percent, and
Latinos of Mexican origin below five percent.
Table 1. Intermarriage regressed on length of residency and control variables. B S.E. WALD DF SIG. (1) (2) (3) (4) Age -.010 .002 21.817 1 .000
Sex .262 .059 19.895 1 .000
Income .009 .001 107.399 1 .000
Metropolitan status .372 .079 21.971 1 .000
Years lived in the U.S. .366 .014 722.921 1 .000
Puerto Rican .803 .093 74.818 1 .000
Cuban .721 .133 29.251 1 .000
Central/South 1.056 .085 154.008 1 .000 American Other Spanish/ Dominican .782 .087 81.328 1 .000
Constant -3.608 .124 839.709 1 .000
N=10 241 Source: CPS data set 2002 Dependent variable is intermarried (=1). 1. B is the estimated logit coefficient. 2. S.E. is the standard error of the coefficient. 3. Wald = (B/S.E.)2. 4. Sig. is the significance level of the coefficient (Whitehead n.d.).
In order to test the significance of the length of residency, I ran a logistic regression for this hypothesis which was discussed in the methods chapter. Above are the results from 55 this regression. Intermarriage is the dependent variable and length of residency is the independent variable. I also used age, sex, income, metropolitan status, and the five Latino groups as control variables.
From the table we can tell that the independent variable, number of years aLatino/a has lived in the U.S., has a significant effect on the rates of intermarriages, with a positive beta slope of .366. Thus, we can conclude that this variable has a significant effect on intermarriages. The longer aLatino/a has lived in the U.S. and have had a chance to assimilate, the more likely s/he is to intermarry.
We can also see that all of the control variables are significant. Age, for instance, tells
us, with a negative beta slope of -.010, that younger Latino/as are more likely to have intermarried than those who are older. Sex is also significant, with a positive slope of .262,
meaning that Latinas tend to intermarry more than Latinos. Income is significant and has a
positive beta slope of .009. This suggests that Latino/as who have a higher income are more
likely to intermarry than those who have a lower income. Since the beta slope for the
metropolitan variable is positive, .372, and the metropolitan status is coded 0 for
metropolitan and 1 for non-metropolitan, Latino/as who live in anon-metropolitan area are
more likely to intermarry than those who live in a metropolitan area. Each of the Latino
ethnic groups, using the group of Mexican origin as the point of comparison, is significant
with positive slopes. People of Puerto Rican origin has a positive beta slope of .803, Cuban
origin .721, Central/South American origin 1.056, and other Spanish/Dominican origin .782.
This suggests that Latino/as of Mexican origin are least likely to intermarry and
Central/South Americans are most likely to intermarry. In between these two extremes, 56
Latino/as of Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Spanish/Dominican origin are fairly similar to each other.
Findings
From the data presentation of the whole Latino community it is obvious that there is a strong relationship between structural assimilation and intermarriages. Not only was this shown by the cross tabulation of length of residency and intermarriages, but also through the positive correlation between the same variables in the logistic regression. Why is it that there is strong relationship between assimilation and intermarriages? Iwould argue that the more time a stranger has to get accustomed to a different setting than her/his original setting, the more comfortable s/he will feel. Thus, as Gordon suggests in his theory of assimilation, immigrants and/or their children are more likely to intermarry the more assimilated they become. As newcomers enters the new culture, s/he is probably more likely to remain close to people of their own origin since this feels safe and comfortable in a new world that they might not understand. However, as immigrants becomes more assimilated, they will expand their social settings and meet more people from the host culture, while at the same time they are acculturating, exchanging and mixing their culture with the new culture. Thus, the more time an immigrant spends in the new culture, the more likely s/he is to intermarry. Naturally, children will assimilate easier than their parents, as they are exposed to the new culture at an early age. Thus, those of Latino origin who are U.S. born should logically intermarry more than those who are recent immigrants.
The five different groups of Latinos intermarry at different rates. For instance, among the U.S . born groups for each of the five Latino groups, Latinos of Cuban origin intermarry 57 at a higher rate than anyone else. One would guess, based on the fact that the longer time one
has had to assimilate the more likely s/he is to intermarry, that U.S. born Latinos of Mexican origin would intermarry more than any other group. Instead, this is the group that
intermarries the least. This fact is only enhanced by the logistic regression, where it is
obvious that while controlling for age, sex, income, metropolitan status, and length of
residency, you are more likely to intermarry if you are in any of the other four Latino groups
than if you are a Latino of Mexican origin.
