Christine Marie Sierra

Gender, Race, and Descriptive Representation in the United States: Findings from the Gender and Multicultural Leadership Project

SUMMARY This research draws on the nations first comprehensive database of elected leadership of color to provide a multi-cultural, multi-office, and multi-state look at the contours and context of descriptive representation by race and gender and with women of color at the center of analysis. We find that key to the persistent trend of growth in elective office holding of the nations Black, Latino, and Asian American communities in recent decades is the expanding size of women of color elected officials. Compared to whites, gender gaps in descriptive representation are smaller among nonwhite groups. Although the proportion of nonwhite population may impact the degree of electoral success, we find parity ratios to vary by race, gender, level of office, and state. For example, states that have the highest share of the black population did not produce the highest level of representation of Black women. Finally, we find that gender differences within each race are generally significant, but far greater racial differences are found among men and women of color elected officials–especially at the municipal and school board levels of offices. We conclude that women of color have played a significant role in advancing descriptive political representation of people of color and of women in the United States as a whole.

The Voting Rights Act and the Election of Nonwhite Officials

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) is one of the most important—if not the most important—public policies developed over the last half century to increase access to the U.S. political system for people of color. The VRA also provides an important context for understanding the ascension of nonwhite groups into the elected leadership of the nation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984 ; Davidson and Grofman 1994 ; Menifield 2001 ; McClain and Stewart 2002 ; Segura and Bowler 2005 ; Bositis 2006 ). This essay assesses the present-day significance of the VRA for the political representation of communities of color by examining the implications of majority-minority districts and other key provisions in the VRA for the election of nonwhite officials in the beginning years of the twenty-first century.

Book Review: Counting on the Latino Vote: Latinos as a New ElectorateCounting on the Latino Vote: Latinos as a New Electorate. By DeSipioLouis. Charlottes ville: University of Virginia Press, 1996. Pp.221.

laws and public policy. It has been many years since the Edward Murrow documentary Harvest of Shame shared with the nations conscience the plight of the migrant farmworker. It is sad that after many years, one of the most progressive States in the nation, California, has fallen short in meeting the needs of this population. It is sadder that the boldness of the California experience with the passage of the labor reform legislation has not spread to many of the other agricultural states with large farmworker populations. Efforts in labor reform, union organization, and economic progress outside California have been rather limited. Thus, the plight of the farmworker population, in California and in the nation, continues to be characterized by low wages and impoverished conditions.