Louis DeSipio

Latino Mobilization in New Immigrant Destinations: The Anti—H.R. 4437 Protest in Nebraska's Cities

We use the 2006 immigrant-rights protests as a point of departure to test whether political opportunity structures aligned to spur widespread immigrant mobilization in new immigrant destinations. The existing immigrant mobilization scholarship would predict the absence of protest in areas of new migration because of their low levels of immigrant civic infrastructure. Through a detailed study of the immigrant-rights protests and their aftermath in Nebraska, we find that the unifying effect of the anti-immigrant legislation on immigrant-ethnic communities nationally allowed immigrants and their leaders to seize the opportunities presented by shifting local politics, new communications technologies, and the growing migrant civil societies in new destinations to spur widespread, if short-lived, mobilization.

Social Science Literature and the Naturalization Process

This article examines social science research into the socioeconomic and cultural factors associated with immigrants who naturalize. Few of the studies in this review use statistical methodologies and many of the findings are highly impressionistic. Yet, several of the studies find common factors to explain the decision to naturalize. These include: length of residence in the United States, varied potentials for acculturation among different national origin groups, motivation for immigration and formal education and language skills. However, no single study is found that examines all of the variables influencing the naturalization decision.

Immigrant Incorporation in an Era of Weak Civic Institutions Immigrant Civic and Political Participation in the United States

In this article, the author analyzes five domains of immigrant incorporation and participation in the United States—civic and community engagement among immigrants; naturalization patterns; immigrant (and co-ethnic) partisanship and electoral behaviors; the election of naturalized citizens, and their U.S.-born co-ethnics, as elective officeholders; and immigrant transnational efforts to influence the civic or political life of their communities or countries of origin—in an effort to highlight both the opportunities immigrants and naturalized citizens have seized in U.S. politics and the barriers, particularly, institutional barriers, they continue to face. Although the primary analytical focus is immigrants in the United States, the author is attentive to the challenge raised by Irene Bloemraad (2011 [this issue]) in her introductory article to identify opportunities for comparative insights from the Canadian case. As will be evident, the author ultimately identifies more apples and oranges in the comparison of the U.S. and Canadian cases than peas sharing an analytical pod.

Cuban Americans, Latinos, and the Print Media Shaping Ethnic Identities

This article examines how newspapers in forty cities across the United States cover Latinos. Cuban Americans, who make up a small minority of U.S. Latinos, disproportionately shape this coverage. Each of the cities under study is at least 10 percent Latino, and the cities were selected to be representative of the populations of the three largest Latino national-origin groups: Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans.

Immigrant and Native Mexican American Presidential Vote Choice Across Immigrant Generations

The Mexican American electorate includes large numbers of immigrants as well as people of later generations. In this article, we test whether cross-generational acculturation shapes the ways in which Mexican American voters selected between John Kerry and George Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Although change across immigrant generations has long been a critical question in American political behavior, it is only with the current wave of immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren that it is possible to measure the relationship between acculturation and vote choice. With generational replacement, changes in the dynamics of vote choice across immigrant generations could herald long-term changes in the mechanisms of vote choice. We find that generation does shape Mexican American vote choice, both directly—in the simple measure of the generational dummy variables—and in the interaction between generation and partisanship, issue evaluation, religion, and state of residence.

A Return to a National Origin Preference? Mexican Immigration and the Principles Guiding U.S. Immigration Policy

The provocative question raised by Rogers Smiths “Living in a Promiseland? Mexican Immigration and American Obligations” is whether the tortured history of U.S.-Mexican relations and the racialized context of Mexican immigrant reception can best be ameliorated through targeted immigration policies that would create added opportunities for Mexican migrants relative to others. I argue that the current, more universally-principled system of U.S. immigration policy, supplemented by an inclusive legalization program, can better serve the needs of potential Mexican migrants and Mexican immigrants resident in the United States. Also, I am more skeptical than Smith is about the depths of Mexicos commitment to seeking binational strategies to address the needs of its emigres abroad.

Generations of Immigrants: Paths of Immigrant and Immigrant-Descendant Political Engagement Across Generations

The changing demographics of Latino and, to a lesser degree, other immigrant/ethnic communities have encouraged increasing scholarly focus to the question of differential patterns of immigrant incorporation across immigrant generations. This scholarship has been particularly attentive to differences between the first and second generations, in large part because those generations dominate the contemporary “immigrant-stock” population. This scholarship (and the much less quantitative generational scholarship on turn-of-the-twentieth century immigrants) offers important insights into the generational process of immigrant political incorporation. In this paper, I shift the focus a bit and look to an earlier generation, specifically the parents of today’s adult immigrants who spurred the migration of the 1.5 and 2nd generation and, in most cases, accompanied them in their migration. I assess whether parental characteristics shape political participation among adult 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants. Specifically, I assess two dimensions of the potential parental bequest to their children. First, and most straightforwardly, I can look at parental education as a resource for the children of immigrants. Political socialization scholarship would predict that 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants, like the U.S.-born children of “native-stock” Americans, who are the children of more highly educated parents would see higher levels of political engagement. Second, I measure different forms of immigrant status and immigrant status change among the parents of today’s adult 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants. Immigrant status at the time of migration can include migration without a permanent status (either as unauthorized migrants or as migrants with short-term statuses such as student visas or work visas) or entrance as a permanent resident. Immigrant status changes include transitions from temporary status to legal permanent residence and from legal permanent residence to naturalized U.S. citizen.

Do "Latinos" Exist?@@@Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics.@@@Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism.

Tables and Figures Preface Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Theoretical Perspectives and Latino Politics 3. The History and Socioeconomic Status of Latino Groups 4. Political Participation 5. Latinos and the National Government 6. Latinos and State Politics 7. The Elections of Federico Pena 8. Latinos and Urban Politics 9. Latinos and Public Policies 10. The Study of Latino Politics: Questions and Issues 11. Latinos and the Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism Notes References Index