Cultural adaptation and demographic change: evidence from Mexican-American naming patterns after the California Gold Rush

Abstract

ABSTRACTAccording to new assimilation theory, assimilation can entail not only the adoption, by immigrants, of the established population's cultural practices, but also the adoption, by the established population, of immigrants' cultural practices. However, empirical research on assimilation has either neglected adaptation on the part of the established population or identified only modest changes. We examine reactions to a massive and rapid inflow of immigrants, and specifically, those of Mexican-origin Californios around the time of the Gold Rush of 1849. Treating naming patterns as indicators of assimilation, we find that Mexican American children born in California after 1849 were significantly less likely to receive distinctively Hispanic first names. As a placebo test, we further show that a similar pattern does not obtain in areas (e.g. New Mexico) that did not experience a rapid inflow of new American settlers. The findings validate an important insight of new assimilation theory, as well as shed new light on contemporary research on demographic change.KEYWORDS: Assimilationdemographic changenatural experimentcultural practice Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 From the perspective of California Native people, the Gold Rush brought a ‘true reign of terror,’ killing, by one estimate, 100,000 Native people in 25 years (Dunbar-Ortiz Citation2014, 129).2 A parallel strategy is employed to identify the population of Neuvo Mexicanos.3 Unfortunately, we are not able to classify individuals in cases where both parents are not present in the household at the time of census enumeration, because full data on parental birthplace is unavailable. These individuals are therefore excluded from our analyses.4 We define the Hispanic population based on parental birthplace. Specifically, individuals are coded as Hispanic if both parents are born in Mexico, Spain, Latin America or California/New Mexico before 1848. As before, individuals of mixed parentage are dropped, as are individuals for whom we do not have full parental information. The remaining sample is coded as non-Hispanic.5 And specifically, in the remaining, non-Hispanic population in the California, New Mexico, and flat samples.6 Following standard practice, we drop from our calculations ‘rare’ names that occur than 10 times in the 20% sample.7 Statham (Citation2021)'s study of ‘imported assimilation’ amongst Thai-Western couples provides a contemporary example of how power asymmetries can drive the direction of cultural assimilation as Thai women shift their tastes, identities and lifestyle to accommodate their Western partners. See also Statham (Citation2020).8 Again, from the perspective of Californios.