Generational Status and Mexican
American Political Participation:The
Benefits and Limitations of Assimilation
Political Research Quarterly
64(1) 172­–184
© 2011 University of Utah
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1065912909346738
http://prq.sagepub.com
Wayne A. Santoro1 and Gary M. Segura2
Abstract
The authors investigate self-reported voter turnout and ethnic political activity across four-plus generations of Mexican
Americans. Using a 1999 national survey, multivariate results indicate that the likelihood of Mexican American voting
increases largely in a monotonic manner across generations while participation in ethnic political activity begins to
decline after having one parent born in the United States. These results raise the question of whether disadvantaged
ethnic populations necessarily benefit politically from assimilating given that gains in voting that accrue across
generations are accompanied by declines in ethnic political activity among later generations.
Keywords
Mexican American, political participation, generation, assimilation
Immigrants and their descendents have an interest in participating politically in the United States because such
activity helps them influence governments to address
their needs (Dahl 1961; Lieberson 1980; Portes and
Rumbaut 1996). Yet, few studies have examined how participation varies across generations beyond the second.
Early work on mainly white ethnic voting was focused
on party and policy preferences rather than turnout and
joining political causes (Dahl 1961; Wilson and Banfield
1964; Wolfinger 1965). Likewise, political participation
theories are not designed to explain changes across generation, and assimilation theories are seldom applied to
political incorporation. In light of this lacuna, we put
forth an approach to explain political participation by
Mexican Americans across four-plus generations. We
focus on Mexican Americans because they are the largest
immigrant population in the United States, making up
30 percent of the foreign-born population in 2005, and
because they have greater generational depth than any
other Latino or Asian American population. Another
advantage of studying Mexican Americans is that their
political incorporation experiences may closely mirror
those of turn-of-the-century immigrants (Portes and
Rumbaut 1996), in part because Mexicans have been
present in both immigration waves.
Understanding the link between generation and political
participation among Mexican Americans necessitates
distinguishing between two types of political acts. The first
is voting. Voting is the most frequent form of political
activity for all Americans regardless of race or ethnicity.
We believe voting will increase generally in a linear
manner across generation, flattening as it reaches its ceiling. This expectation is grounded in the resource model
and classic assimilation theory. The second type of political participation is involvement in ethnic political acts.
Ethnic political acts are inspired specifically by concerns
with advancing ethnic political causes, such as boycotting produce to support farm workers or campaigning for
a political candidate because the candidate is of Mexican
origin. Drawing upon diverse theoretical traditions, we
think that generational status will be linked to ethnic
political acts in a curvilinear manner: greater among the
second or third generation than the first but declining
among distant generations. Together, these predications
view assimilation processes as both strengthening and
weakening the political position of Mexican Americans
in that gains in voting that accrue across generations
should be accompanied by declines in ethnic political
activity among later generations.
We seek to make both theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of racial and ethnic politics. In light
1
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
2
Corresponding Author:
Gary M. Segura, Stanford University, Department of Political Science,
616 Serra St., Encina Hall 100 West, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
173
Santoro and Segura
of the criticism that the racial/ethnic politics’ field lacks
broad theories, the theoretical framework we advance
weaves together diverse and at times competing perspectives into a cohesive framework. We selectively
incorporate aspects of classic and segmented assimilation
theories, early work on white ethnic politics, resource
and group-consciousness approaches, and sociological
theories of protest participation. None of these approaches
alone can account for all of the issues we address. Empirically, in contrast to the common assumption that ethnic
political incorporation is enhanced necessarily for later
generations, we are in the unique position to assess this
claim across two key expressions of ethnic power. Given
our focus on Mexican Americans, we recognize that
smaller Latino and Asian American populations may
follow divergent paths. Our work is not meant to obscure
these alternative generational patterns. Rather, we believe
our findings will sensitize researchers to explore how
participation may vary for smaller populations that have
uncommon assimilation experiences across the criteria
we highlight.
Voting and Ethnic Political Activity
We begin by clarifying the conceptual differences
between voting and ethnic political acts. Voting and
ethnic political activity are neither polar opposites nor
mutually exclusive. Rather, both are separated only in the
degree to which they can be characterized by the following three dimensions. First, ethnic political activity is
more likely than voting to be directed specifically and
exclusively toward improving the status of the ethnic
population. In other words, ethnic political activity is
inherently group-centered while voting is only sometimes
group-centered. Ethnic political activity, for instance,
would include involvement in Mexican American political organizations, attending a demonstration on a Mexican
American specific cause, and working for a Mexican
American political candidate. All of these actions have
helped Mexican Americans exert their political preferences into policy-making decisions (García and Arce
1988; Hero 1992; Santoro 1999). This is not to say that
voting is devoid of ethnic dimensions. Voting can at times
represent an ethnic political act, most clearly seen with
Mexican American support for La Raza Unida Party in
the early 1970s. Moreover, de la Garza and DeSipio
(1997) found that nearly three-quarters of Mexican
Americans prefer to vote for a Mexican American rather
than a non-Hispanic white (henceforth white) candidate,
suggesting that many recognize the political benefits of
having a coethnic in power. But voting is not exclusively
directed toward the betterment of ethnic causes, as is
evident by the support of about one-quarter of Latinos in
California for anti-immigrant and anti–affirmative action
initiatives (Pantoja and Segura 2003).
Second, ethnic identity and social ties to an ethnic
community play a stronger role in mobilizing Mexican
Americans for ethnic political activity than for voting. It
is difficult to mobilize the Mexican-origin community
toward ethnic political goals without knowledge of, concern with, and an ability to draw upon Mexican culture
(Padilla 1986; Ferriss and Sandoval 1997; Pardo 1998;
Wong 2006). The Brown Berets, for instance, did this
explicitly when they required that prospective recruits
pass a written and oral exam on Chicano/Mexican history
(Marin 1991). Likewise, César Chávez went to great
lengths to infuse Mexican culture in his efforts to recruit
mainly first-generation Mexican farm workers (Ferriss
and Sandoval 1997). For instance, he drew upon Mexican revolutionary heroes such as Emiliano Zapata during
protest meetings, and he infused Mexican Catholic traditions into the movement, such as conceptualizing the
famous Delano to Sacramento march as a perigrinación
(pilgrimage) and having protesters march behind portraits of the Virgin of Guadalupe. More recently, Padilla’s
(1986) study of Mexican and Puerto Rican mobilization
in Chicago, Pardo’s (1998) work on Chicana activism in
Los Angeles, and Wong’s (2006) research on Mexican
immigrant mobilization in New York and Los Angeles
underscore the importance of ethnic social networks,
ethnic identities and cultural traditions, and ethnically
based organizations in promoting political action. Certainly, ethnic identity can facilitate voter mobilization as
well. For instance, about one-quarter of Mexican Americans report that they would be more likely to vote when a
coethnic runs for office (de la Garza and DeSipio 1997).
