Early in 1993, Vilma Ortiz, who was associate director of the Chicano Studies Center, received a call. It was the UCLA Library wondering what to do with original material from a 1970 UCLA study of Mexican Americans found while clearing Powell Library for seismic renovation.

Ortiz, a sociology professor, quickly realized the value of the find. The Mexican-American Study Project, headed by Leo Grebler, emeritus professor in the business school, was the first comprehensive study of Mexicans in the United States, and the resulting publication, "The Mexican-American People: The Nation's Second Largest Minority," became a classic text. The treasures the Library had uncovered included the original survey questionnaire and the names and addresses of all the subjects in the study, people living at the time in Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas.

"To have information like this - it was a goldmine," said sociology Professor Edward Telles, co-investigator with Ortiz on the new study to follow. "It was an excellent study for the time. They used state-of-the-art methods to get a random sample of this population, and they asked great questions."

So the two set out to find and re-interview the original respondents, as well as their adult children, to see whether socioeconomic situations, ethnic identification and family and gender attitudes have changed over the years. Most of the research funds have come from the National Institute of Child and Human Development. The Ford Foundation, which gave Grebler $650,000 to do the original study, and others also have supported their research.

It's been no small undertaking. Ortiz, Telles and graduate students have painstakingly tracked down some 750 people from Los Angeles - more than 75% of the original L.A. participants - and are still searching for as many of the 600 surveyed in San Antonio as possible.

"Not everyone thought it was possible," said Ortiz, whose team began by making calls, visiting county offices and scouring records. Thanks to new technologies and the Internet, the task of finding all the original people, excluding those 50 and older in 1965, when the survey was originally conducted, required a lot less footwork.

Collecting data from the same individuals at two points in time is valuable to show continuity and change, said the researchers, who aren't aware of another study spanning this time frame, especially one that is intergenerational and of a recent minority group.

"This study will speak to a lot of questions about what happens to immigrant groups over a long period of time. How exactly does assimilation happen? How do they go from immigrant to ethnic group?" asked Ortiz. "This gives us some insights."

"Looking at these people over 30 years gives us information about the long-term integration of Mexicans in the United States," added Telles. "It helps us understand the particular kinds of issues that confront this group."

"There's a lot of diversity in where people are today," revealed Ortiz from preliminary findings. Publication of the study may still be a couple of years away. "There are lots of success stories, and some not so successful. Some people have strong identification with their heritage, and some less. That's one of the punch lines of the study."