DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 022 586 RC 002 542By- Skrabanek, RL.; Rapton, AvraOCCUPATIONAL CHANGE AMONG SPANISH-AMERICANS IN ATASCOA COUNTY AND SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Economic Research Service.; Texas A and M Univ., College Station.Agricultural Experiment Station.

Report No- B-1061Pub Date Dec 66Note-24p.EDRS Price MF-$025 HC-$1.04Descriptors-AGRICULTURAL LABORERS, *DISADVANTAGED ENVIRONMENT, ECONOMIC STATUS, EDUCATIONALINTEREST, *EDUCATIONAL STATUS COMPARISON, EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS, FARM OCCUPATIONS, HOMEVISITS, MIDDLE CLASS NORM, *OCCUPATIONAL SURVEYS, *RURAL URBAN DIFFERENCES, SALARYDIFFERENTIALS, *SPANISH AMERICANS

Identifiers-*TexasA study conducted in a rural and an urban county in Texas sought to determine

factors affecting changes in occupational joatterns taking place in selected SpanishAmerican populations from each of the 2 areas. An attempt was also made todetermine levels of living, income, education, and aspirations of parents for theirchildren's futures. The study noted a steady shift from agriculturally relatedoccupations to service occupations and, with a much lower frequency, to professionaloccupations. Educational achievement, living standards, and income of the SpanishAmerican tagged behind that of the general population, but the differential betweenrural and urlDan Spanish Americans was even more pronounced. (DA)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE

OFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE

PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATiNG IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS

STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION

POSITION OR POLICY.

Occupational ChangeAmong Spanish-AmericansIn Atascosa County and San Antonio, Texas

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITYTexas Agricultural Experiment StationR. E. Patterson, Director, College Station, Texas

Summary and Implications

SPANISH-AMERICANS TRADITIONALLY HAVE PLAYED animportant part in the agricultural development of

Texas and the Southwest by supplying a large workforce. During the past decacle and a half, they havecomprised about one-fifth of all persons working infarm occupations in Texas, although they representedonly one-tenth of the State's total labor force. SinceSpanish-American farm workers are so heavily concen-trated in jobs as farm laborers, with relatively fewoperating their own farms, their importance to thehired labor needs of the agricultural economy ofTexas is even greater than the figures for total farmemployment would indicate. Of all farm wage work-ers in Texas, more than 2 out of 5 are Spanish-Americans.

With the passage of time, there have been markedchanges in the occupational struceme of the Spanish-American labor force. Their number of workers hasgrown at a more rapid rate than the total labor forceof Texas, with the increase all being in the nonfarmoccupations, where a gain of about 60 percent in thenumber of Spanish-American nonfarm workers wasrecorded between 1950 and 1960. Spanish-Americanfarm workers declined by one-fourth during this sameperiod. Many left the migratory labor streams tobecome more stationary in their employment. Others,because of technological displacement or because ofthe attraction of better jobs and higher incomes, leftagricultural employment altogether.

Despite the rapid movement toward nonfarm occu-pations, the relative role of Spanish-Americans in theTexas farm and nonfarm labor force did not changeappreciably between 1950 and 1960 because of similarchanges in the farm and nonfarm components of thetotal labor force. In 1960, Spanish-Americans com-prised approximately the same proportion of the agri-cultural work force and of the non-agricultural workforce of Texas as they did a decade earlier. In fact,a detailed examination of the decennial census datareveals that while Spanish-American nonfarm workersincreased at a faster rate than nonfarm workers inthe State, Spanish-American farm workers declined alittle more slowly than all farm workers in Texas.Nevertheless, among the Spanish-Americans duringthe 1950s, farm work had become less common andnonfarm work more common, so that by 1960 only15 percent of all employed Spanish-Americans weredoing farm work, compared with 27 percent in 1950.

Data in this report confirm the trend indicatedin the census that Spanish-Americans are leaving farmwork in large numbers and that they are making rapidstrides in employment in nonfarm occupations. Thereport further concludes that there has been someupgrading of occupational skills among the nonfarmSpanish-American workers.

Conclusions regarding occupational trends werebased on examination of occupational changes at thebeginning and at later stages in the work careers of

household heads, and on changes between _me genera-tion of Spanish-Americans &id the next. Of interestwas not only the trend away from farm work but alsothe nature of the nonfarm jobs the Spanish-Americansare moving toward. The report also describes suchimportant socio-economic characteristics of Spanish-Americans as age, education, language and income,which help to explain their occupational status andto indicate possible future changes in the occupationalcomposition of their labor force.

Household Characteristics

Households of the Spanish-Americans surveyedwere larger than the average household in Texas,both because of the greater number of children andbecause of the tradition of friends and relatives livingwith the immediate family. Larger household sizemeans that family income must be stretched thinnerthan the income of the non-Spanish family and thatthe standard of living of the Spanish-Americans iseven lower than their relatively low family incomewould indicate.

AgeSeveral factors affected the occupational composi-

tion of the Spanish-American household heads. Oneof these was age. The typical Spanish-American headof household was close to 50 years of age, and atthis age was probably at a disadvantage in upgradinghis occupational skills because of industry restrictionsin hiring, training and promoting older persons andbecause of his lower educational attainment.

LanguageAnother factor affecting their occupational structure

is their use of a foreign language. Most of the Spanish-American household heads commonly spoke Spanishat home, even though a large majority were born inTexas. Relative lack of facility in English is probablyan important condition contributing to the very lowrepresentation of Spanish-Americans in white-collarjobs where the ability to read and write the Englishlanguage is essential.

Education

Continued use of Spanish in adult life is prob-ably also closely related to the head's low educationalachievement, as is the introduction of large propor-tions of the Spanish-Americans to fulltime employ-ment before the age at which most persons finishschool. The average Spanish-American householdhead living in the rural area completed only 3 yearsof formPl schooling and the urban head completed6 years. Compared with this, the average non-Spanishadult in the same areas had at least twice that amountof education. Differences in educational level arereflected in differences in occupation between theheads of Spanish-American households and the totalpopulation, particularly in the white-collar and thesemi-skilled and unskilled blue-collar jobs.

Occupafional Comparisons

Thus, many personal characteristics of the house-hold heads, especially their relatively advanced age,use of the Spanish language and low educational levelare closely interrelated and are all factors influencingoccupation and, con cequently, earnings.

Generally, the jobs of the Spanish-Americanhousehold heads were in the lower status occupationswith the average rural resident empkyed in farmwork and the average urban resident working in blue-collar jobs. Comparison with the total male popula-tion of the areas studied emphasizes the ,,,cupa tionaldifferences between these groups.

One major difference is that the rural Spanish-American heads were much more commonly employedin farm work than was the total male population.The proportions were 54 and 37 percent, respectively.In the city, farm work was rare for either populationgroup.

Another major occupational difference betweenthe Spanish-Americans and the total population wasin the job skills represented among blue-collar work-ers, in both the city and the rural area. Relativelylarge proportions of Spanish-Amerkans were workingas unskilled blue-collar laborers and relatively smallproportions were skilled craftsmen and semi-skilledoperatives compared with the total population. Forexample, 3 out of 10 of the Spanish-American headsof households in San Antonio were unskilled laborerscompared with 1 out of 10 in the total male popu-lation.

Differences between Spanish-Americans and thetotal population were also found among service work-ers, who were more frequent among the Spanish-Americans. Service workers were often cab drivers,waiters, and other relatively unskilled people whocould undertake service work with little job trainingand formal education.

Finally, occupational differences were noticeablein the relatively smaller number of Spanish-Americanwhite-collar workers in both the city and the ruralcounty. For example, 4 out of 10 males among allworkers in San Antonio were professional and otherwhite-collar workers; only 2 in 10 Spanish-Americanheads were in such jobs. The higher educational levelof the total population was an obvious and importantfactor explaining this occupational difference.

There is evidence that improvement of job skillshas taken place among the Spanish-American people.A comparison of the earliest with the current jobheld by the household heads indicates that shifts awayfrom hired farm work were made by large proportionsof Spanish-Americans, both in the city and in thecountry. The trend was primarily from farm worktoward the blue-collar jobs. A few farm laborersbecame operators of their own farm.

Among household heads who had started theircareers in nonfarm jobs, however, there was little up-ward occupational mobility. Among the San Antonioheads, for example, there was no significant changein the proportion working as blue-collar workers bythe time of the field study, nor in the skill levelsrepresented among them. In the rural area, someof the nonfarm workers changed to farm jobs.

Further evidence that the Spanish-Americans aremoving toward the higher status and generally higherpaying jobs is provided by a comparison of jobs heldby those who were at one time members of the house-holds interviewed with those of the household headsstudied. These persons, who were primarily sons anddaughters of the head, moved away from the farmoccupations of their parents, as the household headsthemselves had turned away from farm work betweentheir first and current job. By the time of the survey,only 16 percent of the male former members of ruralhouseholds were doing farm work compared with54 percent of the household heads. Most of the re-maining younger generation Spanish-American malesfrom rural households were in blue-collar jobs, reflect-ing an intergenerational pattern of change for therural area of a decline in farm and an increase inblue-collar occupations.

Principal intergenerational changes in the cityshowed up in the smaller proportion of unskilledlaborers and the larger proportion of white-collarworkers among the younger generation male Spanish-Americans compared with their parents.

However, in most occupations, the younger gen-eration Spanish-Americans had not improved theirskills sufficiently to match those of the total popu-lation, and they occupied a position midway betweentheir parents and the total population. For example,in San Antonio the proportion of laborers, bothfarm and nonfarm, amow,t male younger generationSpanish-Americans (2 in 10) was twice as high as thatin the total population (1 in 10), but substantiallyless than that among Spanish-American householdheads (3 in 10).

The same midway position was characteristic ofthe younger Spanish-Americans with respect to theproportion employed in white-collar jobs. Approxi-mately 3 out of 10 of the younger generation maleSpanish-Americans were white-collar workers, com-pared with 2 out of 10 of the Spanish-American house-hold heads and 4 out of 10 of all males in San Antonio.

