The Pull of the Parties for Immigrants in the United States

Katsuo NishikawaDepartment of Political Science

Trinity UniversitySan Antonio, TX 78212

knishika@trinity.edu

James A. McCannDepartment of Political Science

Purdue UniversityWest Lafayette, IN 47907

mccannj@purdue.edu

Stacey ConnaughtonThe Brian Lamb School of Communication

Purdue UniversityWest Lafayette, IN 47907

sconnaug@purdue.edu

Abstract: Immigrants in the United States frequently express a desire to return to their country of birth, an attitude that could undermine political acculturation and democratic inclusion in the American context. This mindset has been labeled an “ideology of return.” Drawing from original surveys of the Mexican-born population conducted during the 2006 and 2008 elections, we show that partisan competition during major national campaigns has the potential to pull immigrants towards U.S. civic life and make the prospect of remaining in the country over the long-term a more attractive option.

Prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, San Antonio, TX, April 21-23, 2011.

Introduction1

Approximately one-eighth of the current U.S. resident population is foreign-born, a nearly

unprecedented proportion that stands in marked contrast to the 1960s and 1970s, when

immigrants numbered fewer than one in twenty (Batalova and Terrazas 2010). As the foreign-

born population has grown, social scientists have devoted increasing attention to questions of

inclusion in American society and public affairs. One recurring theme that emerges in field

interviews and opinion surveys is the ambivalence that immigrants often feel about living in the

United States. Many of the foreign-born carry with them a deep sense of nostalgia and

admiration for their country of birth, work hard to keep the country’s distinctive traditions alive

in their households and communities, and hope one day to return to it (Arthur 2000; Jones-

Correa 1998a, 1998b; Massey and Sánchez 2010; Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Wampler, Chávez

and Pedraza 2009; Wong 2006). As one author put it, it is common for immigrants to refer to the

United States as “this country,” and the country from which they came as “my land” or “my

country” (Duany 1994, referenced in Jones-Correa 1998a, 91). Such a mindset, which has been

labeled an “ideology of return,” could depress naturalization rates and limit political engagement

in the U.S. (Jones-Correa 1998a; DeSipio 2006; McCann, Cornelius and Leal 2009; Pantoja

2005).

In this paper, we consider the effects of political parties on this “ideology of return.” Can the

signals sent by the Democrats and Republicans during contemporary national election campaigns

cause immigrants to update their views of the U.S. and make the prospect of remaining in the

country over the long-term more desirable? Can partisan mobilization influence attitudes that

are closely tied to residential preferences, such as general feelings towards the American people

and U.S. governing institutions, beliefs regarding personal competence and influence in the

1

American context, and a sense of immigrant group consciousness and solidarity? Are

immigrants who are less acquainted with the United States – relative newcomers, the non-

naturalized, and those who live outside of traditional settlement areas – more responsive to major

party campaign stimuli?

When examining the institutions that pull immigrants towards American civic life and

encourage them to put down roots, scholars give great weight to a variety of nonpartisan

organizations – labor unions and worker centers, social service agencies, ethnic associations, and

churches, among others (e.g., Andersen 2008a and 2008b; Andersen and Cohen 2005; Bada,

Fox, and Selee 2006; de Graauw 2008; Hamlin 2008; Jones-Correa 2005; Verba et al. 1995;

Wong 2006; Wong, Rim and Perez 2008). The two major parties figure far less prominently in

these accounts. The powerful urban machines that selectively incorporated immigrant groups

through the distribution of goods and services in exchange for support during the first half of the

twentieth century have all but disappeared. In this post-reform era, parties seek first and

foremost to serve the short-term interests of office-seekers. This means targeting established

constituencies during electoral campaigns, typically through short candidate-centered

advertisements and photo-opportunities, rather than cultivating personal ties with immigrants,

many of whom are ineligible to vote or do not participate regularly for other reasons. “The

replacement of the patronage system with the merit system,” write Scott and Hrebenar (1984, 15-

16; quoted in Wong 2006, 58), has “reduced the parties’ opportunities to function as socializers. .

. . Are any of today’s immigrants introduced to American politics and political traditions through

the medium of the Democratic or Republican parties?”

While the historic movement away from patronage-based party politics is beyond dispute,

and for most observers would be a sign of health in American democracy, we do not see the

2

question that Scott and Hrebenar raise as purely rhetorical. Even in a political environment

where the foreign-born are not the primary subjects of partisan mobilization, and a good many

lack formal standing to take part, it is still possible for immigrants to be exposed to much of the

fanfare of campaign events and appeals during major national elections in the United States.

Drawing from an original panel survey of the Mexican-born population over the course of the

2006 midterm elections and a randomized survey experiment conducted within this same

population in September 2008, we demonstrate that election-year political messages have the

potential to counteract the “ideology of return.” In this regard, the party system of the United

States may continue to function, at least after a fashion, as a conduit for immigrant inclusion.

Theoretical Background

Much is known about the factors that are responsible for the recent surge in migration

from the lesser developed nations of Latin America, Asia, and Africa to the United States and

other industrialized democracies. For many migrants, economic calculations, specifically the

expected difference in wages and opportunities in the sending versus the host country, carry the

most weight in the decision to relocate. Quality of life matters a great deal as well, with crime,

social unrest, or political violence driving many to seek refuge and stability abroad.

Transnational family connections and social networks further facilitate movement from one

country to another; it is far easier to contemplate leaving one’s native land if family members

and friends have previously done so (Castles and Miller 2003; Massey and Sánchez 2010; Portes

and Rumbaut 2006).

