Fluid Borders

Fluid Borders
latino pow er, identity,
and politics in los angeles

lisa garcía bedolla

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London
Portions of chapter 3 appeared previously in Lisa García Bedolla, “The
Identity Paradox: Latino Language, Politics, and Selective Dissociation,”
Latino Studies 1 (2003): 264 – 83.

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England

© 2005 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

García Bedolla, Lisa, 1969–
Fluid borders : Latino power, identity, and politics in Los Angeles /
Lisa García Bedolla.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-520-24368-4 (alk. paper). — isbn 0-520-24369-2 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Hispanic Americans — California — Los Angeles — Interviews.
2. Working class—California—Los Angeles—Interviews. 3. Hispanic
Americans—California—Los Angeles—Politics and government.
4. Hispanic Americans—California—Los Angeles—Ethnic identity.
5. Hispanic Americans — California — Los Angeles — Social conditions.
6. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Politics and government. 7. Los Angeles
(Calif.) — Social conditions. 8. Social classes — California — Los Angeles.
9. Power (Social sciences)—California—Los Angeles. I. Title.

f869.l89s753 2005
979.4'9400468—dc22 2004065937

Manufactured in the United States of America

14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 60, containing 60% post-
consumer waste, processed chlorine free; 30% de-inked recycled fiber,
elemental chlorine free; and 10% FSC-certified virgin fiber, totally chlo-
rine free. EcoBook 60 is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements
of ansi/astm d5634–01 (Permanence of Paper).
To my family
Past, present, and future
Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi

1. Latino Political Engagement:

The Intersection of Power, Identity(ies), and Place 1
2. Legacies of Conquest:
Latinos in California and Los Angeles 26

3. A Thin Line between Love and Hate:

Language, Social Stigma, and Intragroup Relations 61

4. Why Vote? Race, Identity(ies), and Politics 100

5. Community Problems, Collective Solutions:
Latinos and Nonelectoral Participation 137
Conclusion. Fluid Borders:
Latinos, Race, and American Politics 175

Appendix A: Study Respondents 193

Appendix B: Interview Questionnaire 199
Notes 203
Bibliography 251
Index 271
Illustrations

Table

1. Total white and nonwhite populations in Los Angeles County,

1860–1930 41

Figures

1. Percent voting for Propositions 187, 209, and 227 98

2. Electoral turnout in Montebello and East Los Angeles,
1990–1998 134

ix
Acknowledgments

This book is a major revision of my dissertation, which I completed at the

Yale University Department of Political Science under the supervision of
Rogers Smith and Cathy Cohen. Both Rogers and Cathy supported my
ideas and the work from start to finish. They read various drafts of the
dissertation and encouraged me to improve the design and the analysis.
Since I completed my Ph.D., they also have provided very helpful advice
regarding my research and career trajectories. I would like to thank them
for their time and efforts on my behalf. Also at Yale, Don Green provided
critical and constructive comments that have been invaluable to the final
work. I especially appreciate his contributions as he was not an official
member of my committee.
The Chicano/Latino Studies program at the University of California,
Irvine (UCI), and the Department of Political Science at California State
University, Long Beach, allowed me time off from teaching that was crit-
ical to the completion of this project. My thanks also to Katherine Tate,

xi
xii Acknowledgments

Vicki Ruiz, and David Meyer for their willingness to read drafts of the
introduction and for their constructive comments. Vicki’s help in partic-
ular made it clear to me why historians write so much better than politi-
cal scientists. The feedback from talks I have given at the University of
Maryland; Georgetown University; the University of California, San
Diego; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of
California, Santa Barbara; the University of California Center for Latino
Research; and UCI led me to rethink many of my key concepts. In partic-
ular, I would like to thank Michael Alvarez, Edwina Barvosa-Carter, Cris-
tina Beltrán, John Bretting, Amy Bridges, David Easton, Heather Elliott,
Henry Flores, Luis Fraga, Bernard Grofman, Elise Jaffe, Kent Jennings,
James Jennings, Andrés Jiménez, Alethia Jones, Tamara Jones, Valerie
Martínez-Ebers, Lorraine McDonald, Melissa Michelson, Ricardo Ramírez,
Doug Reed, Andy Rich, Ray Rocco, Rudy Rosales, Shawn Rosenberg,
Mark Sawyer, Ron Schmidt Sr., Dorie Solinger, Janelle Wong, and Stephen
Weatherford for their helpful comments on various parts of this book. I
would also like to thank Susan Manness and Patricia Rosas for their edi-
torial assistance. Becki Scola and Susana Marín provided invaluable re-
search assistance. At the University of California Press, Naomi Schneider
has been very supportive and responsive throughout the process. Sheila
Berg did an excellent job of copyediting. Jacqueline Volin and Chalon
Emmons, along with the anonymous reviewers, have ensured that the
finished product is much better than the original manuscript. Any errors
that remain are entirely my own.
The interviews from which this work is drawn would not have been
possible without the generous help of Garfield High School Principal
Antonio García; former Assistant Vice Principal Cheryl Barkovich at
Garfield High School; Principal Dolores Díaz-Carrey at the City Terrace
Campus of Garfield Community Adult School; former Montebello Adult
School Principal and current Montebello High School Principal Jeffrey
Schwartz; and Montebello High School Counselor Denzil Walker. They
all went above and beyond what was expected; they not only allowed me
to talk to their students but also provided me with quiet space to conduct
the interviews and made the entire process incredibly easy. But, most of
all, I would like to thank all the respondents who so generously shared
 Acknowledgments xiii

their life stories and their feelings with me. My only regret is that I could
not include all of the information they shared. My hope is that I have
been able to do justice to their eloquence and experience.
On a personal note, this book is dedicated to my family. I would like
to thank my grandmothers, Catalina María de la Magdalena Costa Ascoli
de Ruiz and María de los Dolores López Muñiz de García, for sharing
their strong spirits with me, for their unconditional love and feeding, and
for giving me the foundation to be proud of myself and my history. My
hope is to someday have half their strength of character. I thank my
father, Manuel Pedro García, and my stepmother, María de la Caridad
García, for their support, which has made my life infinitely easier in so
many ways, and for resisting the urge to ask why I was taking so long to
finish this book. Thanks to my husband, José Luis Bedolla Rosiles, for
editing the entire manuscript on many occasions and for always pushing
me to do and be better. I hope the final product lives up to his expecta-
tions. And, finally, these stories are for my son, Lucas Joaquín Bedolla
García. May he always be proud of who he is and where he came from.
ONE Latino Political Engagement
the intersection of pow er,
identity(ies), and place

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it

never will.

