Texas-Style Exclusion

“Do not underestimate Mexican immigrants, argue Jennifer Van Hook and James Bachmeier, who offer a sweeping account of the 37.4 million Americans of Mexican origin in the United States. Tracing Mexican immigrant families over eight decades and three generations, they go beyond purely optimistic or pessimistic portraits and show how geography mattered. Mexicans in California had access to expanding educational systems during the Industrial Era and nearly closed the educational attainment gap with native-born whites. Those in Texas did not, resulting in ‘Texas-Style Exclusion.’ High per capita investments helped level the playing field for Mexican immigrants of yore. It can do so again.”
—JENNIFER LEE, Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Social Sciences, Columbia University

“Texas-Style Exclusion is a brilliant exemplar of social demography that decisively solves the ‘puzzle’ of Mexican Americans’ third-generation educational delay by documenting how the contours of contemporary educational inequality are entrenched in legacies of discrimination and exclusion experienced by their immigrant parents and grandparents, depending on when they arrived and where they settled. Analyzing eight decades of linked census records and novel archival data about temporal and spatial variations in public school investments, veteran demographers Jennifer Van Hook and James Bachmeier empirically show that early-vintage Mexican Americans who settled in Texas fared considerably worse than their compatriots who settled in California or other regions of the United States. Their pithy tome is a formidable contribution to the literature about U.S. immigration, race relations, education policy, and of course, demography. I am now even more grateful thatmy Mexican immigrant parents left Texas for the Midwest when I was an infant.”
—MARTA TIENDA, Maurice P. During Professor in Demographic Studies and professor of sociology and public affairs, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

“Texas-Style Exclusion is a game-changer for the troubling puzzle of third-generation stagnation in Mexican American integration. Using unique and powerful cross-generational census data, Jennifer Van Hook and James Bachmeier unravel the different immigration strands that give rise to today’s Mexican American population. In so doing, they reveal the persisting disadvantages due to the racism faced by early waves of Mexican settlers, especially those in Texas, but also the robust intergenerational advance associated with recent waves. History matters!”
—RICHARD ALBA, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Africana Studies, The Graduate Center, CUNY

While Americans largely support legal immigration, this support is conditional on the basis that immigrants do not make use of public assistance. Previous generations of immigrants, such as European-origin Industrial Era immigrants, came to the U.S. impoverished, worked hard, and achieved the American Dream seemingly on their own. Mexican immigrants, the nation’s largest contemporary immigrant group, are often viewed with suspicion and are accused of being dependent on the government and refusing to integrate into American society the “right way.” In Texas-Style Exclusion, sociologists Jennifer Van Hook and James D. Bachmeier investigate such claims by comparing how American society has responded to different groups of immigrants over time.

Drawing on census and archival data on the quality of public schooling, Van Hook and Bachmeier find that Industrial Era European immigrants, who were primarily located in the northeastern U.S., benefitted from programs and policies championed by the Americanization and Progressive movements. The Americanization movement sought to help acclimate new arrivals and transform “foreigners” into “Americans” by providing night school programs to promote civic integration and basic education, as well as other services. The Progressive movement, which aimed to improve education, work, and health conditions, sought to expand investment in public schools and make primary and secondary schooling mandatory, which kept working class children in school as opposed to entering the workforce. This access to education allowed for integration and astonishing intergenerational mobility.

Mexican immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s, the majority of whom resided in Texas, had radically different experiences from their European counterparts. Mexicans in Texas were subjected to racism, segregation, labor exploitation, and intentional school failures. This resulted in tremendous generational disadvantage that persists to the current day. Mexicans from this cohort who left Texas for states with strong Americanization and Progressive movements saw improved educational outcomes and integration. Additionally, Mexicans who immigrated after the Civil Rights Movement saw significantly greater inter-generational mobility and educational attainment than earlier cohorts due to the protections provided by civil rights laws. Van Hook and Bachmeier conclude that whether one is optimistic or pessimistic about the integration of Mexican Americans depends on when and where one looks.

Texas-Style Exclusion is an engaging examination of policies and practices that have been glossed over and forgotten that promoted mobility and integration for certain immigrant groups and impeded them for others.

JENNIFER VAN HOOK is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography, Pennsylvania State University

JAMES D. BACHMEIER is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Temple University