Research on social categories has become one of the more active lines of research on organizations. Much of this research presumes the pre-existence of at least the “seed” of the category and then proceeds to study and explain how the category developed and became institutionalized. By contrast, this study joins several recent others in attempting to identify and explain why a previously non-existent social category emerged in the first place. Empirically, we examine the emergence of the Tex-Mex social category for food and cuisine. In studying Tex-Mex food, we present a brief analytical social history of the cuisine starting in Old Mexico and continuing up to contemporary times. We juxtapose the social facts that we report with prevailing theoretical ideas (social-activist theorization and similarity clustering) about category emergence drawn from organization theory. While insightful, we find current theoretical accounts to be incomplete in explaining why Tex-Mex emerged. By contrast, our analysis directs attention to the status dynamics of ethnic majority/minority populations, early inexpensive mass industrialization of the food and certain geographic factors. Casual comparisons to other ethnic food categories appear to support the speculative argument we advance.

社会类别研究已成为组织研究中较为活跃的领域之一。大部分研究假设该类别至少存在“种子”，然后继续研究并解释该类别如何发展并制度化。相比之下，这项研究与其他最近的研究一样，试图确定和解释为什么首先出现以前不存在的社会类别。从经验上讲，我们研究了食品和美食的德克萨斯-墨西哥社交类别的出现。在研究德州墨西哥美食时，我们简要介绍了从旧墨西哥开始一直延续到当代的美食社会历史。我们将报告的社会事实与从组织理论得出的关于类别出现的主流理论思想（社会活动家理论和相似性聚类）并列。尽管有见识，但我们发现当前的理论解释还不能完全解释为什么Tex-Mex出现。相比之下，我们的分析将注意力集中在少数族裔/少数群体的地位动态，食品的早期廉价大规模工业化以及某些地理因素上。与其他民族食品类别的随意比较似乎支持我们提出的投机论点。早期廉价的食品大规模工业化和某些地理因素。与其他民族食品类别的随意比较似乎支持我们提出的投机论点。早期廉价的食品大规模工业化和某些地理因素。与其他民族食品类别的随意比较似乎支持我们提出的投机论点。