Mexican-American women navigate school and work more successfully than men

Only 19 percent of Mexican-American men in 1990 were upwardly mobile professionally, compared to 31 percent of women, and only nine percent of men worked in professional/technical jobs, compared to 17 percent of women. The study, “Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in School and Work Outcomes of Second Generation Mexican Americans,” also found that Mexican-American women in New York City fare better in school than their male counterparts. The study was just one of the 21 new studies included in a new book, “Latinos: Remaking America” (University of California Press and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, 2002), edited by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Mariela Páez from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The new studies present landmark research on Latino education, health, language, and politics. It is the first comprehensive book systematically examining major aspects of the Latino population of the United States, now the nation’s largest minority.