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The overlooked Latino middle class: deep roots and continued growth

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The overlooked Latino middle class: deep roots and continued growth

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Content THE OVERLOOKED LATINO MIDDLE CLASS:
DEEP ROOTS AND CONTINUED GROWTH

by

Elizabeth Vega Aguilera

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)

August 2010

Copyright 2010 Elizabeth Vega Aguilera
ii 

EPIGRAPH

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
- Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
iii 
DEDICATION

For my parents, Rodrigo and Lupe Aguilera, who sacrificed much so we could soar.
Their hard work provided me wings, their support called the wind and their love gave me
flight.

iv 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A heartfelt thank you to the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
and the Annenberg Fellowship for giving me the opportunity to take a break from the
newsroom to study, re-energize and work on a larger project. The fellowship introduced
me to amazing professors and mentors including Michael Parks and Roberto Suro who
gave their time, perspective and stories to inspire greater journalism. Their brilliant
insight was invaluable and I go forward with the added gift of their friendship. I feel
lucky to have had the wonderful camaraderie and togetherness of my fellow SJ’s. In
particular Christopher Jenkins, Lauren Whaley, Astrid Viciano and Natalia Bogolasky,
whose cherished friendships are like cool, fresh water.
My incredible family gave me unimaginable support, love and understanding
during this intense year. They took care of me in large and small ways from getting
settled in to dog sitting to listening as I worked out topics and challenges to providing
amazing, large, loud Sunday dinners. How I had missed those gatherings. Yvonne,
simply the best sister and friend. I must mention Houdini who came on this journey with
me and gave me warm furry hugs exactly when I needed them. And David, who gave his
time, his support and his love throughout this year. He gets it. I’m in awe of his
understanding of the distance, the focus and the desire. With him the colors are so bright.
Special appreciation to the families who shared their stories and allowed me into
their lives. This is the most amazing part of being a journalist. I continue to be humbled
and honored that families like these share their experiences, thoughts and lives so we can
tell stories in meaningful ways. – E

v 
TABLE OF CONTENTS
 
 
 
Epigraph  ii
Dedication iii 
Acknowledgements iv 
Abstract vi 
The Overlooked Latino Middle Class: Deep Roots and Continued Growth 1 

Bibliography 31 
vi 
ABSTRACT

The Latino middle class is an established and growing community that has taken
shape largely unnoticed outside of academia. Its growth has been overshadowed by
continuing migration and a perception that Latinos are all immigrants, poor and
downwardly mobile. While it is true many Latinos face economic and social challenges
there is a strong and healthy middle class grown from trade union jobs, education,
entrepreneurship and hard work that traces its roots back for decades, particularly in
Southern California. The families own homes, send their children to college and have
built vast networks with other Latino middle class families through church, work and
neighborhood.
The Latino middle class is similar to the mainstream middle class but also faces
unique challenges. Poor family members and friends often rely heavily on their middle
class relatives for financial support, which strains their ability to save or plan for the
future. In addition, middle class Latinos also face the enduring image of Latinos as poor,
uneducated immigrants that contributes to their invisibility. Despite these hurdles the
continued growth of the Latino middle class is critical to future economic stability in
California and throughout the nation.