Frederick Douglass

Studies of political engagement rarely mention crossing borders.1 Yet

an examination of the experiences of immigrants in the United States
highlights the many boundaries, both physical and psychological, that
immigrants must cross before they become engaged politically. This is
a different way of thinking about borders. It moves away from merely
considering boundaries between nation-states and toward seeing the
many barriers that exist within the U.S. polity itself. To recognize these
boundaries, we need to look at what Vicki Ruiz calls “internal migra-
tion,” immigrants’ process of “creating, accommodating, resisting, and
transforming the physical and psychological environs of their ‘new’
lives in the United States.”2 Internal migration is an ongoing process
of psychological, social, and cultural accommodation undertaken by
immigrants and their children, and it must precede political engage-
ment. This book focuses on the process of internal migration among
Latino immigrants and their children and the way in which having to

1
2 Latino Political Engagement

cross multiple borders affects their relationship with the U.S. political
system.3
The notion of border crossing has both geographic and psychological
significance. In terms of geography, migrants clearly have chosen to cross
a line dividing nation-states. After arriving in the United States, they en-
counter additional physical boundaries as they settle in places that pro-
vide differential access to transportation, jobs, services, and housing.
These boundaries affect their everyday lives and chances for socio-
economic mobility.4 In terms of psychological borders, immigrants leave
their home countries with a certain understanding of self and nation, but
this will evolve with time as they experience life in the United States.5 I
do not attempt to analyze migratory adjustments as a whole; instead, I
focus on one aspect of immigrant accommodation: the political engage-
ment of immigrants and their children. To do so, I compare the political
attitudes and behavior of Latinos in two areas of Los Angeles County,
California: East Los Angeles and Montebello.
Understanding the accommodation process is important because the
migration story does not end with the immigrant generation. Like their
parents, U.S.-born Latinos often remain geographically and socially sep-
arated from the Anglo majority.6 Latino children quickly learn that they
belong to a smaller, bounded circle within the larger circle of the United
States. Thus, “racism and xenophobia shape both the meaning and social
value attributed to [their] ethnic identities and to their lived experience of
national belonging in contemporary U.S. society.”7 For Latinos, the adap-
tation process is complicated by the country’s long history of discrimina-
tion against and exclusion of their community.8 Because they are mem-
bers of a marginal group in the United States, Latino immigrants and
their children confront multiple boundaries that affect their socialization
into the U.S. political system—boundaries that they are not always em-
powered to cross.9
This is not to suggest that Latino immigrants have no personal agency,
defined as “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting
power.”10 They influence and are influenced by the larger social, eco-
nomic, and political environment. An analysis of the immigrant experi-
ence must engage the tension between structure and agency.11 Most polit-
 Latino Political Engagement 3

ical studies assume near-absolute agency on the part of political actors,

making participation a question of personal choice, rather than of legal or
structural constraint. I instead use what Yen Espiritu calls “an agency-
oriented theoretical perspective,” which considers how immigrants “are
transformed by the experience of . . . migration and how they in turn
transform and remake the social world around them.”12 Individuals
make personal choices. Their choices are constrained by the institutional
environment, but their actions can alter that environment in some ways,
which in turn affects the nature of their subsequent personal choices. For
Latino political engagement in particular, what is key is the interaction
between collective identity and structural position. Again, each influ-
ences and is constitutive of the other. For Latinos to perceive that they are
full members of the U.S. political community and that they are empow-
ered to act within that community, they must develop a positive attach-
ment to their group and a belief that, however stigmatized it may be, that
group is worthy of their political effort. This process entails shifts in
Latinos’ internal and external boundaries. For both immigrants and their
children, this process changes according to time, place, and circumstance.
Major parts of the process are not completely under their control. The
varied political outcomes of the process are the focus of this book.

Latino Political Engagement:

Identity Meets Social Context

What exactly is meant here by the terms Latino, group, and identity? Many
analysts are uncomfortable with the word Latino because it refers to an
artificially constructed category that masks important cultural, social,
economic, and political differences that exist among different groups of
Latin American origin.13 I use Latino to describe a particular social group
in the United States, one composed of immigrants of Latin American ori-
gin and their descendants. My concept of group rests on Iris Young’s def-
inition of a social group as “a collective of persons differentiated from
others by cultural forms, practices, special needs or capacities, structure
of power, or privilege.”14 According to Young, what makes a collection of
4 Latino Political Engagement

people into a group is “less some set of attributes its members share than
the relation in which they stand to others.”15 Thus, all members of the
“Latino” group do not have to have the same interests or concerns but
rather must be similarly situated within U.S. society. This structural as-
pect of identity is often overlooked, yet it affects strongly how Latinos
interact with the political system on the individual level.
How group members identify themselves affects the ways in which they
relate to larger collectivities, such as their racial group and the U.S. nation-
state, in general. I define identity as an individual’s self-conceptualization
that places the individual either within or in opposition to a social group-
ing. This definition accepts that “a group is constituted not only when all
members share the same characteristics with one another, but also when
the members stand in a particular relationship to nonmembers.”16 This rela-
tional understanding of identity attempts to bridge the individual-level
and contextual aspects of identity formation.17 It acknowledges the cogni-
tive aspects of identity while also situating identity processes in their social
context in order to see people as “whole.” As Judith Howard explains, that
means “recognizing that both our everyday lives and the larger cultures in
which we operate shape our senses of who we are and what we could
become.”18
For immigrants and their children, the sense of “who we are” and
“what we could become” is profoundly influenced by the experiences of
crossing, and not being able to cross, multiple borders. As a result, an
analysis of the Latino experience in the United States must be situated at
the intersection of power, collective identity(ies), and place. All affect
where Latinos are positioned and where they end up positioning them-
selves vis-à-vis the larger political community. We must remember that
this interaction between agency and structure does not occur in a value-
neutral environment. Because accommodation occurs in a stigmatized
context, and includes processes not always under Latinos’ control,
“power” must be kept at the forefront of the analysis.19
The exercise of power is a key aspect of the experience of stigma. I
emphasize the effects of stigma because stigma is somewhat different
from discrimination. The latter infers a concrete negative experience or
denial of some benefit (a standard often used by the courts to determine
 Latino Political Engagement 5

the presence of discrimination). Stigma is imposed on individuals who

“possess (or are believed to possess) some attribute, or characteristic, that
conveys a social identity that is devalued in a particular social context.”20
Power is an important part of the equation, in that “stigmatization is
entirely contingent on access to social, economic and political power that
allows the identification of differentness, the construction of stereotypes,
the separation of labeled persons into distinct categories, and the full exe-
cution of disapproval, rejection, exclusion and discrimination.”21 This less
tangible aspect of racial hierarchy is very powerful, and it affects the life
experiences and social interactions of all people of color in the United
States. Studies have shown that members of stigmatized groups inter-
nalize societal stereotypes early in life, which negatively affects their
future socioeconomic status and psychological health.22 The process is
also mutually reinforcing, in that when a stigmatized group accepts its
lower status, its members are less likely to challenge the structural barri-
ers they face.
Latinos’ experiences of stigma, and the resulting perceptions of rela-
tive individual and group power, influence both the internal and external
aspects of the adjustment process. Internally, feelings of stigma make it
difficult for Latinos to feel positive about themselves and their larger
group. Externally, their opportunities and choices are limited by a struc-
tural context that is often also the source of information regarding nega-
tive group attributions. Thus, analyses of marginal groups must consider
how feelings of stigma affect attachment to their social group(s), as well
as to the political system as a whole. To ignore this is to ignore an impor-
tant part of the incorporation story.
Therefore, how a group member responds to feelings of stigma, along
with the political resources and opportunities available in his or her po-
litical context, affects the group member’s political engagement. Since
publication of The American Voter, studies of political behavior have em-
phasized the role that resources play.23 Socioeconomic status has been
found to be especially important.24 This is intuitively logical: Those with
more income and education are more likely to have the time and cogni-
tive ability to engage in politics. They are also more likely to be employed
in occupations that provide them with civic skills.25 For subordinate
6 Latino Political Engagement

groups in U.S. politics, other factors may fall under the rubric of political
“resources”: the level of affective attachment individuals feel toward the
larger social group, that is, psychological capital; and the politicization
and political opportunities available in the group’s social context, that is,
contextual capital. I find that the presence of these resources enhances
group members’ feelings of agency and their political engagement, re-
gardless of their socioeconomic status.

