Between 1940 and 1970, as Mexico entered a new stage of U.S. influenced modernization, the Mexican middle class experienced unprecedented expansion, mirroring so me of the most important paradoxes of the Mexican political and economic regime. This essay suggests that as the middle class expanded, it faced unprecedented influence from United States' consumerism and modernization, while struggling to preserve family, religious and nationalist values. At the time, despite revolutionary and nationalist polítical rhetoric, the Mexican state also became closer to the Uníted States than ever before, as renewed bilateral political and economic links were strengthened. While the post-revolutionary governments claimed the direct heritage of the Mexican revolution, their modernization policies of urban-industrial development and the expansion of trade and public services in Mexico City reflected the fact that the Mexican state privileged urban upper -and middle- class improvement above that of working-class and peasant groups.