1 
THE OVERLOOKED LATINO MIDDLE CLASS:
DEEP ROOTS AND CONTINUED GROWTH

Letty Shriver gave up her post as team mom after five years to sit in the stands
and watch her son pitch. Instead of coordinating snacks and sweeping up after games she
chats with her mother-in-law and keeps an eye on her six-year-old daughter wheeling by
on her Razor scooter. (Shriver 2010)
By the time Gabriel, 12, takes the mound for the White Sox in Temple City his
little sister Grace has already traded her flamingo pink T-ball helmet and pink mitt for her
scooter. Even so, when she scoots past the bleachers at Live Oak Park her color of choice
is still evident. The foam handle bar covers are the same sweet side of red as the Roxy
lettering on her hooded zip-up sweatshirt. (Shriver 2010)
“She wants to be on TV shows,” Letty says as Grace whizzes by with a Capri Sun
in hand. “I’m going to have to figure that out. She keeps asking.”
It’s a different life her daughter leads than the one Letty Shriver remembers from
her childhood. She arrived in Los Angeles an undocumented 5-year-old immigrant from
Mexico with her family. Raised in a housing project near downtown, she grew into a
teenager who vowed to never be poor again. (Shriver 2010)
Once she became a legal resident of the U.S. at 19, she tenaciously pursued a
college education even after Pasadena City College rejected her twice for not living
within its boundaries. The school eventually relented, and she studied there before going
on to California State University Los Angeles where she became the first in her family to
earn a college degree. (Shriver 2010)
2 
A career as a graphic artist, a place in Whittier and a commitment to Christianity
came long before she met her husband Matt Shriver at church in East Los Angeles.
(Shriver 2010)
The Shriver family represents the next chapter in the growth of the middle class
and the evolution of many middle class Latinos. The Shriver’s and thousands of Latino
families like them are not unique, but their growing ranks have gone virtually unnoticed
outside of a few academic studies.
A lack of popular images, media stories or entertainment scripts reflective of their
lives has meant the Latino middle class ascended without much ado. As new immigrants
garnered most of the media attention, the upwardly mobile middle class quietly went
about their business of moving to the suburbs, buying homes and putting down roots.
(Myers 2010)
Latinos continue to be portrayed in media and in politics by images and news
revolving around new immigrants, high school drop outs, poverty and crime, said Jody
Agius Vallejo, a University of California sociologist who specializes in the Mexican-
origin middle class. (Vallejo 2010)
“It’s very common to hear in the media about migrants being smuggled over the
border, or there are photos in newspapers of migrants running through the desert,” she
said. (Vallejo 2010) “Even if a person knows someone who is Latino middle class, they
see them as an exception and not the rule.” (Vallejo 2010)
The popular perception Vallejo describes is not the reality of the Latino middle
class. This group, depending on generation of middle class status, is very similar to the
mainstream middle class but also faces unique challenges. Poorer family and friends of
3 
the Latino middle class rely on them for financial support and they are very aware of the
larger societal view that paints them as immigrant, uneducated and poor despite their
financial and educational accomplishments. Many also endure a heightened sensitivity to
the debate around immigration and the controversy, which affects how they are perceived
and may directly affect their family and friends. (Vallejo 2010)
The constant flow of immigration has also masked the growth of the Latino
middle class, according to demographer Dowell Myers, a University of California
professor of policy, planning and development and other experts. (Ransford 1994).
“People don’t see those who are more educated and don’t notice them as
immigrants,” he continued. “People are always looking at stereotypes. People see the day
laborers and other service workers -- it’s not good advertising.” (Myers 2010)
What is clear, even if it’s not reflected in popular magazines or on television, is
that Latinos’ continued entry into the middle class is necessary to have a healthy
economy, real estate sector and retirement age population, Myers said. (Myers 2010)
Throughout its history, the United States has relied on the middle class for its
financial stability and established roots in local communities. That doesn’t change, Myers
said, as the middle class takes on a Latino hue. (Myers 2010)
Changing trends including the slowdown in immigration and a larger native-born
population may eventually help alter perceptions, Myers said. Immigration rates, which
include legal and illegal immigration, in Los Angeles County are now 30 percent lower
than in 1980. (Myers 2010)
Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, making up 15
percent of the U.S. population and outnumbering African-Americans, who make up 12
4 
percent of the population, according to 2008 U.S. Census data estimates. (Census 2008)
In Los Angeles, 47 percent of the residents are Latino. (Census 2008)
The prevailing view of Latinos as immigrant or plagued with social issues is built
mostly by popular culture images and news and television. An examination by the Pew
Hispanic Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism found scant coverage across
newspaper, cable programs, broadcast networks, news websites and news radio and talk
shows of Latinos. Coverage that exists is mostly event driven. In the six months
reviewed, from February to August 2009, 645 stories out of 34,452 contained “substantial
references to Hispanics,” the report found. Of those a third were related to the nomination
and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The other three top themes
were the Mexican drug war, the H1NI outbreak and immigration. (PHC 2009)
These images, with a few exceptions, are not current and do not help the
collective self-image of many middle class Latinos who feel marginalized and
stereotyped, said Manuel Lozano, mayor of Baldwin Park, a city in the San Gabriel
Valley. (Lozano 2010) Baldwin Park, tucked in where the 605 and 10 freeways meet, is
home to 78,000 people and is 78 percent Latino. The median household income is
$50,273.
In nearby Los Angeles, Vallejo found, 22 percent of Mexican-origin Latinos
earned more than the average household income of $74,686 in 2008. Of those 1.3 million
people 67 percent are native-born, 74 percent are homeowners and 61 percent work in
middle-to high status occupations. (Vallejo 2008)
5 
“I think that the media needs to be exposed and inform itself of the changes that
have occurred for Latinos since the civil rights era of 1964,” said Lozano. “They
perpetuate more of the negative stereotypes.” (Lozano 2010)
Lozano is not alone in his view. Half of Latinos say that the “situation of Latinos
in this country is worse than it was a year ago,” according to a Pew Hispanic Center 2008
National Survey of Latinos. That pessimism is born from rising unemployment and
increased immigration enforcement, according to the report. (Lopez 2008)
The immigration debate is especially heated because of the recently approved
Arizona legislation that allows law enforcement to ask for legal proof of status of anyone
they encounter. A majority of Latinos say immigration enforcement should be left to
federal authorities and worry that someone they know may be deported, the Pew Report
found. (Lopez 2008) Even among native-born Hispanics 35 percent worry a lot or some
about deportation of family members or close friends. (Lopez 2008) Others report feeling
the situation is worse because they can’t find a job or feel discriminated against because
they are Latino, according to the Pew Hispanic report. (Lopez 2008)
Lozano points to the history of Latinos in the U.S. and the benefits born of the
Chicano Movement including improved education, farm workers’ rights, voting and
political access, and increased wages and worker benefits as a reason for confidence.
(Lozano 2010) This matters because each of these benefits helped propel Latino families
into the ranks of the middle class and will continue to do so even in this economic and
political climate, he said. (Lozano 2010)
The movement gave birth to a new generation of college- educated professionals
and politicians now at the forefront of the Latino community visible as elected officials
6 
from Sacramento to Los Angeles City Hall to the hundreds of school boards and city
councils around southern California. These new leaders, in business and politics, are both
those who came up during that time and others who are the children of laborers who
benefited from unionization and other employee improvements, said Kent Wong, director
of the UCLA Labor Center. (Wong 2010)
“Historically, the creation of the middle class was a direct result of the U.S. labor
movement; even today, unions result in a 30 percent increase in wages an benefits for
workers,” Wong said. “It means the difference between a low wage job and a middle
class job.” (Wong)
Even when calculating the benefits through such things as education or union
wages, the challenge for experts and government economic officials is the lack of an
official definition of middle class. It’s a question that baffles even those who study this
group. Generally, studies have used ranges in annual income from $40,000 to more than
$100,000, others base it solely on homeownership and some say it is a mentality. (Pew,
TRPI, Munoz) The idea, experts say, behind middle class is having the basics of
comfortable life such as owning a home and vehicles and affording heat and other
necessities. (Vigeland 2008)
However is it defined, those who have taken it on agree on one thing, the Latino
middle class is strong and growing. And it has been for a significant amount of time.
(Rodriguez, Wong, Myers) One of the most ardent critics of reviews that praise or single
out the middle class is Arlene Davila, author of Latino Spin, Public Image and the
Whitewashing of Race. She believes “Latinos are being characterized in a more
7 
marketable, sanitized, and compensatory way which is suggestive of Latinos shifting
place in the politics of race.” (Davila 2008)
Despite the critics a strong Latino middle class emerged decades ago in cities like
Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas. In Florida the Cubans have boasted a fierce middle
class identity for decades and in New York City Puerto Ricans have a deep community
and economic roots. In other communities nationwide, just now seeing a large influx of
immigrant Latinos, that growth is years away but it will come, Myers said. (Myers)
In Los Angeles and Southern California where the Latino middle class has a long
history, Latino middle class families inhabit miles of city blocks from downtown to the
suburbs. They live in colorful stucco houses and newer developments, tend gardens,
watch popular television shows, shop in the local mall and host birthday and graduation
parties in their backyards. These families send their children to local and private schools,
serve on parent teacher boards, take vacations, pay for swim and voice lessons and attend
civic holiday celebrations. They go to work everyday and sit at their kitchen table late
into the night paying bills, saving for college, and planning for the future.
In 1996, Gregory Rodriguez wrote the groundbreaking study “The Emerging
Latino Middle Class” showing that Latino movement into the middle class had increased
dramatically based on homeownership. It was the first study of its kind, received
widespread attention and provided the impetus for other such studies. (Rodriguez 2010)
Rodriguez reported that in 1990 one in four middle class persons in the Los
Angeles area was Latino, 55 percent of those were foreign born and nearly half of all
Latino middle-class households earned more than $55,000 annually. The path to the
middle class for foreign-born Latinos is characterized by middle–level, blue- and pink-
8 
collar jobs, high labor force participation, business ownership, education and the pooling
of money with family members to fulfill entrepreneurial or homeownership dreams.
(Rodriguez and Vallejo).
In its 2001 study, “The Latino Middle Class, Myth Reality and Potential,” the
Tomas Rivera Policy Institute found similar results by using $40,000 as the benchmark.
The institute reported that the number of Latino middle class households increased by
about 80 percent between 1979 and 1998, from 1.5 million to 2.7 million households.
The increase was especially dramatic in native-born households and specifically 63
percent of native-born Cubans, 41 percent of native-born Mexicans, 38 percent of
mainland born Puerto Ricans and 46 percent of native-born individuals from other
Spanish speaking countries had reached middle class status by 1998. (TRPI 2001)
More recently, Myers’ current research shows that the existing Latino middle
class is led in part by Latino immigrants who arrived before 1980 and are now 50 to 59
years old. (Myers 2010) Immigrants living in the U.S. for 20 years or more make up the
largest block of Latino immigrants and the majority of them are homeowners, Myers
said. In California these immigrant homeowners have a higher rate of homeownership
than the mainstream population. (Myers 2010)
“Immigrant upward mobility is an uplifting force, such a great benefit,” Myers
said. “Over time, immigrants incorporate themselves into society and culture and move
upward in the economy, the housing market and society.”
Nationally the Latino rate of homeownership was 48.9 percent in 2008, up from
42.1 percent in 1995. In California, which has the second lowest homeownership rate in
9 
the nation, 58 percent versus 67 percent nationwide, the Latino rate of homeownership is
44 percent, according to a 2006 report by the Asset Policy Initiative of California. (Asset
Policy 2006).
By 2005 the top five surnames of homeowners in California were Latino – Garcia,
Hernandez, Rodriguez, Lopez and Martinez – and four of the top ten homeowner names
in the nation were Latino. In 2000 there were two on the list. (Myers 2007) J
Just as important as income is in entering the middle class for Latinos the dream
of homeownership is tantamount as a first step in building family wealth, Myers said. The
Department of Housing and Urban Development found Latino homeownership rates hit a
record 50 percent in the final quarter of 2005.
In the 2006 report the authors wrote, “The report demonstrates that Hispanics are
quickly becoming a sizable proportion of the U.S. population and cannot be viewed as a
single homogeneous group but rather are an increasingly diverse community.”
Hispanics are expected to make up 40% of first-time homebuyers over the next 20
years, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found.
“The stability is remarkable given the continuing large scale immigration of
poorer Hispanic households in the 1990s, which has the effect of diluting the proportion
who are middle class,” wrote William A.V. Clark in his book, “Immigrants and the
American Dream, Remaking the Middle Class.” (Clark 2003)
More than a decade after his study on the middle class, Rodriguez said he is not
surprised that the middle class is still being discovered. He is now the director of the
California Fellows at the New America Foundation. (Rodriguez 2010)