The service occupations, which usually decline infrequency as white-collar occupations become moreprevalent, did not decrease between the two genera-tions of male Spanish-Americans. Among both gen-erations, service workers were relatively more numer-ous than service workers in the total male populationin both areas.

Female former members of San Antonio house-holds worked predominantly in the service occupa-

tions, whereas white-collar workers prevailed amongall women in San Antonio.

In addition to revealing the degree of progressmade by the Spanish-American people in upgradingtheir occupational skills up to the time of the fieldstudy, several indications become apparent that thisimprovement will continue.

Educational Comparisons

One of these signs is the much higher educationallevel of the adult younger generation Spanish-Amer-icans who were once members of the households inter-viewed. These persons achieved an educational leveldouble that of their parents and almost on a par withthe educational level of the total non-Spanish popula-tion around them. Averages were 8 and 12 years ofschooling completed, respectively, by the Spanish-American former members of rural and urban house-holds.

This marked educational achievement shows thateducational progress is a present reality with theyounger generation Spanish-American people, andwith the lowering of employment barriers in theircommunities, will likely be reflected in a continuedand increasing degree of participation by the Spanish-American in the higher paying occupations.

The Spanish-Americans believe that education isthe most important avenue to higher incomes andbetter jobs and to an increasing role in the social andpolitical organizations of the communities in whichthey live. Because of this belief, their household headshave high educational aspirations for their youngchildren and probably influence them accordingly.Approximately 9 out of 10 of the children living athome in both the rural and urban areas wanted tofinish high school, and among the urban youth almosthalf planned to attend college.

Household heads also have high aspirations forthe future occupations of their young children livingat home, and this, too, points to a future improve-ment in the occupational status of the Spanish-A:nerican people. Of the household heads in theurban area, almost half hoped that their sons wouldseek careers in professional fields. With respect tofarm work, most of the household heads and theirchildren were defile opposed to it as a permanentoccupation.

Income

The family income of the Spanish-Americansstudied is considerably lower than that of the non-Spanish population in their communities. Medianincomes were S2500 and S3000, respectively, for therural and urban Spanish-American families. Thesewere little more than half the incomes of the non-Spanish families in the areas surveyed.

Most of the income of the Spanish-Americanfamilies was composed of the wage and salar y earnings

of the head of household, whose low wages could notproduce an adequate income for the family. Earningsof other household members was the second mostimportant source of aggregate family income; farmincome was a relatively small source.

Income was very closely related to occupation,education, place of birth and language spoken by thehousehold head. The highest incomes (about $4200)were reported by families whose heads had completedhigh school. Average incomes were higher for familieswhose heads were employed in nonfarm work ratherthan in farm work, who were born in Texas ratherthan in Mexico, and who usually spoke English atwork rather than Spanish.

One of the factors involved in the movementaway from farm work and from rural areas generally,might be the lower level of living which prevails inthe rural areas, as measured by the number and kfildsof material goods possessed by the family. Rural

Spanish-American families were on a relative par withthe urban families in the possession of items usuallylinked to electricity, such as television sets, radios,refrigerators and washing machines, but they laggedin items linked with water supply, namely, bathroomplumbing and hot running water. In the rural area,two-thirds of the families had no bathroom plumbingand three-fourths had no hot running water in theirhomes.

Spanish-American household heads believed thatsome progress had been made by their people withrespect to jobs, earnings, living conditions and accept-ance by the "Anglo" population during the past 10years. They were generally optimistic about prospectsfor continued improvement in their overall position.They also expressed the hope that their children,particularly through education, would obtain betterjobs and play a bigger political and social role intheir communities in the future.

Contents

Summary and Implications 2

Introduction 7

Terminology 7

Purpose of Study 8

Areas of Study 8

Method of Study

Social and PersorA Characteristics of Household Heads 9Sex 9

Ago 9

Household Size 10

Nativity Status 10

Use of English and Spanish 11

Age at Which First Full-time job Began. 11

Educational Status .12Education of Household Heads 12

Education in Relation to Selected Socio-economic Factors_....15Education of Former Members of

Spanish-American Households. 15

Edgcational Aspirations of Spanish-American Youth .15

Employment Situation of Household Heads 15

Percent in Labor Force 15

Extent of Unemployment 14

Occupati9n 14

Dual Jobholding 15

Occupational Change Among Spanish-Americans 15

Occupational Change from First toCurrent job by Household Heads 15

Occupational Mobility 16

Occupations of Former Members ofSpanish-American Households 17

Attitudes of Household Heads and Their ChildrenToward Farm Work as an Occupation. 19

Income Status 19

Levels of Income 19

Type of Income 20Number of Income Sources 20Income in Relation to Socio-economic Factors 21

Possession of Material Goods 22Rural-urban Differences 22Possession of Material Goods in Relation to

Selected Socio-economic Factors 25

Home Ownership Status...... ...... ............ ...................... .........

Views of Spanish-Americans Concerning Their Progress. .... .,441

Acknowledgments 24

Related Literature 24

Occupational Change

Among Spanish-Americansin Atascosa County

and San Antonio, Texas

R. L. SKRABANER AND AvRA RAPTON*

SPANISH-AMERICANS CONSTITUTE a large and rapidlygrowing segment of the total population of Texas

and certain portions of the Southwest. There were3.5 million persons of Spanish surname living in thesouthwestern states of Arizona, California, Colorado,New Mexico and Texas in 1960, comprising 12 per-cent of the total population of these five states.1

Approximately 1.4 million Spanish-Americans re-sided in Texas in 1960. They represented 15 percentof the State's total population and are growing at afaster rate than was the total population of Texas.During the 1950-60 decade, -white persons of Spanishsurname increased by 38 percent in Texas, althoughsome of the increase may represent more completeidentification in the 1960 Census. The State's totalpopulation grew by 24 percent.

Persons of Spanish surname are most numerousin the southern and southwestern sections of Texas(Figure 1). In 14 southern counties, they made upbetter than one-half of the total population in 1960.

TerminologyThe term, "Spanish-American," as used in this

study, refers to white persons of Spanish surnamewho speak Spanish and come from Spanish-speakingparentage. Various terms such as "Latin Americans,""Spanish people," "Spanish-speaking Americans" and"Mexicans" are often used interchangeably to identifythis group. Colloquially, Spanish-Americans are oftenreferred to by other whites in the area as "Mexicans."Many of them have a personal preference to be called"Spanish," "Latins" or "Latin-Americans," but otherscall themselves "Mexican."

'Source: United States Census of Population, 1960, SubjectReports, "Persons of Spanish Surname," Vol. PC (2) 1B.

*Respectively, professor, Department of Agricultural Economicsand Sociology; labor eronomist, Human Resources Branch,Economic Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

'14.-

-

r+-4.0 traA

CZ

; -

,

NUMBER

11111001000 AHD OVER

1111 60,000 TO Mete111110,000T040,1111111

2,500 TO LIML UNDER MOO

Figure 1. Spanish.American population in Texas counties, bynumber, 1960.

7

They are largely of Mexican and Mexican-Indianorigin and vary from persons whose Spanish ancestorssettled in the area well before the Mexican revolt fromSpain to the "wetback" who has established himselfrecently as a resident of the United States. Under-standably, the cultural differences between these twoextremes are great, but the older settlers of Mexicanand Spanish origin comprise only a small percentageof the Spanish-American population in Texas today.Spanish-speaking persons of non-Mexican background,such as Puerto Ricans or Cubans, were almost non-existent in the area at the time of the field study.

Purpose of StudyAlthough there has been considerable speculation

concerning the changing nature of the labor forceamong Spanish-Americans, little formal research, otherthan that dealing with migrant farm workers, has beenconducted in recent years. As a part of their con-tinuing cooperative research program in populationstudies, the Farm Population Branch (now the HumanResources Branch) of the Economic Research Service,U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Texas Agri-cultural Experiment Station undertook a bele studyto determine and evaluate labor force adjustmentsmade by Spanish-Americans in two areas of Texas,one urban and one rural.

The general objective of this study was to providea better understanding of the role of the Spanish-American in the agricultural and nonagriculturallabor force of Texas. Specifically, the study deals with(1) changes in the occupational patterns of Spanish-Americans within and outside of agriculture and thefactors involved in these changes, (2) income and edu-cation levels, (3) levels of living as indicated by thepossession of material goods and (4) aspirational levels

.aS17,1?--rtttdE "

,

L L.l

L _ga 7:r

I

Figure 2. Location of study areas.

Figure 3. Strawberries grown in Atascosa County provide agri-cultural jobs for Spanish-American workcrs during the harvestseason.

among family heads for themselves and for theirchildren.

Areas of StudyThe research was conducted in Atascosa County

and the city of San Antonio in Bexar County2 (Figure2). These locations were selected because (1) theywere areas in which Spanish-Americans formed animportant ethnic group, both numerically and cul-turally, (2) they encompassed both rural and urbanpeople so that comparisons could be made betweenresidence groups and (3) they were thought to berepresentative of broader areas so that the researchresults would have some application to the Spanish-American situation in Texas.

Although the two counties are contiguous, theyrepresent diverse situations in South Texas. SanAntonio is a large urban place; Atascosa is basicallya. rural county. Approximately one-fifth of the State sSpanish-Americans live in the two study areac,

Atascosa County is a diversified agricultural aredwhich also has some petroleum production. The opencountry is largely grassy prairies, much of it coveredwith mesquite, huisache and other brush. Sandyloamy soils predominate. It ranks high among Texascounties in beef and hog production, watermelons andpeanuts, but it also has diversified truck crops, grainsand dairying. (Figures 3 and 4).

In 1960, Atascosa County had a population of19,000, of which 9,000, or 45 percent, were Spanish-Americans. jourdanton is the county seat. Othertrade centers are Pleasanton, Poteet and Charlotte.Approximately 67 percent of Atascosa County's popu-lation was classifiol ntral in 1960.

2 Inc names of both Indy awas are of Spanish origin: Atascosa,means "boggy" and Bena: was the name given to an old Spanishmunicipality "Duke de Bexar" by Franciscan fathers in 1718.The Spanish-American influence in these areas is widely known.