Substantially less research has been conducted on what causes migrants to return to the

country of birth once they have settled abroad. Even less is known about the desire to repatriate

3

in the first place, a preference that has been likened to an ideology because it surfaces often and

forcefully in discussions with immigrants. The limited work in this area stresses economic

considerations. Immigrants who are dissatisfied with their employment status or anxious about

long-term job prospects, for example, are more likely than the financially secure to wish to

return, even if their current living arrangements would not permit this (Waldorf 1995). Socio-

psychological factors, however, might also play an important part in shaping views on

repatriation among the foreign-born. Empirical investigations based on interviews with

immigrants in the United States point to three interrelated types of attitudinal variables that shape

residential preferences. The first of these is the degree of affect felt towards Americans. Quite

understandably, immigrants who hold the U.S.-born in high esteem and are more trusting of

Americans tend to be less inclined to want to repatriate at some point in the future (Massey and

Sánchez 2010; Wampler, Chávez, and Pedraza 2009).

Perceptions of status and efficacy in the United States might also have an effect on long-

term residential preferences. Aguilera (2004) finds, for example, in an examination of Mexican

migrants who originally entered the U.S. without papers that self-described proficiency in

English is a major predictor of planning to stay in the country through retirement. More

generally, DeSipio (2006) reports that Latino immigrants who believe that they have more

influence in the United States vis-à-vis the country of origin are much more likely to wish to

remain rather than repatriate (see also Jones-Correa 1998b).

In addition to these beliefs, group consciousness and identities have been found to bear

on dispositions towards staying or returning. Immigrants typically identify with their native

country; such self-designations may remain salient long after settlement in the United States.

This does not prevent the foreign-born, however, from developing an understanding of their

4

distinctive social position and group interests in the American context, a recognition that is an

important step in civic acculturation. Massey and Sánchez (2010, Chapter 1) note that becoming

an “immigrant” in this sense – as opposed to a “sojourner” or “temporary guest” – could result,

somewhat counterintuitively, in identifying less as an “American” even as familiarity with the

U.S. and the desire to remain in the country grow.

Since most of the foreign-born living in the United States today spent their formative

childhood years outside of the country, they may not possess the repertoire of fundamental core

beliefs about American politics and civic involvement that native citizens have (Abrajano and

Alvarez 2010; Easton and Dennis 1969; Hajnal and Lee 2011; Krosnick 1991; Sears 1983). This

could make the political attitudes of immigrants less stable compared to the American-born, and

more responsive to current events and to signals sent from mainstream society and governing

institutions (Massey and Sánchez 2010). In the United States and other established democracies,

such signals are most pronounced during major national election campaigns. In these periods,

parties conduct an internal dialogue to define their positions and strategies, and then turn their

attention to reaching out to the country. Whether a particular party is successful or not in

persuading voters to back its candidates, a great deal of research on the effects of the

contemporary electoral process itself shows that spirited conflict and mass mobilization can pay

democratic dividends within the mass public.

As parties seek to sell their programs and attract followers, they also implicitly reinforce

a sense of political legitimacy, civic competence and duty, interpersonal trust, and group

attachments – all essential ingredients in the maintenance of a democratic system (see, e.g.,

Anderson and Paskeviciute 2009; Banducci and Karp 2003; Clarke and Acock 1989; Conover

1988; Finkel 1985; Kam 2007; Mansbridge 1999; Rahn et al. 1999; Valentino 2001; Verba et al.

5

1995). These effects are not necessarily limited to those who turn out to vote or work in a

political campaign. Rahn et al. (1999) show, for instance, that Americans who are merely

“psychologically involved” in electoral politics – that is, they are attentive to campaigns –

become more trusting of their fellow citizens and feel more efficacious.

Expanding on this work, electoral politics in the United States might likewise make long-

term settlement a more attractive proposition for that segment of the public for whom living in

another country is a realistic option. Messages of democratic inclusion, solidarity, and

representation during a campaign could cause immigrants to see the U.S. in a more positive light,

feel more confident in their ability to make a difference in the country, and become more aware

of particular group identities – all of which should lessen the desire to repatriate and lead to more

substantive democratic engagement within the U.S. Of course, this could only happen if the

foreign-born are inclined to follow public affairs and be exposed to campaign stimuli. Recent

large-scale surveys of Latin American and Asian immigrants suggest that this is generally the

case (Fraga et al. 2007; Junn et al. 2008; McCann, Cornelius and Leal 2009). To illustrate, in the

2006 Latino National Survey, over 80 percent of the foreign-born respondents stated that they

watch television news “daily” or “most days,” as opposed to “once or twice a week” or “never”;

over two-thirds of these immigrants were “somewhat” or “very” interested in politics. It appears

safe to assume that immigrants in the United States develop some awareness of American

campaign politics each time a major national election takes place.2

In the following section, we probe the impact of electoral outreach and advertising more

deeply with a focus on the Mexican-born population. Mexicans are by far the largest group of

immigrants in the United States; approximately one-third of the current foreign-born population

emigrated from Mexico. Given the country’s close proximity to the U.S. and the considerable

6

differences between the two nations, a number of authors, notably Samuel P. Huntington (2004),

see the ultimate incorporation of Mexican immigrants into American civic life as particularly

challenging. If the ebb and flow of partisan competition in the United States has a salutary effect

on long-term residential preferences for this population, such concerns might well become less

pressing.