10 
“It’s easier to compress and reduce, and I don’t think we’ve move beyond that,”
Rodriguez said recently. “It makes it easy for analysts, markets and political marketers.”
(Rodriguez 2010)
But Latinos, Rodriguez said, are more diverse. “At any given moment in the U.S.,
there are Latinos living at varying levels of the immigrant experience.” (Rodriguez 2010)
Those varied experiences range from educational to religious, economic to
language choice.
The Shrivers are living the latest incarnation of the Latino experience. College
educated, inter-married and not Catholic. According to 2008 Census data the percentage
of Latinos who describe themselves as Catholic had dropped from 66 percent in 1990 to
59.5 percent in 2008. The vast majority of others belong to other religions or consider
themselves atheist or agnostic. (Census)
One in four Hispanics now marries someone from a different ethnic group, and
educated Latinos do so at a higher rate than other groups, according to the 2005
Population Reference Bulletin on racial and Hispanic intermarriage. (PRB 2005)
Letty and Matt met and married at the former Church on Brady in East Los
Angeles 14 years ago. Shortly after the church relocated to Pasadena the Shrivers began
to worship at mega-church Faith Community in West Covina near their Temple City
home.
Having a home for her family is important for Letty who grew up in a Lincoln
Heights housing project. The Oropeza family survived on her parents’ meager wages; her
father worked as a gardener at Forest Lawn Cemetery earning $800 a month, and her
mother worked in a garment factory for $150 a week.
11 
Leticia Oropeza was brought to the U.S. when she was five-years-old, the only
girl in a family of seven children. (Shriver 2010) It would be 14 more years before she
became a legal resident of the United States, sponsored by her parents who achieved legal
status because their youngest sons, Letty’s younger brothers, were born in the U.S. and
were citizens at birth. (Shriver 2010)
Letty, who has long brown hair and a solid matter-of-factness about her, said she
hid her undocumented status.
“It’s inconvenient,” she said about her early years. “I was embarrassed because
none of my friends knew I didn’t have papers.”
Still that didn’t stop a teenage Letty from having dreams and deciding early what
she wanted and what she didn’t want for herself.
“I realized I was poor when I was in my late teens, and I decided I didn’t want to
get married and have 6 or 7 kids and struggle like my mother,” she remembers. “I started
taking different classes and I was determined not to be poor again.” (Shriver 2010)
She succeeded. Letty, now 48, became the only one in her family to attend and
graduate from college. (Shriver 2010) Her brothers, she said, are successful in trades and
are homeowners as well.
“Middle class is a financial status,” Letty Shriver said. “You own a home in the
suburbs and make about $100,000 to $150,000. Below that, I don’t know how people
survive or own a home.” (Shriver 2010)
The Shrivers point to many other Latino families that are middle class at church
and in their city who do not fit the images reflected on television, in the newsroom and in
popular culture. (Shriver 2010)
12 
“I get offended when they say that all of us Latinos are in gangs or other
stereotypes,” she said. “We are not all the same. The majority of Latinos are poor because
they have just now started building their lives.” (Shriver 2010)
Her husband Matt is a bear of a man with a strident voice and salt-and-pepper
hair. He calls the Little League games almost every week, his voice booming over the PA
system. He is an emergency room nurse at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia. He grew up for
a time near the border in San Diego where his father was the pastor of a small Christian
church in San Ysidro.
While Matt grew up the son of a preacher, his future wife converted from
Catholicism after visiting a bible study with a friend when she was 17-years-old.
(Shriver 2010)
Years later, when the couple married, neither family was surprised. Letty’s
brother had married a white woman and Matt’s mother knowingly recalls thinking her
son would marry a Latina. (Shriver 2010)
“When we lived near the border, they really fell in love with the Hispanic culture
-- it’s a very warm culture,” Lynn Shriver, Matt’s mother, said about her two sons. “We
were the minorities there.” (LShriver 2010)
Lynn’s other son, Todd, married a Puerto Rican.
On some Sundays, the Shrivers, with Lynn in tow, visit Letty’s mom at her home
in East Los Angeles near the 710 freeway. The children, Gabriel and Grace, don’t speak
Spanish and have difficulty communicating with their maternal grandmother even though
Matt, their father, speaks conversational Spanish.