But given that it is not inherently an ethnic act, we are not
surprised that studies that have assessed the impact of
ethnic consciousness on voting among Mexican Americans typically uncover little connection (García and Arce
1988; Leighley and Vedlitz 1999; Shaw, de la Garza, and
Lee 2000).
Third, engaging in ethnic political acts is more risky
than voting. The political causes engaged in by Mexican
Americans are almost always unpopular among whites
and have been resisted, at times with force and violence,
by opponents, law enforcement, and the U.S. government.1 Among the more well-known historical examples
would be white growers’ spraying picketing farm workers in California with pesticides, FBI surveillance of the
Crusade for Justice in Denver, police bombings of the
headquarters of the Alianza movement in northern New
Mexico, and unwarranted police arrests of the leader of
the Brown Berets in Los Angeles (Ferriss and Sandoval
1997; Rosales 1997; Marin 1991). In the 1980s and
1990s, the mobilization of Chicanos in California for
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
174
Political Research Quarterly 64(1)
affirmative action and bilingual education programs,
demonstrations in opposition to English-only laws and
anti-immigrant proposals, and strikes by janitors in
downtown Los Angeles have demonstrated the outspoken backlash of whites to Chicano political claims (Muñoz
1989; Gómez-Quiñones 1990; Rosales 1997; Santoro
1999). As recently as 2007, the Los Angeles police department admitted fault when officers dispersed a largely
peaceful immigrant rights protest, firing nearly 150 nonlethal munitions into the crowd and beating peaceful
protesters and media members with batons, causing 246
injuries. This is not to say that voting is risk free. In the
mid-1990s, one candidate for the California State Assembly stationed armed guards dressed to look like sheriff’s
deputies in polling places in hopes of driving down Latino
turnout. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund reports in 2004 that police officers were
stationed at polling stations in at least three Mexican American neighborhoods in San Antonio and voters were warned
that they would go to jail if they had an outstanding warrant
(Perales, Figueroa, and Rivas 2006). Nonetheless, when
we compare the many risks associated with ethnic mobilization to the far more regularized process of voting, the
latter on average is the less risky undertaking.
Generational Status and
Political Participation
Voting. Research on the political participation of
Latinos is relatively recent and decidedly tilted toward
the explanation of voter turnout. Voting studies typically examine nativity (foreign-born vs. U.S.-born) and
only occasionally generation (García and Arce 1988). We
think that generational status will have a linear impact on
voting across the first three or four generations because
aspects of assimilation that facilitate voting tend to
increase in the aggregate across the first three or four
generations. Of course, voting propensity cannot increase
indefinitely. We base our linear prediction across generations until a voting “ceiling” is reached, which in the
United States seems to be somewhere around a 70 to
80 percent self-report voting rate. After this ceiling is
reached, we expect the trend in voting rates will flatten
for later generations but, as we shall see, not decline.
Three findings from studies on turnout and the
assimilation experiences of Mexican Americans support
this expectation. First, resources and civic orientations
enhance voting among Mexican Americans (García and
Arce 1988; Verba et al. 1993; Lien 1994; DeSipio 1996;
de la Garza and DeSipio 1997; García 1997; Leighley
and Vedlitz 1999; Shaw, de la Garza, and Lee 2000).
Resources and related civic orientations pertinent to
voting, in turn, tend to increase in the aggregate across
generations. Across the first three generations of Mexican
Americans, for instance, there appears to be an increase
in education, occupational status, per capita income, home
ownership, and organizational involvement (Neidert and
Farley 1985; Keefe and Padilla 1987; García and Arce
1988; Jensen and Chitose 1994; but see Livingston and
Kahn 2002). Associated with this resource acquisition,
there is also a corresponding increase in psychological
orientations toward voting (Cain, Kiewiet, and Uhlander
1991; Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Jones-Correa 1998).
Second, Mexican Americans who are Spanish-­
language dominant have lower levels of politicization
than English-language-dominant individuals (Uhlaner,
Cain, and Kiewiet 1989; DeSipio 1996; Tam Cho 1999).
Verba et al. (1993), for instance, documented that Englishlanguage skills among Latino citizens were positively
associated with an index of political actions, such as
making campaign contributions, contacting government
officials, and membership in a voluntary organization
that took a stand on a political issue. In light of these findings, generational status should have a positive effect on
voting because English-language dominance among
Mexican Americans increases quickly across the first
three generations (Keefe and Padilla 1987; Portes and
Rumbaut 1996).
Third, immigrants tend to vote less often and are less
politically active in general than second-generation
co­ethnics (García and de la Garza 1985; DeSipio 1996;
Portes and Rumbaut 1996; García 1997; Jones-Correa
1998; Leighley and Vedlitz 1999; Tam Cho 1999).2 In
part this may be due to the reluctance of political parties
to target immigrant communities for mobilization campaigns (Wong 2006). Additionally, Mexican immigrants
tend to have fewer resources and less English proficiency
than their offspring, and they may have cultural traits that
hamper voting such as lack of familiarity with the U.S.
political system, the belief in someday returning to the
homeland, or a legacy of disheartening political experiences in the country of origin. Lien (1994), for example,
found that Mexican Americans who send money back to
Mexico, keep in touch with family and friends in Mexico,
and have considered going back to Mexico—cultural
factors strongly associated with immigrant status—were
less likely to be politically active than respondents without such ethnic ties. While these studies leave unclear the
experiences of generations beyond the second, it does
support the belief of an initial positive relationship
between voting and generation.
Our perspective that the link between generation and
voting is principally driven by resource acquisition
and related civic orientations draws upon two theoretical
traditions: the resource model and classic assimilation
theory. The central claim of the resource or socioeconomic
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
175
Santoro and Segura
status model is that resources like education, income,
organizational involvement, and language skills facilitate political participation (Verba et al. 1993; Brady,
Verba, and Schlozman 1995; Wolfinger and Rosenstone
1980). Resources mobilize because they heighten political information and interest, personal and political
efficacy, organization and communication skills, exposure to political recruitment and political messages, and a
sense of civic duty. Building upon Gordon (1964), classic
or “new” assimilation theory sees assimilation occurring
across generations in a roughly linear manner (Gans
1992; Barkan 1995; Alba and Nee 1997). Generation is
associated with the adoption of U.S. cultural practices
(acculturation), such as English-language usage, political
interest, and political information. More distant generations are also thought to structurally assimilate into a
middle-class existence, such as living in nonethnic white
neighborhoods, increasing rates of racial/ethnic intermarriage, and having middle-class incomes. While virtually
ignored in assimilation research, presumably this acculturation and structural assimilation includes electoral
participation as well.