As explained in greater detail below, we pay particularly close attention to potential

variations in campaign effects, since the Mexican immigrant population is strikingly diverse with

respect to length of time in the United States, place of residence, and naturalization status

(Massey 2008). Much research on public opinion in the U.S. and elsewhere demonstrates that

attitudes across a wide array of domains (e.g., partisanship, self-positioning along a left-right

ideological continuum, and political values) become more stable as individuals gain experience

in public affairs. In keeping with this literature, it could be the case that Mexicans who have

lived in the U.S. for many years, have settled in locations that are rich in Mexican-American

culture and civic organizations (e.g., Texas or southern California), or have become naturalized

American citizens, a long process that requires a great deal of commitment, have a relatively

well-developed attitude towards staying or repatriating. Campaign communication could have

far less of an effect for these immigrants compared to relative newcomers, noncitizens, or

Mexicans who live outside of traditional settlement destinations and would not be exposed as

regularly to political stimuli.

Research Design and Findings

The potential effects of American political campaigns on immigrants’ long-term

residential preferences are examined through two surveys. The first bracketed the historic

7

midterm elections of 2006, which brought about a transition in the U.S. Congress from

Republican to Democratic control. The second was fielded in September of 2008, when the

political climate was quite different but equally historic.

Study 1

In June of 2006, telephone interviews were conducted with 753 Mexican immigrants

across three sampling sites, Dallas, San Diego, and north-central Indiana, including Indianapolis

but excluding the Chicago region. Respondents were recruited randomly through records

obtained from a well established marketing research firm specializing in the Latino community.3

Immediately after the November elections, as many immigrants as possible were contacted for

another interview (N = 264).4 Panel data such as these allow researchers to track changes in

attitudes with a great deal of precision (Bartels 2006; Finkel 1995).

The three sampling areas were selected to maximize variation in settlement areas (King,

Keohane and Verba 1995). Dallas and San Diego are major traditional destinations for migrants,

with a current combined Mexican-born population of over one million (Batalova 2008). North-

central Indiana is typical of “new” settlement destinations for Mexicans and other immigrant

groups. Between 2000 and 2004, the number of Indiana-based Mexicans rose by approximately

60,000. Out of all metropolitan areas in the United States, Indianapolis had the fifth-highest rate

of Latino population growth during this period (Menéndez Alarcón and Novak 2010; Sagamore

Institute for Policy Research 2006). While the number of Mexicans now living in Indiana is

much smaller than in California or Texas, this rapid expansion of immigrant communities was

unprecedented in the Hoosier State.

The item used to gauge long-term residential preferences was comparable to what other

scholars have employed (e.g., DeSipio 2006; Wampler, Chávez, and Pedraza 2009; Waldorf

8

1995): “Do you want to return to Mexico permanently to live one day, or are you planning to

remain in the United States?” Table 1 reports the frequency of responses in each of the survey

waves, with study participants in the three regions pooled.5 In June, two out of three immigrants

stated a preference for returning. This percentage varied somewhat across sampling regions,

with Mexicans in Indiana being more inclined to repatriate. In each location, however, a solid

majority wished to return.

[Table 1 about here]

When interviewed five months later, the thought of remaining in the U.S. had become

more attractive. In this instance, the pooled sample was nearly divided in half, with only 56

percent now wishing to repatriate. As noted at the bottom of this table, this increase is not likely

to have come about by chance; a paired-sample t-test is highly statistically significant. At the

individual-level, responses to this item changed a fair amount. The test-retest correlation is

moderately-sized at .35, underscoring that for Mexican immigrants, there is a measure of

uncertainty or flexibility in long-term residential preferences. The overall gain in desire to

remain suggests that the signals and outreach of contemporary electoral campaigns have the

potential to pull immigrants – many of whom may see themselves as living “in between” two

countries (Jones-Correa 1998a) – more closely towards the United States.

Immigrants with less experience living in the U.S., those who have not become American

citizens, or those who have settled in regions nontraditional destinations such as Indiana may

have been particularly sensitive to campaign effects. The regression analysis in the lower part of

Table 1 examines these differences. In this model, residential preferences as measured in the

post-election wave (dummy-coded, with 1 = “remain permanently”) are regressed on preferences

from the June wave plus sampling region, naturalization status (1 = citizen), and years spent in

9

the United States.6 By including the lagged dependent variable as a predictor, we are modeling

changes in settlement preferences (Finkel 1995). The findings from this analysis indicate that the

rise in desire to remain in the country did not vary with respect to sampling location, length of

time in the U.S., and formal civic status. If the dynamics of the midterm elections were indeed

responsible for making the United States a more attractive option for long-term settlement, even

immigrants with a great deal of prior exposure to American politics and culture were affected at

the same rate.

Other explanations for this change in attitude are certainly possible, however. One

plausible rival interpretation is that the turn towards wishing to live permanently in the United

States between June and November reflects a particular type of transnational demobilization

effect in the Mexican context. The data collection for the first survey wave took place on the eve

of the July 2 presidential election in Mexico. Even though Mexican political parties are legally

barred from canvassing voters outside of the country and the costs of casting an international

absentee ballot in this election were inordinately high, many of the immigrants in the study

closely followed this election and were aware of the main themes of the campaigns (McCann,

Cornelius, and Leal 2009). Large numbers engaged in informal participation in this context,

such as encouraging friends and family in Mexico to turn out to vote. By the time of the

November survey wave, mass electoral mobilization within Mexico had long since ceased.7 This

dynamic, more than the fanfare and pull of American electoral politics, could have tilted

immigrants away from Mexico.