13 
It’s Lynn, Matt’s mom, who worries about it. (LShriver 2010)
“I wanted the kids to really learn Spanish but Letty and Matt didn’t want them to
because they worried about them learning English,” she said. “They can’t really speak to
their other grandmother, they will never be close to her.” (LShriver 2010)
Gabriel and Grace are third generation, and their language preference and
proficiency reflects studies showing that by the third generation most Latinos are
monolingual English speakers, even those with two Latino parents. (Telles, Ortiz 2008)
“We tried and got lazy,” Letty Shriver said, recalling their efforts to teach the
children Spanish. “We would say ‘let’s speak Spanish on Saturday’ and then we’d stop.”
(Shriver 2010)
Over the years, the Shriver’s has seen their share of family through hard times.
They have lent money to family members, though they always view it as a gift so as not
to ruin relationships over money. Most recently, they had a nephew and then a niece and
her child live with them. (Shriver 2010)
“After our nephew, we said we would never do it again. Our house is not that big
and it’s hard,” Letty Shriver said. “But my niece needed somewhere to go.” (Shriver
2010)
Lynn could be Letty’s personal cheerleader. The grandmother admires her
daughter-in-law’s work ethic and the way she cares for her family through her school
involvement and for being a health-conscious mom who shops at Trader Joe’s for organic
foods.
Together Letty, who works at a teacher’s assistant at La Rosa Elementary School,
and Matt earn more than $100,000 annually. (Shriver 2010)
14 
“We celebrate Christmas with tamales and champurado, and we open presents on
Christmas Eve,” Letty says about keeping the Mexican culture. “We have piñatas at
birthday parties, but doesn’t everyone?” (Shriver 2010)
Just as the Shrivers have helped family members in need, researchers Vallejo and
Jennifer Lee found that in Los Angeles and Orange counties middle class Latinos of
Mexican origin who grew up in poverty are more likely to give to poorer family and
friends. In their study, “Brown Picket Fences: The immigrant narrative and ‘giving back’
among the Mexican-origin middle class,” they found that this process of sharing support
could erode the ability of minority middle-class individuals to accumulate assets and
wealth and could impede their security in the middle class. (Vallejo, Lee)
A study by the Pew Hispanic Center last year found that one quarter of Latinos
had helped a family member or friend with a loan and 17 percent said they received a
loan from a family member or friend. (Lopez 2009)
The ethnic middle class has an element of fragility in that it is less likely to be as
economically secure as other middle class groups, according to a study by Demos, a non-
partisan public policy research organization, on the economic security of blacks and
Latinos.
The study shows that economic security, such as savings, insurance and other
safety nets, among Latino middle-class families fell from 23 percent to 12 percent based
on the current recession, the meltdown of subprime mortgages, rising costs, decreased
home values and rising unemployment. (Vallejo)
In addition, the current recession and housing crisis has had a great effect on
middle class families, including Latinos. In parts of the nation and Southern California,
15 
some communities have been brought to their knees by foreclosures. The Pew Hispanic
Center reported in 2009 that one-in-ten, 9 percent, of Latino homeowners had missed a
mortgage payment in the last year. Three percent of Latino homeowners had received a
foreclosure notice and more than one-third are worried about foreclosure. In addition to
housing woes many are feeling the financial pinch because of job loss or cuts. (Lopez
2009)
Immigrant homeowners have not been affected as much as native-born Latinos,
according to the Pew Hispanic Center which looked at statistics through mid-2008 in its
report “Through Boom and Bust: Minorities, Immigrants and Homeownership.”
(Kochhar 2009)
According to the report, immigrant homeownership “increased from 46.5 percent
in 1995 to 53.3 percent in 2006 and then fell to 52.9 percent in 2008.” (Kochhar 2009)
The home ownership rate for native-born Latinos peaked in 2005 at 56.2 percent and had
fallen to 53.6 percent, a loss of 2.6 percent, by 2008.
The progression of the Latino middle class began about half a century ago.
Fernando Penalosa and other scholars, including Edward Telles and Vilma Ortiz in
“Generations of Exclusion, Mexican Americans, Assimilation and Race,” point to World
War II as a pivotal point of change. (Ransford 24)
Many older and more settled middle class Latinos found upward mobility through
a booming economy and manufacturing jobs after World War II. Manufacturing and the
subsequent building boom provided jobs that were often unionized and offered higher
wages that led to homeownership.
16 
There was a short time, also after World War II, when Latino veterans took
advantage of the GI Bill by going to college or trade school, that a growing number
entered the middle class and the second generation began to numerically dominate the
adult population. (Telles and Ortiz)
By the 1950s, nearly half of the Latino population was at least third generation
because mass immigration had ended around 1930, the decade of contemporary labor
laws and union organization, according to UCLA’s Kent Wong.
“It made a huge difference. It meant industrial jobs that were once low wage with
horrible working conditions were transformed because of unionization,” Wong said.
The 1940s and 50s witnessed the mammoth expansion of the white middle class
throughout the country through suburban homeownership, college for the kids and
healthy retirement accounts through individual accounts. (Wong 2010) Hispanics would
begin to hit this benchmark decades later.
“It is a very common phenomenon when you interview people who are the first
member of their family to attend college, frequently it has been the byproduct of having
parents who had union jobs,” Wong said. “It provided more stability at home and it
encouraged more educational achievement.”
Some 40 years later in the 1970s the landmark Immigration Act of 1965 brought
on the resurgence of immigration. That year the foreign born population in the U.S. was
4.7 percent and the U.S. Census had not yet begun counting Hispanics based on country
of origin. (Telles and Ortiz)
In California, the immigrant growth was significant. The number of foreign-born
rose from 8.8 percent of the state’s population in 1970 to 21.7 percent in 1990.
17 
As their economic status changed after World War II, many Latinos moved into
suburban areas. In Los Angeles County, there were 23 cities in 1970, including several in
the San Gabriel Valley, where Mexican-Americans made up 10 to 20 percent of the
population, according to Daniel D. Arreola, a Arizona State University geographer who
studies border communities.
“This movement to the suburbs was also an indication of the upward economic
mobility achieved by Mexican Americans,” Arreola wrote in “Mexican Americans.”
(Arreola)
By 2000 the share of Latinos living in the suburbs had topped 42 percent,
according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. (Harvard 2003)
Despite the current recession Baldwin Park Mayor Lozano has seen the Latino
middle class grow in the San Gabriel Valley since he moved there in 1979 with his
parents from Los Angeles’ Glassell Park. Lozano was 21 years old. The first night he
spent at the family’s new house, the hubcabs on his 1977 Malibu Classic were stolen.
“The neighbors didn’t welcome us,” he said. “It was an interesting introduction. I
decided to stay because nobody was going to chase us away.”
Now as the longest serving mayor in the city’s history Lozano, 51, points to the
opening of three Starbucks in his city as a middle class indicator.
“Certainly, there are issues in the Latino community, we understand that,”
Lozano said. “But we should, like others, be allowed to showcase our talents and also
acknowledge the changes that have happened in the Latino community and how we have
flourished in the professions.”

