This article discusses how married Mexican American women are redefining their roles and conjugal relationships. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework, the author held in-depth interviews with 75 Mexican American couples in Austin and Corpus Christi, Texas, and conducted participant observation of many others. The data indicate that contrary to previous reports, married women are not passive, but have actually taken the lead in role making. The working-class women studied were seeking separate identities from their husbands, something the business/professional women had already attained. The women experienced strain from the changes in their lives, and faced discrimination based on both their gender and ethnicity. The author calls for recognition of the diversity among families in minority groups, of the resistance to change minority-group women face by being "twice a minority," and of the need to examine organizational structures not only from management's perspective, but also from that of the social groups involved.
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