Ethnic political activity. There is surprisingly little
research on ethnic political activity that is more than
descriptive (but see García 1997), and no studies to our
knowledge have examined its link to generational status.
For our expected curvilinear relationship to hold true,
the second or third generation should participate more in
ethnic political actions than the first generation. This
scenario seems plausible in two regards. First, some
degree of resources is needed to engage in almost any
political action, including political activity other than
voting. As reviewed above, second- and third-generation
Mexican Americans do indeed have higher incomes,
levels of education, occupational prestige, and organizational involvement than foreign-born coethnics. These
types of resources, in turn, make Latino participation in
ethnic political activities more likely (García 1997).
Relatedly, second- and third-generation Latinos tend to
have higher levels of political efficacy, political information, and interest in U.S. politics than the first generation
(Cain, Kiewiet, and Uhlander 1991; Portes and Rumbaut
1996; Jones-Correa 1998; but see Pantoja and Segura
2003), and such factors should enhance ethnic political
activity.
Second, greater exposure to U.S. society can increase
ethnic awareness and support for ethnic institutions and
behaviors (Portes 1984; Portes and Bach 1985; Portes
and Rumbaut 1996; Umaña-Taylor and Fine 2006). One
way to conceptualize ethnic awareness is to measure
experiences with racism given that encounters with
discrimination enhance ethnic awareness (Dahl 1961;
Lieberson 1980; Portes 1984). Among mainly Mexican
Americans in California, Cain, Kiewiet, and Uhlander
(1991) found that second- and third-generation indi­
viduals reported more discrimination experiences than
immigrants (see also Portes and Bach 1985; de la Garza
et al. 1992).3 These findings suggest that ethnicity among
some immigrants may be a less salient aspect of identity
until exposed to white hostility and therefore cannot
serve as a basis of ethnic-based mobilization. Experiences with discrimination, in turn, enhance directly and
indirectly Mexican American political participation (Lien
1994). Moreover, most second- and third-generation
Mexican Americans still have strong social ties to other
Mexican Americans (Keefe and Padilla 1987). Given
the importance of ethnic social ties and a politicized
ethnic identity in the mobilization of ethnically based
political activity (Dahl 1961; Wolfinger 1965; Padilla
1986; Marin 1991; Pardo 1998), it follows that secondand perhaps third-generation individuals will be more
likely to participate in ethnic political activity than firstgeneration individuals.
The role we assign to ethnic social ties and a politicized ethnic identity to explain ethnic political activity
across the first two or three generations is grounded in a
number of traditions. It is consistent with early work
on white ethnic politics, which recognized the role that
ethnicity played in partisan preferences (Dahl 1961),
especially work by Wolfinger (1965), who noted that
ethnic political participation could increase across
generations. It also draws upon segmented assimilation
theory, a perspective rooted in trying to explain the
adaptation patterns of Latino and Asian immigrants who
came to the United States in large numbers since the midsixties (Portes 1984; Portes and Zhou 1993; Portes and
Rumbaut 1996). Like the model we propose, segmented
assimilation theory argues that a politicized ethnic identity may be enhanced for the second generation and, thus,
correspond to greater involvement in ethnic centered
behavior, rather than being gradually eroded across succeeding generations. Highlighting ethnic identity and
ethnic social ties is also grounded in contemporary sociological perspectives on social movement participation
(McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996; Benford and Snow
2000; Polletta and Jasper 2001). This body of work sees
recruitment into activism on behalf of group-centered
goals as occurring via social networks of people who
share common identities and grievances as well as the
necessary resources for protest mobilization. Related to
this work is the group consciousness approach which
notes that a politicized identity can heighten political
participation for resource-poor minorities (Miller et al.
1981; Uhlaner, Cain, and Kiewiet 1989; Lien 1994).
A curvilinear pattern assumes that—unlike voting—at
some point generations beyond the second or third must
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
176
Political Research Quarterly 64(1)
exhibit declining probabilities of ethnic political participation.4 We think it will because ties to an ethnic
population and culture at the group level tend to diminish, albeit unevenly and incompletely, among distant
generations (Dahl 1961; Gordon 1964; Alba and Chamlin
1983; Keefe and Padilla 1987). Keefe and Padilla (1987),
for example, observed sharp declines in Mexican cultural
awareness across four generations in Southern California. Individuals with low cultural awareness knew little
of Mexican culture or the Spanish language, and they
were more likely to have grown up with whites and to
currently have white friends and neighbors. Compared to
earlier generations, moreover, fourth-generation individuals were less likely to prefer being with others of
Mexican decent, had less pride in being of Mexican heritage, and were less likely to perceive discrimination
against Mexicans in the United States. Likewise, García
and Arce (1988) found that a sense of ethnic community,
such as the willingness to support coethnic businesses and
to pressure employers to hire people of Mexican descent,
declined in salience across distant generations of Mexican
Americans (see also Cain, Kiewiet, and Uhlander 1991;
Perez and Padilla 2000; Umaña-Taylor and Fine 2006).
Given the importance of these factors to participation in
ethnic causes, people more generationally distant from
Mexico should be less likely to engage in ethnic political
activity because their ties to an ethnic culture and community are likely too tenuous.
Our belief for the decline in ethnic political activity
for distant generations is grounded in classic assimilation theory, which sees the inevitable loss of ethnic
cultural practices. It is also in line with Dahl’s (1961)
research on ethnic politics in New Haven. Dahl argued
that mainly white ethnic populations like Italians and the
Irish moved through a three-stage political-assimilation
model that predicted the long-run decline in the political
salience of ethnicity. Indeed, Gimpel and Tam Cho (2004)
analyzed recent voting patterns in New England states
and found that while ethnicity had not disappeared in
relevance, it was less associated with partisanship than it
had been in the past.
Data
Data come from the 1999 National Survey of Latinos
conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Washington Post, and the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard. The survey is a nationally representative sample
of self-identified Latinos who were interviewed by telephone in their choice of English or Spanish. We confine
our analysis to Mexican Americans for three reasons.
First, Mexican Americans are the largest immigrant
population in the United States and have considerable
generational depth. Second and relatedly, because
Mexicans are the largest of the Latino subpopulations in
the United States (making up 60 percent of all Latinos),
the survey we use contains a large enough sample of
Mexican Americans to make possible statistical tests
across multiple generations. In contrast, the next two
largest subsamples (Puerto Ricans and Cubans) are nearly
three times smaller, leaving only 15 Puerto Rican and 3
Cuban respondents (compared to 112 Mexicans) in the
highest generational category we use. Finally, and most
important, we do not combine the various Latino nationalorigin populations given important heterogeneity of
Latinos across national-origin groups. Principally, the
inclusion of Cubans—who are legally political refugees
who enjoy a somewhat more welcoming immigration
regime—and Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens by
birth, would fundamentally alter the political dynamics
we wish to observe.