18 
As the Latino middle class continues to grow experts say education and
entrepreneurship may be critical to maintain growth because of the shift from
manufacturing to a service economy.
This is why Idalia and Marco Mendez, who credit their parents’ roots in trade
unions for their middle class status, now hope the second of their three children will go
back to college.
The Mendez family in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte already has two
college degrees to its name. Son Marco, 29, named for his father, and daughter Lisette,
22, have bachelor’s degrees from Cal Poly Pomona and Pitzer College respectively.
Lisette Mendez is a year into her master’s degree program at Azusa Pacific University.
“I have one boy that is one class away from getting his AA,” said the father
Marco Mendez. “He has two years of college already.”
Idalia and Marco, both 53, are the children of Mexican immigrants, which makes
them second generation Americans. Both attended some college and both worked their
way up in their respective professions as civil service employees. Their household
income exceeds $100,000 a year. (Mendez 2010)
Marco Mendez grew up in Lincoln Heights. His Mexican-born parents, who had
been in the U.S. since they were 12 and 18, owned their 1890 Victorian home, a former
boarding house. Marco’s mother worked at the Oscar Meyer Packing Plant and his father
as a construction laborer building bridges and freeways. It was the 1950s. (Mendez 2010)
On the weekends, father and sons would pick oranges, grapes or other fruit around the
area. (Mendez 2010)
19 
“I don’t think we were middle class or maybe everyone was,” Marco said one
evening as he recalled his childhood. (Mendez 2010)
The family had one television with rabbit ears; the children had one bicycle and
one pair of roller skates they shared. However, the brothers were in the Boy Scouts, and
they attended Sacred Heart and later Cathedral High School, both Catholic schools.
(Mendez 2010)
Marco Mendez was accepted at Brown University, an Ivy League school in
Rhode Island, and at the University of Southern California, but he did not go to either for
fear of burdening his parents with the cost. (Mendez 2010)
Instead, Marcos Mendez studied at Cal State for two years before leaving college.
“I did my two years at Cal State, and then what do you do? There was no
guidance,” he said. “So I went to work at Oscar Meyer. I did packing and then moved to
quality assurance.” (Mendez 2010) After several years, he joined his father as a
journeyman carpenter before returning to school for more classes to test for a job as a city
inspector. (Mendez 2010)
Those work skills and his father’s help proved to be a boon when the young
couple moved to El Monte in 1980. Over the years, Marco and his late father expanded
the original house into the sprawling 2,400 square-foot, two-story home it is today with a
graceful bay window looking out at the tree-lined street. And Marco is still working on
the house, finishing a back patio that overlooks the pool with stone mosaic columns and a
built-in firepit.
“I like to work this way -- I am a craftsman,” he said as he showed off a second
bathroom he recently re-tiled for his daughter.
20 
When Lisette went to Pitzer after high school, her parents brokered a deal with
her. If she stayed at home and commuted the 21 miles to college one-way, she could have
the upstairs two-bedroom, one-bath master suite. When she agreed, Idalia and Marco
moved to a bedroom downstairs. Marco has since paneled the vaulted ceiling in their
bedroom with cedar planks. Painted a vibrant yellow the room has the feel and scent of a
mountain cabin. When their 26-year-old son Gabriel moves out, Marcos plans to merge
the adjacent rooms and bathroom into one large master suite. The couple says it will be
their own mountain retreat right in their home.
While he manages his home improvement projects Marco’s day job is as Liaison
for building and zoning code in Los Angeles. He helps others decipher the codes and
works with media and developers, craftsman and laborers.
“I’m able to do this job because I learned how to assimilate to different classes,”
he said. ‘You have to know how to mingle with all the classes.”
Idalia grew up in a similar lower middle class household as Marco, but in the
Echo Park section of Los Angeles.
“I started to realize the differences when I started to go to girlfriends’ houses, and
I would see bunk beds and a lot of kids and I had my own room,” she said. “And when I
got to high school, I was the only one that had a car; also my sister and I had stylish
clothes.”
Her mother, Delia Martinez, was far from wealthy but was smart and budget
conscious. A professional seamstress at a factory downtown, she handmade her
daughters’ clothing. (Mendez 2010)
21 
Idalia’s father was studying architecture at the University of Southern California
when she was born in the late 1950s, but he was undocumented and within a few years
returned to Mexico leaving his girlfriend and two little girls. (Mendez 2010)
“I’m so proud of her (mother) now because she never took welfare and worked
for the garment industry,” Idalia said of her mother. “She was mom and dad. Even though
we had a stepdad when I was 7, we were our mom’s responsibility.” (Mendez 2010)
Idalia, who wears black-framed glasses and highlights her brown hair, inherited
her mother’s work ethic. As a high schooler in the 1970s at Belmont High, she found her
first job filing teacher’s files at the office of the Board of Education.
From that first job, Idalia worked as a switchboard operator at a credit union and
later when her request for a raise was rejected she marched across the street to Pitney
Bowes for a new job and a raise. All this while still in high school. (Mendez 2010)
When she learned from her high school counselor that she was eligible for a
college program aimed at disadvantaged students through Cal State LA she went there for
two years while working as a secretary. She hoped to become a nurse, when she failed the
exam she was crushed. (Mendez 2010)
“I was so disappointed I failed the math part,” she said. “I had been working part
time and then they offered me full time, so I left Cal State.”
By this time, Idalia and Marco were newly married. Their 1978 wedding was
complete with the groom’s shaggy hair and the bride’s flowing gown.
Shortly after getting married, Marco showed up at home with a brand new
convertible Volkswagen.
“He took it back a few weeks later,” Idalia remembers.
22 
Marco laughs about it as Idalia shakes her head. He hadn’t told her he was going
to buy a car.
“That was when we started putting away Idalia’s check for a year and living off
one income,” he said. (Mendez 210)
They saved a total of $12,000 toward their house that year.
But the couple credits family support even more for their upward mobility.
“All of those things you need in order to be middle class,” Marco Mendez said.
“You needed the support of your family and your parents and even your cousins.”
(Mendez 2010)
They bought their home in 1980 for $68,000. It is a block from Nativity Church
where the family attends Mass. In the large lot Marco wanted, he found a grove of trees,
including avocado. (Mendez 2010)
Instead of continuing to move farther from the city, the Mendezes made a
conscious decision to stay in El Monte so they would not have to continue to work and so
they could pay off their house and travel.
Being middle class is a “mentality,” according to Marco. “Don’t just go buy. Buy
if it’s a necessity.” (Mendez 2010)
It’s been a long time since that convertible Volkswagen.
Only in the last seven years has the couple begun taking vacations. (Mendez
2010) “We could afford things, but I’d rather travel and see places,” Idalia said, recalling
a midnight kayak ride in Puerto Rico to fluorescent waters.
23 
Those trips have also confirmed for the Mendez’s that they are blessed. “Now
when I go to other countries, I look at what we have and we are rich,” Marco Mendez
said. (Mendez 2010)
Still, they do reflect on how they raised their children. When it came to child
rearing the Mendezes did what their parents had done for them -- Boy Scouts, summer
camp, private schools, music lessons. (Mendez 2010)
Marco and Idalia worry about their children and their generation. Idalia feels they
are stagnating. “With everything we’ve done with our children, I still see them ‘me,
myself and I,’” Idalia Mendez worries. “Not so much with Lisette but with the boys.”
(Mendez 2010)
The third generation doesn’t work as hard, she said, and they want things to come
easily. When their older son bought a house they were not sure he could afford with very
little money down, they were dismayed. Now their son, Marco’s namesake, is upside-
down on his house, Idalia said. The home in Chino is worth less than when young Marco
bought it.
These differences between many first- and second-generation middle-class
