Latino research has expanded dramatically since the 1980s. It has developed across the traditional social science disciplines and expanded into other fields, drawn by the rapidly growing Latino population. In contrast to studies of other populations, such as Irish studies, Latino studies is less easily defined by social and cultural boundaries. Indeed, as discussed in this chapter, Latino boundaries are fluid, not fixed, from the perspectives of objective and subjective indicators.
This chapter addresses several issues concerning the development of Latino social science in the United States. These issues concern the change in theoretical and empirical approaches, the definition of Latino, the nature of Latino social change, conceptualizations of Latino social incorporation, and the limitations of the institutional base of Latino research. The chapter concludes with brief comments on future Latino research. The discussion is developed with broad strokes, given the size limitation of the exercise. What is presented is what the author considers to be the salient patterns, admittedly from a sociological perspective, and others might reach different conclusions. A challenge in attempting an overview of Latino research is to determine the boundaries of the field. For expediency in this limited exercise, Latino research refers to studies on Latin American-origin people in the United States. Latinas and Latinos have undertaken much of this research, and members of other groups have contributed to this field of research as well.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Acuña, Rodolfo. (1972). Occupied America: The Chicano’s Struggle Toward Liberation. San Francisco: Canfield Press.
Aguirre, A. (1988). Code Switching, Intuitive Knowledge, and the Bilingual Classroom. In H. Garcia & R. Chavez (Eds.), Ethnolinguistic Issues in Education (pp. 28–38). Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University.
Alarcón, Norma. (1993). Chicana Critical Issues. Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press.
Alba, Richard, & Nee, Victor. (2003). Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Almaguer, Tomas. (1994). Racial Fault Lines. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1990). Haciendo Caras/Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Press.
Blauner, Robert. (1972). Racial Opression in America. New York: Harper & Row.
Bonilla, F., & Girling, R. (Eds.). (1973). Structures of Dependency. Stanford, CA: Stanford Institute of Politics.
Borjas, George J., & Tienda, Marta (Eds.). (1985). Hispanics in the U.S. Economy. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Burns, Allen. (2000). Indiantown, Florida: The Maya Diaspora and Applied Anthropology. In James Loucky & Marilyn M. Moors (Eds.), The Maya Diaspora: Guatemalan Roots, New American Lives (pp. 152–171). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Calavita, Kitty. (1992). Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. New York: Routledge.
Chavez, Leo. (1992). Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich College Publishers.
Chenault, Lawrence. (1938). The Puerto Rican Migrant in New York City. New York: Russell & Russell.
Cordero-Guzmán, Héctor, Smith, Robert C., & Grosfoguel, Ramón. (2001). Migration, Transnationalization, and Race in a Changing New York. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Dougherty, Jon E. (2004). Illegals: The Immigrant Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border. Nashville, TN: WND Books.
Ebaugh, Helen Rose, & Chafetz, Janet Saltzman. (2000). Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Eckstein, Barbara (Ed.). (2001). Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Freeman, Gulnur, & Lethbridge-Cejku, Margaret. (2006). Access to Health Care Among Hispanic or Latino Women: United States, 2000–2002. Advanced Data from Vital and Health Statistics, 368, Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
Galarza, Ernesto, Gallegos, Herman, & Samora, Julian. (1969). Mexican-Americans in the Southwest. Santa Barbara, CA: McNally and Loftin.
Gamio, Manuel. (1931). The Mexican Immigrant, His Life Story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Garcia, Alma, & Garcia, Mario (Eds.). (1997). Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge.
Garcia, F. Chris (Ed.). (1974). La Causa Política: A Chicano Politics Reader. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
García Canclini, Néstor. (1995). Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Giddens, Anthony. (1979). Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradictions in Social Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Glick Schiller, Nina, Basch, Linda, & Blanc, Cristina Szanton (Eds.). (1992). Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Gómez-Quiñones, Juan. (1990). Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise, 1940–1990. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Gonzalez, Gilbert G., & Fernandez, Raul A. (2003). A Century of Chicano History: Empire, Nations, and Migration. New York: Routledge.
Gordon, Milton. (1964). Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gouldner, Alvin Ward. (1970). The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books.
Grebler, Leo, Moore, Joan W., & Guzman, Ralph C. (1970). The Mexican-American People: The Nation’s Second Largest Minority. New York: The Free Press.
Greenlees, Clyde S., & Saenz, Rogelio. (1999). Determinants of Employment of Recently Arrived Mexican Wives. International Migration Review, 33(2), 354–377.