To delve more deeply into the effects of U.S. campaigns within this population, and to

assess whether changes in residential preferences coincide with changes in attitudes in the three

closely related domains discussed above – general feelings towards Americans, beliefs about

10

one’s ability to succeed in the United States, and a sense of group consciousness -- we conducted

a follow-up study during the American presidential election two years later.

Study 2. 8

As in 2006, randomly selected Mexican immigrants were interviewed by telephone.

Nearly all surveys again were in Spanish. In total, 1,023 respondents took part in the study,

which commenced after the Labor Day weekend, the traditional start of fall presidential

campaigns. Sampling this time took place in two regions rather than three: north-central Indiana,

again excluding the Chicago area, and San Antonio, TX. The reduction in survey sites raised the

number of respondents in each area (N = 501 in Indiana and 522 in San Antonio), which serves

to increase the statistical power for regional comparisons. San Antonio was chosen in place of

Dallas because its Mexican population is larger and somewhat better established.9 The city has

long been recognized as a leading center of Mexican-American culture. For this reason,

candidates wishing to show their commitment to the Mexican community frequently campaign in

San Antonio.10 These features offer a more advantageous contrast with the emerging Mexican

immigrant population of Indiana.

Researchers investigating the impact of campaign stimuli on political attitudes and

perceptions via conventional survey methods frequently wrestle with thorny issues concerning

measurement error and causal inference. Respondents may be unable to state how many

commercials they have seen or heard (Ansolabehere, Iyengar and Simon 1999). Furthermore,

even if they can accurately report exposure, evaluations of the candidates or identification with a

party may prompt individuals to watch particular television programs or listen to radio stations

where exposure to political information is likely to occur. In the 2006 panel study, long-term

residential preferences for immigrants were seemingly prone to updating, and partisan

11

mobilization signals could have exerted strong effects on these attitudes. Here we put a finer

point on this claim.

A few minutes into the interviews, survey participants were randomly divided into three

groups. Approximately half were chosen to listen either to an ad for Barack Obama (N = 262,

Treatment Group 1), or an ad for John McCain (N = 250, Treatment Group 2). These were

actual ads produced for Spanish-language radio stations. The third group (N = 511) served as the

control. For the treatment groups, exposure was prefaced by the remark, “Recently political

parties in the U.S. began their presidential campaigns. I am going to play a brief ad from Senator

[Obama / McCain]. You may have already heard it on the radio. After listening to it, I will have

a couple questions for you about the ad.” Following exposure, respondents were queried on

whether they remembered hearing such a commercial before, whether they believe

advertisements influence voters in general, and whether the ad gave a positive or negative

impression of the candidate. The lead-in to the sound clip and questions afterwards were

intended to supply a plausible rationale for the treatments.11

Only a very small number of subjects in each treatment group stated that the advertisement

left a bad impression. Overwhelmingly, the ads were seen as showing the candidate in a positive

light. This was our intention. In selecting political spots for the treatments, the goal was to

expose respondents to that most ubiquitous form of campaign communication in the Latino

media market: the upbeat personal endorsement from someone who is a part of that ethnic

community.12 Wordings for the Obama and McCain ads are given in Table 2. Each was played

to the randomly selected respondents in its entirety.13

[Table 2 about here]

12

If short candidate-centered partisan messages implicitly draw immigrants closer to American

society over the course of a campaign cycle, we should see evidence of this effect in attitudes

that were gauged several minutes after subjects in the treatment groups listened to an ad from

Obama or McCain. Using the same instrumentation as in the 2006 study, all immigrants stated

towards the end of the interview whether they wish to return to Mexico one day or remain in the

U.S. for the rest of their lives. Subjects also offered summary affective ratings of the American

people, U.S. governing institutions, and Mexicans; judgments concerning their personal

competence and efficacy in the American context; and responses to several items pertaining to

“immigrant group consciousness.” All of these attitudes are elements in an “ideology of return.”

If the residential preferences that study participants express are more than top-of-the-head

responses – that is, if they are indicative of a coherent mindset – responses across these multiple

domains should move in sync following exposure to campaign stimuli. The following wordings

were used to capture the different attitude elements:

Affective Ratings . On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means that your opinion is very bad and 10 means that it is very good, where would you place Americans? The U.S. government in Washington, DC? Democrats? Republicans? Mexicans?

Personal Competence . o Agree or disagree: American politics is so complicated that I sometimes do not

understand it well.o Do you feel that your English is good, so-so, or not so good?

Immigrant Group Consciousness . o Have you been badly treated in the U.S. because of being an immigrant? If so,

where was this? Finding employment? Arranging housing? Seeking medical attention? Shopping? Just going about personal business in the street?

o Which of these words would you use to describe yourself? American? Mexican-American? Hispanic? Latino?

o How well do the two parties represent the interests of Latinos? Average American voters? Large corporations? Immigrants?

13

The zero to ten-point scale for affective ratings is comparable to those that have been

used in public opinion surveys in Mexico (e.g., Lawson et al. 2007).14 The first item to tap into

personal competence is adapted from the American National Election Study series; it is a

decades-old measure of personal political efficacy. The second would be relevant only within

immigrant populations. Language skills are a key marker of social incorporation in the United

States and an important determinant of status among the foreign-born. Appraisal of language

ability, however, is inherently inexact. Skills can fluctuate over time and depend on one’s

general level of confidence in a given context. If political campaigns can instill a sense of

accomplishment and empowerment (Clarke and Acock 1989; Finkel 1985; Mansbridge 1999),

these effects for this population could extend beyond political efficacy to judgments about

nonpolitical skills.