Gender Differences
The second hypothesis focused on the assumed differences between men and women
in their behavior related to intermarriage, suggesting that Latinas intermarry more than
Latinos do. It stated: "based on earlier research on intermarriages, Latinas (females) are more
likely than Latinos (males) to intermarry with non-Latinos." I also failed to reject this
hypothesis, although the difference is not as large as I anticipated. Just as the first hypothesis
looked at both the average Latino community and then at the five separate Latino groups, the
presentation of this hypothesis will be very similar.
If one look at the difference in intermarriage rates for Latinos and Latinas within the
sample of married Latinos, one can see that Latinas are intermarrying at a rate of 18.7 percent
and Latinos at 16.9 percent. As stated earlier, even though Latinas intermarry at a higher
percentage than Latinos, the difference is minute at hardly two percent. 58
Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, all Latinos
100 90
80
70
60 (n=5062) ~l0 50 ■Latina (n=5179) 40
30
20
10
0 Intermarried Not intermarried
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 10. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, all Latinos.
Since the difference between female and male intermarriages for the whole Latino community did not turn out to be as great as anticipated, maybe there are one or several specific Latino groups that show larger differences. This will help us to better understand why there are differences, even though they might be small.
The group of Mexican origin shows even less difference in intermarriage percentage between Latinas and Latinos than is true for the entire group of married Latinos. As suggested earlier, Latinos of Mexican origin intermarry at a rate of about five percentage points less than is true for all married Latino groups combined. 59
Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Mexican origin
100 90 80
70 60 Latino (n=3225) % 50 ■ Latina (n=3242) 40 30 20 10 0 Intermarried Not intermarried
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 11. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Mexican origin.
Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Puerto Rican origin
loo
90 80 70 60 Latino (n=389) % 50 ■ Latina (n=407) 40 30 20 10 0 Intermarried Not intermarried
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 12. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Puerto Rican origin. 60
Latinas of Puerto Rican origin are more likely to intermarry than Latinos of Puerto
Rican origin; however, there is still a small difference. The difference between Latinas and
Latinos who intermarry is roughly four percent. Both Latinas and Latinos of Puerto Rican origin intermarry at a higher percentage than all married Latinos with a difference larger than five percent.
Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Cuban origin
100 - 90 80 70 60 O Latino (n=241) % 50 ■Latina (n=236) 40 30 20 10 0 Intermarried Not intermarried
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 13. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, Cuban origin.
The difference between Latinas and Latinos of Cuban origin only reaches about three percent when looking at those who are intermarried. Again, this is not a large difference.
However, the percentage of which this group intermarries is very similar to that of the average Latino group.
The percentage difference of intermarriages between Latinas and Latinos within the group of Central/South American origin is fairly large about seven percentage points. Latinas 61 of Central/South American origin intermarry at about the same level as do all Latinas, but
Latino males of Central/South American origin intermarry much less than do all Latino males.
Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, CentraUSouth American origin
100 90 80 70 60 (n=790) % 50 ■Latina (n=862) 40 30 20 10~ 0 Intermarried Not intermarried
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 14. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, CentraUSouth American origin.
Contrary to earlier studies and the hypothesis, within the group of Latinos of other
Spanish/Dominican origin, Latinos seem to intermarry more than Latinas. Even though this is a surprising finding, the difference is only a couple of percentage points. 62
Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, other Spanish/Dominican
l00 90 80 70 60 (n=417) °~0 50 ■Latina (n=432) 40 30 20 -
10 0 Intermarried Not intermarried
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 15. Intermarried and non intermarried by sex, other Spanish/Dominican origin.
Figure 16 summarizes the results on interlliarriage by sex for the five ethnic groups.
There was not a large difference in the percentages between men and women intermarrying in the Latino community as a whole, but there seems to be differences between at least some of the groups. Latinos (male and female) of other Spanish/Dominican origin seem to be the group that intermarries the most of all married Latinos. This group is the only one were men intermarry more than women do. The largest difference between the sexes, with more Latinas than Latinos intermarrying, can be found among Latinos of Central/South American origin, while the smallest difference between the sexes is evident among Latinos of Mexican origin, which is also the group that over all seems to intermarry the least. 63
Intermarried, division by sex, all Latino groups
other Spanish/Dominican (n1=417, n2=432) CentraUSouth American origin (n1=790, n2=862) T
Cuban origin (n 1=241, n2=236) ■ Latina (n2) Group Latino (n 1) Puerto Rican origin (n1=389, n2=407)
Mexican origin (n 1=3225, n2=3242)
All Latinos (n1=5062, n2=5179)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
°/o
Source: CPS data set 2002 Figure 16. Intermarried, division by sex, all Latino groups.
