The Wages of Latinidad: Immigration Enforcement & Anti-Black Assimilation

• In Event: Politics of Assimilation and Acculturation

Abstract

Prior research finds historic immigrant groups adopt anti-Black attitudes as they assimilate in the United States (Goldenberg & Saxe, 1995). Are contemporary Latinx immigrants along with their acculturated co-ethnics following in their footsteps? We theorize the increasingly restrictive contemporary immigration enforcement environment in addition to the societal integration of a large undocumented population generates rebuff against Anglo white norms as Latinxs acculturate to the host society. Across two nationally representative surveys of Latinxs, we demonstrate the threat of immigration enforcement forestalls the adoption of anti-Black Anglo white political standards and increases their attitudinal proximity on attitudes related to Black political interests with Black Americans. Conversely, Latinxs unthreatened by immigration enforcement increasingly adopt Anglo white attitudinal standards on anti-Black beliefs and support for Black political interests. These findings demonstrate contemporary Latinx co-ethnics may not necessarily adopt anti-Black beliefs, but may do so if they are effectively incorporated in the national polity.

Authors

• Crystal Robertson, University of California, Los Angeles

• Marcel Roman, University of Texas, Austin