Gilbert describes his talk as follows:
"Recently the New York Times, the Washington Post and NPR have carried stories on the desperate state of the Mexican middle class. Some observers seem to doubt that Mexico has a middle class at all in the wake of the economic crisis of the late-1990s. I have been studying middle-class Mexican families since 1999, exploring the effects of the crisis on these families and their economic survival strategies." The talk will be illustrated with slides.