Abstract
Sociologists have long regarded intermarriage as an important indicator of integration between immigrant and native groups. This study examines how parental cross-nativity marriages between Mexican-origin foreign-born parents and Mexican-origin parents born in the U.S. affect intermarriage among second-generation Mexican Americans in metropolitan Los Angeles. Logistic regression analysis provides the likelihood of intermarriage with the Non-Hispanic white majority group (the group with which the Mexican-origin population intermarries the most) based on data from the Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA) survey. This research shows that second-generation Mexican Americans who have a foreign-born mother and a U.S. native-born father are more likely to intermarry with non-Hispanic whites compared to second-generation Mexican Americans whose parents are both foreign-born. The daughters of foreign-born mothers and native-born fathers demonstrate the highest likelihood of intermarriage. Foreign-born mothers who are arguably less traditional and more tied to the new country, demonstrated by marriage to a native-born coethnic, may socialize their daughters to pursue non-traditional gender roles by encouraging them to achieve more education, thus leading to a higher likelihood of intermarriage integration. Although parental cross-nativity leads to intermarriage integration for some second-generation Mexican Americans, there is also evidence that they experience racialized integration, demonstrated by a high endogamy rate.
