Under what conditions do political messages increase or decrease the salience of collective group interests for Latinos of different national origin groups and generations? Extant research has largely overlooked this question, despite advances in our understanding of how anti-immigrant rhetoric and ethnically targeted appeals can shape the extent to which ethnicity affects Latino decisions to register or vote. This question becomes all the more compelling in light of the heterogeneity of Latino groups, in terms of both national origin and also residence in ethnic enclaves, which have divided the Latino social experience and contributed to distinctive social and political differences.
This project engages a range of important questions related to its central, overarching question. Does exposure to explicit and implicit cues within different frames of pro- and-anti immigrant political rhetoric increase or decrease the salience of national origin, pan-ethnic, or American group considerations in Latino vote choice? To what extent does targeted pan-immigrant versus nationality-based political appeals matter in politicizing Latino identity? Moreover, what patterns appear over time? Are framing and cue effects short-lived or do they endure? The researcher argues that the extent to which different groups of Latinos rely upon pan-ethnic group interests may depend on the content and tone of messages in the political environment. Using experimental data in New York City and Los Angeles, the project examines how Latinos across different contexts respond to explicit and implicit cues within immigrant political rhetoric and whether pan-ethnicity, as a collective form of political identity, is relevant or not in political decision-making.
By focusing on the political and psychological forces that incorporate or marginalize Latinos in American politics, this study tests a new conceptual framework on ethnic appeals that takes into account the fluidity and complexity of Latino group identity in the United States. This research also seeks to enrich understanding of when and how political messages in the environment increase or decrease the salience of ethnicity for immigrant-based groups.
The findings from this project will make several broader contributions. The project will shed light on processes of group-based mobilization of Latinos. The insights generated by this project will inform strategies designed to broaden the political participation and political incorporation of Latinos, a growing and largely underrepresented group in American politics.
This research engages with the important question of how exposure to different anti-immigrant political messages shape the voting decisions of Mexican versus non-Mexican Latino groups in the United States. I argue that explanations on the salience of shared ethnicity in Latino voting behavior focus exclusively on the experiences of Mexican Americans, raising the issue of generalizability to other Latino national origin groups. In a laboratory experiment in New York City and Los Angeles, I test the effects of pan-ethnic and nationality-based anti-immigrant political messages on Latino candidate support. Among non-Mexicans in New York City, I find that only pan-ethnic appeals in which Latinos are targeted as a collective group activate Latino group interests in a decision not to support a candidate. Conversely, among Mexicans in Los Angeles, I find that nationality-based appeals in which Mexicans are implicated mobilize Mexican group interests in decreased candidate support. The findings from my research raise an important cautionary note about the salience of identity across different Latino national origin groups in response to anti-immigrant political rhetoric. The category Latino can have very different meanings in one context versus another and can be expressed differently in politics depending upon an individual’s national origin and geography. The results illustrate the conditions under which pan-ethnic and national origin considerations become salient in politics. Pan-ethnic identities may become more accessible in cities where Latinos from multiple national origin groups live in close proximity and share common political experiences. New York City may be exceptional in this regard relative to other Southwestern cities. Its immigrant population is diverse. Unlike Los Angeles where Mexicans dominate, no one group dominates the flow of immigrants (Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, Waters, and Holdaway 2008). While Puerto Ricans constitute 32.9% of New York City’s Hispanic population, their numbers have declined in the past decade. Dominicans, Mexicans, Ecuadorians, and Colombians have transformed the urban landscape. In 2009, Puerto Ricans represented 32.9%, Dominicans 24.9%, Mexicans 13.5%, Ecuadorians 8.9%, and Colombians 4.9% of all New York City Latinos, creating various opportunities for intergroup contact (Latino Data Project, Report 43, 2011). Given that no one group dominates the political arena, non-Mexican groups in this particular context may find pan-ethnic identity meaningful to mobilize upon in the achievement of political power. This does not suggest that Spanish-speaking groups do not pursue courses of action in the interests of their individual national origin groups as Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, or others. I posit that the political context plays an important role in the activation of shared Latino ethnicity in political decision-making. For group-mobilization to occur in among non-Mexicans in New York City, Latinos must perceive what Wendy Brown defines as "shared injury" (Brown 1995, 27-28). In contexts where Latinos are exposed to pan-ethnic anti-immigrant appeals, non-Mexicans with stronger perceptions of shared political linked fate were less likely to support the candidate. That sense of "shared attacked" or "shared injury" motivates them to act on behalf of the collective group. However, pan-ethnic considerations may not be accessible in geographic contexts where a national origin group is sufficient in numbers to mobilize effectively on its own. Historically, Mexican political influence has not depended upon the activation of pan-ethnicity. Mexicans have been incredibly strong in flexing their own political muscles without coalescing with other Latino groups given their exceptional size due to high fertility and immigration rates. This does not suggest that other groups in Los Angeles such as Guatemalans and Salvadorans are politically non-existent within these geographic spaces, but they have not reached a sufficient threshold to make pan-ethnically politically meaningful or salient in Los Angeles. Thus, to understand how a particular message resonates among Latinos or whether it mobilizes or demobilizes collective identity in Latino political decision-making requires a consideration of national origin membership and local context. The ways in identity is activated by anti-immigrant political messages may differ for a 65 year-old Puerto Rican residing in New York City than a recently naturalized Mexican in Los Angeles. Overall, these findings not only suggest that identity activation may work differently for non-Mexican Latino groups than Mexicans, but they challenge the notion of a "one-size fits all" political strategy in Latino mobilization.