Gutíerrez, David. (1995). Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hagan, Jacqueline Maria. (1994). Deciding to be Legal: A Maya Community in Houston. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Hamilton, Nora, & Chinchilla, Norma Stoltz. (1991). Central American Migration: A Framework for Analysis. Latin American Research Review, 26(1), 75–110.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. (2001). Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Huntington, Samuel P. (2004). Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Kowarick, Lucio. (1994). Social Struggles and the City: The Case of São Paulo. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Levitt, Peggy. (2001). The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lomnitz, Larissa A. (1977). Networks and Marginality: Life in a Mexican Shantytown. New York: Academic Press.
Lopez, Vera A., Roosa, Mark W., Tein, Jenn-Yun, & Dinh, Khanh T. (2004). Accounting for Anglo-Hispanic Differences in School Misbehavior. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 2(1/2), 27–46.
Mahler, Sarah J. (1995). American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Maldonado-Denis, Manuel. (1972). Puerto Rico: A Socio-historic Interpretation. New York: Random House.
Marx, Karl. (1967). Capital, Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy. New York: International Publishers. (Original work published 1867).
Mead, George Herbert. (1934). Mind, Self & Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Melendez, Edwin, Rodriguez, Clara, & Figueroa, Janis Barry (Eds.). (1991). Hispanics in the Labor Force: Issues and Policies. New York: Plenum Press.
Menjívar, Cecilia. (2000). Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Menjívar, Cecilia, & Rodríguez, Nestor (Eds.). (2005). When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S. and Technologies of Terror. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Mindiola, Tatcho, Jr., Niemann, Yolanda Flores, & Rodriguez, Nestor. (2002). Black–Brown Relations and Stereotypes. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Parsons, Talcott. (1951). The Social System. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Population Reference Bureau. (2006). 2006 World Population Data Sheet. Retrieved October 26, 2006, from www.prb.org.
Portes, Alejandro, & Bach, Robert L. (1985). Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Portes, Alejandro, & Hoffman, Kelly. (2003). Latin American Class Structures: Their Compostion and Change During the Neoliberal Era. Latin American Research Review, 38(1), 41–82.
Portes, Alejandro, & Rumbaut, Rubén G. (1996). Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Portes, Alejandro, & Rumbaut, Rubén G. (2001). Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rodriguez, Nestor. (1996). The Battle for the Border: Notes on Autonomous Migration, Transnational Communities and the State. Social Justice, 23(3), 21–37.
Rodriguez, Nestor P., & Urrutia-Rojas, Ximena. (1990). Impact of Recent Refugee Migration to Texas: A Comparison of Southeast Asian and Central American Newcomers. In Wayne H. Holtzman & Thomas H. Bornemann (Eds.), Mental Health of Immigrants and Refugees (pp. 263–278). Austin, TX: Hogg Foundation.
Ross, Dorothy. (1991). The Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sjoberg, Gideon, & Nett, Roger. (1968). A Methodology for Social Research. New York: Harper & Row.
Sjoberg, Gideon, & Ted R. Vaughan. (1971). The Sociology of Ethics and the Ethics of Sociologists. In Edward & Tiryakian (Eds.), The Phenomenology of Sociology (pp. 259–276). Newyork: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Smith, Michael Peter. (2001). Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Smith, Robert Courtney. (2006). Mexican New York: Transnatonal Lives of New Immigrants. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stryker, Sheldon, Owens, Timothy J., & White, Robert W. (Eds.). (2000). Self, Identity, and Social Movements. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo, & Páez, Mariela M. (2002). Latinos: Remaking America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Torres-Saillant, Silvio. (2002). Problematic Paradigms: Racial Diversity and Corporate Identity in the Latino Community. In Marcelo Suárez-Orozco & Mariela M. Páez (Eds.), Latinos: Remaking America (pp. 435–455). Berkeley: University of California Press.
U.S. Census Bureau. (1971). Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1971, 92nd ed. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2001). 2000 Census of Population (Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3), custom tables). Retrieved October 26, 2006, from http://factfinder.census.gov/.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2003). 2000 Census of the Population. Five percent public-use microdata file. Machine-readable data file. Produced and distributed by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2004). U.S. Interim Projections by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin. Retrieved October 26, 2006, from http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2006). 2005 American Community Survey, Custom Tables. Retrieved October 26, 2006, from http://factfinder.census.gov/.
Valenzuela, Angela. (1999). Subtractive Schooling: U.S.–Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Williams, Norma. (1990). The Mexican American Family: Tradition and Change. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall.
Winn, Peter. (2006). Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yarbo-Bejarano, Yvonne. (1999). Sexuality and Chicana/o Studies: Towards a Theoretical Paradigm for the Twenty-First Century. Cultural Studies, 13(2), 335–345.
Yosso, Tara J. (2005). Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rodríguez, N. (2008). Theoretical and Methodological Issues of Latina/o Research. In: Rodríguez, H., Sáenz, R., Menjívar, C. (eds) Latinas/os in the United States: Changing the Face of América. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71943-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71943-6_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-71941-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-71943-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)