Based on an ethnographic study of Austin and San Antonio, Texas, this paper deals with the settlement process by which "indocumentados" (undocumented Mexican workers) and their families integrate themselves into U.S. society and its labor market and the multiple strategies they use to sustain themselves socially and economically. The study shows that considerable separation and insularity characterize the settlement process. Undocumented workers maintain a certain social distance even from the Mexican-Americans in the community. This both indicates some containment of their labor market mobility and suggests that national origin per se is not the sole dimension of ethnicity determining how workers fare in the U.S. occupational structure. Undocumented workers do not attain status through occupational mobility, but rather by financial accumulation. Their prospects for mobility in the U.S. occupational structure are largely intergenerational; few undocumented workers themselves escape the exploitation of low-skilled, low-paying jobs. (CMG)