The concept of group consciousness appears frequently in the scholarly literature on

African-American participation and has been fruitfully applied to a wide range of ethnic groups

(Sanchez 2006). The three sets of items in this category are derived from this expansive

literature: interpreting the treatment one receives in the course of daily activities as a

consequence of membership in a specific social category, namely “immigrant”; reluctance to

identify oneself as “American,” but instead to prefer labels that are tied to ethnicity; and

evaluating the major parties based on how well they represent immigrants, as opposed to Latinos,

average American voters, and business corporations.

Table 3 shows the impact of exposure to one of the campaign ads on long-term

residential preferences. Two effects are apparent; listening to either advertisement reduced

uncertainty about living in the United States versus returning to Mexico, and increased the

attractiveness of remaining in the U.S. In the control group, 47 percent stated a preference for

14

remaining. This figure rises eight points for immigrants in the “Obama ad” group and 13 for

those exposed to the McCain commercial. This change is highly significant (p < .01) and

comports with the trend from 2006. The kinds of mobilization messages that are aired during

American campaigns can orient Mexican immigrants towards life in the United States. There is

little difference in effect between the two ads. Outreach for the Republicans counted as much as

messages from the Democrats.15

[Table 3 about here]

The campaign ads further affected summary evaluations of the two major parties,

Americans, and the U.S. government. In the case of the parties, a distinction emerges. Listening

to the Obama advertisement significantly improved assessments of the Democrats, even though

the party was not specifically mentioned in the commercial. The McCain ad did not have a

noteworthy impact on ratings of the Democrats, but it did cause immigrants to give Republicans

somewhat more positive ratings relative to both the “Obama ad” and the control groups (p

= .088). Respondents in the two treatment groups, however, evaluated both “Americans” and the

“U.S. government” more highly compared to those who had not heard an ad (p < .05 in each

case). On the other hand, exposure to an ad had no appreciable impact on affect towards

“Mexicans” as a group.

These shifts in opinions further underscore the potential for campaign communication to

contribute to the social incorporation of immigrants, even if the goal of the candidates is first and

foremost to move an audience towards one party in particular. Changes in the two efficacy items

are presented in the lower part of Table 3. In the case of political efficacy, the ad treatments did

not significantly alter appraisals. For respondents in all experimental groups, the consensus was

that American politics can sometimes be too complicated to understand. Such a breakdown in

15

responses typically surfaces in ANES surveys of the mass public. Exposure to the McCain

advertisement boosted political efficacy to some extent, but compared to the control group, this

is not a significant change. On the other hand, there is some evidence that after hearing one of

the campaign commercials, immigrants felt more confident in their English language skills, a key

indicator of perceived status in the United States (p = .088). As with the zero to ten-point

evaluation scales and the question of whether to remain in the country, the McCain and Obama

ads had comparable effects.

The impacts of the commercials on the multiple indicators of immigrant group

consciousness are presented in Table 4. Perceptions of group-based mistreatment were tallied

and coded into three categories (no discrimination, fewer than three types of mistreatment, or

more than five types). The pattern that emerges after breaking down this tally by experimental

treatments demonstrates that political outreach to the Latino community can cause the foreign-

born to interpret social interactions in a way that reinforces identification as an immigrant. At

the same time, the campaign messages significantly decreased the odds of identifying as an

“American.” In the control group, 36 percent designated themselves as such, as opposed to 28

percent in both the Obama and McCain treatment groups (p < .01). No similar reductions

emerged for other labels (Mexican-American, Latino, and Hispanic). The results for these latter

terms imply that ethnic group attachments are more strongly felt among the foreign-born and are

less bound to particular contexts, a point that has been raised in previous work on immigrant

identities (e.g., Jones-Correa 1998a).

[Table 4 about here]

The regression analyses in the lower half of the table speak to another facet of campaign

effects, the priming of group-based considerations when expressing summary evaluations of the

16

two major parties (Iyengar and Kinder 1987). As shown in Table 3, study participants who

listened to an advertisement updated their general impressions of the parties to a significant

degree, with those in the “Obama” treatment group liking the Democrats more and those in the

“McCain” group rating Republicans more highly. These evaluations were differenced (i.e., the

rating for Republicans was subtracted from that for the Democrats) and regressed on four items

that touched on group representation within the party system: whether the Democratic Party,

relative to the Republican Party, represents the interests of “Latinos,” “average American

voters,” “business corporations,” and “immigrants in the United States.” Each judgment was

measured on a three-point scale (-1 = only the Republican Party represents the particular group,

+1 = only the Democratic Party represents the group, 0 = all other responses).

In the “no ad” control group, the most relevant constituency groups for respondents when

evaluating the parties were “Latinos” and “average American voters.” Both regression slopes are

highly significant (p < .01) and run in the expected direction: perceptions that the Democratic

Party is more representative than the Republican Party are linked to higher general evaluations of

the Democrats relative to the Republicans. The impact of perceptions of “immigrant”

representation is also positive, and the coefficient for “business corporations” has a negative

sign. These signs would have been expected, but neither slope is large or statistically significant.

Turning to the two treatment groups, a much different pattern appears. Whether subjects listened

to an ad for Obama or McCain, perceptions of how well immigrants were represented took on

much greater weight and became the largest coefficient out of the set.16

Taken together, the findings in Tables 3 and 4 provide a framework for interpreting the

change in long-term settlement preferences over the course of the 2006 campaign. Conventional

political outreach during elections can shape basic orientations towards U.S. society and sharpen

17

group attachments that are relevant in the American context, with the ultimate effect of making

immigrants feel more at home in the country. For each of the items in these two tables,

subsequent models were estimated to examine variations in causal outcomes: advertising

treatments by sampling region, by length of stay in the United States, or by naturalization status.

In no case did significant interactions appear.17 As in the panel survey two years earlier, it

appears that Mexican immigrants are sensitive to the cues and signals from partisan elites even if

they have resided in the country for many years, live in an environment that is rich in bicultural

civic organizations and Latino leaders, or have become American citizens.

Conclusion

For the Mexican immigrants we studied, feelings towards the United States, beliefs about

one’s ability to navigate within mainstream American society, the recognition that one is part of

a particular group within the larger public, and a desire to remain in the country far into the

future are all interlinked. These are the principal elements in an ideology of settlement or

repatriation. As the five-month panel study of 2006 suggests and the survey experiment of 2008

more thoroughly documents, this ideology is flexible to a degree. To apply a phrase from

Converse’s classic (1964) piece on mass belief systems, immigrants respond to campaign stimuli

in a manner that typifies “dynamic ideological constraint”; changes in one attitude domain are

matched by changes in other related areas. Mexicans in the U.S. possess rather coherent

orientations towards settlement and incorporation, but these views are hardly static. As they

attempt to draw as much of the public as possible into the partisan fold, Democratic and

Republican campaigners can pull immigrants closer towards American society.

18

The fact that this movement occurred without simultaneously causing the Mexican-born

to lower their generally positive evaluations of “Mexicans” to a significant degree could imply

that esteem for one nation need not come at the expense of feelings towards the others. Many of

the major migrant-sending countries in the developing world, including Mexico, go to great

lengths to maintain ties to emigrant populations in the United States and the other industrialized

democracies. Whether these efforts undermine or facilitate civic incorporation in the receiving

country – or whether they simply have no effect at all – is an important question worthy of

further research.

Also worthy of future work is whether the effects of campaigns vary depending on the

communication choices made by candidates. The lesson from the 2006 study is that campaigns

in the aggregate could to an extent orient the foreign-born towards life in the United States. The

2008 experiment probes this effect more deeply, showing the Democratic and Republican

messages can be equally consequential. The two advertisements used as experimental treatments

were selected because they exemplify the parties’ traditional approach to mobilizing ethnic

constituencies: sell the candidate in highly personalized terms, avoiding explicit discussion of

partisanship or polarizing ideological disagreements; keep the tone upbeat; and rely heavily on

endorsements from members of the ethnic community. Such styles of communication will surely

reappear in future election cycles. Of course, other political outreach strategies are employed as

well, in particular various forms of negative campaigning. Exposure to advertisements that are

meant to inspire fear or anger, presumably directed against the opposing party, could have the

unintended effect of tilting immigrants away from U.S. civic life altogether.

Finally, the consistency of campaign effects across the full range of the Mexican

immigrant population – U.S. citizens and noncitizens, newcomers and immigrants who have

19

lived in the country for many years, and Mexicans based in San Antonio, Dallas, San Diego, or

Indiana – implies that the Mexican-born may never feel truly settled in the United States nor

fully committed to repatriating. This ambivalence may be an inescapable feature of migrant life

across all nationalities. As our findings make clear, the two major political parties play an

important part in immigrants’ assessments amid these uncertainties.

20

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Table 1. Changes in Long-Term Residential Preferences: June to November, 2006

June November

Stay in the U.S. 34 % 44 %Return to Mexico 66 % 56 %

**********************************************

Logistic regression model of preferences, November

b (se) p -value

Preferences, June .86 (.23) < .01U.S. citizen .03 (.41) .949Years spent in the U.S. -.01 (.01) .318Dallas resident .22 (.29) .454Indiana resident -.32 (.29) .280Constant 1.48 (.29) <.01

Note: Survey respondents were Mexican immigrants living in Dallas, San Diego, or north-central Indiana, interviewed by telephone. N = 753 in the June wave and 264 in November. To retain all cases, missing values were imputed via Amelia (King et al. 2001). The increase in desire to remain in the U.S. from June to November is highly significant based on a paired-sample t-test (p < .01, test-retest r =.35). In the logistic regression model, the dependent variable is coded 1=Stay in the U.S., 0 = Return to Mexico.

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Table 2. Experimental Treatments: Exposure to a Sixty-Second Presidential Campaign Radio Ad

Treatment Group 1: Obama Ad Exposure (N = 262)

[Barack Obama speaks in English, with dramatic orchestral music playing in the background.]

“There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America!” [Crowds cheer.]

[A youthful-sounding man then speaks Spanish with a middle class Mexican accent, as dramatic music continues to play in the background.]

“Barack Obama is talking to me. He has confronted a lot of the same difficulties my family has faced. His parents weren’t rich. But working hard, Obama won a scholarship and made his own path. After graduating from Harvard Law School, instead of taking a job which offered more money, Obama chose to work with churches, helping those who are the least protected in his community.”

[Barack Obama speaks in English, with dramatic music still playing in the background]

“In this election, in this moment let us reach for what we know is possible”

[The voice of the young man speaking Spanish resumes.]

