PROSPECTS FOR POLITICAL INCORPORATION AMONG YOUNG MEXICAN AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS

Transcription

1 Young Mexican Immigrants 1 PROSPECTS FOR POLITICAL INCORPORATION AMONG YOUNG MEXICAN AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS Mark Setzler & Nick McRee Abstract The unprecedented growth of the Mexican immigrant population has led some to raise concerns that young arrivals of Mexican heritage may be particularly at risk of civic isolation in the United States. However, comparative analyses of the civic incorporation of recent Mexican immigrants vis-à-vis newcomers from other backgrounds are sparse, and the lack of empirical data for young immigrants in particular is especially troubling, given the salience and durability of political attitudes and behaviors forged during adolescence. To address this issue, we use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to compare young Mexican and non-mexican foreign-born and second generation immigrants, analyzing electoral activism, voting, registration, governmental trust, individualism, and partisanship. Our results reveal young Mexicans to be indistinguishable from other immigrant youth on almost every measure of incorporation, despite significant disparities with respect to socioeconomic resources and social assimilation. Overall, the study suggests that the nation is successfully incorporating most young immigrants including newcomers of Mexican origin into its political community. Although the United States celebrates its immigrant roots in the abstract, large inflows of foreigners from any specific country usually have triggered widespread fears that the newcomers and their children will resist adopting the political values and practices of their new homeland (Foner, 2001; Fuchs, 1990). It is therefore not surprising that the prospects for the civic incorporation of recent arrivals from Mexico are attracting growing attention from both scholars and policymakers (e.g., Barreto & Muñoz, 2003; de la Garza, Falcon, & Garcia, 1996; Huntington, 2004; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). Indeed, the magnitude of today s Mexican American immigrant community has no historical precedent (Huntington, 2004). In 1970, the Mexican immigrant population was under 800,000; by 2000, it was close to 8 million, with Mexicans making up over a quarter of the country s foreign born inhabitants (Camarota, 2001). There can be little doubt that concerns about Mexican immigration are behind the fears of a majority of Americans that immigrants pose a critical threat to US interests (Bouton & Page, 2002:19). Beyond the sheer number of arrivals from Mexico, several distinctive characteristics of this population appear to have encouraged speculation regarding the ability or willingness of Mexican immigrants to integrate into American society. For one thing, the shared border with the United States facilitates enduring connections between Mexican Americans and their communities of origin, leading some researchers to believe that Mexican immigrants may have fewer incentives than other immigrants to fully integrate (de los Angeles Torres & Paral, 2006; Huntington, 2004). Moreover, proximity to the US is largely responsible for the fact that immigrants from Mexico comprise approximately 57 percent of the undocumented immigrant population (Passel, Capps, & Fix, 2004). Critics contend that the illicit circumstances in which over five million Mexicans reside uniquely limit these immigrants ability to fully integrate into the American civic mainstream (Erler, West, & Marini, 2007; Huntington, 2004). Other scholars identify discrimination against individuals of Mexican descent as a potential stumbling block to their civic incorporation (Michelson, 2003; Wenzel, 2006). For example, researchers have found that Mexican Americans are consi-

2 Young Mexican Immigrants 2 derably more likely than Cubans or Puerto Ricans to report having personally experienced discrimination, and to support the broader view that individuals of their national heritage face ongoing discrimination (de la Garza, Garcia, & DeSipio, 1992). Pointing to long-standing patterns of persistent intolerance, researchers speculate that discrimination is leading many Mexicans, especially those of the second generation, to reject mainstream American political life in favor of integrating downward into the oppositional cultures of proximate minorities (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). In spite of the intense political debate that has emerged in response to the latest wave of Mexican immigration, a sober assessment of how and whether these newcomers will join the nation s civic community is complicated by several gaps in the empirical literature. First, while many researchers have indirectly considered immigrant civic incorporation in broader analyses of political participation, only a small number of empirical studies have examined immigrants as a primary unit of analysis (Pachon & DeSipio, 1994; Ramakrishan, 2005). Second, in the few studies that do focus specifically on immigrants from Mexico, researchers mostly have either looked at the population in isolation (Baretto & Muñoz, 2003; Garcia, 1987) or collapsed Mexican respondents into a single category with other Hispanic groups (e.g., Leal, 2002; Ramakrishnan, 2005; Tam Cho, 