Why Do College-Educated Mexicans Marry White?

DEAR MEXICAN: Longtime reader, first-time writer about this noble Aztlán. I watched the brown-pride marches of the early 1970s and heard the shouts of La Raza and how it was going to be different now that the “Chicano” had arrived. The Mexicans were going to change things for the greater good. I remember when President Ronald Wilson Reagan gave amnesty to some 5 million illegal Mexican immigrants and how this was going to change things once and for all, bringing the Mexicans into American society with welcome arms and citizenship. Nothing was going to hold the Mexicans down now. And here we are: Mexico might not be falling, as you say, but neither the police, the Army nor the citizens seem able to stop the killing. Predominantly Latino school districts in Santa Ana and Los Angeles are failing, Latinas are having babies out of wedlock at the rate of Guatemalans, and young Latinos are still tagging and banging. I believe Mexicans re-colonizing not only the Southwest, but also most of America, is only a matter of time, with brown pride and illegitimate children filling this great country. So what are you going to do with it, Mexican? History does not paint a very bright future for a Latino-controlled America.

Reading The Turner Diaries to Prepare

DEAR GABACHO: Sure it does! Rather than me offering you my usual pendejadas, I'll direct you to the research of my ¡Ask a Mexican! pal and USC professor Jody Agius Vallejo, whose book Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class was just released in paperback (with a rambling intro by your favorite Mexican). Her pioneering research shows how, contrary to Know Nothing assertions, Mexicans are following the same assimilation and financial-achievement patterns as previous immigrant groups. Can't argue with facts, yet I'm sure you will, which only shows why your kind deserves your half-brown grandkid destiny.

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DEAR MEXICAN: Since I was an undergraduate, I have wondered why high-achieving Mexican-American men tend to date/marry white women. Now working in academia, most of the Chicano professors are married to white women (WHAT AN OXYMORON). Also, it seems that the more power a Mexican-American man has (whether it's in academia or politics), the more likely he is to marry a white woman. What is this phenomenon about? Are educated Latinas threatening to high-achieving Chicanos? Are we too complex? What gives? I know this is a rather sensitive matter and no one seems to want to talk. What is your take on the issue?

A Xicana Scholar In San Antonio

DEAR WABETTE: Your assumption is correct. A 2012 Pew Research Center study on intermarriage in los Estados Unidos put it thusly: “For newly married Hispanic men and women, marrying a white person is associated with a college education.” If anything, you smarty-art Chicanas marry gabachos at a HIGHER rate than smarty-art Mexicans: Nearly 33 percent of mexicanas who marry a gabacho are college-educated, compared with about 23 percent of scholarly Mex-men who marry white. The Pew people didn't get into the why of the matter, but I'd argue it's because of the scandalously low amount of Latinos in college—coeds tend to get with what's around, you know? All this said, chula, ALL Mexican men want a gabachita at some point in their lives, regardless of class—witness the shout-outs given to the wetbacks who nailed American women in Los Alegres de Teran's “El Corrido de los Mojados” and “El Mojado Acaudalado” by Los Tigres del Norte (your humble Mexican can boast of a mick and a Yid in his past). Nothing against you fine-ass Xicanas, but dating a white woman is the ultimate status symbol for hombres—not so much for the prestige, but so we can get our share of the romance Reconquista.