Because the difference in inteilliarriages between Latinos and Latinas was not as large as anticipated, I ran a logistic regression, with intermarriage as the dependent variable and sex as the independent variable, to test the significance sex would have on intermarriages while other variables were controlled for. This regression includes the same independent variables as the regression for the first hypothesis does (Table 1). However, in order to test the second hypothesis, I included a new variable, sex ratio, which could explain differential rates of intermarriage by sex of the person. That is, it could be that the larger number of
Latinas than Latinos available for marriage would assure that Latinas intermarry more than
Latinos. The results from this logistic regression are presented below. 64
Table 2. Intermarriage regressed on sex and control variables. B S.E. WALD DF SIG. (1) (2) (3) (4) Age -.009 .002 20.650 1 .000
Sex .272 .059 21.265 1 .000
Income .009 .001 106.97 8 1 .000
Metropolitan status .338 .080 17.908 1 .000
Years lived in the U.S. .365 .014 714.699 1 .000
Sex ratio -.080 .012 41.785 1 .000
Puerto Rican origin 1.186 .110 115.981 1 .000
Cuban origin .912 .137 44.251 1 .000
CentraUSouth American 1.229 .089 190.711 1 .000 Origin Other Spanish/Dominican 1.064 .097 119.352 1 .000 Origin Constant .342 .622 .302 1 .582
N=10 241 Source: CPS data set 2002 Dependent variable is intermarried (=1). 1. B is the estimated logit coefficient. 2. S.E. is the standard error of the coefficient. 3. Wald = (B/S.E.)2. 4. Sig. is the significance level of the coefficient (Whitehead n.d.).
Starting with the independent variable, sex, there is a significant difference between the rates of intermarriages between Latinas and Latinos, even when I control for sex ratio within each
group. The slope is positive, .272, suggesting that as one moves from male (the lower value)
to female (the higher value), the likelihood of intermarrying increases. Thus, when one controls for age, income, metropolitan status, length of residency, and sex ratio, and ethnic
groups, Latinas are more likely to intermarry than Latinos.g Therefore, I can conclude that
even though the absolute difference seems small, Latinas intermarry at a significantly higher
s While the relationship is highly significant, the strength of the relationship is rather modest, as suggested by the relatively small size of the Wald statistic (the square of the slope divided by the standard error). 65
rate than Latinos when demographic, socioeconomic, geographic, and ethnic origin are controlled for.
Sex ratio is probably the most interesting control variable in this logistic regression
because of the negative beta slope of .080. Even though this slope is not as strong as the one for sex (the independent variable), it still tells us something that might be puzzling. Since the coding of this variable means that a negative slope would be in favor of Latinos likelihood of intermarrying, it contradicts the sex variable, which shows that Latinas are more likely to intermarry than Latinos. However, we need to keep in mind that the sex variable is measuring individuals' likelihood of intermarrying, while the sex ratio is measuring the likelihood of people in a group intermarrying. Thus, the sex ratio variable is telling us that individually, Latinas are more likely to intermarry; however, there are more intermarriages occurring in those groups (based on ethnic group and region) where Latinos outnumber
Latinas.
All of the remaining control variables, including years lived in the U.S., which was the independent variable in the first hypothesis, have remarkably similar slopes and explanatory power to those shown in Table 1. The addition of the new variable, sex ratio, has little impact on the other pattern of relationships of the remaining variables with intermarriage.
Findings
Even though the percentage difference in intermarriages between Latinas and Latinos was not large in the cross tabulation, the difference in favor of Latinas was clearly shown in the logistic regression. So how do we explain the differences between the sexes, and the 66 differences between all of the groups? I would argue that the difference in favor of Latinas that we find between the sexes, when looking at intermarriages, although small could be explained by Smith's (2002) argument, which was discussed earlier. If Latinas are socialized differently from Latinos by their families when growing up, where girls at an early age are introduced to U.S.. institutions, and thus culture, this might have an effect on their
assimilation, which in turn might have an effect on their rate of intermarriage. To elaborate
further on Smith's (2002) argument, maybe soft skills are more important in learning and
understanding a new culture, which would give an advantage to women in most cultures
around the world when it comes to assimilation.
