The Acquisition of Partisanship by Latinos and Asian Americans
Abstract
In this paper we examine the acquisition of partisanship by immigrants and subsequent generations of Latinos and Asian Americans. The data we analyze are derived from a survey of California residents in late 1984. We find that the longer Latino immigrants have been in the United States, the more likely they are to identify as Democrats and to have strong party preferences. We find age-related gains in both Democratic support and in the strength of partisanship among subsequent generations of Latinos as well. In line with our hypotheses about their foreign policy concerns, the data also suggest that immigrants from China, Korea, and Southeast Asia become more Republican with increased exposure to American politics. Other Asian immigrants and subsequent generations of Asian Americans exhibit no such trends in either the direction of their party preferences or in partisan intensity.
Additional Information
© 1991 by the University of Texas Press. Manuscript submitted 31 August 1989. Final manuscript received 27 July 1990. This project was funded by a grant from the Seaver Institute. We thank Bob Brischetto, Arnita Shastri, and Chris Gallant for their assistance in carrying out the research. We would also like to thank Paul Abramson, David Brownstone, Chris Garcia, Rudy de la Garza, and anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this article. One response to the lack of contemporaneous survey data from earlier periods is to analyze the reports of respondents in the National Election Studies (NES), which began in 1952, about their partisan affiliations in the past. On the basis of such reports, Andersen (1979) surmised that the urban ethnic core of the New Deal coalition was largely the product of the mobilization of secondgeneration citizens. As Andersen herself points out, however, the unreliability of people's memories dictates that reports about past partisanship be regarded with considerable caution.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 64579
- DOI
- 10.2307/2111368
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160218-135024096
- Seaver Institute
- Created
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2016-02-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field