Mobilizing Identity(ies) as Psychological Capital

For those who study political participation and social movements, a vex-
ing question is why certain individuals are motivated to act while others
are not. The key is not simply whether or not an individual was invited
to get involved, but rather why the invitation was accepted. Although
rational-actor theories, such as those developed by Mancur Olson, would
lead us to expect collective action to be rare, in fact, people act collectively
all the time.26 Why? Social movement scholars argue that the existence of
mobilizing identities, in addition to the availability of political resources,
is key.27 However, these scholars say little about where these kinds of
mobilizing identities come from, why they exist for some group members
and not others, or how to foster engagement by encouraging the creation
of these kinds of identities.
This book examines the concept of a mobilizing identity and considers
this kind of collective identification a form of “psychological capital”—
social capital that exists within the individual psyche and gives a person
the motivation to act on behalf of the collective. I define a mobilizing
identity as an identity that includes a particular ideology plus a sense of
personal agency. Ideology here is “a world view readily found in the
population, including sets of ideas and values that cohere, that are used
publicly to justify political stances, and that shape and are shaped by
society.”28 A mobilizing identity is different from an ideology in that it
includes not only a particular outlook on the world but also a sense of
having the ability to have an impact on that world.29 Of course, it is likely
that an individual’s feelings of agency are closely related to that world-
view. For example, if an individual believes power is controlled by the
 Latino Political Engagement 7

few at the expense of the many, it is unlikely that he or she will possess a
mobilizing identity as I define it. But in this study I find that individuals
with very similar worldviews had very different responses to those
views. That difference, which I call personal agency, was the product of
their affective attachment to their social group—their ability to have a
positive collective identification with that group in a stigmatized social
context—combined with a positive view of the group.
Using the term collective identity, singular, does not imply that individ-
uals possess only one identity.30 As intersection theorists, such as Kimberlé
Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins, have aptly pointed out, different iden-
tifications, such as race, class, and gender, combine to form one identity—
what Howard describes as “the whole person.”31 My understanding of
collective identification does not require that individuals choose one
group identification over another. Rather, I am focusing on the relational
aspects of identity formation.32 In other words, collective identity is less
about how one sees oneself, that is, one’s personal identity, and more
about the values and attributions one feels are attributed to his or her
group(s) because of how the group(s) is seen by others. Thus, particular
group identifications are the result of particular understandings of self
and group in relation to other (hierarchically ordered) selves and groups.33
A sense of group attachment and “place” within the social hierarchy in
the United States affects how an individual understands political infor-
mation and how he or she chooses to act on that information. My re-
spondents’ strongest attachment was to a particular racial group, Latinos.
In another context, gender or sexuality might have been more prominent.
The importance of context to identification underscores the situational
aspects of identity and the fact that race identity, as I show, is informed by
experiences of gender and class as well. This discussion of collective
identity should not be seen as reifying a particular understanding of
community or as using a static definition. Rather, I conceptualize collec-
tive identity(ies) as shifting, situational, contextually driven understand-
ings of self and place in particular historical moments.34
Instead of defining a positive collective identification as psychological
capital, sociologists consider it a form of social capital. As such, it has been
found to have important effects on immigrant adaptation, self-esteem, and
8 Latino Political Engagement

academic success. In their study of the adaptation of second-generation

Vietnamese youth in New Orleans, Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston found
that “strong positive immigrant cultural orientations can serve as a form of
social capital that promotes value conformity and constructive forms of
behavior, which provide otherwise disadvantaged children with an adap-
tive advantage.”35 They argue that this kind of psychological capital is
more important than human capital for the successful adaptation of
younger-generation immigrants.36 Similarly, Rubén Rumbaut observed
that how immigrant youth “think and feel about themselves is critically
affected by the parents’ modes of ethnic socialization and by the strength
of the attachment that the child feels to the parents and the parents’
national origins.”37 Finally, María Eugenia Matute-Bianchi found that
Mexican American youth with strong ethnic identification are more likely
to be successful in school.38 These studies suggest that when immigrants
feel positive attachments to their group, despite any negative attributions
they may perceive, it helps them to adapt better in the United States.
This is also true in this study. The Latinos with whom I spoke tended
to situate their discussion of political issues in the context of their feelings
about being Latino. Their identities as members of a Latino community,
however defined, framed their understanding of political events. Their
interpretation of those political events, or their ideology, was similar
across the sample. However, the degree to which they felt empowered to
act on that worldview varied. All respondents felt that negative govern-
ment policies targeted Latinos. All but three saw themselves as part of a
stigmatized group. Those whose answers indicated a positive affective
group attachment and a positive view of their group also believed they
had the ability to act on behalf of their group. This sense of agency is
related to group attachment and group self-image, and it is what makes
an identity mobilizing. That identity, or psychological capital, serves as
an important individual resource. Ideology provides only a particular
interpretation of the world. The degree to which the respondents were
able to see their group in a positive light is what gave them the sense that
they could act. The issue is not simply racial identification but also the
content of that identification and the resulting psychological resources it
provides the individual, and by extension, his or her social group.
 Latino Political Engagement 9

Put simply, for individuals to choose to act, they must feel that they are
a part of something and that that “something” is worthy of political ef-
fort. That feeling of attachment and group worthiness is what motivates
them to act on behalf of the collective. This affects their engagement in
the full range of political activities, from protest to community politics to
voting in presidential elections. It affects their propensity to participate as
well as the nature and content of that participation. In the American
political context, race enters the picture here. In racial terms, the Ameri-
can political community has long been defined as white Anglo-Saxon
Protestant.39 Only recently have other racial groups been allowed to par-
ticipate formally in the system. It is reasonable to expect that members of
nonwhite racial groups may have difficulty identifying with, or feeling a
part of, a system that historically has not included people who look like
them.40 This also may explain why white racial identification may not
have a significant impact on whites’ participation. It is less about whether
whites have a racial identification than that their identification is in con-
gruence with the larger political system. There is no conflict, or contra-
diction, between whites’ racial identification and their larger political
attachments.
For members of marginalized groups, there is a contradiction. The re-
spondents in this study consistently defined “politics” as being separate
and distant from them. Therefore, their ability to feel part of the U.S. po-
litical system is more complicated, and potentially contradictory, than it
is for whites. The experience of stigma acts as an important boundary
between how they see themselves and how they see the larger political
community. In this context, how members see their marginalized social
group and the feelings of worthiness they attach to it is what gives them
a sense of efficacy and the motivation to act politically. This is where we
see the mobilizing potential of collective identity(ies). Whereas almost all
respondents said they felt their social group was being attacked during
the 1990s, those who felt the need, obligation, and ability to act on behalf
of their group were those who felt an affective attachment to it. As a
result, when their group was threatened, they felt it was worthy of their
protection. More important, they felt enough personal agency to believe
that their actions could protect it. Therein lies the major difference among
10 Latino Political Engagement

