Welcome to the Front Seat: Racial Identity and Mesoamerican Immigrants

Abstract

In this article, I argue that mestizo immigrants from the Mesoamerica region experience a low socioeconomic tracking compounded by a racialized subordinating discourse in the United States. These immigrants come over to the United States from a region where social stratification and racial prejudice are based more on cultural and linguistic differentiation than on pigmentation. Once in their new surroundings, mestizo immigrants live a reversal of power relations as well as a new cultural regime that places them in a secondary social role. Key words: diasporic studies, race theory, identity formation theory, identity and education, immigration, Latina/Latino/Chicano culture, people of color and socialization