,-utts

4101117, OP.Alma:UAW

ANAL.

INMERRIESmillY

r4Z%ItAVIIERRIES'

Figure 4. Spanish-American women have seasonal employmentpacking strawberries grown in Atascosa County.

The population of the central city of San Antoniowas almost 600,000. Of this number, 250,000, or 42percent, were Spanish-Americans. San Antonio is ex-periencing rapid industrial and population expansion,typical of the other large population centers of Texas.

Method of StudyArea probability samples of households for each

of the study locations were drawn by the StatisticalStandards Division of the Statistical Reporting Service,U. S. Department of Agriculture. The sample yielded268 interviews in Atascosa County and 276 in SanAntonio. About half of the interview households inAtascosa County were located in the open country,and the remainder were in town. The sample house-holds in San Antonio were largely in tile southwesternsection of the city, where most of San Antonio'sSpanish-Americans reside. Interviews were conductedLuring the last 2 weeks of December 1961 and the first2 weeks of January 1962.

TABLE 1. AGE DISTRIBUTION OF 1 ERSONS IN SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS

Age inyeats

AtastosaCounty San Antonio

Total number 1,424 1,317

Percent 100 160

Under 15 40 45

15-44 39 3045 and over 21 19

Median age 22.5 18.8

TABLE 2. AGE DISTRIBUTION OF SPANISH-AMERICANHOUSEHOLD HEADS

Age inyears

AtascosaCounty San Antonio

Total number 268 276

Percent 100 100under 25 525-44 35 4445-54 19 18

55 and over 41 33Median age 49.6 46.511.1

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICSOF HOUSEHOLD HEADS

This report focuses on changes in occupationalstatus of Spanish-American household heads. Sincechanges in occupation and related attributes are closelyassociated with social and personal characteristics, abrief descripdon of the study population will set thestage for the analysis to follow.

Sex

Of the 268 sample households in Atascosa County,91 percent were headed by males. In contrast, malesheaded only 78 percent of the households in SanAntonio. The greater percentage of female heads inSan Antonio can be attributed to the relatively largenumber of women among the Spanish-Ameeican popu-lation in the city, of whom many were living aloneor without a spouse, thus qualifying as heads ofhomehold.

AgeAge may have an important bearing on employ-

ment situations, earnings, and ability to adjust tochanging' economic conditions. Most employers setfairly definite age limits in hiring new workers, retir-ing older workers, for training programs and in pro-motion policies.

Spanish-American household heads, in contrast tothe relatively lower median age of the total Spauish-American population, were close to 50 years of age(Tables I and 2). Since educational levels are loweramong older persons, and they have less ability and

TABLE 3. SIZE Ole SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS

Size ofhotrehold

AtascosaCounty San Antonio

Total number oImuseholds 268 276

Percent 100 1001 person 1 92-3 persons 264-5 persons 28 306-7 persons8 or more 18 17

Average size ofhousehold 5.3

9

TABLE 4. CURRENT MEMBERS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS, BY SEX AND RELATIONSHIPTO HOUSEHOLD HEAD

Relationship A tascosa Countyto household Total Percent distribution by sex

head Number Percent Total Male Female

San AntonioTotal Percent distribution by sex

Number Percent Total Male Female

TotalHeadSpouseSonDaughterOther

1,424

268234411387124

100

19162927

9

100 51

100 94100 0100 100100 0100 48

49

6100

0100

52

1,317

276199347392103

100 100 46 5421152630

8

100100100100100

78 22100

100

39

propensity to change jobs, part of the heavy concen-tration of heads in jobs as laborers, both farm andnonfarm, may be attributed to their relatively ad-vanced age. The educational and occupational levelsof the younger generation Spanish-Americans arehigher than those of their parents.

Household SizeA total of 1,424 persons resided in the 268 Spanish-

American households interviewed in Atascosa County,an average of 5.3 persons per household (Table 3).Households were somewhat smaller in the San Antoniosample, averaging about 4.8 persons, with a total of1,317 persons in 276 households. The principal differ-ence in size between the urban and rural Spanish-American households results from the greater preva-lence of one-person households in San Antonio, manyof which consist of women living alone, and from thehigher incidence of large families (6 or more persons)among the rural Spanish-Americans (Table 3).

Spanish-American households were considerablylarger than those of the total population of Texas,which in 1960 averaged 3.4 persons per household.Both the greater number of children per householdand the tradition of friends and other relatives livingwith the immediate family contributed to the largeraverage size of Spanish-American households.

In this survey, persons other than sons, daughtersand parents were counted as members of the householdif they had been living in the household for a majorpart of the year; temporary inhabitants were excluded.About one-tenth of the total household membershipin each sample area at the time of the study consistedof friends and relatives other than the immediatefamily (Table 4).

10061

In addition to the current membership of theSpanish-American households, information was ob-tained on persons who had been living in these house-holds during the 10-year period prior to the fieldstudy but who had moved away from home beforethe survey. About two-fifths of the rural householdsand one-third of the urban households had such formermembers who consisted for the most part of sons anddaughters of the household head (Table 5). A latersection of this report will examine the occupations ofthe former members of survey households in order tocompare the occupational changes which have takenplace between one generation of Spanish-Americansand another.

Nativity Status

The study areas are readily accessible to Mexico,and a great deal of travel and visiting, as well aspermanent migratic:, takes place between the studyareas and Mexico. San Antonio is approximately 150mile. from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico; 150 miles toCiudad Acuna; and 140 miles to Piedras Negras. Thedistances between Atascosa County and these pointsare slightly less since Atascosa County is just south ofSan Antonio.

Despite their proximity to Mexico, most of theSpanish American household heads in the studysamples were native-born Americans. Only two-tenthsof the rural and three-tenths of the urban householdheads were born in Mexico. Almost all of the re-mainder were born in Texas. Of the household headsborn in Texas, about 65 percent were born in thecounty they were residing in at the time of the survey.

TABLE 5. FORMER MEMBERS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS, BY SEX AND RELATIONSHIPTO HOUSEHOLD HEAD

Relationshipto household

head Number

Atascosa CountyTotal Percent distribution by sex

Percent Total Male Female

San AntonioTotal Percent distribution by sex

Number Percent Total Male Female

Total number 275 100 100 51 49 151 100 100 42 58Sons and

daughters 235 85 100 49 51 99 66 1G0 42 58Others 40 15 100 60 40 52 34 100 58 42

10

Tr'

Figure 5. Not only is the Si.anish language often used amongSpanish-Americans for conversations, but it is also frequentlyused for movies, radio and television presentations.

Use of English and SpanishAlthough the majority were born in the United

States, most of the Spanish-American household headsin both the rural and urban areas spoke Spanish morethan English in the home (Figure 5). This practice,however, was more common in the country than inthe city. Almost three-fourths of the heads of house-hold in Atascosa County always or usually usedSpanish in their conversations with other adults intheir homes compared with approximately three-fifthsof the household heads in San Antonio. About 20percent of the household heads in the rural sampleused English and Spanish about equally in talkingto other adults in their homes compared to 30 percentin the city. Less than 10 percent in either area usedEnglish as their primary language at home.

Age had some bearing on language used, withpersons under 25 making the least frequent use ofSpanish and heads 55 and over the greatest relativeuse of this language (Table 6). Even among theyoungest household heads, however, only about 30 per-cent in the city and less than 10 percent in the countryspoke English most of the time.

The degree to which a foreign language is usedby household heads is undoubtedly associated with

TABLE 7. AGE AT WHICH SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSE-HOLD HEADS BEGAN FIRST FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT

Age in years Atascwa County San Antonio

Total numberPercent

14 and under15-17

18-19

20-24

25 and overNot applicable1

268

100

43

30

15

8

2

2

276100

15

2918

21

9

8

1Five household heads in Atascosa County and 21 in San Antonionever had a full-time job at any time in their lives.

levels of educational attainment, occupational statusand incomes of the Spanish-Americans in Texas.

Age at Whkh First Full-time Job BeganMany heads of households included in the study

samples began working at their first full-time jobs atcomparatively young ages. This may have occurredbecause of the need to contribute to the family in-come, probably blocking the young Spanish-Americanfrom adequate school attendance, and consequentlypreventing him from obtaining sufficient training foremployment in the higher paying occupations in hisadult life.

About two-fifths of the Atascosa County house-hold heads began working at a full-time job beforethe age of 15 and three-fourths had full-time jobsbefore they were 18 (Table 7). Entrance to the full-time labor force for urban residents occurred a littlelater in life, with less than half of the San Antonioheads employed before they reached the age of 18.Although a few persons in each of the two study areastook their first job after they were 25 years of age,most of these were women who went to work for thefirst time after they were married. This was particu-larly true for the urban area.

The difference in age at which the Spanish..Americans started full-time work as youngsters in therural area and the city is largely due to the greaternumber of agricultural jobs that were available inthe rural area and also to the greater amount of

TABLE 6. LANGUAGE USED Al HOME BY SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS IN CONVERSATIONS WITHOTHER ADULTS, BY AGE OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS

Language Atascosa County San Antonioused Total Under 25 25-44 45-54 55 and over Total Under 25 25-44 45-54 55 and over

Total number 268 14 94 51 109 276 14 119 51 92Percent 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100Always or usually

Spanish 73 43 64 76 83 61 36 M 51 79Equal Spanish

and English 21 50 28 20 12 30 36 34 43 18Always or usuRlly

English 6 7 8 4 5 9 28 12 6 3

11

TABLE 8. YEARS OF SCHOOL COMPLETED BY SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS 25 YEARS OLD ANDOVER AND BY ALL PERSONS 25 YEARS OLD AND OVEREXCLUDING THOSE OF SPANISH SURNAME

Mascosa County San AntonioAll persons All persons

Spanish- excluding Spanish- excludingAmerican those of American those of

Years of school household Spanish household Spanishcompleted heads surname' heads surname

Total persons25 years oldand over 254 5,865 262 193,893

Percen t 100 100 100 100Less than 1 year 33 3 10 1

1-4 years 33 10 30 55-8 years 26 33 37 259-11 years 3 20 11 2012 years or more 5 34 12 49

Median years 3.1 9.6 6.1 11.9

'Source: 1960 Bureau of the Census, Vol. PC (1) 45C, "Texas:General Social and Economic Characteristics," Table 83, p. 495,and Table 73, p. 386, and Vol. PC (2) 1B, Tables 13 and 14.

pressure brought to bear on children by school authori-ties in the urban areas to attend school until reachingcertain age levels.