families and their children who are raised middle class are visible, according to USC’s
Vallejo.
There are two types of Latino middle class, Vallejo said. There are those who are
highly incorporated in the white middle class and typically grew up middle class and
those who achieved middle-class status in one generation and are still connected to their
ethnic roots and are more apt to give back to poorer family and friends and often support
their parents later in life. Vallejo calls this the “immigrant narrative.” (Vallejo 2010)
24 
Lisette Mendez intentionally works hard to maintain her connection to the culture.
She perfected her Spanish in college and is a member of the El Monte Coalition of Latino
Professionals. The group, founded by a college-educated set of homegrown young
professionals, bent on getting more El Monte students to college.
“Immigrant parents come here for better jobs to provide for their children,”
Vallejo said. “Once you get a job and become middle class, you remember seeing them
sacrifice so much that you help them financially because of that sacrifice and because
there is no other way for them.” (Vallejo 2010)
Usually once the second or third generation is raised in the middle class, the
attitude becomes much more Americanized and individualistic. (Vallejo 2010) This is
what Idalia and Marco Mendez notice about the younger generation of middle class
Latinos. Vallejo calls this a “classic American story.”
“The flow of resources is unidirectional from the parent to the children,” she said.
“You don’t grow up with the immigrant mentality.”
This is not how Jesse and Veronica Soto are raising their daughters. The Ontario
couple are members of the 1.5 generation because they arrived in the U.S. as children.
Jesse is a citizen, and Veronica is a legal permanent resident eligible to apply for
citizenship. (Soto 2010)
Despite the confidence of experts who say the Sotos are well on their way to
joining the more successful Mendez’s and Shriver’s (Vallejo, Myers 2010), the Sotos do
not see themselves as middle class yet. While they are planning to buy a home soon, they
are still renting. Their vehicles are not new. Neither has finished college, but Veronica
25 
Soto has one year to go to complete her bachelor’s degree. Together they earn $60,000 a
year.
The Sotos, who met on a blind date at a Fab Four concert, and their two daughters
rent a three-bedroom house in Ontario. Colorful flowers are planted just outside the front
door. Claire, the Chihuahua, greets visitors at the door. Inside, Mexican style furniture
stands erect and the floors gleam. It smells Clorox clean. (Soto 2010)
As Veronica Soto, 34, feeds Zyanya, her 15-month-old, her husband Jesse, 40,
tends to his pit bulls in the backyard. Soto Pits, a side business, brings in several thousand
dollars a year the family depends on. Jesse sells pups for $400 each and claims the bass
player Eric Wilson from Sublime, a Long Beach rock group, as a former client. (Soto
2010)
“I breed for temperament,” Jesse Soto said of his dogs, a breed regarded as
aggressive and sometimes dangerous. He has been breeding pit bulls for nine years.
“It’s something he really enjoys doing so I’d rather he do that than do other
things,” Veronica said as she fed the baby and talked to her in Spanish.
Jesse Soto is a warehouse shipping clerk where he oversees the distribution of
pool products. (Soto 2010) Recently his schedule was cut from five days to four days a
week. Veronica is a pre-school teacher and attends college at Azusa Pacific University
once a week, driving to her four-hour class before sunset and back home after dark. (Soto
2010) She is counting on a bachelor’s degree in human development and a subsequent
teaching credential to land her a good job teaching math or Spanish in a high school.
They want their daughters, Xitlali and Zyanya, to have financially secure
childhood years and a solid path to college.
26 
Xitlali, who is 7, only speaks Spanish when visiting family in Mexico, she said.
The second-grader wears glasses and sports a toothless grin. The tooth fairy has been a
regular visitor this year though she is poorer than usual, Veronica admits. (Soto 2010)
The last book Xitlali picked out for herself at the bookstore was “Judy Moody
Goes to College.” She proclaims loudly and frequently that she plans to attend UC
Berkeley. Xitlali’s room is adorned with pink curtains and a stuffed Mickey Mouse sits
on a rocking chair. Her shelves are stuffed full of children’s books. (Soto 2010)
In the kitchen, Claire, the dog, eats a strawberry accidentally dropped on the floor.
(Soto 2010)
That sweet treat came from Ontario Mart, a local organic grocery store, a priority
Veronica won’t give up. Instead she let her Sam’s Club card expire, disconnected the
telephone landline and cut cable service. The internet service stayed.
Even with those economies, the result of the cutback in Jesse’s hours at work, the
Sotos are still looking to buy a house soon. They almost did two years ago, and now they
are relieved they did not.
“For whatever reason, I felt really unsure and I said ‘let’s not do it,’” Veronica
said. “I think now we are pretty confident we can do it. I think that and me having a
better job will give me a better sense of security for my family.”
Their dream is to buy a large property with enough room for a pony, chickens, the
pit bulls and little Claire. They are looking for a home in the $200,000 range. (Soto 2010)
Veronica’s middle class roots began in Mexico. She was 12-years-old when her
father decided to bring his family from Mexico to the U.S. where he had been working
for years, first as a bracero and later at GNC Batteries. The Bracero Program was created
27 
during World War II to ease labor shortages in the U.S. with temporary Mexican
workers. The program lasted several decades, largely in agriculture, and many braceros
eventually settled in the U.S. (Soto 2010)
When Veronica’s father sent for his family, he had a plan. They would stay with
his sister until he bought a home nearby, Veronica remembers. Of the nine children, eight
immigrated in 1988; Veronica’s oldest brother stayed in Mexico because he was on his
own and working. (Soto 2010)
“It was a culture shock, not really a financial struggle,” she said of the move. “My
father had a very good job, and he knew what he wanted to do and that helped. I think I
was better off than a lot of people I knew in my own community.” (Soto 2010)
Growing up in La Puente, Veronica estimates her family was middle or lower
middle class. Her parents owned their home and several vehicles, and her mother was a
stay-at-home mom. Every fall, she got a new backpack and an allowance to shop for new
school clothes at the Puente Hills Mall. (Soto 2010) And when she was 16 and her dad
upgraded to a new car, she got his old wheels. (Soto 2010)
“We never worried about basics,” she said. “It wasn’t until I got older that I
realized the struggles that other people had.” (Soto 2010)
Despite Veronica’s middle class upbringing in La Puente, the Los Angeles suburb
experienced heightened gang activity in the 1980s and 90s. She recalls the violence at
school vividly even though her family lived in a nicer part of the city and she and her
siblings were fairly isolated.
“Where I grew up it was an okay neighborhood but minutes from where I lived
there was a lot of gangs then,” she said. “In high school, we would have drive-by
28 
shootings and dead bodies on campus, and those were some of the things that I remember
from growing up. I think Jesse went through the same thing.”
It’s one of the reasons they choose to live in Ontario, because it’s safer and
quieter than their respective hometowns. It’s also where Veronica’s brother settled with
his family and with her after moving away from La Puente.
“I like where we live -- it’s pretty,” she said. “It’s not the nicest neighborhood but
it’s quiet. We have a really nice park within walking distance, and the school is really
nice where my daughter goes.” (Soto 2010)
Still even in Ontario, there are reminders of how Latinos are viewed through an
immigration prism. When Veronica sees negative images about Latinos or hears
televisions personalities or coverage of people taking verbal whacks at immigrants she
walks away. (Soto 2010)
“It upsets us because that is not who we are,” Veronica Soto said. “We are very
hard working people. I pay taxes just as much as anyone else, and I work very hard for
what I have and I want to better myself.” (Soto 2010)
And it’s not just her story, she says. (Soto 2010) “That is everyone we know,” she
said. “Their children have decent jobs or are college students who are actually working
and paying for some of the education as well.”
When Veronica Soto goes grocery shopping, she meticulously selects food items
with her budget in mind. She is careful to buy only what she needs and what her family
will eat. (Soto 2010)