In the models predicting voting, we limit our inquiry
to U.S. citizens because only citizens are eligible to vote.
Because our goal is to compare the predictors of voting to
ethnic political activity, we also exclude noncitizens from
the ethnic political activity model so that the sample
remains constant. The drawback to this approach is
that noncitizen Mexicans can and do engage in political
activity. Because of this, we show an additional model
predicting ethnic political activity that includes noncitizens. Our final sample size is 433 for models excluding
noncitizens and 743 for models including noncitizens.
Dependent Variables
We measured voting by coding respondents who reported
having voted in the 1996 general election as 1, coding
them as 0 otherwise. Self-reported vote is customarily a
problematic estimate of participation. Because of this, the
survey employed a prompt as part of the question that
Belli et al. (1999) have demonstrated serves to reduce
overreporting.5 In our sample, fully 46 percent of citizen
respondents admitted not voting, raising our confidence
in the accuracy of the measure. While a 54 percent selfreported vote is undoubtedly inflated, it is not as far off as
we might otherwise expect. Actual Latino turnout among
citizens is estimated between 44 and 48 percent for 1992
(DeSipio 1996) and 1996, suggesting an overreporting
rate of between 6 to 10 percentage points.
We measured ethnic political activity with an index of
the respondent’s self-reported involvement in three political activities: working for a Latino candidate or cause,
attending a demonstration or public meeting on Latino
concerns, and/or contributing to a Latino organization or
campaign. This variable ranges from 0 to 3, with a 3 indicating participation in all three ethnic political activities
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
177
Santoro and Segura
queried. Many respondents engaged in at least one activity, with more than 33 percent of all respondents and
more than 40 percent of citizens scoring 1 or greater.
Overall, however, levels of ethnic political activity are
low. The mean of ethnic political acts is only 0.50 in the
full sample and 0.63 in the citizen-only sample. It is
important to note that these reports of nonelectoral political action, too, may suffer from an overreporting bias, but
we suspect it is much smaller since they do not command
the social desirability that accompanies voter turnout.
Independent Variables
Generation represents the number of generations the
respondent or his or her family have been in the States.
Immigrants were coded 1, those in the first U.S.-born
generation were coded 2, respondents with one immigrant parent and one U.S.-born parent were coded
2.5 (this level of distinction is not possible beyond the
second generation), respondents whose parents were
both U.S.-born but not their grandparents were coded 3,
and all others were coded 4 (since the survey does not
permit distinctions beyond this point).6 A distinguishing
feature of this data set is that we can separate the third
from the fourth-plus generation. This level of precision
is unique. Because theories of assimilation rest on observations made by comparing generations, it is essential to
investigate as many generations as possible. We include
a generation-squared term and retain it in models where
it reached statistical significance. An alternative to the
quadratic approach is to use dummy variables for each
generation. To foreshadow our findings, replacing this
continuous variable and its square with a series of
dummy variables has no effect on the results and their
interpretation.
What exactly does generation capture? While it serves
as a proxy for a whole host of cross-time assimilative
effects, we think its relevance to political participation
stems from its association with two basic factors. First,
generation is related to the acquisition of a wide variety
of resources beyond those we can measure, such as occupational standing, home ownership, and organizational
membership. Relatedly, it is associated with the politically relevant job skills, exposure to political stimuli,
political knowledge and interest, and personal and political efficacy that those resources enhance. Second,
generation is associated with ethnic identity and ties to an
ethnic community, such as awareness of Mexican culture,
preferences for being with others of Mexican decent,
social ties to whites, rates of intermarriage, geographic
desegregation, and pride in being of Mexican heritage.7
We include four measures of ethnic identity and culture. Maintain culture measures the degree to which
respondents believe immigrants should attempt to maintain their ethnic identity and culture. Responses were
coded 0 (not at all important), 1 (not too important), 2
(somewhat important), and 3 (very important). Perceive
discrimination measures whether respondents believe
they, a family member, or a close friend recently experienced discrimination because of their ethnicity in the
United States and is a dichotomy (1 = yes; 0 = no).
Spanish usage captures the respondent’s use of Spanish
during the interview. Responses were coded 0 (only
English), 1 (more English than Spanish), 2 (both equally),
3 (more Spanish than English), and 4 (only Spanish).
Spanish usage can be thought of as a behavioral measure
of ethnic identity or as a measure of ethnic culture.
Latinos cooperating measures the respondent’s perception of whether Latinos are currently working together to
achieve collective goals and is a dichotomy (1 = yes; 0 =
no). This measure is less than ideal given its pan-ethnic
orientation but is included as it draws upon Dawson’s
(1994) claim that a sense of linked fate acts as a strategic
resource for minority mobilization. Last, all models
control for income, education, age, gender, and the selfreported level of political interest.
Analysis and Results
We used these eleven indicators in separate models for
the two dependent variables. We employ a logit estimation technique for the voting model because the dependent
variable is dichotomous. The results are reported in
Table 1. We employ ordered logit for the ethnic political
activity models given the measures limited number of
discrete possible values.8 These results are reported in
Table 2. For both dependent variables, the first column
under each model represents parameter estimates and
standard errors, while the second column (labeled DPr
[Y = 1], Min to Max) reports changes in predicted probabilities given a minimum to maximum change in each
predictor, holding all others constant at their means.