EDUCATIONAL STATUS

The importance of education has long been recog-nized as a necessary prerequisite to occupational ad-vancement and accompanying higher incomes. Manyjob opportunities are closed to persons with littleeducation, and they find it difficult to improve their

economic situation. One of the purposes of this studywas to compare the educational status of the Spanish-Americans with that of the general population of thearea and to examine the relationship between educa-tion, occupation and other socio-econornic character-istics of the Spanish-Americans.

Education of Household HeadsIn general, Spanish-American household heads

aged 25 and over had little formal education (Table8). One-third of the rural household heads had noteven completed a year of school. In San Antonio,educational levels were slightly higher, with only one-tenth of the household heads reporting less than ayear of school. Education beyond grade school wasrelatively rare among Spanish-Americans; only abouta tenth of the rural heads and two-tenths of the urbanheads had completed more than 8 years of school.

In comparison, the non-Spanish population 25years of age and older in the areas surveyed had com-pleted at least twice as many years of school as theSpanish-Americans. In San Antonio, the averageperson in the non-Spanish population had almostcompleted high school while the average Spanish-American household head was 2 years short of com-pleting grade school. Educational levels of the totalnon-Spanish population in the rural area were lowerthan those in the city, but educational differencesbetween Spanish-Americans and the remaining popu-lation were just as marked as they were for SanAntonio.

TABLE 9. YEARS OF SCHOOL COMPLETED BY SPANISH-AMER1CAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS, BY SELECTED CHARACTER-ISTICS OF THE HEAD

Atascosa County San AntonioTotal Years of school completed Total Years of school completed

Selectedcharacteristics

Occupation

Num-ber

Per-cent

Lessthanone

1-4 5-8 9-11Num- Per-

12 or Median ber centmore

Lessthanone

1-4 5-8 9-11 12 or Medianmore

Employed 223 100 28 32 31 4 5 3.7 191 100 9 21 38 16 16 7.1

Farm work 121 100 40 32 23 2 3 2.3 4 2

Nonfarm work 102 100 15 32 40 7 6 5.3 187 100 8 21 39 16 16 7.2

Not employed 45 100 47 27 20 0 6 1.5 85 100 12 47 34 5 2 4.2

AgeUnder 25 years 14 100 7 7 72 7 7 7.0 14 100 0 14 36 36 14 9.0

25-44 years 94 100 16 29 40 5 10 5.5 119 100 7 17 41 17 18 7.6

45-64 years 110 100 35 37 23 3 2 2.6 97 100 16 33 36 8 7 5.2

65 years and over 50 100 58 30 10 0 2 .9 46 100 9 57 30 2 2 3.9

Place of birthTexas' 207 100 27 30 33 4 6 4.1 183 100 10 21 38 16 15 7.0

Mexico 60 100 46 37 17 0 0 1.4 86 100 10 46 33 6 5 4.4

Language used at hmneAlways or

usually Spanish 196 100 37 31 26 3 3 2.7 168 100 16 31 40 9 4 5.3

Equal Englishand Spanish 56 100 20 32 34 5 9 4.8 84 100 0 29 37 14 20 7.3

Always orusually English 16 100 6 25 50 6 13 6.5 24 100 4 17 17 29 33 10.3

'One household head in Atascosa County and seven in San Antonio were born elsewhere in the United States.2Derived numbers not shown where base is less than ten.

12

Education in Relation to SelectedSocio-economic Factors

Age, place of birth and language spoken areclosely associated with level of education of Spanish-Americans. Furthermore, employment status, occu-pation and income are related to all of these factors.Table 9 illustrates these relationships among studyhousehold heads.

There is an inverse relationship between age andlevel of education. Heads under 25 years of age hadmore education than other groups of household headsstudied; they averaged about 8 years of schooling.The level of education dropped steadily with advancesin age to a low of 1 year for the aged in AtascosaCounty and 4 years for the oldest age group in SanAntonio.

In both study areas, household heads born inTexas had obtained more education than those bornin Mexico. For example, Texas-born household headsliving in Atascosa County completed 4 years of schoolcompared to less than 2 years for those born in Mexico.Educational levels were somewhat higher in the citybut still dependent on place of birth.

Educational level of household heads is closelyassociated with language used in conversations in theirhomes. Those Atascosa County household heads whoalways or usually spoke Spanish in conversations withother adults at home had a median of 3 years of schoolcompleted as contrasted to 6.5 years completed forthose who always or usually spoke English. In SanAntonio, household heads speaking mostly Englishhad achieved the highest educational levels amongSpanish-Americans. One-third of this group had com-pleted high school.

Employed heads of households had more educa-tion than those who were out of the labor force orunemployed, and household heads engaged in non-farm work had attended school for a longer periodthan farm workers.

Education of Former Membersof Spanish-American Households

Much progress in educational attainment wasevident among the younger generation Spanish-Ameri-cans. Sons and daughters who had left their parents'homes at some time during the 10 years preceding thefield study had completed, on the average, at leasttwice as many years of schooling as their parents, 8.4years in Atascosa County and 11.7 years in San An-tonio. The average for household heads was 3 and6 years, respectively.

In fact, the educational level of the urban youngergeneration Spanish-Americans had increased to ap-proximately the level of the non-Spanish population

in San Antonio.3 Former members of Spanish-Ameri-can rural households lagged about a year behind thenon-Spanish population of Atascosa County.

Educational Aspirations of Spanish-American Youth

Despite the low educational achievement of house-hold heads, educational aspirations of their childrenwere high. As with occupation, educational hopeswere higher among Spanish-American youth who wereliving in San Antonio. As reported by the householdheads in San Antonio, 94 percent of their sons anddaughters, aged 10 to 17, wanted to receive at least ahigh school education compared to 82 percent of therural youth.

San Antonio youngsters were particularly ambi-tious concerning plans to attend college, althoughtheir parents in some cases indicated that it was doubt-ful that they would actually be able to attend. Almosthalf (45 percent) of the sons and daughters of the SanAntonio household heads wanted to attend college,but only 3 out of 10 were expected to actually do so.Such phrases as "he just won't have the money" or"Ile will have to go to work to help earn a living"were common answers given by household heads inSan Antonio to explain the gap between their chil-dren's educational desires and their expectations ofachieving these goals. College education among ruralresidents was desired by only 14 percent of the childrenin Spanish-American households.

EMPLOYMENT SITUATION OF HOUSEHOLD HEADS

One of the major objectives of this study wasto analyze changes in the occupational status ofSpanish-Americans. This was accomplished throughexamination of the work histories of household headsand through a comparison of occupations of house-hold heads with those of younger generation familymembers who were no longer living at home.

Percent in Labor Force

Of the total Spanish-American heads of house-holds surveyed in both Atascosa County and SanAntonio, a larger proportion of the rural (85 percent)than of the urban (74 percent) heads were in the laborforce.4 This is largely due to the greater incidenceof male household heads in the rural county. Sincemales customarily have a higher labor force partici-pation rate, the relatively larger number of women

3This comparison might overstate the educational achievementof former household members slightly because the Spanish-Americans were being compared with a population of an olderaverage age. If the second generation Spanish-Americans werematched with persons in the total population who were of theirown age level, the comparison would probably reveal that theyhad not achieved comparable educational status."Information on current labor force status of the study group,unless otherwise specified, related to the month of December1961.

13

TABLE 10. EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS

Employment statusas of December, 1961 Atascosa County San Antonio

Total number 268 276

Percent 100 100

In the labor force 85 74Employed 83 69Unemployed 2 5

Not in labor force 15 26Keeping house 3 5Retired 16Disabled 5 5

and of retired persons in the city tended to lower therate for San Antonio (Table 10).

In San Antonio there was a fairly large numberof heads (8 percent) who never held a full-time job;the proportion was negligible in Atascosa. All of thesepersons were women.

Of the household heads who were not in the laborforce at the time of the survey, the largest proportionwere retired, others were either disabled or keepinghouse. About twice as many Spanish-Americans inSan Antonio were retired as in the rural area, possiblybecause of better opportunities for formal retirementin the city.

Extent of UnemploymentUnemployment rates among Spanish-American

heads followed patterns prevalent generally; they werehigher in the city than in the rural area. During thesurvey period, those who were unemployed repre-sented 6.4 and 2.2 percent, respectively, of the Spanish-American household heads in the labor force in theseareas. The urban rate for Spanish-American headswas somewhat higher than the 5.3 percent nationalunemployment rate for adult men 20 years of age andover, and the 4.2 percent rate for married men inDecember 1961.5 The relatively low unemploymentrate for the rural Spanish-Americans does not revealthe considerable underemployment characteristic formany rural areas wherein persons work often for onlypart of a week or for less than 8 hours a day.

During the year 1961, 8 household heads in therural study group and 19 in the city sample had beenunemployed and looking for work for 4 weeks orlonger.0 Three in Atascosa County and five in SanAntonio had been unemployed for 26 weeks or longer.Within each sample group, Spanish-American house-hold heads born in Mexico tended to have higherunemployment rates than those born in Texas.

5Source: Bu' mu of Labor Statistics, U. S. Department of Labor.°Although there were others who may have been unemployedand looking for work for shorter periods of time, informationwas not recorded for those who were unemployed for less thanfour weeks in 1961.

14

Occupation

There was a pronounced diff(,:rence in occupationbetween city and rural residena among Spanish-American household heads, as there is among ruraland urban residents generally. Within each area,there also was a notable difference in the occupationaldistribution of Spanish-American heads and the totalmale population (Tables 11 and 14).7

One of the principal differences in occupationbetween the Spanish-American household heads andthe total male population was in the incidence offarm work. This occupational difference related tothe rural residents, among whom slightly more thanhalf of the Spanish-American heads were employed atfarm work compared to about two-fifths of all males.Farm work was almost nonexistent for the urbanresidents at the time of the survey despite the factthat relatively large numbers of the urban Spanish-American heads had started their careers doing farmwork.