29 
While she contemplates brands and prices she often notices other women pushing
carts overflowing with frozen foods, cookies and other goodies who pay with welfare
cards and it makes her angry. (Soto 2010)
“Here I am limiting myself and thinking about what we need and what we can
afford,” she said. “I am working and paying taxes. It’s not really the Latino community
that are taking advantage like they say we do.” (Soto 2010)
Jesse does most of the cooking at home, creating new dishes from the various
items his wife purchases at the grocery store. He learned from his father, a chef at the San
Gabriel Country Club. His mother was a seamstress. (Soto 2010)
Jesse’s family entered the U.S. illegally when he was 4-years-old and received
amnesty in 1987. All four of his brothers and sisters went on to college. He took classes
at a community college and attended the Business Institute of El Monte. (Soto 2010)
As a youngster Jesse always looked for way to earn money whether it was
hustling more newspaper subscriptions for his route or drying cars at the car wash. (Soto
2010)
It’s this entrepreneurial spirit he works to instill in his daughters. He sells pups to
save money for a financial crisis and saves for their future college expenses. When Xitlali
is given money she puts some of it into the college account too. (Soto 2010)
At nearby Cypress Park, Jesse pushes Zyanya on the swings in the yellow and
green play area. (Soto 2010)
Veronica sits on a park bench with Xitlali and checks her backpack for
schoolwork. (Soto 2010) She speaks English to Xitlali and Spanish to Zyanya.
30 
“We want them to be bilingual. My older daughter can speak it well but she
would rather not,” Veronica said while Xitlali nodded her head in agreement. “She knows
how important it is because we’ve told her this is who you are and where you come from.
And she says ‘okay’ in English.”

