“He’s Talking about Us”: Latina/o Reactions to Anti-Immigrant Campaign Messages

• In Event: Politicizing the Immigrant Experience

Abstract

[Note: Since this paper will have a lot of content directly relevant to the conference theme and, specific to the REP section call, the role of anti-black and anti-Latino racism, I thought it might be productive to have a longer 30-min discussion about these issues. However, I would rather have it included on a regular panel than not at all and would be very happy in either role.]

Prior research on voter reactions to racialized and racist campaign messages has typically focused on differences in the effects of subtle (implicit) and more overt (explicit) anti-black appeals, especially among racially resentful whites, with less attention paid to their effects among targeted group members (i.e., blacks). While recent research has examined the racial priming effects of implicit and explicit (IE) anti-Latina/o messages, these studies are again limited to investigations of whites. Indeed, racial priming scholars have yet to extend the IE framework to Latina/os, despite these voters’ growing political influence and salience as the frequent targets of political appeals and attacks in the modern era.

How do implicit and explicit anti-Latina/o immigration-based political appeals affect Latina/os’ willingness to support candidates who use them? Within party subgroups, are treatment effects among Latina/os meaningfully different than among whites? Does the IE model, positing a significant priming effect on inegalitarian beliefs only in response to an implicit appeal (with no priming effect after exposure to an explicit appeal), apply to Latina/os as it once did to whites? Or do Latina/os respond to anti-Latina/o (illegal) immigration appeals more like whites do to anti-black appeals today, which research shows produce identical effects whether they are implicit or explicit?

The current paper will report results from three experiments conducted on national samples of Latina/os and whites, with results showing that Latina/os consistently reject a Republican candidate who uses racist anti-Latino immigration appeals, and more often reject him when the racist content of these appeals is made explicit by the media. Whites, by contrast, are less likely to reject the candidate whether or not the racist content of the appeal is made explicit or remains subtle and implied. Much of these differences appear driven by party, and not race, with Latina/o and white Republicans, Latina/o and white independents, and Latina/o and white Democrats exhibiting similar levels of support.

In addition, although most Latina/os and whites agree that ads like the one tested make them feel like the entire Republican Party doesn’t want Latina/os in this country, which is increasing with the explicitness of the racist content in the ad, Latina/os are always significantly more likely than whites to express this view. Content analysis of open-ended responses indicates Latina/os are more likely than whites to perceive subtle cues in the ad as racist attacks against immigrants and the Latina/o community, differences driven, in part, by differences in ethno-racial identity strength. Future analyses will take an intersectional approach and investigate effects of the racial appeals by race, party and gender on the expectation that women, more than men, will recognize and reject the racist ad content.

Going further, I also test whether racial resentment, anti-Hispanic bias, and/or egalitarian commitments are primed by the ads, finding both Latina/os’ and whites’ egalitarian commitments are similarly activated when exposed to the anti-Latino immigration appeal about which the racist content is made explicit by the media. By contrast, exposure to the anti-Latino immigration appeal about which the media does not comment leads whites (and only whites) to miss or ignore the racist content of the ad, while activating the power of egalitarian commitments among Latina/os (and only Latina/os). Results for racial resentment and anti-Hispanic bias indicate different patterns among Latina/os and whites that depend on the particular content of the ad.

In the current era, Latina/os—significantly more so than whites—recognize racist content in anti-Latina/o political appeals and condition their support on this recognition. While other recent work on the effects of racialized campaign appeals argues that norms of racial equality are weakening or have crumbled, rendering the IE model obsolete, this paper suggests that commitments to such norms vary both across ethno-racial identity groups and the nature of racialized campaign communication. The ethno-racial differences reported here help to explain recent voting patterns of both Latina/os and whites, further flesh out the IE model and its theoretical scope conditions, and serve as to demonstrate how Latina/os’ greater adherence to egalitarian commitments has the potential to help remediate American democracy and the widespread abandonment of these norms among whites.

Author

• Ali A. Valenzuela, American University