1999; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995), hampering an examination of whether the incorporation of Mexicans may differ from other immigrants. It is also troubling to note the lack of empirical research exploring patterns of civic engagement among first- and second-generation Mexican immigrant youth. The proportion of school aged children of Mexican heritage is considerably larger than the Mexican-American presence in the general population: one out of five K- 12 students in the US was born abroad or is a second generation immigrant, 1 and juveniles of Mexican descent make up 38 percent of the total immigrant youth population in America (Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix, 2000). Establishing the civic attitudes of this population is critical, especially considering that the late school years are a period in which many of an individual s most fundamental and enduring political 1 There is no standard practice for describing immigrant generations. We use foreign-born, first-generation, and nonnative interchangeably to identify individuals who were born in another country to at least one foreign-born parent. Firstgeneration immigrants may be naturalized US citizens, legal immigrants, or undocumented residents. We use second generation to describe individuals with at least one parent who was born abroad. Young Mexican Immigrants 3 attributes are formed (Andolina, Jenkins, Zukin, & Keeter, 2003; Beck & Jennings, 1982). Thus, comparatively exploring the civic attitudes and political orientations of Mexican immigrant youth something that no studies to date have done could offer an important source of information from which to forecast the long-term prospects for their civic incorporation as adults. This study compares young foreign-born Mexican immigrants, second generation Mexican American youth, and immigrant youth of other nationalities using a national survey of adolescents in the US. In the following section we review the relevant literature to identify variables that have proved important in previous studies of political incorporation among adult Mexican Americans and Latino immigrants. After developing research hypotheses derived from this literature, we describe the data and set forth our analytical strategy. Following a review of the study results, implications are discussed in the concluding section of the paper. THE POLITICAL INCORPORATION OF MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS Previous studies of immigrants, or Mexican Americans as a whole (including non-immigrants), have considered various behavioral and attitudinal indictors of political incorporation, including voting (Junn, 1999; Ramakrishnan, 2005; Tam Cho, 1999), non-electoral political activism (Barreto & Muñoz, 2003; Gershon & Pantoja, 2008), trust of government (Michelson, 2003; Wenzel, 2006), partisanship (Lien, 1994; Wong, 2000), and evidence of patriotism or a belief in individualism (de la Garza, 1995; de la Garza et al., 1996; Garcia, 1987). In the present study, we focus attention on three modes of political behavior: registering to vote, voting, and participation in various non-electoral political activities. We also explore three aspects of political orientation: trust in government, individualism, and partisanship. Political Behavior Political participation is a critical dimension of immigrant integration into the national civic community. As Pearson and Citrin (2007:221) note, political activism is an official virtue in the United States and the primary means of gaining acceptance in mainstream institutions. Should one expect to find that Mexican American immigrant youth are less politically active than their co-immigrants? Based on stu-

3 Young Mexican Immigrants 4 dies of adult Mexican immigrants and newcomers of other national backgrounds, one might be led to hypothesize that the extent of political activism among young Mexicans would fall short of other immigrants. For example, Junn s (1999) research comparing foreign-born and second generation Mexican and Asian immigrants in a Texas survey reported disproportionately low electoral as well as nonelectoral political participation by Mexicans. Similar findings have been reported in other studies that have used national surveys to compare foreign born Mexicans with other first-generation Latino immigrants. Non-native Mexican adults exhibit lower rates of non-electoral political activism (Gershon & Pantoja, 2008), voter registration (Pachon & DeSipio, 1994) and voting (Ramakrishan, 2005) than other Hispanic immigrants. Poverty and economic disadvantage among adult immigrants have been linked to depressed rates of electoral participation (e.g., Ramakrishan, 2005) and nonelectoral political activity (Barreto & Muñoz, 2003; Gershon & Pantoja, 2008; Leal, 2002). Accordingly, one could anticipate that young Mexican immigrants will be less politically active than their non-mexican peers: of all of the post-1965 immigrant nationalities, Mexicans enter the United States with both the lowest levels of education and the weakest occupational skills, and collectively they face the greatest obstacles to upward socioeconomic movement (St-Hilaire, 2002). Moreover, Mexican American foreign-born and second generation immigrants are twice as likely to drop out of high school as immigrants from other Latin American countries and 8 times as likely to do so as foreign-born Asians (Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix, 2000). Pointing to such challenges, Portes and Rumbaut (2001:278) write that Mexican-American youth constitute the textbook example of the theoretically anticipated effects of low immigrant human capital combined with a negative context of reception. Scholars also have examined exposure to American mainstream society as a factor that can influence political incorporation. Studies of adult immigrants have uncovered a robust link between years of US residency and increased voting (Ramakrishnan, 2005) as well as connections to non-electoral political activism (Gershon & Pantoja, 2008; Leal, 2002). Regarding language usage, Gershon and Pantoja (2008) note that English proficiency has a modest but positive influence on non-electoral political activism by foreign-born Latino immigrants. This finding is consistent with Barreto and Muñoz s (2003) study that found Mexican immigrants Young Mexican Immigrants 5 with a good command of English were more likely to be politically active than individuals who spoke no English. Unfortunately, discrimination is an integral component of the immigrant experience for many young Mexicans. The direction of its influence on political incorporation, however, is difficult to predict a priori. On the one hand, researchers studying adult Latinos report that discrimination does not appear to have a consistently significant or uniformly negative impact on political participation among either Hispanics as a whole (de la Garza, 1994; Sanchez, 2006; Schildkraut, 2005) or Latino immigrants specifically (Gershon & Panotja, 2008). On the other hand, studies of immigrant youth have found that being subjected frequently to discrimination can powerfully influence social integration (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). In their pathbreaking study of immigrant youth in the San Diego and Dade County school systems, Alejandro Portes and Rúben Rumbaut (2001) single out discrimination as the major factor behind segmented assimilation whereby some immigrant nationalities quickly join mainstream social and economic institutions while other immigrants never do. The researchers argue that widespread discrimination against some Latin American nationalities, especially Mexicans, provokes an ethnic militancy that leads members of these groups to reject mainstream practices and behaviors in favor of the oppositional cultures of proximate native minorities (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001:119). Political Orientations The development of core civic orientations and political attitudes typically precede by several years an individual s first political activities (Andolina et al., 2003). As such, the attitudes of young Mexican immigrants should tell us much about their propensity toward future political activity. Indeed, some scholars have argued that promoting political participation for Mexican Americans in the absence of deep attachments to the nation s core institutions and values could harm Hispanic interests (Michelson, 2003) and even lead some Mexicans eventually to pursue objectives that are incompatible with mainstream political culture (de la Garza et al., 1996). Learning to place sufficient trust in local and national governments is one way that immigrants politically integrate. Some scholars of immigrant and Latino politics contend that high levels of cynicism toward government not only represents clear evidence of attitudinal alienation from the political mainstream

4 Young Mexican Immigrants 6 (Schildkraut, 2005), but also can serve as evidence that immigrants are not assimilating like previous immigrant groups, and instead view their politics and role in society through the lens of minority status (Michelson, 2003:326). Previous research focusing on Mexican-American adults has linked higher rates of acculturation to reduced trust in government. Scholars have interpreted this phenomenon as evidence of an emerging oppositional Mexican American political culture (Michelson, 2003; Wenzel, 2006). However, because these studies have not compared levels of political trust among Mexican immigrants and new arrivals from other backgrounds, it remains unclear whether declining trust over time reflects a phenomenon unique to Mexicans or a more general pattern for all immigrants. Support for the principle of individualism is another important indicator of whether immigrants are assimilating the nation s political values (de la Garza et al., 1996; Garcia, 1987). Rodolfo de la Garza and his colleagues note that the belief that individuals are responsible for providing their basic needs is a central component of American political culture and thus should be considered a core American value whose acceptance is a valid measure of the degree of civic incorporation among Mexican Americans (1996:1341-4). Once again, however, the existing research is limited by the fact that these studies have examined Mexican immigrants in isolation rather than in comparing them to immigrants as a whole. A third general measure of political incorporation considers the development of a partisan attachment. Identifying with a major party is strongly correlated with higher rates of political participation (Wong, 2000), and represents both an indicator of structural assimilation and an important part of the sense of national identity and integration (Lien, 1994:247). Although there have been no published studies of partisanship among young Latino immigrants in the US, Pachon and DeSipio (1994) reported that very few foreign-born adult Mexicans identify with a major party, and their level of partisanship is lower than most other foreign-born Latino immigrants. DATA AND METHOD Our study, a comparison of the political behaviors and attitudes of young immigrants of Mexican descent with new arrivals from other countries of origin, uses data from Waves 1 and 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health Young Mexican Immigrants 7 (henceforth, Add Health). Add Health employed a multi-stage, stratified, cluster sampling design that included students from 80 public and private high schools and a corresponding feeder middle school (for 132 total schools). When weighted, Add Health is representative of all youths in the United States in grades 7-12 at the time the first wave of data was collected in [see Chantala and Tabor (1999) for additional details on the methodology and complex sampling design of Add Health]. In addition to information solicited from students in an in-home sample, the first wave of also included a questionnaire that was completed by a parent or guardian. The third wave of data for the survey, including the various measures we use to explore political participation, was collected in 2001, when respondents were young adults between the ages of 18 and 26. The dataset has several features, including the fact that bilingual interviewers were used with respondents with weak or no proficiency in English, which allows Add Health to offer an unprecedented picture of the political attitudes and behaviors of immigrant youth. From the full population of Add Health respondents, our subpopulation of immigrant youth includes 1,945 subjects, including nearly 500 first and second generation Mexican Americans. Approximately one-third of the Mexicans in our sample (31.5 percent) were born abroad. Dependent Variables Political Behaviors. Wave 3 of Add Health posed a battery of questions about involvement in various non-electoral political activities and voting behaviors. As in other studies of Hispanic immigrants, we aggregated into a single measure several different types of non-electoral political involvement that are open to all US residents regardless of citizenship status (Barreto & Muñoz, 2003; Gershon & Pantoja, 2008; Leal, 2002). Specifically, respondents were coded as being active in nonelectoral politics if they had engaged in any of the following activities in the 12 months preceding the survey: (1) donated money to a candidate, (2) attended a political rally, or (3) contacted a public official. We also constructed dichotomous variables to identify respondents who were registered to vote and whether they voted in the 2000 general election.

5 Young Mexican Immigrants 8 Political Orientations. We tapped three different types of political orientations: trust in government, support of individualism, and partisanship. We measured trust by drawing two questions from Wave 3 that asked respondents to report their level of agreement with statements indicating I trust the Federal government and I trust my local government. We assessed support for the principle of individualism using a single item from Wave 1 that asked how strongly respondents agreed or disagreed with the statement When you get what you want, it s usually because you worked for it. Responses for all three of these variables range from 1 to 5 (from strongly disagree to strongly agree ), and were coded so that higher values represent greater levels of trust or support for economic individualism. Finally, Wave 3 asked respondents about the political party, if any, with which they identify. Following the lead of previous researchers (Lien, 1994; Wong, 2000), we created a dichotomous measure of partisanship where respondents who identified attachment with the Republican or Democratic parties were coded as 1; subjects who noted no political affiliation, or who indicated third party partisanship, were coded as 0. Independent Variables Nationality / Heritage. As noted above, our analysis is restricted to all Add Health respondents either who were born in a foreign country (first generation) or subjects with at least one parent who was born abroad (second generation). We created a dummy variable to identify individuals of Mexican descent. When weighted, respondents of Mexican descent represented 26.2 percent of the sample of immigrants in this study. Socioeconomic Status/ Demographics. We included multiple measures of both respondent and family SES. Our measures of parental education and family income came from the separate parental questionnaire that was administered during Wave 1. Parent education was coded 1-4, based on whether the parent filling out the form had below a high school degree (or equivalent), graduated from high school / GED, had some college or trade school, or earned a college degree or beyond. Family income was measured in thousands of dollars. The mean income for the sample was $39,510. In our regression analyses, we transformed income data to their natural logarithms to account for a strong positive skew in the distribution of family income; mean substitution was used in instances where family income was not reported.

6 Young Mexican Immigrants 9 We also computed two measures of SES (socioeconomic status) for respondents themselves from Wave 3 data. One variable identified whether the respondent was employed at least 10 hours per week. An additional measure identified whether the respondent had completed at least 12 years of schooling. Also included were standard controls for age and gender. Acculturation. Studies of civic incorporation typically operationalize acculturation by looking at the time of contact an immigrant has had with members of the dominant population and the extent to which the immigrant is using the dominant society s language (Barreto & Muñoz, 2003; Gershon & Pantoja, 2008; Wong, 2006). We measured contact with the dominant population by looking at the number of years an immigrant had lived in the United States at Wave 3. The variable ranges from 1 (8 years or less) to 6 (20+ years). Citizenship status at Wave 3 was also included as an indicator of respondents intentions to permanently reside in the United States. For all respondents, we constructed a 0-4 point index of English language use with four questions found in Wave 3. Specifically, respondents were asked which language they use most with family members and which they use most among close friends. Add Health allowed several possible responses, including half- English and half another language. We recoded the responses into dichotomous measures so that respondents were identified as being English dominant only if they reported English as the language used most with their family members or close friends. The index included two additional items that asked whether respondents often read newspapers, watch television shows, or listen to radio programs that are in a language other than English and whether they often buy recorded music that is sung in a language other than English. We also coded these two measures of English media consumption dichotomously, classifying those respondents who answered no to these questions as exhibiting a greater level of acculturation. Discrimination. We employed three questions from Wave 1 to tap various dimensions of discrimination. Our first indicator tapped agreement or disagreement with the statement Students at your school are prejudiced. Because scholars of Latino politics have suggested that acts of discrimination often take covert form and yet still provoke both behavioral and attitudinal alienation from politics (Schildkraut, 2005), we also analyzed a question gauging social acceptance. Specifically, respondents were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the Young Mexican Immigrants 10 statement You feel socially accepted. Some researchers have found that acts of discrimination against immigrant youth can have a considerable negative impact on their self-esteem (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). To look for evidence of psychological consequences of discrimination, we included an item asking respondents how much they agreed with the statement You have a lot to be proud of. FINDINGS We first turn our attention to an examination of descriptive statistics, where we test the significance of inter-group differences between immigrants of Mexican heritage and subjects of other backgrounds. Table 1 reports data for political activities and orientations, while Table 2 gives details about the various independent variables employed in the study. In both tables, we list mean and standard error statistics for the weighted sample. As mentioned above, our dichotomous measure of non-electoral political behavior identified whether respondents in the prior 12 months donated money to a candidate, attended a political rally, or contacted a public official. The data in Table 1 indicate that an extremely small proportion of young immigrants participated in any of these activities--a mere 1.8 percent of our total sample. Additional analyses (not shown) uncovered similarly low rates of non-electoral activism among nonimmigrant youth in Add Health, suggesting that the minimal rates of non-electoral activism are the norm for American youth and not attributable to the immigrant experience. At any rate, our findings do not support the proposition that young Mexican immigrants may be differentiated from other newcomers with respect to their propensity to engage in non-electoral political activities. The next two measures of political incorporation in Table 1 voter registration and turnout in the 2000 elections dealt with activities that are restricted to US citizens. Accordingly, we limited our analysis to include only the 1,598 subjects who had naturalized at least a month prior to the 2000 election. The weighted data show that a large proportion of young immigrants (more than 70 percent) were registered to vote and that over a third (37.5 percent) of eligible respondents cast a ballot in the 2000 US general elections. No significant differences in electoral participation are observed between subjects of Mexican nationality and other backgrounds.

7 Young Mexican Immigrants 1 Young Mexican Immigrants 11 The final block of variables explores the various political orientations. Keeping in mind that the measures of trust were coded such that higher values represent greater levels of trust, Table 1 reveals nearly identical mean levels of trust for federal government (3.33 / 5.0) and local government (3.41 / 5.0) among all of the respondents, suggesting that young immigrants, generally speaking, profess faith in government. Interestingly, the results also indicate that trust is not evenly distributed among our two subgroups. Contrary to recent research on Mexican American adults, the data here suggest that compared to subjects from other backgrounds, respondents claiming Mexican heritage profess significantly stronger levels of trust in government, even before controlling for possible confounding variables such as SES and acculturation. Our data document a strong belief in individualism among all immigrants. Additional analyses (not shown) found a negative skew to these data, such that only slightly more than 25 percent of all respondents reported any ambivalence or disagreement (responses 1-3) with the principle that desirable outcomes largely reflect individual efforts. Again, the results show no significant differences between Mexican and other immigrant youth. Our finding here reinforces the limited previous research on the acquisition of American civic values among adult Mexican Americans as a whole. In their exploration of individualism among Mexican immigrants, for example, de la Garza, Falcon and Garcia (1996) found that immigrants from Mexico tend to strongly support core American values as much or more as do either Anglos or African Americans. The final variable in Table 1 examines party identification. About a quarter 25.7 percent of our sample identified with a major party. There is no significant difference between the proportions of Mexican immigrants and newcomers from other backgrounds in their rate of partisan attachment. In Table 2, we examine the study s independent variables. By Wave 3, the average respondent is just under 22 years of age. Slightly less than one-half of the sample is female. Mean family income at Wave 1 is just below $40,000. The mean value for parental education is 2.18, suggesting an average level of parental schooling that is somewhat higher than a high school degree or GED equivalent. For both measures of familial SES, profound differences are observed between respondents of Mexican heritage and those hailing from other backgrounds. The average family income among Mexican immigrants is more than $10,000 less than other immigrants,

8 Young Mexican Immigrants 12 and respondents of Mexican heritage have an average educational attainment rate that corresponds to not having completed high school. By Wave 3, many of the surveyed adolescents had left home to enter the workforce or pursue higher education. Our data indicate that more than two-thirds of the sample is engaged in at least part-time work for pay, while over half of the respondents had pursued schooling beyond the high school degree. Although respondents of Mexican heritage are significantly less likely than others to have undertaken formal study after high school, they are more likely to be employed at least parttime. Our measures of acculturation include English language usage, immigrant generational status, naturalization, and the number of years respondents resided in the United States at Wave 3. The mean value of the English language index is 2.46 (out of 4), meaning that respondents generally reported a middling level of English proficiency but often did not report usage across several contexts. About sixty-eight percent of subjects identify as second generation immigrants. The weighted score for years in residence is 1.82, which indicates that respondents have been in the United States for slightly less than 9 years, on average. Although no differences are observed between Mexicans and others in terms of time in US residence or generational status, Mexicans report striking significantly lower levels of English language use (over a full point lower on the index) than other respondents. More than 80 percent of the sample claimed US citizenship; consistent with studies of adult immigrants, Mexicans are statistically less likely than individuals of other backgrounds to have naturalized. Finally, we consider a trio of measures meant to tap various dimensions or consequences of discrimination that may be perceived by Mexican Americans. For the entire sample, the mean score for school prejudice at Wave 1 is 2.97 (out of 5.0), indicating that most immigrant youth do not hold strong opinions about the level of discrimination among their classmates. The high average scores for social acceptance and personal pride (4.09 and 4.27, respectively, out of 5) demonstrate that most young immigrants enjoy high self-esteem and social acceptance. Although respondents of Mexican descent are statistically no different than others in their perceptions of school prejudice or self-esteem, we do observe a modestly lower level of perceived social acceptance.

9 Young Mexican Immigrants 1 Young Mexican Immigrants 13 The next task we undertake is to identify factors that may be associated with the political values of trust and individualism. The results of these analyses are reported in Table 3. Because the dependent variables are ordinal measures that range in value from 1 to 5, we perform ordered logistic regression to calculate the odds of a one-unit change in the dependent variable (e.g., from 1 to 2) for a one-unit change in the selected independent variable. No demographic, SES variable, or measure of discrimination distinguishes Mexican and non-mexican respondents in terms of their level of confidence in federal or local government. With the controls, ethnic heritage still influences respondent trust in local government, but not federal government. Again, it is noteworthy that young immigrants of Mexican heritage register higher levels of trust in local government than other immigrants. In terms of acculturation, neither a respondent s level of English language use, nor the amount of time they have resided in the United States, impacts trust in government. We note that across both models, the second generation immigrant cohort is significantly more likely to report lower levels of trust, compared to the foreign-born, but there is no evidence that this phenomenon is unique to the Mexican immigrant experience. Nevertheless, this pattern appears to be universal for immigrants rather than a Mexican-specific phenomenon as suggested in recent studies of adult Mexican Americans (Michelson, 2003; Wenzel, 2006). The model predicting individualism is located in the third column of Table 3. None of the nationality, demographic or SES variables reaches statistical significance. Nor do any of the acculturation measures appear to be related to individualism generational status, English language usage, years in the United States, and citizenship status have no bearing on young immigrants belief that they are personally responsible for advancement in life. With respect to our measures of discrimination, social acceptance and personal pride both are positively associated with a belief in individualism. Subjects reporting higher levels of pride or social acceptance at Wave 1 are more likely to register higher levels of support for economic individualism at Wave 3. The data reinforce previous findings linking a positive sense of self to political incorporation; however, it is important to observe that this is the only dependent variable for which these measures are significant. Finally, we explore determinants of various political behaviors among young immigrants. Before we begin our discussion of Table 4, a few comments are neces-

10 Young Mexican Immigrants 14 sary. First, because there were so few respondents reporting non-electoral political activism, we could not reliably use statistical models to explore the factors underlying those behaviors. Second, the first dependent variable evaluated in Table 4 is party identification. Although we have conceptualized party identification as a dimension of political orientation, the variable is dichotomous and thus most similar in construction to our measures of voter registration and voting behavior. We therefore include our analysis of partisanship in this table to maintain consistency in our method of estimation. Because of the dichotomous construction of the dependent variables, logistic regression was employed to identify the factors that may be associated with a significant change in the probability that a respondent identified with a major party, was registered, or voted in the 2000 presidential election. The first model in Table 4 party identification analyzes an orientation that is open to all respondents. The results uncover no statically significant difference between Mexican and other immigrants, although several of the other variables of interest are relevant predictors. Not surprisingly, US citizens are nearly twice as likely as non-citizens to identify with a major political party. Among our social class measures, only the respondent s educational attainment reaches statistical significance. Young immigrants who had pursued education beyond high school are more than two times as likely to identify with a party, compared to those with no more than a high school education. None of the discrimination variables predicts partisanship. Only respondents who were citizens at Wave 3 and therefore eligible to register and/or vote in the 2000 elections were included in regression models to explore these behaviors. The most important finding in these models is that, once again, there are no significant differences among Mexicans and other immigrants. Age is positively related to the probability of registration and voting among young immigrants, but gender exerts no significant influence on either. Familial SES does not appear to be related to the odds of registering or voting, but an individual immigrant s SES is significantly related to both activities. Indeed, the odds that an immigrant with an educational attainment beyond high school registered or cast a ballot in the 2000 elections is twice that of immigrants with lower levels of schooling. No acculturation measure or discrimination variable exerts a significant influence on the probability of registration or voting. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Young Mexican Immigrants 15 This study tries to answer the question of whether the distinctive circumstances of the post-1965 immigrant experience in America has rendered young foreign-born or second generation Mexicans particularly resistant to political incorporation. To our knowledge, no other empirical study to date has employed data from a national survey to examine the political attitudes and behaviors of young immigrants, or to contextualize their patterns of political incorporation by comparing them with those of new arrivals from Mexico. Before turning to our central conclusions about Mexican immigrant youth, it is worthwhile to summarize the study s findings regarding young immigrants as a whole. Most immigrant youth in Add Health report high levels of trust in government and a belief in individualism. Significant numbers express a partisan preference, despite being old enough to have voted in only one presidential election. Well over two-thirds of eligible young immigrants are registered to vote, and more than one in three cast a ballot in the 2000 US general elections. Only a minute fraction of immigrant youth participates in non-electoral political activities, a fact that precluded additional multivariate analysis. Overall, it appears that immigrants follow the well-documented pattern of political socialization for young people in the general US population: first developing key political attitudes, next starting to vote, and finally engaging in political activities requiring more financial or emotional resources such as making contributions or publicly supporting candidates (Andolina et al., 2003). These data demonstrate unequivocally that the nation is successfully incorporating most young immigrants into its political community. Do Mexican American immigrant youth deviate from this general pattern? Many commentators have pointed to Mexicans economic challenges or the maintenance of strong cultural and linguistic bonds with their homeland as the foundation for a hypothesized lack of ability and desire to fully integrate into the political mainstream. It is clear from our data that young Mexican Americans are indeed at a disadvantage to other immigrants when it comes to accumulating income, educational attainment, and using English in a variety of social contexts. On the other hand, young Mexicans share other immigrants high sense of social acceptance and pride, and most Mexican youth report no evidence of prejudice in their school life.

11 Young Mexican Immigrants 16 In our view, the data reported here support an entirely different conclusion than that reached by many of the critics of Mexican immigration. Our comparison of Mexican respondents with those of other nationalities offers no support at all for arguments claiming young arrivals from Mexico or the children of Mexican foreignborn parents either reject mainstream political activities or are disinterested in the values that are central to American political culture. In our descriptive data, we observed almost no statistically discernible differences in the political attitudes and behaviors of Mexicans and other immigrant youth. Despite of the significantly lower levels of socioeconomic status, educational attainment, and English usage, young Mexican immigrants trust local and national government, strongly believe in personal responsibility, and are registering to vote. Indeed, when meaningful differences were uncovered, as in the case of trust in federal or local government, the data point to higher levels of commitment among Mexican youth to those principles. Multivariate analysis offers no additional evidence to undermine our general conclusion that young Mexican immigrants exhibit patterns of political incorporation essentially identical to those of other immigrants. In terms of its importance to the long-term health of the American democracy, the most critical question addressed by our study is whether today s young Mexican immigrants are embracing several of the core political values and behaviors that are key elements of the nation s civic life. Without exception, our data provide an affirmative answer to the question. As we have noted, a long tradition of research has found that an individual s core political values are generally established quite early in life. Indeed, this study s conclusions suggest that young Mexican immigrants who are now entering adult political life are likely to be more civically engaged than has been the case with older immigrants. WORKS CITED Young Mexican Immigrants 17 Andolina, M., Jenkins, K., Zukin, C., & Keeter, S. (2003). Habits from Home, Lessons from School: Influences on Youth Civic Engagement. PS: Political Science and Politics, 36, Barreto, M., & Muñoz, J. (2003). Reexamining the Politics of In-Between : Political Participation among Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 25, Beck, P., & Jennings, M. (1982). Pathways to Participation. American Political Science Review, 76, Bouton, M., & Page, B. (Eds.). (2002). American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy. Chicago: Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Camarota, S. (2001). Immigration from Mexico: Assessing the Impact on the United States. Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies. Chantala, K., & Tabor, J. (1999). Strategies To Perform a Design-Based Analysis Using the Add Health Data. Chapel Hill, NC: Carolina Population Center. de la Garza, R. (1995). The Effects of Ethnicity on Political Culture. In P. Peterson, (Ed.), Classifying by Race (pp ). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. de la Garza, R. (2004). Latino Politics. Annual Review of Politics, 7, de la Garza, R., Falcon, A., & Garcia, F. (1996). Will the Real Americans Please Stand Up: Anglo and Mexican-American Support of Core American Values. American Journal of Political Science, 40, de la Garza, R., Garcia F., & DeSipio, L. (1992). Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, & Cuban Perspectives on American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. de los Angeles Torres, M., & Paral, R. (2006). The Naturalization Trail: Mexican Nationality and US Citizenship. Research Brief. Institute for Latino Studies/University of Notre Dame.

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