New Racial Groups, but the Same Old Prejudice: Understanding White Americans' Opposition to Immigration

• In Event: 242 - Section on International Migration Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Immigration and Discrimination

Abstract

Scholars largely agree that cultural concerns drive White Americans’ opposition to immigration, but debate continues over whether anti-immigration attitudes are primarily based on negative views of specific immigrant groups, generalized anti-Latino affect, or broader prejudice. Previous studies have struggled to adjudicate between these arguments because they use antiquated racial attitude measures that were not designed with immigration-based groups like Latinos and Asians in mind. Using an original survey experiment with updated racial attitude measures (N=948), I find that Americans do differentiate between immigrant and native-born members of different racial groups in terms of their levels of prejudice, for example expressing more positive attitudes about Black immigrants relative to Blacks, but more negative attitudes about Latino immigrants and Latinos relative to U.S.-born Latinos. However, this differentiation does not clearly translate to their immigration policy preferences. Prejudiced Americans are strongly opposed to immigration, regardless of whether they are asked about non-White immigrant groups or U.S.-born Blacks. The results demonstrate that broad racial prejudice—and not any particular concerns about Latinos, Latino immigrants, or all immigrants—motivates anti-immigration attitudes. They also highlight the importance of adapting traditional survey measures of racial attitudes to account for immigration-driven diversity in the United States today.

Author

• Ariela Schachter, Stanford University