Mexican Americans constitute one of the largest minority groups in the US, and the topic of their inclusion into all dimensions of the American society has been looked at many times. In 2008 Telles and Ortiz published a comparative study carried out in 1965 and in 2000 on Mexican Americans in Los Angeles (California) and San Antonio (Texas), assessing the evolution of their assimilation throughout several generations. In this presentation, I suggest we look at patterns of stereotyping, and the role that the development of the Chicano identity from the 1960s onwards had in the perpetuation of such patterns.

This presentation describes the mechanisms of exclusion around stereotyping as a discursive strategy of oppression and effects on self-esteem in the context of the Mexican American population in the United States and the development of Chicano identity. This work is based on a review of key theoretical concepts within post-colonial theory and an exploratory narrative review on Chicano history and identity in the United States from the 1960s onwards as well as existing research on stereotyping of Mexican American school students. Using a post-colonial theoretical framework, it shows that stereotyping as a result of exacerbated ethnic boundaries has an impact on the educational achievements of young Mexican Americans, which has an impact on their socioeconomic status and levels of integration into the mainstream American society.