Building on the author's thirty-six years of experience with North Town,
this second edition of Learning Capitalist Culture presents an updated
ethnographic study of the small, economically depressed, predominantly
Mexican American south Texas town. Like many communities in the
Southwest, North Town has undergone significant cultural and political
change since the late 1960s, when the Chicano civil rights movement
emerged and challenged the segregated racial order. The resulting racial
confrontation between Mexicanos and Anglos created new tensions and
problems for North Town youth.
Douglas E. Foley examines the way in which these youth learn traditional
American values through participation in sports, membership in formal
and informal social groups, dating, and interactions with teachers in
the classroom. Foley shows how the rituals involved in these activities
tend to preserve or reproduce class and gender inequalities, even as
Mexicanos transform the racial order. This edition contains updated
sections on theory and field methods, as well as an epilogue that
revisits many of the characters in the original ethnographic research.