31 
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract The Latino middle class is an established and growing community that has taken shape largely unnoticed outside of academia. Its growth has been overshadowed by continuing migration and a perception that Latinos are all immigrants, poor and downwardly mobile. While it is true many Latinos face economic and social challenges there is a strong and healthy middle class grown from trade union jobs, education, entrepreneurship and hard work that traces its roots back for decades, particularly in Southern California. The families own homes, send their children to college and have built vast networks with other Latino middle class families through church, work and neighborhood.

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Creator Aguilera, Elizabeth Vega (author)

Core Title The overlooked Latino middle class: deep roots and continued growth

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 08/16/2010

Defense Date 07/01/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag California,education,financial,Hispanic,immigrant,immigration,Latino,Mexican-American,middle class,migration,OAI-PMH Harvest,San Gabriel Valley,southern California,Wealth

Place Name California (states), Los Angeles (counties)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Parks, Michael (committee chair), Saito, Leland T. (committee member), Suro, Roberto (committee member)

Creator Email eaguiler@usc.edu,elizabetha213@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3403

Unique identifier UC1107633

Identifier etd-Aguilera-3982 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-384886 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3403 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Aguilera-3982.pdf

Dmrecord 384886

Document Type Thesis

Rights Aguilera, Elizabeth Vega

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu