Doctoral Dissertation Research: Immigration and Social Attitudes

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES- 1434303 Tomas Jimenez Ariela Schachter Stanford University Immigration is dramatically changing the United States? racial makeup. According to Census estimates, the U.S will be a majority-minority nation by 2043, and Latinos are already the largest non-White group, surpassing Blacks. Immigration is also increasing diversity within racial groups: about one-third of Latinos, two-thirds of Asians, and one-tenth of Blacks in the United States are foreign-born. Existing scholarship focuses on either the status of immigrants or the status of racial groups, but not the interaction between them, ignoring the reality of today's diversity. The dissertation explores how White, Black, and Latino Americans understand this growing diversity by directly comparing their attitudes about different racial and immigrant groups. The project will advance the field of sociology and the broader social sciences by uniting theoretical and empirical work on immigrant assimilation and racial politics. It will also bring much needed data to the contentious and often acrimonious debate about American immigration policies. Additionally, while efforts to mobilize Black and Latino citizens have been increasing, there is a lack of information about the political attitudes of minorities, which contributes to their under-representation in American politics. By particularly focusing on the attitudes of Black and Latino Americans, the project will offer data that can speak to key issues for both communities, including inter-minority relations and attitudes about immigration policy. The project seeks to answer the following questions: Do Americans view native-born Latinos, Blacks, and Asians differently than foreign-born Latinos, Blacks and Asians? How do views about different groups influence political behavior? And how are views about increasing diversity shaped by our own racial and ethnic identities? To answer these questions, the project uses an original survey experiment designed to capture Americans? stereotypes about twelve different racial and immigrant groups. The experimental design minimizes social desirability bias by relying on randomization to make comparisons across groups. By embedding the experiment in a series of internet surveys?both nationally-representative and surveys targeting Black and Latino Americans?the project is able to capture the attitudes of a diverse group of several thousand Americans. This study will contribute to scholarship on racial attitudes by developing updated measures that can better account for the growing heterogeneity within racial groups. It will also contribute to scholarship on immigrant assimilation by evaluating the extent to which native-born White, Black, and Latino Americans recognize differences between immigrants and the native-born, a central but largely untested claim in the assimilation literature.