the respondents: A sense of personal agency is critical. It is the key to

political engagement, and it increases as affective attachment to the social
group increases.
This idea of affective group attachment is similar to but not the same
as what Michael Dawson calls “linked fate.” Dawson sees linked fate as
the extent to which the individual sees his or her fate (social, economic,
or political) as related to the fate of the larger group.41 Feelings of linked
fate have been found to influence African American political behavior.42
However, it is possible to feel that one’s fate is closely tied to that of the
group, yet feel very negative about the group itself or pessimistic about
one’s ability to effect change on behalf of the group.43 In this case, feel-
ings of group consciousness without a sense that the group is worthy
could move group members toward less participation, rather than more.
Individuals’ affective group attachment may say more about their sense
of personal efficacy, and how efficacy relates to group membership, than
feelings of group consciousness alone. The findings from this study sug-
gest scholars need to look more deeply at the nature of racial identifica-
tion and how it varies within and among racial groups, as well as how
group consciousness, group attachment, and perceptions of stigma af-
fect levels of political efficacy and activity within racial groups.44
To that end, it is important to locate the source of affective group at-
tachment. Among the respondents, family, school, and community were
especially crucial. Political socialization studies have found that the fam-
ily strongly influences the development of political attitudes, and I find
similar effects in this sample.45 The degree to which parents discussed
their family and cultural history with their children seemed most impor-
tant. Respondents who knew their families’ migration histories were
much more likely to express positive feelings about their racial back-
ground. Of course, this might reflect better general communication with
the parents, which translates into higher self-esteem. However, for those
who actually engaged in political activity, historical information and a
sense of cultural pride were more important motivators than was self-
esteem. In any case, for members of marginalized groups, self-esteem and
group identity are interrelated, so it is likely that high self-esteem affects
group identity and vice versa, blurring the distinction between the two.
 Latino Political Engagement 11

With regard to school, students who had taken Chicano Studies or

Multicultural History courses were much more likely to report having a
positive attachment to their social group, whether or not they discussed
their cultural history at home.46 On the community level, the East Los
Angeles respondents in particular mentioned that cultural events, such
as the 16th of September parade and celebrations marking Mexico’s
Independence Day, instilled in them a positive sense of community.47 The
importance of this kind of historical information makes sense in a stig-
matized context. The respondents were very aware of the negative images
associated with their group, and historical and cultural knowledge may
serve as an important counternarrative to that prevailing view.48 A posi-
tive view of the group fosters feelings of agency because, to feel empow-
ered to act, a person must have an alternative vision of how things could
be. A counternarrative may be unnecessary for nonstigmatized groups
because they automatically perceive that the system is meant to serve
their interests. For stigmatized groups, the larger social context is crucial
to fostering a positive sense of group identity and group worthiness.
Among the East Los Angeles respondents, a favorable social context—
family, school, community—fostered the development of mobilizing
identities.
Collective identity can have negative consequences as well. A lack of
this kind of psychological capital may depress engagement. Zhou and
Bankston found that the least adaptationally successful Vietnamese youth
were “overadapted,” in that they viewed themselves neither as Viet-
namese nor as Americans and simply drifted between the two identities.49
A similar but not identical process was apparent among the Montebello
respondents in this study. Zhou and Bankston were looking at socio-
economic adaptation. In this study, the Montebello respondents and their
families were middle class and thus socioeconomically well adapted.
However, that socioeconomic success did not translate into high levels of
political efficacy, as the political behavior literature would lead us to
expect.50 The Montebello respondents also maintained a high level of
racial identification. Like the Vietnamese youth, they felt they were not
“American” because, for them, being “American” meant being “white,”
and all but one did not define themselves as white.51 Yet they also lacked
12 Latino Political Engagement

a strong positive sense of what it meant to be “Latino.” As a result, they

lacked psychological capital and possessed a demobilizing identity, one
that depressed their feelings of efficacy and political engagement.
This understanding of the importance of collective identity again high-
lights the interaction between individual agency and larger structure.
Individuals cannot shape how others see their social group (and, by exten-
sion, themselves).52 Members of groups that are constructed around
ascriptive characteristics have little choice regarding their inclusion in
those definitions.53 So, if social psychologists are correct in positing that
individuals want to have a positive collective identity, members of deval-
ued groups need to find a way to resolve this conflict in order to maintain
self-esteem in the face of negative attributions. Regarding politics, a posi-
tive group attachment and feelings of group worthiness provide members
of marginalized groups with stronger feelings of personal agency. That
psychological capital helps them to become more engaged with the larger
polity. Political efficacy, then, is not just a product of the individual psyche
but of the structural context in which the individual is situated and of the
individual’s ability to garner the psychological resources needed to over-
come the negative images attributed to his or her racial group.

Opportunity Structures: The Role of Contextual Capital

Psychological capital refers to group members’ feelings of personal
agency. Contextual capital—social capital that arises from the area of set-
tlement and the larger social context—relates to structural constraints.
Both interact and affect the process of political engagement. Contextual
capital matters for two main reasons: an immigrant’s place of settlement
affects (1) access to institutional and organizational resources and (2) the
development and nature of immigrant social networks. Thus, levels of
contextual capital affect Latinos’ attitudes toward politics, opportunities
for political mobilization, and actual political activity.
Unlike the prominent scholar Robert Putnam, who focuses on social
capital at the community level and defines it as the degree of associa-
tional involvement and participatory behavior in a community, I believe
the type of organization matters, particularly whether it is ethnically
based.54 To measure social capital, Putnam looks at, among other things,
 Latino Political Engagement 13

memberships in voluntary associations, newspaper readership, and

expressions of trust in authorities. However, his analysis does not differ-
entiate sufficiently among organizations. For him, membership in a
union is the functional equivalent of membership in a bowling league.55
Yet social capital studies of marginal communities have found that not all
organizational activity has the same impact. Certain types of organiza-
tions, particularly neighborhood associations, have been found to have a
greater positive effect on participants’ sense of community and civic
engagement than other types.56 Similarly, an experimental study of the
effects of mobilization on Asian American electoral turnout found that
get-out-the-vote contact was more effective in areas with a larger pres-
ence of Asian American social, political, and cultural institutions, such as
ethnic newspapers, social service organizations, and Asian-centered
political organizations.57 Although Putnam is correct in arguing that peo-
ple’s social and political context affects their response to political stimuli,
it seems that for marginal groups, specific types of institutional activity
and membership are of greater significance. In this study, I also found
that ethnic organizing, even if not explicitly political, influences social
capital levels within marginal groups and seems to have a beneficial
long-term effect on feelings of efficacy.
Formal political institutions—such as local, state, and national gov-
ernmental bodies, party organizations, electoral rules—also form an im-
portant part of the social context by facilitating or impeding political
activity.58 East Los Angeles and Montebello have fairly comparable insti-
tutional structures that are typical for California: nonpartisan local office
holding, a strong county government, and a weak party system.59 The
main difference is that Montebello has a local municipal government,
whereas most of East Los Angeles is unincorporated, which puts it under
the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.60 This
institutional environment affects the political mobilization of individuals,
particularly by political parties. In addition, the resources available to
institutions in different areas varies, which affects opportunities for en-
gagement and mobilization. Thus, place of residence is important be-
cause it affects the levels of ethnically based organizational activity and
formal institutional resources that are available.
The final contextual variable is the racial makeup and politicization of
14 Latino Political Engagement