Migratory work among Spanish-American farmlaborers was about as common as it was for all farmlaborers in the United States. In 1961, about one-tenth of all the rural Spanish-American heads who hadworked as farm laborers at any time during the yearhad left their home county to do this work. Theproportion of all hired farm laborers in the UnitedStates who did migratory farm labor was about thesame.

Another important occupational difference be-tween Spanish-Americans and the total population

7A comparison was made between the occupations of Spanish-American heads and the total male population in order to keepsex constant in evaluating occupational differences. Almost allof the Spanish-American employed heads were male, while avery large proportion of the total employed population wasfemale, and, traditionally, heavily concentrated in clerical jobsand less commonly employed as craftsmen or laborers. Specif-ically, 3 of the employed household heads in Atascosa Countyand 18 in San Antonio were females. Of the former, two werefarm operators and one a service worker. Of the latter, 13 wereservice workers and 5 white-collar workers.

TABLE 11. OCCUPATIONS OF EMPLOYED SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS

Occupation Atascosa County San Antonio'

Total 223 191

Percent 100 100Farm work 54 2

Operators & managers 31Laborers 23

Nonfarm 46 98Professional & managers 5Clerical & sales 2 12Service workers 10 21Craftsmen 8 18Operatives 4 11Laborers 17 29

'This includes two household heads in the Armed Forces whowere classified with service workers.

_2_11

which reflected their relatively low occupational statuswas in the proportion employed as white-collar work-ers. Professional, technical, clerical and sales jobswere held by only one-fifth of the urban Spanish-Americans but by two-fifths of the total male popu-lation in San Antonio. There were fewer white-collarworkers, generally in the rural area than in the city,but, here also Spanish-Americans were under-repre-sented in the white-collar jobs compared to the totalpopula tion.

The low proportion of Spanish-American headsin white-collar jobs stems in part from their very loweducational level. In addition, the Spanish-American'sinfrequent use of English in everyday conversationprobably reflects a lack of facility in reading andspeaking English. This situation would constitute amajor barrier to adequate performance of white-collarwork which relies so extensively on the printed word.

The larger proportion of Spanish-American headsworking in the service occupations constitutes a thirdmajor area of difference between the Spanish-Ameri-cans and the total population. Service work was aboutas common for Spanish-American household heads aswere white-collar jobs. Approximately one-fifth ofthe heads were employed in each of these occupationgroups in San Antonio.8 Among all males in the city,however, white-collar workers outnumbered serviceworkers four to one. Service work was not a commonoccupation for rural residents, but it was more preva-lent among Spanish-Americans than among all males.

Many of the service jobs held by the Spanish-Americans are as waiters, cab drivers, and other rela-tively unskilled workers; they require little formaleducation.

A final major area of difference in the occupa-tions followed by Spanish-American household headsand the total male population was in the skill levelof the blue-collar workers. Unskilled laborers were farmore common among the Spanish-Americans in boththe city and the country. About three out of fiveurban Spanish-Americans were employed as blue-collarworkers in December 1961 and fully half of thesepersons were unskilled laborers. Among all male blue-collar workers, only one out of five was an unskilledlaborer. Thus, a total of three out of ten Spanish-American heads in San Antonio were unskilled labor-ers compared to one male out of ten in the city.Conversely, skilled and semi-skilled blue-collar work-ers were relatively more numerous in the total popu-lation.

A similar situation prevailed in the rural area,where the majority of the working population, bothSpanish-American and all male, who were not doingfarm work were employed in blue-collar jobs. Theblue-collar workers in the total male population, how-

8Approximately 16 percent of the Spanish-American heads and72 percent of the female Spanish-American heads in San Antoniowere service workers.

ever, were largely skilled craftsmen and semi-skilledoperatives. Unskilled laborers comprised only one-fifth of all male blue-collar workers in AtascosaCounty but a little over half of the Spanish-Americanblue-collar workers.

Dual JobholdingAmong farm workers, generally, dual jobholding

is often a means of transition from farm to nonfarmwork, and many Spanish-Americans may have takenthe same route away from farm work. At the timeof the survey, 18 percent of the household heads inAtascosa County held two jobs simultaneously. Allbut one of these involved farming and hired farmwork combined with a nonfarm job. None of theSan Antonio household heads were working at morethan one job in December 1961.

OCCUPATIONAL CHANGEAMONG SPANISH-AMERICANS

Occupational Change from Firstto Current Job by Household Heads

As is customary among persons in the labor force,there was considerable change in occupation by headsof Spanish-American households from the time theybegin their first full-time job to the time the fieldstudy was conducted.8 The major change was a de-cline in the ntimber of farm workers and an increasein the number of blue-collar workers, especially ofunskilled laborers. Some small increase occrared inthe proportion of household heads employed in white-collar jobs but there was little change in the incidenceof service workers (Table 12).

Among both rural LInd urban residents, there wasa shift of major proportions away from agriculturaljobs. Approximately four-fifths of the AtascosaCounty family heads listed either farm work or operat-ing a farm as their first full-time occupation (Figure6). By tl:L time of the survey only half were doingfarm work. In San Antonio, also, there was a distinctmovement away from farm work in the later careerof household heads. Almost none of the urbanSpanish-Americans were doing farm work in the early1960's compared to one-fifth who had worked onfarms when they started their careers.

The move away from farm work in both surveyareas occurred primarily among those persons whohad worked as farm laborers. The number of Spanish-American heads.- who were working as hired farmhands declined sharply between first and current jobin both the city and the rural area, while most of theheads who had started their careers as farm operatorsor managers remained in these occupations. Personswho had worked as farm laborers moved primarily tothe blue-collar, and particularly to the unskilled jobs.In the rural area, however, about a fifth of the farm

°Detailed information was obtained for first full-time job, forjob held at time of survey, and for all intervening types of jobsfollowed for a year or longer.

15

TABLE 12. PERCENT DISTRIBUTION OF OCCUPATION OF CURRENT JOB, BY OCCUPATION OF FIRST FULL-TIMEJOB OF EMPLOYED SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS

Atascosa County

Occupation Employedof first household heads

fulltime job Number Percent

Percent distribution by occupation of current job

TotalFarm operatorsand managers

Farmlaborers

White collarand service

workers

Craftsmenand

operatives

Nonfarmlaborers

Total 223 100 100 31 23 17 12 17

Farm workers 175 78 100 36 26 14 9Operators & managers 54 24 100 69 4 13 7 7Laborers 121 54 100 22 36 14 13 18

Nonfarm workers 48 22 100 12 13 27 23 25White-collar

and service 15 7 100 13 13 61 13 0Craftsmen & operatives 7 3Laborers 26 12 100 12 15 8 23 42

San AntonioOccupation Employed

of first household headsfull time job Number Percent

Percent distribution by occupation of current jobTotal Farm

workersWhite collar

workersServiceworkers Craftsmen Operatives

Nonfarmlaborers

Total 191 100 100 2 19 20 18 11

malown.11..11

30

Farm workers 42 22 100 7 14 24 10 10 35Operators & managers 7 4Laborer 35 18 100 9 11 23 9 11 37

Nonfarm workers 149 78 100 1 20 19 21 11 28White collar 19 10 100 74 0 5 5 16Service 42 22 100 0 7 55 7 5 25Craftsmen 26 14 100 4 19 0 65 4 8Operatives 23 12 100 0 13 9 9 48 21Laborers 39 100 0 13 10 20 3 54

'Percent not shown where base is less than ten.'These were all farm laborers.

laborers had become farm operators by the time ofthe survey.

While career changes from farm to nonfarm workwere striking, similar upgrading of occupations didnot occur among persons who had started their careersin nonfarm jobs. Some of the nonfarm workers crossedoccupational lines during their working careers, but

Ikbenbak

p.

Figure 6. Automation and technology reduce the need forSpanish-American farm labor. The operation of spriggingCoastal bermuda, which once required a large work crew, isnow performed by two.

16

the overall distribution of nonfarm occupations onthe first and final jobs was very similar, particularlyin San Antonio. About three-fifths of the urban farmworkers were employed at blue-collar jobs at both thebeginning of their careers and at the time of the fieldstudy, and about half of these workers were doingunskilled work in both periods.

Similarly, there was little change in the propor-tion of household heads who were doing service workbetween their first and final jobs. In San Antonio,service work played a fairly important role as the firstjob occupation of household heads (about one-fifthwere employed in service work), but career changesaway from the other occupations were not directedin any significant degree toward the service jobs.Movement into white-collar jobs was slight; the over-all proportion of urban household heads employed inwhite-collar jobs increased from one-tenth to two-tenths.

Some occupational change.from nonfarm to farmjobs occurred in the rural area, where one-feurth ofthe household heads who had started their careerswith nonfarm jobs subsequently turned to farm work.

Occupational MobilityA history of types of jobs held for a year or longer

was obtained for each household head employed dur-

TABLE 13. OCCUPATIONAL HISTORIES OF EMPLOYEDSPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD HEADS BY NUMBERAND TYPES OF OCCUPATIONS'

Number and types Atascosa Countyof occupations San Antonio

Total number 223 191

Percent 100 100One occupation 37 31

Farm operatoror manager 17 0

Farm laborer 15 1

Nonfarm work 5 30Two or more occu.yations 63 69

Farm work only 12 0Nonfarm work only 10 43Change from nonfarm

work on first job tofarm work on final job 11 2

Change from farm workon first job to nonefarm work on final job 30 24

..1111111111M11111111=11111.11

'Includes occupation of first full-time joboccupations followed for a year or longer.

and all subsequent

ing the survey in order to discover the dominant pat-tern of occupational change during the working careerof the respondents.

About one-third of the household heads had beenemployed at only one type of job during their workingcareer (Table 13). An additional one-third had beenemployed in two or more occupation groups, and theremainder in three or more occupations.

