The author argues that in the mainstream study of ethnic American politics, the Mexican community cannot be considered anymore a monolithic group, whose political behavior is one and the same all over the United States. Mexican communities living in the United States have different origins in Mexico, and they go through different experiences of political mobilization, organization, and incorporation through their daily lives in American cities. The initiatives of the local Catholic Church to mobilize the community, the relations of the local church with the local government, and the use of religious symbols with political purposes, are the main components that make the difference.

This report is part of a major research project that seeks to explain, from an organizational standpoint, the causes and mechanisms that have led to different types and levels of political mobilization of Mexican immigrant communities in Houston and Chicago. How and why is political mobilization of Mexican immigrants different in Chicago and Houston? To address this question, the report assesses the role of both local and transnational structures in the process of migrant political mobilization.

In this brief piece, I would like to discuss some interesting aspects of Samuel P. Huntington’s article, “The Hispanic Challenge” (Foreign Policy, March/April 2004). I will focus mostly on the Mexican side of the story, with the aim to highlight confusing statements that any serious scholar can rarely afford to make, without expecting a strong reaction from his American peers, particularly, the Latino ones.