a person’s social networks. Sociologists have long explored how individ-

uals are incorporated into social networks and the effects those networks
have on socioeconomic opportunity.61 Sociologists see social networks as
a source of benefit to individuals because they create feelings of “bounded
solidarity” among network members. This bounded solidarity encour-
ages actors to act altruistically on behalf of their group, sect, or commu-
nity.62 The motivation is especially powerful because it is located in the
larger societal context and enforced by local community norms. How-
ever, unlike many sociologists, because local context shapes the opportu-
nities individuals will have to develop different kinds of networks, I view
these networks as a contextual variable. Here again, the individual and
the context are interacting in important ways, but the distinction between
them can be unclear. For the study of marginal communities, an empha-
sis on the contextual aspect of networks shows the degree to which a per-
son can and cannot control his or her social circle. Structural constraints
determine the availability of those networks and the resources they may
offer.
One of the greatest of these constraints is the degree to which a per-
son’s social networks include people of other races. People’s social net-
works tend to be remarkably homogeneous in terms of race, particularly
for blacks and whites.63 A survey in Detroit found that 73 percent of
whites reported having no black friends, and 57 percent of blacks said
they had no white friends.64 Similarly, a national probability sample
found that only 8 percent of adults reported having a person of another
race with whom they “discuss important matters.”65 Although in part
this may be the result of individual choice, it also is likely a product of the
high levels of residential segregation in the United States, combined with
the effects of social stigma. In her study of Mexican Americans in Santa
Paula, California, Martha Menchaca found that Anglos and Latinos
engaged in what she calls “social apartness,” resulting in two distinct
ethnic communities that interact only rarely.66 This separation was vol-
untary only on the part of Anglos; the Mexican Americans had little
choice regarding the degree to which they were “allowed” to interact
with whites. Interracial contact is embedded in a stigmatized context.67
The racial composition of the larger context and the levels of stigma
 Latino Political Engagement 15

attached to each group strongly affect who will be included in a given

person’s social networks.
The racial homogeneity of social networks is important because the
levels of politicization within them strongly influence voting attitudes
and behavior. David Knoke found that “structural relations are critical to
shaping Americans’ political behaviors. Being embedded in a strongly
partisan political environment and talking about political matters with
others are significant factors in national electoral participation.”68 Ronald
Lake and Robert Huckfeldt also found that the existence of political dis-
cussion and information sharing within social networks has significant
positive effects on political activity and engagement.69 Among Latinos
specifically, Melissa Marschall posited that “the real key to understand-
ing political participation lies in the social and institutional context that
shapes political engagement.”70 Similarly, Natasha Hritzuk and David
Park concluded that “social structural variables”—voting rates among
the respondent’s social networks, organizational affiliations, frequency of
religious service attendance, and mobilization—have important effects
on participation and that the politicization of the respondent’s social net-
works has the strongest contextual effect.71
Of course, it is difficult to know if politically interested individuals
seek out social networks that engage in political discussion, or if they
become more interested in politics because of the political discussion to
which they are exposed in their networks. At the very least, the social net-
works literature shows that Americans have fairly homogeneous social
networks, both at home and in the workplace, and the degree to which
networks are politicized affects members’ political engagement and
activity. Thus, a member of a racial group that is not politically engaged
is less likely to have access to social networks that foster political activity,
regardless of his or her personal propensities. This is especially problem-
atic for an immigrant group in which many members are noncitizens or
have limited experience with the U.S. political system, as is the case for
Latinos. Hritzuk and Park contend that “different means are required to
draw Latinos into the political process since, due to their predominantly
immigrant status, they tend to be less integrated into American society
than are blacks.”72
16 Latino Political Engagement

However, social networks are important for another reason: they are
spaces where group historical memory and collective experience are
shared. Latinos in Los Angeles have experienced second-class citizenship
since 1848, when the city became part of the United States. They have
faced labor-market discrimination, political exclusion, and social and geo-
graphic segregation.73 Families of the third-plus-generation respondents
in this study were integrated into U.S. society when segregation and dis-
crimination were at their height, and that experience has affected the
socialization of subsequent generations.74 Because the communities where
second- and third-plus-generation respondents live are highly segregated,
when new Latino immigrants settle there, most of their interpersonal
interactions are with Latinos whose families experienced historical exclu-
sion and discrimination.75 Thus, immigrant Latinos’ social networks are
largely composed of other Latinos, immigrant and native born. The native
born socialize the immigrants, using historical memory to educate them
regarding their place in U.S. society. Though de jure discrimination no
longer exists, its residual effects remain within Latino communities and
social networks, and this affects the integration of new immigrants.76
To understand Latino political attitudes and engagement, we must
examine the effects of Latino psychological and contextual capital. As
Zhou and Bankston point out, “The effect of ethnicity depends on the
microsocial structure on which ethnicity is based, as well as on the
macrosocial structures of the larger society. . . . [A]n explanation of dif-
ferential patterns of adaptation must take into account the normative
qualities of immigrant families and the patterns of social relations sur-
rounding those families.”77 Again, individuals are affecting structure and
structure is affecting individuals. The interaction between these two
spheres is what gives Latinos their sense of place in the political system
and influences their ability to engage with it.
This is quite different from the approach political scientists usually
employ to study the roles of identity and context in political behavior.
Although scholars of history, literature, psychology, and sociology have
focused on questions of identity when examining Latino behavior, for the
most part, political scientists have not.78 Perhaps this is because main-
stream studies of political participation generally have not emphasized
 Latino Political Engagement 17

how identity affects political behavior.79 In contrast, studies of African

American political participation have placed great emphasis on how
identity affects African American political activity.80 Scholars of Latino
political participation still debate the role that identity plays in that
process. Some, like Louis DeSipio, argue that because ethnic identifica-
tion has not been found to have a statistically significant effect on Latino
political behavior, ethnicity “rarely proves the most salient factor in polit-
ical decision-making,” and thus there is no “routine ethnic impact on
individual political behavior.”81 Others, like Carol Hardy-Fanta, see
changes in personal identity as fundamental to how Latinos choose to
incorporate themselves into politics.82 Most analysts fall somewhere in
between, seeing identity as having an impact on political activity but not
necessarily as central to Latino political behavior.83
Part of the problem may be how political scientists measure identity
and the effects of context. Identity is usually measured as a dummy vari-
able showing whether or not the respondent identified with a particular
racial group. However, my findings from Montebello and East Los Ange-
les indicate that not all collective identities have an equal capacity to
mobilize. Thus, that variable could be measuring very different kinds of
identities simultaneously. Measures of social context generally are not
included in surveys, except in questions about membership in organiza-
tions and whether a respondent has been contacted by a political cam-
paign. Putnam’s work reveals the importance of the relationship between
social capital and political behavior and the need to develop better ways
to measure the effects of contextual factors, particularly those of social
networks.84 Individual political behavior must be examined in the con-
text of the “whole” person, that is, in a manner that considers both psy-
chological and contextual factors.
These factors are especially important for marginal groups, and the
failure of previous studies to include them may help to explain why the
findings on Latino political behavior vary so widely. For example, in
1980, Ray Wolfinger and Steven Rosenstone found that Latinos vote at
almost the same rate as Anglos.85 However, in 1989, María Antonia Calvo
and Rosenstone found that Latinos voted at significantly lower rates.86
Studies using the 1991 Latino National Political Survey (LNPS) found
18 Latino Political Engagement

