SOCIAL IDENTITIES - A FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING THE ADAPTATIONS OF IMMIGRANTS AND ETHNICS - THE ADAPTATIONS OF MEXICANS IN THE UNITED-STATES

Past treatments of immigration and ethnicity (and of the relationship between them) tend to ignore processes by which the effects of history and social structure occur at the individual level. Many scholars cal l for social psychological analyses that show how history and macro-so cial features of the environment produce individual modes of adaptatio n to immigration, including the construction and reconstruction of eth nicity as one of the modes. We use a social psychological analysis to tie macro-social characteristics to micro-social characteristics of im mediate social contexts to examine how two groups of Mexicans in the U nited States-Mexicanos and Chicanos-differ in their social identities and in their cultural adaptations. Our results from the analyses of th e data in the National Chicano Survey indicate that, as predicted by s ocial identity theory, the differences in the structural and historica l conditions experienced by immigrants and ethnics result in a more di fferentiated identity structure for Chicanos than for Mexicanos. The c ontent of the social identities of the two groups also shows important differences according to outgroup comparisons through mastery of the English language. Also consistent with social identity theory, the mos t problematic social identities-for example, class and race-are the mo st psychologically powerful in determining cultural adaptations for bo th groups. In conclusion, differences between immigrants and ethnics a re largely the outcome of shifts in reference groups as they compare t hemselves to a wider array of people who either promote acceptance of devalued social categorizations or in feelings of discontent about one 's social identity.