Acculturative Trends among Border Mexican-American Females

The concept of acculturation, assimilating to a new culture, has been defined by Berry (2003) as the process and stress of cultural change experienced by members of a minority culture as they adapt to a new host majority culture. Although Latina assimilation to U. S. mainstream culture is complex and not well understood, evidence of trends in certain areas is reported in the literature. The more prominent of these include positive associations with self-esteem, marriage, perceived health, physical activity, and education. However, much of the research on the topic has been conducted with national data bases, migratory populations, and urban center dwellers. The purpose of this study was to extend the research through investigation of acculturation attributes in a female Mexican American population residing in the U. S.-Mexico border region. The study sample was drawn from the parents and adult relatives of fourth- and fifth-grade students enrolled in four U. S./Mexico border-serving elementary schools of two school districts located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley region of Texas. Data were gathered through a self-report survey instrument, in both English and Spanish, comprised of acculturation, self-esteem, age, gender, ethnicity, health, education, activity level, and marital status measurement items. Three hundred twenty-nine females (M age 35.3 years; age range 21-67 years) served as study participants. To assess for acculturative trends, stepwise regression analysis was performed to provide a measure of the relative contribution of investigated variables to respondents' acculturation level. Analysis revealed education, followed by marriage and health to be most predictive of one's being more acculturated. The R-square for the total model was .43, p<.001. That being, among the border Mexican American females studied, those of higher educational attainment, were married, and had better health status tended to be more acculturated than those less educated, unmarried, and in poorer health. Results confirm the well-established acculturation trend associations of education, marriage, and health; however, contrary to the literature, no such relationships were found with self-esteem or physical activity involvement. Findings demonstrating similarities and inconsistencies with other Mexican American populations suggest differences in the effects of acculturation across subgroups.