that Latinos vote at lower levels than Anglos but that some Latinos par-
ticipate in nonelectoral politics at higher rates.87 Using the Citizen
Participation Study, Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E.
Brady, and Norman Nie found that Latinos participate in both electoral
and nonelectoral activities at significantly lower rates.88 All these studies
use very different sampling techniques and methodologies to identify
“Latino” respondents, measure identity in a variety of ways, and incor-
porate measurements of the effects of stigma and social context to vary-
ing degrees.89 Those differences may partly explain the variation in their
findings. Incorporating better measures of Latino identity and context
into future studies should provide scholars with a more complete picture
of Latino incorporation patterns.

The Study

In November 1994, Proposition 187, which called for denying education,

health care, and social services to undocumented immigrants and their
children, was approved by more than 60 percent of California voters. The
campaign surrounding Proposition 187 garnered national media cover-
age and fomented the largest mass protests the California Latino com-
munity had seen since the 1960s.90 Schools were the location for much of
this political activity. In mid-October 1994, junior high and high school
students in Orange, Los Angeles, and Ventura Counties began walking
out of school en masse.91 According to the Los Angeles Times, more than
ten thousand students walked out in protest during October and No-
vember. Students also organized and participated in rallies, teach-ins,
and petition-signing drives. They walked precincts and worked phone
banks until election day.92 Most of these students were Latino.
Many observers believed that this high level of activity would have
long-term effects on the political engagement of these youths. Dennis
McLellan of the Los Angeles Times noted, “It is hard to recall another issue
in recent years that has galvanized so many high school students through-
out California, most making their first foray into political activism.”93 Jon
Markman, also of the Los Angeles Times, called this activity a “real-life civics
 Latino Political Engagement 19

lesson,” and James Trent, a professor of education at the University of

California, Los Angeles, said the students “won’t be the same anymore.”94
As a graduate student watching events unfold from afar, I also be-
lieved that the Proposition 187 campaign marked an important historical
moment in Latino politics in the United States, one that needed to be doc-
umented and analyzed. How would participation in this kind of political
activity affect the development of Latino political attitudes and activity?
Would youth involved in these actions be more politically engaged later
in life? Would feelings of identity and efficacy change as a result? This
study is meant to shed light on these questions. I began my investigation
with what is known about political behavior. Studies of political partici-
pation using both Anglo and Latino samples have consistently found that
socioeconomic status is the best predictor of political behavior.95 Thus, it
was reasonable to assume that class issues would affect Latino behavior
in the post–Proposition 187 context as well.
With that in mind, I compared students from two Latino-majority
areas in Los Angeles that were involved in the protests against Proposi-
tion 187 but that varied in terms of class. I focused on East Los Angeles,
a working-class Latino area, and Montebello, one of the few middle-class,
Latino-majority cities in the United States.96 Montebello residents are
more likely to speak English and less likely to be foreign born than are
the residents of East Los Angeles. Because geographic and psychological
boundaries can significantly influence the political socialization process
for immigrants and their families, a comparison of Montebello and East
Los Angeles allows us to see how two very different environments affect
Latino political attitudes and activity.97
I conducted one hundred in-depth, semistructured interviews during
summer 1996 and winter 1996–1997.98 Because much of the organizing
against Proposition 187 occurred in schools, I concentrated on four schools,
Garfield High School and Garfield Adult School in East Los Angeles and
Montebello High School and Montebello Adult School in Montebello.99
Half of my respondents were high school seniors at the time of the inter-
views, which meant that they had been sophomores during the walkouts
protesting Proposition 187. That experience gave them the opportunity to
be politically engaged in a way that was rare for their age group. The rest
20 Latino Political Engagement

of my respondents were adult school students in both areas, almost all of

whom had been living in California during the Proposition 187 cam-
paign.100 They too had experienced the heightened political activity during
the summer and fall of 1994.
The sample respondents were as diverse as the Latino community
itself. Most (83 percent) were of Mexican origin, but individuals of mixed
Mexican/other Latin American origin were also represented. The respon-
dents were between sixteen and sixty-eight years of age; two-thirds were
first or second generation, and the remaining respondents were third-
generation or more. Forty-nine were female, and fifty-one were male.
Some respondents had been in the United States for more than twenty
years; others had arrived less than a year before. Most of the respondents
were full-time students. Those who were employed had occupations
ranging from tattoo artist to executive assistant. (For a complete list of the
interview respondents, with their generational and citizenship status, see
Appendix A.)
The interviews were voluntary, and depending on the preference of
the respondent, they were conducted in English, Spanish, or both (for the
interview questions, see Appendix B). They averaged one and a half
hours in length, but some went on for as long as six hours, and all were
audiotaped. In transcribing the interviews, my goal was to be faithful to
the respondents’ words, including any grammatical errors.101 I used the
interview transcripts to create a database, sorted the responses by area,
gender, and generation, and employed content analysis to find recurring
themes. I organized the book’s chapters based on the main findings of
that analysis.102
With qualitative work, generalizability is always a question. This
methodological approach makes “a basic assumption . . . that the meaning
people make of their experience affects the way they carry out that expe-
rience.”103 I used what Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin call “grounded
theory,” meaning “theory . . . derived from data, systematically gathered
and analyzed through the research process.”104 With such a method, the
researcher does not begin with a preconceived notion but rather “allows
the theory to emerge from the data” so as to offer insight and enhance
understanding of the phenomenon in question.105
 Latino Political Engagement 21

Yet some may question the validity of those insights. Because this
study was conducted in the aftermath of an important historical moment
in California politics, one could argue against its applicability to other
contexts. There are at least three reasons why I believe my findings pro-
vide insights into the wider Latino political incorporation process. First,
the Proposition 187 campaign brought to the foreground anti-immigrant
tendencies that have always been present in California and U.S. poli-
tics.106 Second, the findings on the political detachment of English mono-
lingual third-plus-generation respondents are consistent with quantita-
tive studies of Latinos, particularly the LNPS.107 Finally, the findings on
the increased Latino mobilization that occurred after Proposition 187
coincide with other qualitative and quantitative studies of Latino politi-
cal participation in California during the mid- to late 1990s.108 In this
book, through Latinos’ own voices, I show how members of marginal-
ized groups engage in the complex process of negotiating their relation-
ship with the U.S. political system and the role of collective identity and
social context in that process.