A movement from farm to nonfarm work wascharacteristic of persons who changed occupations.As many as half of the workers in rural sample whohad held two or more kinds of jobs had made a change

across farm-nonfarm occupations. A large percentageof these (two-fifths) had moved from farm to nonfarmwork. A much smaller proportion (one-tenth) turnedto farm work on their final job from previous jobsin nonfarm occupations.

Since there were proportionately fewer farmworkers in the city, the change from farm to nonfarmjobs affected a smaller share of the urban householdheads who had changed occupations during theirworking careers.

Occupation of Former Membersof Spanish-American Households

A comparison of the current occupation ofSpanish-American household heads and the occupa-tions of household members (mainly sons and daugh-ters) who had left the home by the time of the fieldstudy may be used as further evidence that Spanish-Americans are achieving moderate advances in occupa-tional status (Table 14). The intergenerational differ-ences consisted mostly of a decline in the importanceof farm work as an occupation, some shift away fromunskilled laborer jobs and a slight increase in theincidence of white-collar jobs among former membersof Spanish-American households.

For the rural area, the major intergenerationalchange in occupations between household heads andformer members of their households was a decline infarm workers and a rise in blue-collar workers. Thiscontinues the trend away from. farm work evidentbetween the first and final jobs recorded for the house-hold heads themselves. Rural Spanish-Americansrepresented in farm work dropped from 54 percentamong the family heads to 16 percent of the formermale members. In fact, there were fewer farm workers

TABLE 14. OCCUPATIONS OF EMPLOYED FORMER MEMBERS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS AND OV EM-PLOYED PERSONS IN THE TOTAL POPULATION, BY SEX

Atascosa County San Antonio

OccupationFormer members ofSpanish-American

householdsaAll persons'

Former members ofSpanish-American

households'

+111=11.==11140111

All persons'

Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female

'Total 110 27 4,094 1,212 53 29 115,814 60,790Percent 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100Farm work 16 4 37 11 4 0 1 "

Operators & managers 7 0 18 4 0 0 * a

Laborers 9 4 19 7 4 0 3 3

Nonfarm 84 06 63 89 96 100 99 100Professional & managers 4 4 13 18 15 10 22 19Clerical & saks 10 67 6 Op00 17 21 18 44Service workers 19 11 0., 30 15 69 9 24Craftsmen 16 7 17 23 0 23 1

Or Iatives 9 0 16 6 9 0 18 11Laborers 26 7 8 2 17 0 9 1

'Source: 1960 U. S. Bureau of the Censu3, Vo1. PC (1) 45C, "Texas: General Social & Economic Characteristics," Table 84, p. 517,and Table 74, p. 400.

3Includes former members who were employed at any time in 1961. In addition, there were 14 Ulmer members of Spanish-Americanhouseholds in Atascosa County and 9 former members from San Antonio households who were in the Armed Forces.

°Less than .5 percent.

17

among the younger generation Spanish-Americans thanin the total male population of Atascosa County. Thisis probably because many of the former members ofSpanish-American households left the rural area com-pletely when they moved from their childhood homeand were living in the city, where farm work is notgenerally available. Information on the occupationof the total population was collected at their place ofresidence, and the two characteristics of residence andoccupation more nearly coincide.

The younger generation Spanish-Americans fromthe rural area moved from the farm occupations oftheir parents to blue-collar jobs. Half the formermembers of rural households were blue-collar workerscompared with three-tenths of their parents. Therewas also a slight intergenerational increase in therelative number of white-collar and service workersamong the children of rural household heads.

Occupational changes between generations ofSpanish-Americans in San Antonio were not so markedas in the rural area and were restricted to the nonfarmoccupations, since farm work was virtually nonexistentfor either generation of Spanish-Americans at the timeof the survey. Principal intergenerational changesoccurred as declines in blue-collar workers and in-creases in white-collar workers. These changes placedthe younger generation Spanish-Americans in a posi-tion which was midway with respect to occupationalstatus between the household heads and the total malepopulation.

One of the important intergenerational changeswas in the lower proportion of unskilled blue-collarlaborers among the younger group. Only 2 out of10 in the younger male generation were blue-collarlaborers compared with 3 out of 10 of the householdheads. However, the younger generation Spanish-Americans had not improved their manual skillssufficiently to match those of the total population.Unskilled laborers among the younger generationSpanish-Americans still outnumbered those in thetotal male population, of whom only 1 in 10 werelaborers.

If all laborers, both farm and nonfarm, arecoL.ated, a similar situation exists in the rural area.There are relatively fewer younger generation thanolder generation Spanish-Americans working as un-skilled laborers and relatively more younger genera-tion Spanish-American laborers than in the totalpopulation.

A middle-status occupation in which Spanish-Americans were not underrepresented was that ofcraftsmen. Approximately equal proportions of bothgenerations of male Spanish-Americans and of thetotal male population in San Antonio were workingas carpenters, bricklayers, mechanics and in otherskilled blue-collar jobs. Apparently use of a foreignlanguage and low educational level were not barriers

18

to the acquisition of manual skills required for thesejobs.

Some occupational upgrading also occurred in thewhite-collar occupations in which three-tenths of theyounger male generation Spanish-Americans were em-ployed. Here again, they have made occupationalgains over their parents, among whom only two-tenthswere white-collar workers. This did not quite reachthe occupational level of the total male populationof San Antonio of whom 4 in 10 were professionaland other white-collar workers. The same patternprevailed for the rural area.

Changes in the number of Spanish-Americansemployed in the service occupations between the twogenerations were slight. However, in both study areasamong both generations of Spanish-Americans, theproportion of males employed as service workers waslarger than the proportion in the total male popu-lation. While an increase in the incidence of white-collar workers in a population indicates an upgradingof occupational skills, the reverse is true for the serviceoccupations. These often include predomina ntly semi-skilled and unskilled jobs paying relatively low wages.The Spanish-American service worker seeking job im-provement would tend to look to the white-collarfields, thus lowering the proportion of service workersamong the Spanish-American people.

To summarize, the pattern of occupational changeamong male Spanish-Americans is one of a decline inthe number of farm workers and a correspondingincrease in blue-collar workers. Smaller increasesoccurred among white-collar workers. This was thepattern for intergenerational change among Spanish-Americans from the rural area and for long-term careerchanges of househokl heads who were living in thecity at the time of the field study. Among urbanresidents, the intergenerational pattern of occupa-tional change reflects reductions in blue-collar workers,particularly the unskilled laborers, and an increase inwhite-collar workers.

Among the Spanish-American men who hadmoved away from the households surveyed, a largemajority (9 out of 10) were employed at some timeduring 1961. This was not the case for the femaleswho used to live in these households. Only aboutone-fifth and two-fifths of the female former house-hold members in Atascosa County and San Antonio,respectively, were working in 1961. The number al'female former household members employed is toosmall, then, to permit anything but the broadest gen-eralizations about their occupations.

As with the males, the female former membersof Spanish-American households in San Antonio wereunderrepresented in the white-collar occupations andoverrepresented in the service jobs when comparedwith all females in the total population. There weretwice as many women in the total population, pro-portionately, who were working in clerical and other

white-collar fields as there were Spanish-Americanwomen. The reverse was true for the service jobsin which Spanish-American women were much morehighly concentrated than were all women in the city.

Of the Spanish-American women who had livedin the rural households, many had probably movedto the city upon leaving their homes. Most of thewomen found jobs in the clerical fields.

About a tenth of the male former members ofSpanish-American households were in the ArmedForces. Many of this group planned to remain withthe military during their working career because theyfelt that they could advance as rapidly, or at a fasterrate, than they could in private industry.

In general, former members of Spanish-Americanhouseholds who were in higher-status occupations hadmigrated away from the area in which their parentsresided. For example, only about a tenth of the formermembers of Spanish-American households in SanAntonio who became employed in the professionaland managerial occupations were located in that cityat the time of the survey. More than lmlf had leftthe state and the remainder lived in Texas but somedistance from San Antonio. For the most part, theyounger generation Spanish-Americans who were inthe lower status occupations tended to remain in thearea of their former home or in the immediate vicinity.

Attitudes of Household Heads and TheirChildren Toward Farm Work as an Occupation

Attitudes of Spanish-American household headsand their sons toward farm work as an occupationwere definitely negative. Among the lmuselmld headswho had done farm work but were no longer workingin this occupation, a majority (about three-fourths ineach study area) would not consider doing farm workagain. The most frequent reasons given for the un-willingness to return to farm occupations were thatthe work is too hard and the pay too low. Only about15 percent of the household heads who had once donefarm work were willing to return to it. The remain-ing household heads were undecided.

Most of the sons of Spanish-American householdheads also preferred not to have farm employment,although the proportion expressing favorable attitudeswas greater in the rural area. In Atascosa County,approximately one-third of the sons aged 10 to 17were thought by their parents to be interested in somekind of farm work for their future employment. Only5 percent of the sons living at home in San Antoniowere interested in farming or wage work.

Differences in the willingness of boys to do farmwork may be related to the amount of encouragementthey received from their parents. In Atascosa County,about 40 percent of the 10 to 17 year old boys livingat home were urged by their parents to enter farmwork or to live on a farm. The proportion of childrenin San Antonio encouraged to do farm work was only

Figure 7. Spanish-American household heads have relativelyhigh occupational aspirations for their sons. Youth, such asthese haw hopes for better occupations than their parents.

14 percent. Most parents who had not encouragedtheir sons to do farm work indicated that they hopedtheir children could do better than farming or work-ing on a farm.

Rural and urban heads differed not only in theproportion favorably inclined toward farm work asan occupation for their sons, but also in proportionwho wanted their sons to enter the professional occu-pations (Figure 7). Relatively few (14 percent) of thernral heads who had sons under 18 living at homehoped that their boys would seek careers in profes-sional fields while almost half (45 percent) of thehousehold heads in San Antonio preferred theseoccupations for their sons. In the rural area, theoccupations of skilled craftsmen were slightly morepopular as the household head's choice of a son'scareer than were the professional occupations.