“Obama is talking to me, to give us the opportunity of a university education, and to assure me that my parents and grandparents have healthcare. That’s why I’m spreading the word, to my parents, to my uncles, and friends. Because, politics isn’t just for those who like to argue. It’s for those who want to construct a better future. Obama is talking to me, and he is talking to you too.”

[Obama speaks in Spanish with a strong American accent.]

“I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.”

[The voice of a young man speaking Spanish resumes.]

“Paid for by Obama for America”

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Table 2, continued.

Treatment Group 2: McCain Ad Exposure (N=250)

[An older male speaks Spanish with a slight American accent as soothing acoustic guitar music plays in the background. After thirty seconds, light keyboard music is added.]

“My name is Frank Gamboa, a proud Latino who wants the best for our country and our community. My roommate when I was in the Naval Academy wants to be president, and he also wants what is best for Hispanics. His name is John McCain, and he has always been with us even in the hardest of times. This is because he shares our conservative values and faith in God. He knows that family is the most important thing we have, and that we value working hard. As someone from Arizona, John understands this and has won the respect of Latinos and has a long history of supporting us. In this election, it seems the other candidate has just discovered the importance of the Hispanic vote. That’s why when it comes to our values and to understanding us, I know that for John this is not politics. It comes from his heart, and that’s why I’m going to vote for John McCain.”

[John McCain speaks in English]

“I’m John McCain and I approve this message”

[Announcer speaks in English]

“Paid for by John McCain 2008”

Control, Group 3: No Ad Exposure (N=511)

Note: Survey participants were randomly assigned to one of the groups. Those chosen for one of the treatment categories were exposed to the ad a few minutes into the interview.

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Table 3. Settlement Preferences, Group Evaluations, and Personal Efficacy after Exposure to a Campaign Advertisement: Randomized Telephone Survey Experiment in September, 2008

Obama Ad McCain Ad No Ad SignificanceResidential Preferences (%)

Stay in the U.S. 55 60 47Return to Mexico someday 34 31 35Undecided 11 8 17 χ2=17.9, p < .01

Evaluations on a 0-10 Scale,Means and Standard Errors

Democrats 7.66 (.15) 7.06 (.16) 6.96 (.13) F=5.94, p=.003Republicans 5.51 (.19) 5.95 (.19) 5.55 (.19) F=2.44, p=.088Americans 7.84 (.13) 7.59 (.14) 7.39 (.11) F=3.23, p=.040U.S. Government 6.69 (.17) 6.82 (.18) 6.26 (.09) F=3.72, p=.025Mexicans 8.31 (.13) 7.93 (.13) 8.14 (.11) F=1.83, p=.161

Political Efficacy: Can U.S. PoliticsSometimes Be Too Complicated? (%)

Yes 61 56 61No 31 38 32Unsure 8 6 7 χ2=4.4, p = .361

Linguistic Efficacy: Believes English SkillsAre Good (3), So-So (2), or Not Good (1)

Means and Standard Errors 2.05 (.04) 2.02 (.04) 1.94 (.03) F=2.44, p=.088

Note: Respondents were Mexican immigrants living in San Antonio, Texas (N=522), or north-central Indiana (N=501), all interviewed by telephone. For those selected to listen to an advertisement, exposure occurred approximately five minutes into the survey (N=262 in the “Obama Ad” group, 250 in the “McCain Ad” group, and 511 in the control group). Responses to all of these items were gauged several minutes after exposure.

29

Table 4. Immigrant Group Consciousness by Experimental Treatment Group

Obama Ad McCain Ad No Ad Significance

Perceived MistreatmentDue to Being an Immigrant (%)

Three or more settings 12 8 8Fewer than three settings 12 18 11No mistreatment 77 74 81 χ2=10.8, p=.029

Self-Designations (%)

American 28 28 36 χ2=13.1, p <.01

Mexican-American 48 47 53 χ2=3.0, p=.226Latino 87 84 88 χ2=2.2,

p=.329Hispanic 93 91 93 χ2=.9, p=.623

**********************************************

Impact of Beliefs Concerning GroupRepresentation on Partisan Evaluations:Multivariate OLS Effects and SEs

Latinos 1.05 (.42) * .61 (.41) 1.06 (.18) **Average American Voters .85 (.37) * .55 (.41) 1.13 (.30) **Business Corporations -.57 (.35) .28 (.38) -.22 (.27)Immigrants 1.37 (.41) ** 1.24 (.45) ** .54 (.32)

Constant 1.31 (.24) ** .86 (.24) ** .98 (.18) **

Note: Perceived mistreatment was measured in the context of finding employment, arranging housing, seeking medical attention, shopping, and going about personal business “in the street.” Self-designations were measured by reading a list of terms to respondents and asking them to state “which they would use to describe themselves.” In the regression models, the dependent variable is a -10 to + 10 relative evaluation scale for the two major parties (i.e., ratings of Democrats on a 0-10 scale – ratings of Republicans on a comparable scale). Perceptions of partisan representativeness were measured by asking respondents whether each party “represented the interests of [Latinos, average American voters, business corporations, and immigrants].” Responses to each item were dummy-coded (1=yes) and differenced (perception of Democratic Party representation – perception of Republican Party representation). * = p < .05; ** = p < .01.

30

Notes

31

1 Much of the research for this paper was conducted while McCann was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City (Fall 2010) and the Institute for Policy Research at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC (Spring 2011). We thank Aixa Cintrón-Vélez, Geri Mannion, Ann Marie Clark, and Ronald B. Rapoport for helpful comments and assistance. Replication files are available upon request: mccannj@purdue.edu.

2 Indeed, the number of immigrants in the 2006 Latino National Survey who were “somewhat” or “very” interested in politics closely matches the proportion of U.S. citizens who reported being “somewhat” or “very” interested in the campaigns of 2004 and 2008, according to the American National Election Study. 3 Funding for these surveys was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Public Policy Institute at the University of Texas, the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue, and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego. N = 350 in Dallas, 125 in San Diego, and 277 in Indiana. David Leal and Wayne Cornelius collaborated in the design of the study, but we alone are responsible for the findings and interpretations presented here. Nearly all interviews were conducted in Spanish, and on average lasted just over twenty minutes. Interviewing Services of America (Van Nuys, CA), a firm with a long track-record of academic survey research on Latinos, administered the interviews. Since no ready-to-use listings of immigrants are available in the three regional sites, random samples of “Mexican heritage” households were obtained from Geoscape International (Miami, FL). Up to fifteen attempts were made to reach a respondent. Because the telephone records contained both U.S.-born Mexican-Americans and immigrants in unknown proportions, and many lines were out of service, there is no straightforward way to calculate a rate of response. If disconnected telephone lines, calls that were never answered, busy signals, and individuals who asked to be contacted again before interviewers could determine whether they fit the study profile are counted as “non-responses” (per the RR1 calculation in American Association for Public Opinion Research 2006, 32), the estimated response rate is a rather low 11 percent. However, if the response rate is defined as the ratio of completed interviews / attempted interviews of subjects known to fit the study protocol (i.e., RR5 in the AAPOR guide), this figure is dramatically higher at 89 percent. Whatever the method for calculating response rates, it is worth noting that with respect to key background variables such as gender, age, level of education, church attendance, and language use at home, study participants are similar to the Mexican-born respondents in other large-scale surveys (e.g., Camp 2003; Moreno 2005; Pew Hispanic Center 2006).

4 Near the end of the 753 interviews in June, respondents were asked if they would be willing to take part in another survey during the fall; 655 (or approximately 87 percent) agreed to this, left their first name or nickname, and gave up to two telephone numbers where they could be called. In November, we were able to reach and interview 264 Mexicans for the second round. This represents a successful contact rate of 40 percent, using a baseline of 668 potential interviewees, or a rate of 35 percent if the baseline is the original 753 who were queried about participating in a follow-up survey wave. The most common reason for a respondent to be dropped from the panel was a telephone line that was no longer in service. In cases where the line was still active and the respondent could be reached (with up to fifteen attempts) nearly all (97 percent) participated in the survey. To our knowledge, in political science this was the first survey of Latino immigrants that has included a panel component. Panel attrition is not significantly related to most of the socioeconomic and demographic variables (level of affluence, gender, level of education, language use, religious practice, or time spent in the United States). There is a small but statistically significant correlation between age and being included in the second survey wave. As in the first wave, nearly all interviews in November were conducted in Spanish, with each lasting approximately sixteen minutes on average.

5 To retain all cases, missing values were imputed via Amelia (King et al. 2001). This has only a marginal effect on the percentages of respondents wishing to remain or repatriate. Multiple imputation does, however, slightly sharpen the regression estimates in the lower part of the table.

6 Approximately one out of ten respondents had become a naturalized U.S. citizen, and the average length of stay in the United States was 9.3 years.

7 The outcome of the election, however, remained contested long after the July 2 contest, given the razor-thin margin separating the first-place and second-place finishers (Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution). But by September – well before the second survey wave – popular mobilization against Mexico’s electoral authorities had largely ceased, though López Obrador continued to protest the decision to declare Calderón the next president (Dominguez, Lawson, and Moreno 2009).

8 Funding for Study 2 was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University.

9 In the San Antonio sample, respondents had lived in the United States an average of 23 years, which is significantly longer than in either the Dallas or San Diego samples in 2006. Moreover, nearly half of the immigrants in San Antonio reported being naturalized U.S. citizens, a proportion that is substantially higher than in the Indiana sample.

10 This was the site of Gerald R. Ford’s storied tamale-eating incident. In an attempt to woo Mexican voters during the 1976 campaign, the president learned the hard way, on camera in living color, that one should shuck tamales before biting (Popkin 1991, 1).

11 As Iyengar and Kinder (1987, 11) note in their “living room” experiments involving network news broadcasts, the application of a treatment must be accompanied with a reasonable explanation for why subjects are being asked to behave in a certain way. For present purposes, the few questions that came after exposure to an ad are not of substantive interest.

12 At least since the 1970s, presidential campaigns have attempted to reach out to Latinos through the strategic deployment of “surrogates,” i.e., members of the Latino community who can sing the praises of the party or vouch for its nominee. See Subervi-Vélez (2008, 34).

13 Before fielding the study, we listened to the advertisements through a conventional telephone line to confirm that the sound quality was equivalent to what might be heard on a standard portable radio.

14 Prior research suggests that such scales are more approachable for Mexicans than the 0-100 feeling thermometers that commonly appear in American National Election Studies. 15 Differences in the causal effects of the two ads can be examined through equality constraints. Fixing the Obama and McCain commercials to have the same impact on residential preferences does not result in a significantly poorer fit, as judged by the χ2 goodness of fit (Long 1997).

16 Post-estimation tests of the coefficients show that the effect of perceptions regarding “immigrant representation” in the two treatment groups could safely be assumed to be equivalent, with the estimated impact being significantly higher than that for the control subjects.

17 These supplemental models are available upon request (mccannj@purdue.edu).