Plan of the Book

This book examines how the overall political and social context in
California during the 1990s affected Latino political attitudes, activity,
and identity. The 1990s were a difficult period for Californians, especially
Latino Californians. Economic recession, natural disasters, riots, and sev-
eral ballot initiatives perceived to be directed at limiting the opportuni-
ties for Latinos in the state made this period historically important. These
events echoed the negative experiences that Latinos have faced through-
out California history, but during the 1990s, expressions of power were
much more overt than previously. Because Latinos were being described
openly in the media as “undesirables” and “outsiders,” they were better
able to see how power was operating in relation to themselves and their
communities.109 Thus, unlike in most periods, political issues and the
state of the Latino community were in the forefront of their minds.
Chapter 2 describes the racialized environment that characterized
22 Latino Political Engagement

California politics during the 1990s and shows how that environment
was a reflection of Latinos’ historical experiences in California. The chap-
ter begins with a look at the economic and political factors that drove the
Proposition 187 campaign and connects that proposition to two other
anti-Latino initiatives on the California ballot during the 1990s: Proposi-
tion 209 to end affirmative action in the state and Proposition 227 to end
bilingual education. The analysis then turns to an overview of how
Latinos have been incorporated into Los Angeles politics and society
since annexation. That discussion is followed by brief political histories
of Latinos in East Los Angeles and Montebello. These histories serve as
the foundation for subsequent political mobilization.
Chapter 3 describes the relations between immigrant and native-born
Latinos in a stigmatized context. Perceptions of stigma had important
negative effects on the respondents’ social identities and feelings of
group worthiness. Consistent with the findings of other studies on the
effects of stigma, these Latino respondents were very aware of how other
groups negatively stereotype their group. Though they had little contact
with Anglos, they perceived that these stereotypes affect all aspects of
their lives, from shopping in a non-Latino neighborhood to finding a job.
I find that, in response, many of the U.S.-born Latinos are selectively dis-
sociating themselves from immigrant Latinos.110 They are often hostile to
immigrants and refuse to speak Spanish in an attempt to force them to
assimilate more rapidly. They hope that if immigrants assimilate more
quickly, it will weaken negative stereotypes. New Latino immigrants, in
turn, get the message that group cohesion is limited and that speaking
Spanish only is an impediment to social and economic mobility.111 This
has a number of negative effects: it lowers the self-esteem of new immi-
grants, decreases language maintenance in the second generation, and
diminishes group cohesion and feelings of shared collectivity, which has
implications for policy proposals that target immigrants.
Chapter 4 examines electoral participation. Women in the sample were
the most likely to participate in voting. In general, the respondents from
both areas said they felt that Latinos were under attack. However, re-
sponses varied according to the respondents’ levels of psychological and
contextual capital, particularly their affective attachment to their social
 Latino Political Engagement 23

group, their feelings of group worthiness, and the levels of politicization

that existed within their social networks. The positive group identity
among Latinos in East Los Angeles motivates them to become more
involved in electoral politics. Conversely, the Montebello respondents’ lack
of an affective group attachment has the opposite effect, making them feel
more pessimistic about politics in general. These differences in racial iden-
tification result in different responses to the same political environment.
Unfortunately, the presence of Latino elected officials does not seem to
be having an effect on these responses. At the time of the study, both areas
had Latino representatives at the national, state, and local levels.112 Yet the
respondents, like many Americans, knew little about their representa-
tives, and they were largely unaware that their representatives were
Latino. This may be due to an absence of political discussions and access
to political information within those Latinos’ social networks. At the very
least, it shows that descriptive representation cannot have a positive effect
on Latino political attitudes if the constituents are not aware their repre-
sentatives are Latino. This suggests that the effect of the presence of Latino
representatives may also vary by context and merits future research.113
Chapter 5 looks at nonelectoral participation in both areas. Again,
women were much more likely than men to participate in marches and
protests. In terms of community work in general, respondents of both
genders from East Los Angeles were much more positive than were those
from Montebello about their ability to solve their area’s problems. Hardy-
Fanta argues that political consciousness begins at the point at which an
individual understands that individual problems are a collective issue
and thus need to be resolved on a collective level.114 It seems that the pres-
ence of mobilizing identities among the East Los Angeles respondents,
regardless of gender, motivate them to act on behalf of their neighbor-
hoods. The long organizational history in the area also seems to be facil-
itating this process. In contrast, because they lack this psychological and
contextual capital, the Montebello respondents have very low feelings of
efficacy regarding nonelectoral participation and think that problems
should be left to government. At the same time, they do not trust the gov-
ernment to solve problems, leaving them pessimistic about Latinos’ abil-
ity to find effective collective solutions to problems.
24 Latino Political Engagement

Conclusion

My findings are important for a number of reasons. First, they highlight

how the interaction between identity and context can affect political atti-
tudes and behaviors. As Jimy Sanders points out, social capital is “useful
in explicating how ethnic-based forms of social organization and collec-
tive action are embedded in interpersonal networks and how these forms
of organization and action generate and distribute resources.”115
However, the key is to grasp the role of interaction in this process. Social
context can construct identity, but identity can also transform the social
context.116 Both aspects are continually influencing and transforming the
other. It is important, therefore, to focus on the relational aspects of these
processes and how they affect individuals’ relationships with their social
group and the political system in general.117
Second, my findings show the important roles of power and stigma in
shaping how members of subordinate groups understand their political
“place” in the United States. That sense of place is affected by the inter-
action of psychological and contextual capital. As a result, group identi-
fication, feelings of efficacy, and political motivation can vary signifi-
cantly among racial-group members and across contexts. This means that
the issues or movements that mobilize particular Latinos will vary de-
pending on where they live and the extent to which those things appeal
to their group identity(ies). However, my findings also raise a cautionary
note: The absence of affective group attachment and politicized social
networks can have the opposite effect, depressing mobilization. Thus,
effective mobilization strategies must be politically meaningful from the
standpoint of a person’s group identity, and they must be context-
specific. Our current Latino political leadership could use this important
information to make more meaningful connections with their constitu-
ents and to mobilize Latinos more effectively.
Finally, my findings suggest that low participation rates among
Latinos are not due simply to issues of culture and poverty. Some schol-
ars have argued that Latino political disinterest is the result of inherent
cultural traits.118 Peter Skerry calls it the Mexican tendency to aguantar,
that is, the willingness to tolerate negative experiences without combat-
 Latino Political Engagement 25

ing them. Likewise, scholars who argue that socioeconomic status is the
key factor driving Latinos’ low participation rates assume that those
rates will not change significantly until Latino incomes and educational
levels increase. Both positions presuppose that a change in Latino partic-
ipation patterns cannot be expected in the short term and that even long-
term change would require a fundamental structural shift. This study
suggests that this may not be the case.
Many Latinos are aware of policy issues and politics, but some do not
feel that they, or their group, will benefit from being involved in the for-
mal political process. This highlights the importance of identity and
social context to political participation among stigmatized groups. In the
case of East Los Angeles Latinos, affective attachment to their social
group and feelings of group worth serve as sources of psychological cap-
ital, counterbalancing their sense of group stigma to motivate area resi-
dents to act politically. The result of this process is exemplified by the cre-
ation and success of the Mothers of East Los Angeles, a group of Latino
housewives who successfully organized against the construction of a
prison and a toxic incinerator in their area.119 If that kind of collective ori-
entation could be fostered in other Latino areas, either through mobiliza-
tion or organizational efforts, it would promote increased participation
by serving as a counterbalance to residential segregation and low socio-
economic status. This study shows that examining the nature and effects
of the interaction between identity and context can help us to better un-
derstand the political integration of subordinate groups in the United
States. That examination may also help us to find alternative methods for
fostering their civic engagement and political empowerment.
TWO Legacies of Conquest
latinos in california
and los angeles

L.A. is the most populous Mexican city outside Mexico, and as

such it has a dual nature. It is the great southwest—frontier of
our “Anglo” culture, but also the northwest—frontier center
of the Mexican. It is the focus of an undigested minority in
U.S. life that goes largely unnoticed by the majority.

