"Some of us have been here for three hundred years, some for three days." This comment, often repeated by Mexican Americans, affirms their status as one of America's oldest ethnic groups, as well as one of its newest and fastest growing. Not surprisingly, many observers (including some Mexican Americans) are concerned about the impact of the burgeoning number of Mexican immigrants on our society - anxieties exacerbated by leaders whose demands for bilingual schools and ballots challenge the goal of assimilation.

Acknowledgments -- PART ONE: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW: Primacy of politics -- San Antonio: getting ahead and getting even -- Los Angeles: moving in, out, and up -- Paradoxical political outcomes -- PART TWO: FOUR STYLES OF MEXICAN-AMERICAN POLITICS: Friends-and-neighbors politics and the need for organization -- Obstacles to organizational politics -- Elite-network politics: the clique and its challengers -- Protest politics: symbolism and symbiosis -- PART THREE: The state of Mexican-American opinion -- Assimilation and its discontents -- Newcomers in a new nation.