Voting. Model 1 of Table 1 predicts the likelihood of
self-reported voting. It accurately predicts 79.7 percent of
the cases and the proportional reduction of error (using
Tau-c) is a healthy .556. Model 1 shows that generation
appears positively associated with participation, though it
fails to reach the conventional level of significance. The
generation-squared term, however, is clearly not significant, meaning that the increase in self-reported turnout
across generations does not appear to be followed by
a subsequent decrease. Since the direct measure of generational status and its square are so highly correlated
and preliminary results suggest a linear relationship, we
replicated the analysis from model 1, this time dropping
the squared term and reestimating the equation assuming
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
178
Political Research Quarterly 64(1)
Table 1. Logit Estimations of the Effects of Generation and Select Variables on Self-Reported Voting
Model 1: Voting
Coefficient (SE)
Model 2: Voting
DPr(Y = 1), min to max
Coefficient (SE)
DPr(Y = 1), min to max
Generation
.975 (.697)
.604
.372*** (.127)
.263
Generation
Generation-squared
–.116 (.132)
–.407
—
—
Ethnic identity and culture
Maintain culture
.099 (.189)
.073
.089 (.188)
.065
Perceive discrimination
.101 (.259)
.025
.118 (.258)
.029
Latinos cooperating
–.037 (.261)
–.009
–.020 (.260)
–.005
Spanish usage
–.184** (.094)
–.180
–.202** (.091)
–.198
Socioeconomic status
.319**** (.081)
.420
.310**** (.080)
.410
Income
Education
.415**** (.093)
.538
.430*** (.092)
.553
Political interest
.469*** (.167)
.334
.454*** (.166)
.324
Political interest
Demographics
Age
.091**** (.013)
.762
.091**** (.012)
.761
Gender (female = 1)
.357 (.257)
.086
.345 (.256)
.083
Constant
–7.468**** (1.224)
–6.777**** (0.922)
Log-likelihood
–194.347
–194.738
Chi-squared
208.41****
207.62****
% correctly predicted
79.7
79.7
Proportional reduction
.556
.556
of error (Tau-c)
N
433
433
**p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .01. ****p ≤ .001.
a linear relationship. The results are reported in model 2.
The two equations for voting are virtually identical in all
other respects. Here, the significance of generation is
clear and unambiguous: within the first four-plus generations of living in the United States, the probability of
reporting electoral participation goes up with each succeeding generation, ceteris paribus.
A graphic representation of this effect is depicted in
Figure 1. Figure 1 reports distributions of predicted probabilities for each dependent variable by generation. The
figure is a box-plot that illustrates both the median predicted probability and the interquartile range associated
with a “yes” response to having voted in the 1996 national
election. Figure 1 shows that the predicted probability of
self-reported vote grows linearly across the first three
values for the generation variable and flattens after reaching roughly an 80 percent voting turnout rate as we
anticipated it must. While these percentages are inflated
by overreporting, we think this increase in the propensity
to vote means that across generations, Mexican Americans are more likely to be assimilated along politically
relevant dimensions.
Regarding our measures of ethnic identity/culture,
a preference for cultural maintenance, perceptions of
Latino cooperation, and an awareness of discrimination
against Mexican Americans are all unrelated to voting.
Moreover, the use of Spanish lowers the probability of
self-reported turnout by about 18 percent. Consistent
with previous work, we think these findings underscore
our claim that voting does not draw upon ethnic culture as a mobilization device and thus is not heightened
by markers of ethnic identity. However, we acknowledge that the presence of a Mexican American running
for office or the presence of an anti-Latino ballot initiative may convert voting for some into an act of ethnic
expression.
Ethnic political activity. The results for ethnic political
activity are reported in models 3 and 4 in Table 2. Model
3 uses the same sample as the previous models, while
model 4 includes noncitizens. We focus our attention on
model 3 because it has the same sample as the previous
voting models. Importantly, the results from model 4 do
not substantively differ from model 3. Our expectation
regarding generational status and ethnic political activity
is confirmed. The direct effect of generation is initially
positive, but curvilinear in nature, declining for higher
values of generation. A graphic representation of this
effect also is depicted in Figure 1. For ethnic political
activity, the points represent the summed probabilities
that the total actions were one, two, or three. Figure 1
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
179
Santoro and Segura
Table 2. Ordered Logit Estimates of the Effects of Generation and Select Variables on Engaging in Ethnic Political Activity
Model 3: Ethnic political activity (citizens)
Coefficient (SE)
DPr(Y = 1), min to max
Model 4: Ethnic political activity (all respondents)
Coefficient (SE)
DPr(Y = 1), min to max
Generation
1.155** (0.542)
.693
1.517**** (0.476)
Generation
Generation-squared
–0.211** (0.102)
–.609
–0.271*** (0.092)
Ethnic identity and culture
Maintain culture
0.404*** (0.154)
.253
0.332*** (0.122)
Perceive discrimination
0.492** (0.202)
.118
0.549**** (0.162)
Latinos cooperating
0.375* (0.204)
.089
0.332** (0.168)
Spanish usage
0.133* (0.075)
.129
0.135** (0.062)
Socioeconomic status
0.008 (0.060)
.011
0.042 (0.052)
Income
Education
0.192*** (0.072)
.270
0.213**** (0.055)
Political interest
Political interest
0.678**** (0.138)
.437
0.575**** (0.103)
Demographics
Age
0.010 (0.008)
.137
0.012* (0.007)
Gender (female = 1)
–0.015 (0.201)
–.004
–0.186 (0.162)
Ancillary parameters
Cut 1
5.433 (0.939)
5.691 (0.743)
Cut 2
6.713 (0.960)
7.046 (0.762)
Cut 3
8.223 (0.992)
8.668 (0.793)
Log-likelihood
–427.601
–641.129
Chi-squared
72.22****
124.24****
N
433
743
.808
–.525
.185
.120
.071
.116
.056
.284
.354
.156
–.040
*p ≤ .075. **p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .01. ****p ≤ .001.
Figure 1. Predicted probabilities of self-reported vote and
ethnic political activity (≥1) by generation
Box-plots display the interquartile range of the predicted probabilities,
with the lines representing the median response.
shows the median probability that the respondent engaged
in any ethnic political action, as well as the interquartile
range. Figure 1 reveals that probability of at least some
ethnic political activity increases across roughly the
first three generations but then decreases subsequently.
Mexican Americans who are fourth generation or higher
are less likely to participate in ethnically centered
political activities than those from the second generation.
If we take the first derivative of the quadratic curve
as estimated, we find the actual peak (where the slope of
the first derivative DY/DX = 0) at approximately 2.74,
suggesting that once we move past one parent being
U.S.-born, the effect of increasing generations is to
decrease participation in ethnic politics. (In model 4,
the peak value of generation shifts slightly to 2.80.)
We suspect that the drop-off in participation in ethnic
political activity among later generations (especially
the fourth-plus) takes place because such individuals
have on average a weaker ethnic identity, greater separation from ethnic social networks, fewer affiliations with
ethnic-based organizations, and less exposure to targeted
mobilization efforts.
Figure 1 makes clear two other observations. First, for
every value of generation, the predicted rate of voting
exceeds that of any amount of ethnic political activity.
This finding is consistent with the expectation that the act
of voting is more likely than more risky forms of participation. Second, the gap between participation in elections
and ethnic political activity widens for later generations.
For instance, among the second generation, there is less
than a 7 percent gap between voting and engaging in any
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
180
Political Research Quarterly 64(1)
form of ethnic political activity. But by the fourth-plus
generation, the gap has widened to about 28 percent.
These observed differences in participation in voting and
political activity that is ethnically centered demonstrate,
we think, precisely the trade-off we envisioned at the start
of this inquiry.
