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It's a good point. Contempt for education was common among Mexicans that I grew up with in Southern Arizona. Whether it came from their parents or the general culture, I don't know. To this day, crude caricatures of educated people (thick glasses, buck teeth, disheveled appearance) are shown on Mexican television channels in the U.S. (and you don't want to get me started about what I think of that crap taking up spectrum in the U.S.).

It's not 100%. I knew seriously smart Mexican guys in Engineering school, and they were not necessarily from the white Mexican upper class (although most were).

But even they had the defensive edge on them - they had to act out to prove their manhood to some extent or else be called names for being good students ("vendido", or sellout...meaning sellout to whitey).