What Can We Learn from the Study of Mexican‐Origin Families in the United States?

• Author: Adriana J. Umaña‐Taylor,Kimberly A. Updegraff
• Date: 01 June 2015
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12135

What Can We Learn from the Study of Mexican-

Origin Families in the United States?

KIMBERLY A. UPDEGRAFF*

ADRIANA J. UMA

~

NA-TAYLOR*

Mexican-origin families are a large and rapidly increasing subgroup of the U.S. popula-

tion, but they remain underrepresented in family scholarship. This paper introduces a

special section of four papers on Mexican-origin families designed to contribute to the

advancement of research on how cultural, family, and gender socializa tion processes

unfold across key developmental periods and life transitions in this cultural context. Two

longitudinal studies of Mexican-origin families provided the data for these four papers: (a)

The Juntos Project, an 8-year longitudinal study of mothers, fathers, and adolescent

sibling pairs in 246 Mexican-origin families; and (b) The Supporting MAMI Project,a

study following 204 adolescent mothers and their mother figures from the third trimester

of pregnancy through their young children’s 5th birthdays. In this introductory paper, we

highlight four themes, including (a) differential acculturation and reciprocal socialization,

(b) interdependence in families, (c) the intersection of culture and gender, and (d) methodo-

logical issues. We end with suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Culture; Family; Fathers; Gender; Mexican-origin/Mexican American;

Mothers; Siblings

Fam Proc 54:205–216, 2015

Latinos are the largest and fastest growing segment of the U.S. population (U.S. Census

Bureau, 2014), and they accounted for more than half of the population growth

between 2000 and 2010 (Passel, Cohn, & Lopez, 2011). Within the Latino population, indi-

viduals of Mexican descent make up the largest subgroup (65% or 33.5 million individuals;

Lopez, Gonzalez-Barrera, & Cuddington, 2013), and they are responsible for three fourths

of the growth in the Latino population from 2000 to 2010 (U.S. Census, 2011). In fact, out-

side of Mexico, the United States has the largest Mexican-origin population worldw ide

(U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). In light of these trends, research on Mexican-origin families

is critical to enhance our understanding of this important subgroup of U.S. families.

Mexican-origin families are a heterogeneous group, as they are characterized by sub-

stantial variability in their cultural backgrounds, values and practices, and socioeconomic

resources (Baca Zinn & Wells, 2000). Scholars who study ethnic minority families have

increasingly recognized the need to study variability within specific cultural groups to

better understand how cultural and family processes are interrelated (McLoyd, 1998;

Uma~

na-Taylor, 2009). The study of a single ethnic or cultural group, referred to as an

ethnic-homogenous design (McLoyd, 1998), also allows researchers to pay close attention

*T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kimberly A. Updegraff, T. Denny Sanford

School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 873701, Tempe AZ 85287-3701.

E-mail: kimberly.updegraff@asu.edu.

This work was supported by NICHD R01HD39666 (Kimberly Updegraff, PI) and R01HD061376 (Adriana

J. Uma~

na-Taylor, PI).

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Family Process, Vol. 54, No. 2, 2015 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12135