Aspirations were high in both sample areas forfuture work careers of daughters living in Spanish-American households, but here again, the urban house-hold heads had higher aspirations. One-quarter ofthe rural heads and half of the urban heads withdaughters living in their household hoped that theirdaughters would become employed as teachers or insome other professional occupation. An additionalone-fifth in each area wanted to see their daughtersworking as secretaries or in some other clericalcapacity.

INCOME STATUS

Although striking progress in income levels hasbeen achieved by both Spanish-American and all otherfamilies in Texas in the last few decades, a relativelylow level of income still persists among Spanish-American families.

Levels of IncomeGenerally, rural residents earned less than urban

residents and Spanish-Americans earned less than

19

TABLE 15. INCOME OF SPANISH-AMERICAN FAMILIESAND OF ALL FAMILIES EXCLUDING THOSE WITHSPANISH SURNAME'

Atascosa County San AntonioSpanish-

Income Americanclass families

All families'excludingthrse ofSpanish

surname

Spanish-Americanfamilies

All families'excludingthose ofSpanishsurname

All families 268 2,754 276 89,581

Percent 100 100 100 100

Under $1,000 11 9 10 41,000-1,999 28 14 16 7

2,000-2,999 24 11 24 93,000-3,999 15 10 24 11

4,000-5,999 13 23 17 256,000 and over 9 33 9 44

Median familyincome $2,468 84,480 $3,000 $5,470

'Incomes fot Spanish-American families are for 1961 while thosefor all families are for 1959.

2Source: 1960 Bureau of the Census, Vol. PC (1) 45C, "Texas:General Social and Economic Characteristics," Table 76, page428, and Table 86, page 561, and Vol. PC (2) 1B, "Persons ofSpanish Surname," Tables 13 and 14.

other people. The Spanish-Americans in AtascosaCounty had the lowest incomes of all groups withwhom they are compared, averaging about $2,500 in1961 (Table 15). The average income for the non-Spanish families of Atascosa County was almost double,or $4,500, in 1959. Spanish-American families livingin San Antonio had higher incomes than their ruralcounterpart, but they also received little more thanhalf the income of the non-Spanish population of thecity. Their medians were $3,000 and $5,500, respec-tively.10

There were very large proportions of the Spanish-American families with incomes below those normally

"Income data of Spanish-Americans and the total population arenot altogether comparable. The reference year for the formeris 1961 and for the latter it is 1959.

TABLE 16. INCOME OF SPANISH-AMERICAN FAMILIESIN 1961 BY SOURCES OF INCOME

VAr.6111

Atascosa CountySource San Antonio

Total $788,000Percent 100

Earnings ofhousehold heads' 52

Earnings of otherfamily members' 25

Net farm income 14Rents, interest

and dividends2Pensions, contributions

and gifts 8.011111111.110111014111.=161.111

$885,000100

65

23

1

11

'Includes income received for work performed as an employee(wages, salary, commissions, tips, piece-rate payments, and cashbonuses) and net income from nonfarm business. Does not in-clude income from farming.

2Refers to income received by all family members.

20

quoted as being at the poverty level. Approximatelytwo-thirds of the Spanish-American families in Atas-cosa County had an annual income of less than $3,000in 1961, compared to one-third of the non-Spanishfamiles. Even though Spanish-American families inSan Antonio had somewhat higher incomes, as manyas half the families received less than $3,000 duringthe year. In contrast, only a fifth of the non-Spanishpopulation of San Antonio had a total family incomebelow $3,000.

Type of IncomeWage and salary earnings of the household head

were the most important type of income for Spanish-American families, accounting for half the aggregateincome of the rural families (Table 16). For the urbanfamilies, because of the absence of farming as anoccupation, the wage and salary earnings of the headprovided an even larger share (two-thirds) of thefamily's income.

The importance of the household head's earningsto the family's total income underscores the need forupgrading the job skills of the household head, whosegenerally low wages depress the financial resources ofthe Spanish-American family far below that of thetotal population. With educational and occupationalachievements low among the household heads, theirearnings, and consequently their family income, arealso very low.

Earnings of other family members, representingone-fourth of the aggregate family income, were thesecond most important source of family income amongboth the rural and urban study groups.

In addition to the wage and salary earnings ofthe heads and of other members of their families,some Spanish-Americans living in the rural areas re-ceived income from farming; this type of income wasnot available to the urban group. Farm income, how-ever, was relatively minor in relation to the totalincome received by the Spanish-American rural fami-lies, averaging no more than 14 percent of the total.Furthermore, it was a relatively small source of incomeconsidering that 3 out of 10 household heads inAtascosa County were farm operators.

The only other relatively important sources ofincome, comprising about one-tenth of the total familyincome, were pensions, welfare payments and gifts.

Number of Income SourcesAlthough their average family income was lower,

rural Spanish-American families received their incomefrom more sources than urban families, chiefly becauseof income from their farms (Table 17). A little morethan half the rural families had 2 or more sources ofincome. However, for about half these families oneof the sources was farm income, combined with someother type of income. The remaining rural familieswith two or more sources of income depended on thewage and salary earnings of 2 or more family members

or on earnings plus other nonfarm income such aspensions.

A little less than half the rural families had onlyone source of income available to them; for themajority of these families this consisted or the earningsof the household head. Most of the remaining familieslived exclusively either on farm income or on pensionincome.

Almost two-thirds of the Spanish-American fami-lies living in San Antonio had only one source offamily income, consisting in most cases of the wageor salary earnings of the household head. Second inimportance was pensions, with 16 percent of the SanAntonio families receiving this type of income only.Where there were two sources of income, they con-sisted of earnings of members of the family for abouthalf the families and earnings combined with someother type of nonfarm income for the remaining half.

Despite the sizeable proportion of Spanish-Ameri-can families receiving money income from two or moresources, their total income was low by almost anystandard.

Income in Relation to Socio-economic FactorsIncome differentials were closely related to occu-

pation, education, age, language used and place ofbirth of the Spanish-American family heads (Table18). Spanish-American families headed by personsemployed at the time of the field study had incomeswhich were almost double the income of familieswhose head was out of the labor force or looking forwork. Furthermore, where the household head wasa farm worker, the family income was only two-thirdsthe income of families headed by nonfarm workers.

The close relationship between education andincome is strikingly illustrated by the informationcontained in Table 18 on the education and familyincome of the head. Income levels rose with eachincrease in the educational level of the householdhead, from a low of less than 82,000 annually for ruralfamilies whose head had less than one year of sthool-ing to 84,200 for the family headed by a high schoolgraduate. Similar increases in family income accom-panied higher educational levels among the urbanheads.

Age of the family head bore a minor relationshipto family income except for families whose head was65 and over. For these families, average income wasabout 81,500, considerably less than the average forall Spanish-Amerk an families.

Family income rose slightly alter 25, reaching apeak at different age levels for m ban and rural familyheads. Among urban families, itu ome increased withthe age of the family head until it reached a peak of$3,500 when the family head was middle-aged (45 toM years of age). For the rural families on the otherhand, family income reached its high point (about

TABLE 17, NUMBER AND TYPES OF INCOME IN 1961 OFSPANISH-AMERICAN FAMILIES

Number and types Atascosa Countyof income

San Antonio

Total families 268 276

Percent 100 100

One source 64

Earnings of household bead' 45

Pensions" 6 16

Net farm income' 8Earnings of

other family members' 1 4Two sources 42 33

Earnings of householdhead and of otherfamily members' 19 18

Net farm income andearnings, rents, or pensions' 12

Earnings, rents, or pensions' 10 15

Three or more sources laSOWN

'Includes income received for work performed as an employee(wages, salary, commissions, tips, piece-rate pa)ments, and cashbonuses) and net income from nonfarm business. Does not in-clude income from farming.

'Refers to income received by any family member.

,800) early in the life of the head (when he wasbetween 25 and 34 years of age) and remained closeto that level until the traditional retirement age.

Families headed by peesons born in Mexico hadlower incomes than families whose heads were bornin Texas, and similar differences in family income

TABLE 18. MEDIAN INCOME OF SPANISH-AMERICANFAMILIES BY SELECTEDHOUSEHOLD HEAD

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

IMMOMMINOINNINONII*1.0.1.

Selected Median family income

characteristics A t a scosa County San Antonio4101...1406...110111004001.1.111k

urpationEmployed

Far m workNonfarm work

Not employedYears Of school completed

52.6612,0893,261

$1,405

$3,312

3,324$1,740

LesS than one year $1,983 S232114 years 2,440 2,587

5.8 yCalTi 2.71-44 2,910

9-11 years 3,1141

12 yeas Or morege

4,249 4,199

Under 25 ears S2X84 $2,71325.14 )ears 2350 3,01845=64 years 2.526 3.45665 'eau and mer 1,578 4553

Ph«. of birthCI; rro 59.317'1'exas

Modco 1,924 2:199

Langruage. used at workAlways or usualK Spanish S1,832 52.341Equal Spanish and English 2,761 3.174Always or usually English 3,082 Y1

'Median not shown whew haw is lef,s than ten.

21

Atascosa County

g...I ...I H

g

Figure 8. Percent of Spanish-American homes with specifiedf acilities.

existed between families whose heads spoke differentlanguages at work. Where English was the languageusually spoken by the head at work, family incomeaveraged around $1,000 more than the income offamilies whose head spoke Spanish most of the timewhile at his job.

POSSESSION OF MATERIAL GOODS

Six items common to many homes were selectedto gauge the level of living of Spanish-American house-holds. These were the radio, television, washingmachine, refrigerator, bathroom with plumbing andhot running water.

Rural-urban DifferencesThere was little difference between rural and

urban households in the extent to which they possessedsome of the specified items. About the same propor-tion of families (9 out of 10) in both areas ownedradios and refrigerators, and close to four-fifths ownedwashing machines. Major differences, however, ex-isted in the availability of bathroom plumbing andhot running water. Only a third of the Spanish-American households in Atascosa County had indoorplumbing while 95 percent of the homes in SanAntonio had this facility. Hot running water in thehomes was enjoyed by only one in four rural families,while almost two out of three urban homes were soequipped (Figure 8).

