70 The LATIN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW 2(2)

Mesoamericanists it will be refreshing to have such a geo-graphical diversity of case studies on Mexico (northern,central and southern) in one volume.

Mexican and Central American Population and U.SImmigration Policy . FRANK D. BEAN, JURGENSCHMANDT, and SIDNEY WEINTRAUB, editors.Austin: The University of Texas Press and TheCenter for Mexican American Studies, 1989. 232pp., figures, maps, tables. $20.95 (cloth), $10.95(paper). ISBN 0-292-75115-X, ISBN 0-292-75116-8.

RAMON GUERRASouthern Methodist University

This book contains chapters by experts on issues rangingfrom demography to economics. It focuses on the economicrelationship of Mexico and Central America to the UnitedStates.

The paper by Alba is informative, concise and interesting.He provides numerous tables to assist in understanding thewealth of statistics concerning the current trends in theMexican demographic situation. The social scientist not fullyfamiliar with Mexican migration will be surprised to learn thatMexico is itself a destination for immigrants from CentralAmerica.

The article by Dfaz Briquets provides a country-by-countryexamination of Central America focusing on the birth andmortality rates and economic progress. This issue will be ofparticular importance to the United States as Central Ameri-can migration increases. As Diaz Briquets points out, migra-tion to the United States is determined only partly by politicaland social tensions (p.35). The demographic pressure can-not be ignored.

The chapter by Bean, Frisbie, Lowell and Telles is anexcellent discussion of the Hispanic (principally Mexicanorigin) population in the Southwest United States. Especiallyinteresting was their discussion of the American public per-ception of Mexican immigration. They touch upon variousexplanations for the misconception of the size of the undocu-mented population.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 is perhapsthe most important change in United States immigrationpolicy in recent times. Keely provides an excellent descriptionof this important legislative act. He notes that it will have aprofound influence on the demographic and economic futureof the American Southwest.

The essay by Weintraub, although overlapping at timeswith other chapters, concentrates on how Mexican demo-graphic developments impact upon the United States. It is athoughtful paper which explores the labor market, socialservices and even political aspirations.

Several important facts are revealed by this book. First, theUnited States is not being swamped by a flood of immigrantsfrom Mexico. Most undocumented workers are here tempo-rarily. Second, the lowered Mexican birthrate will have animpact on both the economies of Mexico and the UnitedStates. Third, Central Americans are becoming more evidentas a permanent labor force in the United States. Fourth, dueto the nature of Mexican immigration it does not create a

burden on the social services offered in the United States.Last, the American Southwest continues to be the mostimportant destination for legal and illegal Mexican immi-grants.

Even with the occasional overlapping that occurs betweenpapers, each essay is in itself important in the study of Mexicoand its relationship to the United States. I would readilyrecommend this book for a course on Mexican or LatinAmerican studies.

Knowing People: A Mexican-American Community'sConcept of a Person. DORITA SEWELL. New York:AMS Press, 1989. 300 pp. $54.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-404-19453-2.

BARBARA BUTLERIndependent Researcher

Anglo-Californians place all Americans with Mexican an-cestors in a racially-defined category with all Mexicans. Ex-pectations about character and behavior result from thatracial classification, according to Dorita SewelPs book Know-ing People: A Mexican-American Community's Concept of aPerson. This is not true for Mexican-Americans living inLakeland, a California town near Sacramento, where Mexi-can-Americans make up about one-fifth of the population.According to Sewell, ideas about race play a very minor rolein shaping expectations about character and behavior as wellas in shaping the resultant assignment of worth to persons byMexican-American Lakelanders. Participation or non-partici-pation in a locally defined "decent way of life" and the recipro-cal exchange of "respect" is far more important. On the otherhand, light skin color is highly prized and dark skin is consid-ered ugly. Anglos are placed higher on a general hierarchy ofethnic groups, and Mexican-Americans, like other peoplesdarker than Anglos, "suffer" more. The varying formation andapplication of racial models is but one of the findings thatSewell presents which challenges stereotypes. The book isan empirical study of what a particular social field of Mexican-Americans think about persons, how they "sort, classify andevaluate people and decide what to do with them."

Knowing People is not an attempt to test current theoryabout Mexican-Americans or humans in general. The bookuses only the basic anthropological theory that cultures vary.It assumes that through careful empirical investigation, de-scription and analysis we can discover some of those varia-tions, particularly if we give greater weight to what people saythan to our own interpretations of what behavior means.

The result is a thorough explication of the salient items inMexican-American models of the ideal and real life of personsin Lakeland, California at an unspecified time. (I would guessthe research was done in the late 1970s.) The failure toprovide a date is puzzling. Nonetheless, a convincing case ispresented for studying the domain of "the person" as a keypart of the culture and social structure, and for using natural-istic methods of recording verbal communication and ob-served behavior in such study. The resulting understandingof Lakeland Mexican-Americans and of the broader Americanculture in all its variations is rewarding. Unfortunately thewriting, while clear, lacks the dramatic focus and intensity thatwould attract a wider audience to the book.