However, how do we explain the differences between some of the groups, and
especially the fact that men in the group of other Spanish/Dominican origin are intermarrying
at a higher percentage than the females in the same group? Well, I would argue that since this
group consists mostly of Dominicans, which earlier has been explained to have a dual
ethnicity (Newman 2002), maybe members of this group tend to follow the intermarriage
patterns of African Americans rather than Latinos. As was mentioned earlier, the African
American community stands out in the literature on intermarriages since the differences
between the sexes is in favor of men intermarrying (Neer 1974; Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan
1990). Thus, maybe men of Dominican origin intermarry more than women because of their
connection with the African American community. The largest difference in intermarriages
between Latinas and Latinos is in the group of Central/South American origin. This could be
explained by the fact that this group is not homogenous and thus hard to analyze. However, it
could also be related to the fact that a large proportion of the immigration from at least
Central America has consisted of Latinas. As was explained earlier through Repak (1994), 67
Hondagneu-Sotelo (2002), and Wallace's (1986) argument, the immigration to the U.S. by this group has been gendered in favor of women. However, when looking at the sex ratio of
Latino/as 18 years of age or older in this group, the difference is not larger than in any of the other Latino groups. Therefore, I think it might be safe to conclude that the large difference of intermarriages between Latinas and Latinos in the group of Central/South American origin can be attributed to the group's heterogeneity.
Finally then, how do we explain the fact that Latinas are individually more likely to
intermarry, but that intermarriages occur more in those groups where the sex ratio is in favor
of men? I would argue that since the sex variable is telling us that individually, Latinas are
more likely to intermarry than Latinos, when controlling for the fact that it happens mainly in
groups where Latinos outnumber Latinas, there has to be another explanation than just
available partners of one's own ethnic group. However, Blau argues that there are several
traits that we look for when choosing our partners, and ethnic group is just one out of many.
Therefore, maybe this unexpected relationship among the variables can be explained by the
fact that Latinas look for more than ethnic traits in their partners, thus intermarrying more
based on other traits such as education and socioeconomic status.
Group Size Differences
The third hypothesis stated a relationship between the size of a Latino group and the
level of intermarriages in that group. I suggested that as a group grows larger, the likelihood
of intermarrying decreases, as there are more potential partners within one's own group.
Thus, a smaller group would have a larger percentage of intermarriages, as there are fewer
potential partners within the group. The hypothesis stated: "the smaller in size a Latino group 68 is, compared to other Latino groups, the more likely people in this group are to intermarry with non-Latino partners, when controlling for region."
The following table presents the results of the logistic regression that I ran with intermarriage as the dependent variable and group size as the independent variable.
Table 3. Intermarriage regressed on group size and control variables. B S.E. WALD DF SIG. C1) C2) C3) C4) Age -.009 .002 19.554 1 .000
Sex .278 .059 22.081 1 .000
Income .009 .001 107.513 1 .000
Metropolitan status .285 .080 12.755 1 .000
Years lived in the U.S. .346 .013 766.407 1 .000
Sex ratio -.005 .012 .175 1 .676
Group size -.127 .009 183.351 1 .000
Northeastern region .212 .100 4.487 1 .034
North central/Midwest .699 .097 51.608 1 .000 region Western region .529 .078 46.006 1 .000
Constant -2.636 .609 18.7 33 1 .000
N=10 241 Source: CPS data set 2002 Dependent variable is intermarried (=1). 1. B is the estimated logit coefficient. 2. S.E. is the standard error of the coefficient. 3. Wald = (B/S.E.)2. 4. Sig. is the significance level of the coefficient (Whitehead n.d.).
Group size, which is the independent variable, is found to be significant as well.
Since the slope is negative, -.127, and the variable was coded in the way where the smallest
group received the smallest number, while the largest group received the largest number, this
suggests that the smaller a Latino group is the more likely people in this group are to
intermarry. Or, to look at it from a different angle, as a Latino group grows larger, its 69 members are less likely to intermarry. As in the other regressions, the slope for metropolitan status is positive, indicating that intermarriages are more likely to occur for aLatino/a if s/he lives in anon-metropolitan area than a metropolitan area. This can perhaps be interpreted in terms of group size; Latinos/as in non-metropolitan areas are quite likely to have fewer
persons in their own ethnic group from which to choose marriage partners, and although the overall size of the group in the region is controlled for, the metro-non-metro cut offers the
opportunity to measure group size at a different level, although the explanatory power of this
variable, although significant, is quite weak (Wald statistic of only 12.8).
Looking at Table 3, we conclude that age, sex, income, metropolitan status, length of
residency, sex ratio, and region have a significant effect on intermarriage and the pattern of
relationships with these control variables and intermarriage are similar to that found in the
first and second hypothesis (Tables 1 and 2).
Since the Southern region was left out of the logistic regression as the point of
comparison, we can conclude that intermarriages are least likely to occur in the South as all
the other regions have positive beta slopes. From the table, we can tell that Latino
intermarriages are most likely to occur in the North central/Midwest, with a positive beta
slope of .699. Next is the Western region, with a positive beta slope of .529, and then the
Northeastern region, with a positive beta slope of .212.
