Immigration-Induced Diversity And its Effects on Civic Engagement and Social Trust

• In Event: 129 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Latino/a Sociology Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Latino Social Movements and Civic Engagement

Abstract

Demographic research has established that industrialized, developed nations are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse because of increased global migration. As such, it is critical that we understand how democratic nation-states, such as the United States, are re-imagining social membership and citizenship in a world where immigration is increasingly salient and populations are becoming more cosmopolitan and heterogeneous (Carens 1987; Putnam 2007). Social trust and civic engagement provide the necessary “lubricants” for society to achieve individual and collective goals (Costa and Kahn 2003; Portes and Vickstrom 2011) and capture the values and behaviors that are necessary for a healthy democracy and community (Putnam 2000, 2007; Verba and Nie 1987). Although recent empirical literature finds that immigration-induced diversity undermines social trust and engagement in civil society (Alesina and Ferrara 2000), it is still relatively unclear why this is the case and whether this association is consistent across different social contexts. Using two recent waves (2000-2008) of the Los Angeles and Neighborhood Survey (L.A. FANS), this article intervenes in the immigration and social trust literature by examining the extent that social connections and neighborhood experience mediate the impact of neighborhood diversity on the civic engagement and social trust of individuals. I argue that diversity, independent of as well as a result of immigration, must be contextualized in space and examined over time in order to understand the connections between demographic change and engagement in civil society.

Author

• William Estuardo Rosales, University of California-Los Angeles