Consistent with our belief that participation in ethnic
causes mobilizes around ethnic culture and identity,
model 3 shows that all four measures of ethnic identity/
culture are significant and in the predicted direction.
Moving from the least to greatest degree of Spanish-­
language usage raises the probability of engaging in some
form of ethnic political action by about 13 percent. Moreover, a preference for cultural maintenance, perceptions
of Latino cooperation, and awareness of anti-Mexican
discrimination are each associated with a stronger likelihood of participation in ethnic-specific political activities.
These measures significantly raise the probability of joining an ethnic political action, from about 9 percent for the
perception of Latino cooperation to more than 25 percent
for the desire to maintain cultural identity. These relationships tend to strengthen with the inclusion of noncitizens
into the analysis (model 4), though the sizes of the effects
are occasionally slightly more modest.
Alternative modeling strategy. An alternative approach
to the use of a quadratic term to distinguish patterns in
voting from ethnic political activity would be to substitute generation dummy variables for both the generation
and generation-squared measures, with the first generation (foreign-born) serving as the reference category.
Doing so has no effect on the substantive nature of our
findings. Specifically, there is a generalized increase in
predicted probabilities for voting across generation
(meaning the coefficient for each successive generation
is larger and significantly different from the baseline),
leveling out only in the last generation as we anticipated
it must since voting levels cannot logically increase forever. Meanwhile, ethnic activity peaks and then declines
significantly in the last generation, meaning that the coefficients on generation dummies increase, but for the
fourth-plus generation declines dramatically and is no
longer significantly different from the baseline. (Figures
showing predicted probabilities and values using this
dummy variable approach are available at http://prq
.sagepub.com/supplemental/.)
Discussion and Conclusion
One perspective of how immigrant populations are politically incorporated views the United States as open to
those who have the desire, skills, and resources to enter it.
Acquiring these traits is thus largely a question of adopting mainstream cultural practices and beliefs as well as
assimilating into majority group society. Well known to
classic assimilation theory and advocated for years by
pro-assimilation organizations like the League of United
Latin American Citizens, this linear approach can be
tested by examining the impact of generational status on
turnout since generation serves as a proxy for a whole
host of cross-time assimilative effects. With the sufficient
passage of generations, the turnout propensities of the
descendents of immigrants should become indistinguishable from whites. At least for voting, this indeed seems to
be the case. We find that the likelihood of voting among
Mexican American citizens increases monotonically
from the first generation until it hits a voting ceiling by
the third generation and then subsequently flattens out at
a high turnout rate.
Yet, voting need not be the best path to political inclusion. Mexican American political influence has been
expressed at times through mobilization around clearly
ethnic causes, most recently seen with the massive 2006
“Day without Immigrants” protest events. In contrast
to voting, generational status has a curvilinear effect on
participation in ethnic-specific political activity: once we
move past one parent being U.S.-born, the effect of
increasing generations is to decrease participation in
ethnic political activity. Our explanation of this second
pattern rests on the belief that participating in ethnic political acts relies on having a politicized ethnic identity and
being socially connected to other Mexican Americans.
Indeed, across such diverse measures as Spanish-language
usage, experiences with discrimination, and the importance placed on maintaining one’s ethnic culture, we find
that ethnic identity and culture consistently serve as a
mobilization device for ethnic political activity.
Our results raise important questions about the net
political effect of assimilation for largely immigrant and
disadvantaged populations. Assimilation certainly offers
benefits. This is most clearly seen with the increase in
voting across generations. Mexican American voting can
play a decisive role in determining who is elected to local
or state office, can make white politicians more responsive to Mexican American concerns, and can increase
Mexican American political representation—individuals
who tend to be strong advocates of legislation beneficial
to the Mexican American community. Our models also
show strong potential for future Mexican American
mobilization around ethnic causes given that demographers observe that most Mexican Americans under
eighteen currently are either second or third generation.
But assimilation also presents limitations. This is evident
with the decline in ethnic political participation among
distant generations. Moreover, the purported benefits of
voting can be questioned. For instance, individuals with
the highest voting rate are also individuals who most
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
181
Santoro and Segura
likely are least identified and connected to the Mexican
American community, suggesting that their voting choices
may more closely mirror those of whites than coethnics.
Similarly, given that Mexican Americans make up less
than 7 percent of the national electorate in 2008 makes
one question voting as a mechanism to bring about meaningful social change. When comparing the strengths and
limitations of assimilation, we cannot say for sure what
the net effect of this political trade-off is. Perhaps that
evaluation depends on the specific aspect of politics
or policy one chooses to study. What we can say is that
the belief that assimilation always serves the goal of
enhancing the political influence of an ethnic group is
deeply problematic.
It is interesting to note that our argument concerning
the eventual decay in a politicized identity among Mexican Americans does not seem to characterize African
Americans. Why this difference? We think the answer
lies in the fact that the structural bases of a politicized
identity remain for African Americans across generations
but partly erode across generations for Mexican Americans. We see a politicized identity as driven largely by the
related processes of rejection from majority group society and social ties to a coethnic/racial community.
Barriers between whites and African Americans remain
persistent and rigid, but they diminish and become more
porous for later generations of Mexican Americans. For
instance, not only is residential segregation from whites
substantially lower for Latinos than for blacks, but levels
of segregation further diminish across generations for
Mexican Americans (Alba and Nee 1997; Charles 2003).
Similarly, white intermarriage rates are much higher for
Mexican Americans than African Americans, and intermarriage rates substantially increase across the first three
generations of Latinos (Fu 2001; Stevens, McKillip, and
Ishizawa 2006). These processes of integration with
whites residentially and by marriage suggest one reason
for the erosion of a politicized identity among Mexican
Americans of distant generations. It is difficult, in other
words, to maintain a racial/ethnic identity for individuals
who are severed physically and socially from their racial
or ethnic population. An alternative possibility is that the
unique historical experiences of African Americans as
slaves rather than immigrants, whose arrival on these
shores resulted from the commercial calculations of
whites accompanied by brute force, serve as a transhistorical cementing of African American identity to a
degree not realized by voluntary immigrant groups no
matter how marginalized. Either way, it is clear that our
observed process of erosion among Mexican Americans
is not comparable to the black experience.
