Assessing Whether Racial/Ethnic Prejudice and Generalized Racism are Responsible for Negative Attitudes towards Undocumented Immigrants

• In Event: 366 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session II
  In Refereed Roundtable: B. Table 06. Race II

Abstract

This paper analyzes why some people have more positive opinions about undocumented immigrants as a group while others have more negative opinions based on testing competing theories. Specifically, I seek to examine whether racial/ethnic prejudice is at least partially responsible for the negative opinions held by the American public, net of other explanations such as economic or cultural threat. In order to assess this question I use data from the ANES’s 2012 time-series study to assess the extent to which negative opinions about Hispanics are responsible for negative opinions about undocumented immigrants, net of other factors that are known to also contribute to opinions about immigrants. I find support for the hypothesis that racial/ethnic prejudice is in part responsible for negative opinions about undocumented immigrants and the relationship varies by race of the respondent. Because the relationship between attitudes towards Hispanics and attitudes towards undocumented immigrants in only attenuated when I include a measure of attitudes towards Blacks, I find further support for a generalized racism present in attitudes towards undocumented immigrants by the American public.

Author

• Alanna Gillis, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill