Return to Aztlan analyzes the social process of international migration through an intensive study of four carefully chosen Mexican communities. The book combines historical, anthropological, and survey data to construct a vivid and comprehensive picture of the social dynamics of contemporary Mexican migration to the United States.

Douglas S. Massey is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago. Rafael Alarcón and Humberto González are research investigators in social anthropology at Mexican graduate institution of the Colegio de Jalisco, as is Jorge Durand at the Universidad de Guadelajara.

"Migration is a complex, large-scale process that has generated a significant body of scholarly research on nearly all of its dimensions. Massey, Alarcón, Durand and González have made a major contribution to this literature by offering a fully mature social demographic analysis of the origins and organization of migration from Mexico to California. . . . This book should serve as a model for future studies of migration."—Robert L. Bach, Contemporary Sociology

"A major achievement. . . . Without a doubt, Return to Aztlan will become a central work in U.S. immigration research. Through its multifaceted methodology and exhaustive presentation of qualitative and statistical information, the book clearly succeeds in laying bare the sociological basis of international migration."—Nestor P. Rodríguez, American Journal of Sociology

"This volume will go far toward clarifying the nature of Mexican immigration and how it has changed. . . . The richness of this study warns us of the disadvantages of simplistic analysis. An interdisciplinary study, it demonstrates the poverty of analysis of immigration from only one disciplinary perspective. A multi-level study, it demonstrates the significance of several units of analysis—individual, household and community."—Teresa Sullivan, Science