UC Irvine

Examines intermarriages patterned by gender (all men from one ethnic background & almost all women from another) that produce significant biethnic communities, drawing on fieldwork, interview, county record, & local historical data on Punjabi Mexican Americans in CA, whose fathers came from India's Punjab province & whose mothers were of predominantly Mexican or Mexican-American heritage. Punjabi Mexican Americans are compared to Filipino European Americans & to Mexican Japanese. Findings indicate that, in all three cases, members of the second biethnic generation evidence considerable ethnic identity flexibility; they also insist on cultural pluralism & claim the dominant national identity, particularly when confronted by new immigrants from their fathers' countries. Adapted from the source document.