It is important to extend the current line of research to
other populations. We agree with segmented assimilation
theory that no one generational pattern of voting or ethnic
political activity will likely characterize all immigrant
populations. This is because of the enormous differences
in the background characteristics of immigrants, their different contexts of reception, and the various possibilities
of return migration. For instance, we would not expect
the pattern that we uncover for ethnic political acts to
characterize contemporary white immigrants and their
descendants, the largest numbers of whom come from
Canada and Germany, given that these populations do not
experience the structural reasons for ethnic identity maintenance. Thus, our theoretical approach is most likely
to be helpful in understanding political assimilation patterns of people from Asia and other Latin American
countries—populations that make up nearly 80 percent of
the total U.S. foreign-born population. We also think
even future generations of Mexican Americans may
experience different paths to political incorporation. For
instance, the contemporary politically hostile climate, as
indicated by the 244 state anti-immigration laws enacted
in 2007 alone (Pew Hispanic Center 2007), seems to be
mobilizing first-generation Mexican Americans in historically unique ways.
Two of our findings, nonetheless, strike us as being
relatively generalizable to the majority of contemporary
immigrant/ethnic populations. First, we think that more
distant generations (third, fourth) will outvote first-­
generation coethnics. Though there is some evidence that
naturalized citizens can turn out in high numbers when
politically threatened, naturalized citizens almost never
outvote U.S. coethnics, and no study to our knowledge
has found that naturalized citizens outvote third- and
fourth-generation coethnics. Second, distant generations
should engage in fewer ethnic political acts than early
generations because ties to an ethnic community and culture seem to inevitably decline for later generations.
That is, while it is well documented that some fourthgeneration individuals can retain a meaningful ethnic
identity, some of their coethnics invariably do not.
Ultimately, then, we think that most descendents of
immigrants will end up voting but less often participate in
political acts that are expressly ethnic.
We have less confidence, however, that comparisons
specifically between first- and second-generation coethnics from other populations will produce the same pattern
we observed. For instance, Cubans seem to illustrate a
case where the first generation (as least pre-Mariel)
engaged in more ethnic political acts than the second generation. This suggests that the degree to which politics
rather than economics drove migration and naturalization
decisions is an important factor motivating decisions to
politically participate. Clearly, much work in this area
needs to be done. The demographic inevitability of the
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
182
Political Research Quarterly 64(1)
United States becoming a majority-minority country
necessitates that the study of ethnic and racial politics
will become increasingly central to political science. In
fact, future generations of scholars may define the study
of Latinos, blacks, and Asian Americans as the core of
political participation research, while research on whites
will be reserved for less prestigious “specialty” journals.
We hope our theoretical framework is useful to studies on
ethnic and racial politics and that our findings provide
a baseline to help identify patterns of incorporation as
well as recognize exceptions. Moreover, our questioning
of whether assimilation into white-dominated society
serves the political interests of disadvantaged ethnic popu­
lations provides, we think, a refreshing alternative to
pluralist conceptions of U.S. politics.
3.
4.
Acknowledgments
We thank María B. Vélez for helpful comments on previous
drafts. We are also grateful to Arlene Santoro and Elizabeth
Segura. The authors thank the Obermann Center for Advanced
Studies at the University of Iowa for a 2003 Interdisciplinary
Summer Research Grant, which supported this research in part.
5.
Authors’ Note
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2004 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago
and the 2005 meetings of the American Sociological Association in Philadelphia. Authors’ names are listed alphabetically.
6.
Declaration of Conflicting Interest
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the
authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: the
Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University of
Iowa.
Notes
1. In some policy domains, the polarization between whites
and Mexican Americans can be quantified. For instance,
roughly 80 to 90 percent of the non-Latino public support
English-only laws, while 80 percent or more of Latinos
have voted against such measures (Santoro 1999). In California, about two-thirds of whites supported Propositions
187 and 209, while more than three-quarters of Latinos voted against such measures (Pantoja and Segura 2003). Similarly, most non-Latinos (51 percent) approve of workplace
raids for undocumented immigrants, but among Latinos,
three-quarters disapprove of such actions (Pew Hispanic
Center 2007).
2. A number of recent pieces have challenged this long-standing
claim, showing higher rates of participation among recently
7.
8.
naturalized immigrants (e.g., Pantoja, Ramirez, and Segura
2001). However, all of this work focuses on California,
where the tense political environment fostered by the
racially targeted Propositions 187, 209, and 227 politicized
Latino immigrants to a degree heretofore unexpected.
Moreover, we do not and cannot yet know whether this signals a long-term change or what if any effect it might have
on the children of these surprisingly politicized foreignborn citizens. These results, then, cannot yet be extended to
other states or other cohorts of naturalized citizens.
In contrast to this long-standing pattern, 2007 survey
data from the Pew Hispanic Center (2007) found roughly
equal levels of self-reported accounts of discrimination
for U.S.-born (42 percent) and foreign-born (40 percent)
Latinos.
Of course, the likelihood of engaging in ethnic political
activity cannot decrease indefinitely, but at what threshold
or generation such a “floor” is reached is difficult to a
priori predict.
Questions regarding voter turnout were prefaced with the
following frame: “In talking to people about elections,
we often find out that a lot of people aren’t able to vote
because they were not registered, or they were sick, or they
just didn’t have time. How about you?”
Excluding noncitizens, 27.5 percent of our sample were
first generation, 25.9 percent were second generation, 13.6
percent were U.S.-born with one immigrant parent and one
nonimmigrant parent (2.5 generation), 7.2 percent were
third generation, and 25.9 percent were fourth generation
or higher. Including noncitizens, the respective percentages
were 57.7 (1), 15.1 (2), 7.9 (2.5), 4.2 (3), and 15.1 (4+).
While studies have found that the “2.5” generation are analytically distinct from either the second or third generation,
we checked to make sure the inclusion of this distinction
did not bias the results. Rerunning the models by recoding
the 2.5 generation into the third generation did not change
the significance or nature of the effect of generation on
either measure of political participation. A related issue to
consider is age at time of immigration, a difference that
might presumably break the foreign-born into two or more
groups. Deciding what ages are appropriate cut points is
problematic and arbitrary, and for this reason, we did not
attempt to break first-generation respondents down further.
Nevertheless, the inclusion of a “1.5” category for respondents who immigrated at an early age (≤ 11 years) had no
appreciable effects on the findings.
Measures of ethnic identity used here vary significantly across
generational values. Moreover, new data from the 2006
Latino National Survey on religious identity, Spanish usage,
intermarriage, and socioeconomic performance all demonstrate
significant generational variation consistent with the argument
we make here. Results available from the corresponding author.
Replicating this analysis using a Poisson model had no meaningful effect on the substantive findings (results not shown).
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
183
Santoro and Segura
References
Alba, Richard D., and Mitchell B. Chamlin. 1983. A preliminary examination of ethnic identification among whites.
American Sociological Review 48:240-47.
Alba, Richard, and Victor Nee. 1997. Rethinking assimilation
theory for a new era of immigration. International Migration Review 31:826-74.
