Why haven't Mexican Americans disappeared or gone away?

Based on a longitudinal survey of 1,400 Mexican Americans and 70 in-depth interviews, Telles and Sue examine the ethnic and national identity of third-generation-plus Mexican Americans. The book is a direct response to recent highly publicized nativist anxiety about an unassimilated Mexican presence in the United States. What Telles and Sue find is a largely working class ethnic-racial population that espouses a dual identity as Mexican and American, retains and favours bilingualism, generally marries within the group, and more often than not distinguishes itself from Mexican immigrants. Telles and Sue explain such persistence over generations through the concept of a self-sustaining "Mexican American ethnic core" that has been maintained through racial exclusion. Although a majority of Mexican Americans continue to live in visible ethnoracial enclaves, they identify as American and pose no political or cultural threat to the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]