These urban-rural differences were also reflectedin the number of items possessed by Spanish-Americanfamilies. Only 3 in 10 of the rural households had

TABLE 19. NUMBER OF SPECIFIED ITEMS IN SPANISH-AMERICAN HOMES BY SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OFTHE HOUSEHOLD HEAD1

Selectedcharacteristics

Atascosa County San AntonioTotal Number of items Total Number of items

Num-ber

Per-cent

Less 3 orthan 3 4

5 or6

Num-ber

Per-cent

Lessthan 3

3 or4

5 or6

Total household heads 268 100 19 52 29 276 100 6 23 71

Occupation223 100 18 52 30 191 100 5 21 74Employed

Farm work 121 100 31 51 18 4 2

Nonfarm work 102 100 2 54 44 187 100 4 21 75Not employed 45 100 27 49 24 85 100 11 27 62

Years of school completedLess than one year 84 100 25 58 17 27 100 4 48 481-4 years 84 100 17 48 35 80 100 12 19 695-8 years 78 100 17 50 33 103 100 4 21 759-11 years 9 2 34 100 0 29 7112 years or more 13 100 8 46 46 32 100 9 9 82

AgeUnder 25 years 14 100 50 50 0 14 100 7 43 5025-54 years 155 100 13 50 37 170 100 5 22 7355 years and over 109 100 23 54 23 92 100 9 21 70

Place of birthTexas 207 100 18 52 30 183 100 4 24 72Mexico3 60 100 23 52 25 86 100 13 21 66

Language used at homeAlways or usually Spanish 196 100 23 57 20 168 100 7 23 70Equal Spanish and English 56 100 11 43 46 84 100 6 24 70Always or usually English 16 100 0 25 75 24 100 4 17 79

Total family incomeUnder $2,000 104 100 31 56 13 73 100 17 34 49$2,000-3,999 106 100 16 53 31 130 100 4 26 70$4,000 and over 58 100 4 43 53 73 100 1 6 93

1Specified items are refrigerator, washing machine, radio, television, bathroom with plumbing, and hot water.2Percents not shown where base is less than ten.'One household head in Atascosa County and seven in San Antonio were born elsewhere in the United States.

22

5 or 6 of the items in their homes compared to 7 in10 of the urban households.

Possession of Material Goock in Relationto Selected Sodo-economic Factors

Level of living of the Spanish-American familieswas interrelated with certain characteristics of thehousehold head (Table 19). Level of education, inparticular, had a consistent relationship with numberof material goods possessed in both study areas. Forexample, only half the homes in San Antonio whosehead had less than a year of education had 5 or 6 ofthe items specified while 80 percent of the householdswhose head finished high scho& reported this manyitems.

Household heads employed at nonfarm workpossessed more of the material goods specified thanfarm workers. Similarly, heads aged 25 and over hadan advantage over the younger heads in accumulatingmaterial goods.

One of the factors most closely associated withlevel of living was family income. In San Antonio,almost all of the families with incomes of $4,000 andover possessed 5 or 6 of the items studied, while onlyhalf the families with incomes under $2,000 had asmany of these items.

HOME OWNERSHIP STATUS

A large majority of the Atascosa County Spanish-American families (four-fifths) owned the houses inwhich they lived. The remainder either rented theirhomes or were provided homes rent free.

Home ownership is relatively less common in SanAntonio than it is in Atascosa County. Half theSpanish-American families in San Antonio rentedtheir living quarters and half owned them. SanAntonio families had more rooms in their homes.They averaged 1.4 rooms per person. Rural Spanish-Americans averaged .9 rooms per person.

VIEWS OF SPANISH-AMERICANSCONCERNING THEIR PROGRESS

Heads of Spanish-American families were encour-aged to discuss freely their views about the degree ofprogress which the Spanish-American people wereeither making or failing to make.

On the subject of change in the overall positionof the Spanish-American population during the ten-year period preceding the field study, approximatelythree-fourths of the household heads felt that theirpeople had made some progress along with the restof the nation's population (Table 20). Approximatelyone-fifth felt that there had been no change in theposition of Spanish-Americans, and less than a tenthbelieved that the Spanish-American people had be-come worse off in relation to the rest of the populationduring the last decade.

TABLE 20. OPINIONS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN HOUSE-HOLD HEADS CONCERNING GENERAL PROGRESS OFSPANISH-AMERICAN PEOPLE

Last 10 years Next 10 yearsOpinions Atascosa San Atascosa San

County Antonio County Antonio

Total number 268 276 268 276Percent 100 100 100 100

Improvement 71 77 75 77A great deal 27 51A little 44 26

No change 21 17 3Position worse 8 5 1 1

Don't know 1 1 22 21

'Less than 0.5 percent..0.111

Although the rural household heads believed asfrequently as the urban heads that there was someimprovement in living conditions for the Spanish-American people, they differed about the degree ofchange. One-half of the household heads in SanAntonio felt that a great deal of progress had beenachieved compared with only one-fourth in the ruralcounty.

A relationship was observed between occupationof household heads and their views as to the amountof progress achieved by their ethnic group as a whole.Those who were in nonfarm work tended to believethat more progress was being made than did the headsemployed in farm work. Household heads who wereout of the labor force or unemployed did not feel thatSpanish-Americans were making as much progress asdid the heads who were employed.

Evidence of improvement cited by Spanish-Ameri-can household heads included the better jobs theyheld, their higher earnings, better living conditionsand better acceptance by the "Anglo" population.Several cited examples of Spanish-Americans who had

_

Figure 9. Different agencies are working to improve the edu-cational level of Spanish-Americans. Here, the House of Neigh-borly Service in San Antonio provides classes in English for adultSpanish-Americans.

23

1111111moim

ordoe.0),

Figure 10. Since Spanish is the major language spoken in manySpanish-American homes, special classes are held in English forpre-school youth.

been elected to high political positions "for the firsttime in our knowledge," or who were serving as schoolboard members and were in other responsible civicpositions. Also, they pointed to an increased accept-ance of their own children more as equals by othergroups as additional evidence of progress being madeby the Spanish-American population.

When asked about the primary reasons for theirprogress, by far the most frequent reply was "througheducation" (Figures 9 and 10). It was clearly evidentthat a large majority of the Spanish-Americans viewededucation as the key to their own future hopes andaspirations and those of the Spanish-American popu-lation generally.

The heads of study households were also askedwhat they thought the future had in store for theSpanish-American population during the next 10 years.About three-fourths or roughly the same proportionof household heads who believed that improvementin the general situation of Spanish-Americans had beenachieved in the past 10 years, also believed that thenext 10 years would bring about more favorable con-ditions for their group. They expressed the hope thattheir children would get more education, hold betterjobs, play a greater political role and continue to makeprogress in their relations with the Anglo population.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was conducted cooperatively by theTexas Agricultural Experiment Station, Texas A8c11University, and the Farm Pnpulation Branch (now theHuman Resources Branch), Economic Research Serv-ice, U.S. Department of AgTiculture.

Special acknowledgment is made of the coopera-tion and assistance of Louis J. Ducoff, former chief

24

of the Human Resources Branch, in carrying out theproject. Valuable comments on the manuscript weremade by Calvin L. Beale and Gladys K. Bowles,Human Resources Branch. Appreciation is also ex-pressed to the bilingual interviewers who gave gen-erously of their time during the field work and ininterpreting and coding responses.

RELATED LITERATURE

1. Clements, Harold M., "Levels of Living of Spanish-AmericanRural and Urban Families in Two South Texas Counties,Master of Science Thesis in Sociology, Texas A&M Uni-versity, May, 1963.

2. Cothran, Mary L., "Occupational Patterns of Rural andUrban Spanish-Americans in Two South Texas Counties,"Master of Science Thesis in Sociology, Texas A&M Uni-versity, January, 1966.

3. Dickerson, Ben E., "Incomes of Rural and Urban Spanish-Americans in Two South Texas Counties," Master of ScienceThesis in Sociology, Texas A&M University, May, 1965.

4. Ducoff, Louis J., "Migratory Farm Workers in 1949," Bureauof Agricultural Economics Agriculture Information BulletinNo. 25, U.S.D.A., Washington, D.C., 1950.

5. Francesca, Sister Mary, "Variations of Selected CulturalPatterns Among Three Generations of Mexicans in SanAntonio, Texas," American Catholic Sociological Review,March, 1958.

6. Friend, Reed E., and Samuel Baum, "Economic, Social, andDemographic Characteristics of Spanish-American WageWorkers on U. S. Farms," Economic Research Service Agri-cultural Economic Report No. 27, U.S.D.A., Washington,1). C., March, 1963.

7. Leonard, Olen E., "Changes in the Spanish-Speaking LaborForce of Saginaw County, Michigan," EDD, ERS, U. S.Department of Agriculture. (In process.)

8. Metzler, William H. and Frederic C. Sargent, "MigratoryFarmworkers in the Midcontinent Stream," AgriculturalResearch Service Production Research Report No. 4, Wash-ington, I). C., December, 1960.

9. Metzler, William H. and Frederic C. Sargent, "Incomes ofMigratory Agricultural Workers," Texas Agricultural Ex-periment Station Bulletin 950, March, 1960.

10. Mahoney, Mary K., "Spanish and English Language Usageby Rural and Urban Spanish-American Families in TwoSouth Texas Counties," Master of Science Thesis in Soci-ology, Texas A&M University, December, 1966.

11. Skrabanek, R. L., "Spanish-Americans Raising EducationalSights," Texas Agricultural Progress, Vol. II, No. 2, Spring,1965.

12. Talbert, Robert H., Spanish Name People in the Southwestand West, Leo Potisham Foundation, Ft. Worth, Texas,1955.

13. U. S. Bureau of the Census, U. S. Census of Population:1960, Vol. I, "Characteristics of the Population," Part 45,Texas.

14. U. S. Bureau of the Census, U. S. Census of Population:1960, Vol. PC (2) -1B Subject Reports. "Persons of SpanishSurname."

15, Wilson, Foster W., "Demographic Characteristics of TexasWhite Persons or Spanish Surname," Master of ScienceThesis in Sociology, Texas A&M University, January, 1966.