Barkan, Elliott R. 1995. Race, religion, and nationality in American society. Journal of American Ethnic History 14:38-75.
Belli, Robert F., Michael W. Traugott, Margaret Young, and
Katherine A. McGonagle. 1999. Reducing vote overreporting in surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 63:90-108.
Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow. 2000. Framing processes and social movements. Annual Review of Sociology
26:611-39.
Brady, Henry E., Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman.
1995. Beyond SES. American Political Science Review
89:271-94.
Cain, Bruce E., D. Roderick Kiewiet, and Carole J. Uhlander.
1991. The acquisition of partisanship by Latinos and
Asian Americans. American Journal of Political Science
35:390-422.
Charles, Camille Zubrinsky. 2003. The dynamics of racial residential segregation. Annual Review of Sociology 29:167-207.
Dahl, Robert A. 1961. Who governs? New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Dawson, Michael C. 1994. Behind the mule. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
de la Garza, Rodolfo O., and Louis DeSipio. 1997. Save the
baby, change the bathwater, and scrub the tub. In Pursuing power, ed. F. Chris Garcia, 72-126. Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press.
de la Garza, Rodolfo O., Louis DeSipio, F. Chris Garcia, John
A. Garcia, and Angelo Falcon. 1992. Latino voices. Boulder,
CO: Westview.
DeSipio, Louis. 1996. Counting on the Latino vote. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Ferriss, Susan, and Ricardo Sandoval. 1997. The fight in the
fields. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company.
Fu, Vincent Kang. 2001. Racial intermarriage pairings. Demography 38:147-59.
Gans, Herbert J. 1992. Comment. Journal of American Ethnic
History 12:42-52.
García, John A. 1997. Political participation. In Pursuing
power, ed. F. Chris Garcia, 44-71. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
García, John A., and Carlos H. Arce. 1988. Political orien­
tations and behaviors of Chicanos. In Latinos and the
political system, ed. F. Chris Garcia, 125-51. Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
García, John A., and Rodolfo O. de la Garza. 1985. Mobilizing the Mexican immigrant. Western Political Quarterly
38:551-64.
Gimpel, James G., and Wendy K. Tam Cho. 2004. The persistence of white ethnicity in New England politics. Political
Geography 23:987-1008.
Gómez-Quiñones, Juan. 1990. Chicano politics. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press.
Gordon, Milton M. 1964. Assimilation in American life.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Hero, Rodney E. 1992. Latinos and the U.S. political system.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Jensen, Leif, and Yoshimi Chitose. 1994. Today’s second generation. International Migration Review 28:714-35.
Jones-Correa, Michael. 1998. Between two nations. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Keefe, Susan E., and Amado M. Padilla. 1987. Chicano ethnicity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Leighley, Jan E., and Arnold Vedlitz. 1999. Race, ethnicity, and
political participation. Journal of Politics 61:1092-1114.
Lieberson, Stanley. 1980. A piece of the pie. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lien, Pei-Te. 1994. Ethnicity and political participation.
Political Behavior 16:237-64.
Livingston, Gretchen, and Joan R. Kahn. 2002. An American
dream unfulfilled. Social Science Quarterly 83:1003-12.
Marin, Marguerite V. 1991. Social protest in an urban barrio.
Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald. 1996.
Introduction. In Comparative perspectives on social movements, ed. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer
N. Zald, 1-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, Arthur H., Patricia Gurin, Gerald Gurin, and Oksana
Malanchuk. 1981. Group consciousness and political participation. American Journal of Political Science 25:494-511.
Muñoz, Carlos, Jr. 1989. Youth, identity, and power. New York:
Verso.
Neidert, Lisa J., and Reynolds Farley. 1985. Assimilation in the
United States. American Sociological Review 50:840-50.
Padilla, Felix. 1986. Latino ethnic consciousness. Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Pantoja, Adrian D., Ricardo Ramirez, and Gary M. Segura.
2001. Citizens by choice, voters by necessity. Political
Research Quarterly 54:729-50.
Pantoja, Adrian D., and Gary M. Segura. 2003. Fear and
loathing in California. Political Behavior 25:265-86.
Pardo, Mary. 1998. Mexican American women activists.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Perales, Nina, Luis Figueroa, and Criselda G. Rivas. 2006. Voting rights in Texas, 1982-2006. Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, http://maldef.org (accessed
August 29, 2009).
Perez, William, and Amado M. Padilla. 2000. Cultural orientation across three generations of Hispanic adolescents. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 22:390-98.
Pew Hispanic Center. 2007. 2007 National Survey of Latinos.
Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016
184
Political Research Quarterly 64(1)
Polletta, Francesca, and James Jasper. 2001. Collective identity and social movements. Annual Review of Sociology
27:283-305.
Portes, Alejandro. 1984. The rise of ethnicity. American Sociological Review 49:383-97.
Portes, Alejandro, and Robert Bach. 1985. Latin journey. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Portes, Alejandro, and Rubén G. Rumbaut. 1996. Immigrant
America. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Portes, Alejandro, and Min Zhou. 1993. The new second generation. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Sciences 530:74-96.
Rosales, F. Arturo. 1997. Chicano! 2nd ed. Houston, TX: Arte
Público Press.
Santoro, Wayne A. 1999. Conventional politics takes center
stage. Social Forces 77:887-909.
Shaw, Daron, Rodolfo O. de la Garza, and Jongho Lee. 2000.
Examining Latino turnout in 1996. American Journal of
Political Science 44:332-40.
Stevens, Gillian, Mary E. M. McKillip, and Hiromi Ishizawa. 2006.
Intermarriage in the second generation. Migration Information
Source, http://migrationinformation.org (accessed March 6, 2008).
Tam Cho, Wendy K. 1999. Naturalization, socialization, participation. Journal of Politics 61:1140-55.
Uhlaner, Carole J., Bruce E. Cain, and D. Roderick Kiewiet.
1989. Political participation of ethnic minorities in the 1980s.
Political Behavior 11:195-231.
Umaña-Taylor, Adriana J., and Mark A. Fine. 2006. Examining
ethnic identity among Mexican-Origin adolescents living in
the United States. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
26:36-59.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry Brady, and
Norman H. Nie. 1993. Race, ethnicity and political resources.
British Journal of Political Science 23:453-97.
Wilson, James Q., and Edward C. Banfield. 1964. Public-regardingness as a value premise in voting behavior. American
Political Science Review 58:876-87.
Wolfinger, Raymond E. 1965. The development and persistence
of ethnic voting. American Political Science Review 59:896908.
Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Steven J. Rosenstone. 1980. Who
votes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wong, Janelle S. 2006. Democracy’s promise. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Downloaded from prq.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 13, 2016