Anglo- and Mexican American attitudes toward Selena's memorialization

Using a critical theory framework, the present study examines the ethnic/ra cial differences in the controversy about Selena's memorialization. An anal ysis of a telephone survey of 393 members of the deceased entertainer's com munity revealed that overall, Mexican Americans were significantly more lik ely to support the proposals to memorialize Selena than were Anglo-American s. The Mexican Americans who supported those proposals were, however dispro portionately less educated mostly Spanish speaking, and Catholic. Also, Ang lo-Americans did support some of the proposals, albeit to a lesser degree t han did Mexican Americans. These findings suggest that ethnicity/race remai ns a major basis of conflict, even over cultural symbols; but, the assumpti ons of intraethnic homogeneity and interethnic polarity in the United State s may have been overstated.