Findings
With all these indicators at hand, I fail to reject the third hypothesis in this study. The
logistic regression shows that there indeed is a relationship between the group size of a
Latino group and the likelihood of intermarriage. Thus, I can conclude that as a Latino group ~o grows larger, there are probably more eligible partners within one's own group, which leads to less intermarriage for people in that group. Looking back at Blau's two assumptions of his theory of social structure (close proximity and cultural/social traits), and Blau, Becker, and
Fitzpatrick's (1984) argument that people are assumed to have ingroup preference when it is feasible to act on that preference. Both these arguments certainly support this hypothesis. If
Latino/as in a small group do not have any appropriate partners to choose from within their own group, they will look outside the group for a partner in order to match as many characteristics of their own with their partner's characteristics. However, when the group that the Latino/a belongs to grows larger, the likelihood of finding a partner with similar characteristics as one's own within that group increases, making it unnecessary to look for partners outside one's own group.
Concluding Thoughts
In sociology, the intersection of demographics when dealing with different issues is often discussed. Such intersections can consist of race, ethnicity, gender, age and so on. In this study, I have not yet introduced issues of intersectionality among my major independent variables: generation, gender, and group size. So how do the three independent variables, and the results from testing the three hypotheses, interrelate? As an example, the results from testing the first hypothesis, where I discussed how even though Latinos of Mexican origin have such a long history in the U.S. they still have the lowest intermarriage percentage, can be explained at least partly through the examination of the third hypothesis. Since the largest
Latino group by far is the one of Mexican origin, the results from the third hypothesis, where it was found that Latinos in smaller groups are more likely to intermarry, explains why the 71
percentages of intermarriages for Latinos of Mexican origin are so low, compared to other
Latino groups.
It would also be useful to connect the conclusions of this study to the theoretical approaches discussed in the first chapter. In some ways my first hypothesis tested Cordon's
theory of assimilation, since he claims that individual immigrants have to assimilate
structurally before intermarriage can occur. If we assume that structural assimilation means
the same as higher levels of assimilation, which was measured by length of residency in this
study, we could say that my first hypothesis tested Cordon's theory. Since my first
hypothesis tested if more assimilated Latino/a s are more likely to intermarry, and failed to
reject this statement, I would argue that the hypothesis also failed to reject Cordon's theory
of assimilation.
In contrast to Cordon's theory, Blau focuses more on what impact a population has
on individual behavior through heterogeneity and inequality. My second hypothesis, which
stated that aLatino/a's gender has an impact on the likelihood of intermarriage, actually
tested a heterogeneous, or nominal, parameter within Blau's theory: sex. What Blau suggests
is that the individual's choice, in this case a Latina, is affected by the whole population's
demographics. This would mean that the Latina's choice to intermarry is enhanced by the
lack of eligible partners within the Latino population. For the third hypothesis, even though
group size is not one of the factors Blau mentions as a nominal parameter, I think the
conditions that constitutes a nominal factor, "distinct boundaries ... without an inherent rank
order" (Blau 1977:31), can insure us that group size can be considered a nominal parameter.
Therefore, I can conclude that group size, which was the independent variable in my third 72
hypothesis, as a nominal parameter of the population affects the likelihood of individuals
intermarrying or not.
The three additional theories that were briefly discussed in the theoretical overview
would have been particularly interesting to use had my data set allowed for a more elaborate
study. I believe that these theories would have been fruitful to add into my choice of
variables and final analysis, which would have been possible if I had collected my own data.
However, for future studies on intermarriages I think using either, two, or all of these theories
would be crucial for the understanding of the immigrant group itself.
With the recent news about how the Latino community grows larger and larger in the
U.S., the likelihood of Latino/as intermarrying should, according to this study, decrease, at least in the regions where the Latino community grows the most. Since this might indicate
that the rates of intermarriage between Latino/as and non-Latinos will decline, it is important
to look closer at this phenomenon within the next decades. Nevertheless, I doubt that intermarriages between Latinos and non-Latinos will ever fade out.
Surely, intermarriage is an interesting social behavior, which needs to be studied further and maybe even more closely in a qualitative study. In doing so, one should control for risk of intermarrying by eliminating from the sample those who married prior to coming to the U.S. Even a quantitative study, where the sole interest is to gain knowledge about intermarriages, might be useful in order to better understand why, how, and where the behavior occurs. For further studies, I thus suggest a concentration on intersections of different demographics and what affects these might have on the likelihood of intermarriage. 73
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