A Call for a Racial-Generational Approach for Studying Mexican-American Autiobiographical Narratives.

I propose that (auto)biographies and an analysis of family generations be used to extend the fields of race and culture. Biographies bump up against or enfold many social phenomenon in which many sociologists are intensely interested, such as race, identity, family structure, work, institutions and organizations, social movements, and more. Put simply, narratives express biographies which are ensconced within (a) culture. In this call to work at the seams of sociological subfields, I suggest that race be understood through narratives situated within a particular generation of a family unit. Conversely, sensitivity to racial-generational positioning should be used to contextualize and illuminate biographical narratives. Considering that ?social life is itself storied? and that ??experience? is constituted through narratives,? life history narratives are an appropriate way to gain insight into how people comprehend and navigate through the social world. The race/ethnicity that I will draw upon here is Mexican-Americans, a group whose history documents eras colored by dominant racial ideologies that affected a specific generational population. The use of a racial-generational approach, which takes into account that racial formations slip and slide through eras and family generations, will lend insight into the tangential fields of race, identity, family, culture, and social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]