Vilma Ortiz is professor of sociology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a scholar of race and inequality.
My research addresses broad theoretical issues on racial/ethnic stratification and social inequality. For more than 25 years, I have studied the socio-economic experiences of Latinos in the United States, focusing on specific Latino groups as well as comparing Latinos with other racial/ethnic groups. Edward Telles and I are co-authors of the award-winning Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race (Russell Sage, 2008). Using unique longitudinal and inter-generational data, we examine Mexican American integration across a wide number of dimensions: education, English and Spanish language use, socioeconomic status, intermarriage, residential segregation, ethnic identity, and political participation. We find that Mexican Americans do not fit traditional models of assimilation and we identify institutional barriers as a major source of Mexican American disadvantage.
