Spanish-language soap operas, known also as telenovelas, assist Mexican American girls in maintaining family ties across borders while helping them define their own U.S. identities, says Vicki Mayer, American studies scholar at UC Davis.

"Many Mexican Americans use their favorite soap operas also as a means of exchanging information with their family members living in Mexico," says Mayer, author of the forthcoming book "Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth: Mexican Americans and Mass Media" and a visiting assistant professor at UC Davis.

After studying Mexican Americans in San Antonio for four years, Mayer reveals in her book the perspectives of those who produce and consume mass media -- including music, television and newspapers.

Mexican viewers see the programs earlier than American viewers, so American teens keep in touch with their Mexican relatives to find out what is in store for favorite soap opera characters. In exchange, the girls inform their southern relatives on the latest Hollywood media, Mayer says.

Simultaneously, Mexican American girls use telenovelas as a way to relate as U.S. citizens to a country and a culture that they sometimes have never been exposed to firsthand, Mayer says.

"Many Latinas identify themselves with the traditional protagonist's struggle, as they confront the battle of not being accepted by either their American or Mexican peers," Mayer says.

For example, girls often relate the classism and racism that they face in the United States to the exclusion that poorer or more indigenous Mexican characters faced in the telenovelas, Mayer says.