Christopher Rand, 1967

Although the 1990s were an especially turbulent time in California poli-

tics, the moves to restrict immigration and immigrant rights form part of
a long tradition in California history. Since California became part of the
United States, Latinos have been subjected to social and geographic seg-
regation, economic discrimination, and political exclusion, and they have
continually resisted this subordinate status.1 Since the turn of the twenti-
eth century, East Los Angeles in particular has been a center of Latino
organizational and cultural life. This has served as an important source of
contextual capital for Latino residents. Montebello, for particular histor-
ical reasons, lacks this organizational tradition, leaving its residents with
less available contextual capital, despite their higher socioeconomic sta-
tus. In the following chapters we will see the ways in which these differ-
ences in historical and social context have affected Latino attitudes
toward politics and political engagement, especially in the nonelectoral
arena.

26
 Legacies of Conquest 27

The 1990s: Recession, Direct Democracy,

and Racial Threat

During the 1990s, California experienced riots, floods, fires, an earth-

quake, and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
California voters passed three initiatives—Propositions 187, 209, and
227—all of which “were designed to impose fundamental restrictions on
31 percent of the state’s population, its Latino community.”2 An analysis of
the politics behind these initiatives shows the degree to which they
reflected an overall environment of racial threat toward Latinos, an envi-
ronment that echoed previous periods of racial and ethnic hostility.
Because the fieldwork interviews took place soon after the Proposition 187
campaign, I begin with a discussion of the politics leading to Proposition
187, which laid the groundwork for the subsequent campaigns.
When former U.S. Senator Pete Wilson was elected governor of Cali-
fornia in 1990, he inherited a state on the brink of fiscal crisis. Although
the period from 1987 to 1991 had seen an economic boom, the state bud-
get was in deficit during three of those years.3 The budget woes were
exacerbated by military cutbacks and an economic downturn. California
lost 830,000 jobs between 1990 and 1993.4 In 1992 per capita income in
California declined for the first time in a century.5 From 1990 to 1994 man-
ufacturing jobs dropped by 15.7 percent in the state overall and by 23.8
percent in Los Angeles County.6 During that same period, the state’s
overall unemployment rate almost doubled, from 4.9 percent in 1990 to 9
percent in 1994.7 In Los Angeles County, the unemployment rate jumped
from 5.5 to 9.7 percent.8
In his first state budget cycle, Wilson faced a $14.3 billion budgetary
shortfall, which he tried to offset with “a combination of tax increases,
budget cuts, and onetime bookkeeping shifts.”9 He increased income and
sales taxes, taxes on automobiles and alcohol, and fees at state colleges
and universities, cut welfare grants, and suspended automatic cost-of-
living increases for welfare recipients. Although these measures helped
the situation, the state continued to operate in a deficit. By the 1993–1994
fiscal year, the deficit was so large that the state had to take out a two-
year “swing” loan of $7 billion in order to “balance” the budget.10
28 Legacies of Conquest

Governor Wilson, an ambitious politician with his eye on a possible run

for the White House, found himself on the eve of his campaign for reelec-
tion in a situation in which state revenues were not keeping up with
spending. Yet, as a Republican, he had already faced strong criticism after
his 1991 tax increases. Increasing taxes again to cover the shortfall would
threaten his chances for reelection and his future political ambitions.11
In addition to the economic crisis, California had undergone a signifi-
cant demographic shift. More immigrants arrived in California during
the 1980s than during the previous three decades combined.12 Nearly one
quarter of all legal immigrants to the United States at this time settled in
California.13 As a result, from 1960 to 1990, the foreign-born proportion of
the California population rose from 9 percent to 22 percent. In Los An-
geles County in 1990, over a third of the population was foreign born.14
Most of the immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America, with the
largest proportion from one country—Mexico.
For many Californians, these demographic changes were a source of
concern. A 1992 Roper poll found that 63 percent of Californians (com-
pared to 54 percent nationwide) thought that current immigration laws
let in too many immigrants.15 In the same poll, 78 percent of Californians
said they felt immigration was a financial burden on their state.16 A
February 1993 Los Angeles Times poll found that 63 percent of Los Angeles
residents felt that there were too many immigrants in the city. Polling also
showed that Californians, especially southern Californians, were con-
cerned not only about immigration generally but also about its effects on
their neighborhoods. For example, a 1993 Los Angeles Times poll of
Orange County residents found that 40 percent of whites felt that the eth-
nic makeup of their communities was changing, 21 percent felt that Lati-
nos were the primary group “moving in,” and 43 percent felt that that
demographic change was negatively affecting their neighborhoods.17
Local and state politicians were quick to try to capitalize on this grow-
ing anti-immigrant sentiment. In June 1993 the Orange County grand
jury called for a three-year ban on immigration in order to ease the bur-
den on government services.18 During the 1993 state legislative session,
more than thirty immigration-related bills were introduced, compared to
only two in the previous session.19 Most aimed to restrict undocumented
 Legacies of Conquest 29

immigrants from receiving state services, such as health and welfare

benefits, educational opportunities, and driver’s licenses.20 Governor
Wilson backed one of these bills, which demanded that the federal gov-
ernment pay California $1.5 billion to cover the state and local costs of
providing welfare, Medi-Cal, and other services to undocumented and
recently legalized immigrants.21 Many politicians made direct links be-
tween their anti-immigrant proposals and the state’s economic concerns.
A sponsor of two anti-immigrant bills introduced in the legislature, State
Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R–Newport Beach), asserted, “This is the
hottest button going. As people hear about job losses and the state deficit,
the backlash against illegal aliens grows.”22 State Assemblyman Mickey
Conroy (R–Orange), a sponsor of three bills, including one proposing the
construction of a prison in Baja California to house illegal immigrants
who commit crimes in California, went even further: “We’re to the point
now where we’re making our own citizens suffer to pay for the illegals.”23
As these anti-immigrant measures were being debated in Sacramento,
conservative groups began tapping into anti-immigrant sentiments among
the populace at large. In May 1993, the Virginia-based American Immigra-
tion Control Foundation sent direct-mail solicitations to California resi-
dents that characterized illegal immigration as a “national security threat”
and demanded that the military be called in to protect the border.24 The
foundation also claimed that illegal immigrants were voting in presidential
elections. By mid-1993, many national anti-immigration organizations,
such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), saw
California as the place “where a good deal of the action is on immigration
and illegal immigration.”25 Other groups, such as the Citizen’s Committee
on Immigration Policy, formed in response to the lack of movement in the
legislature on these issues. Frustrated with Sacramento’s failure to act, the
Citizen’s Committee and other anti-immigrant groups organized to take
these issues directly to the people through the ballot-initiative process.
These legislative proposals in Sacramento, and the political coalitions that
grew out of them, formed the basis for the movement to pass Proposition
187 in 1994.
Proposition 187 was a state ballot initiative sponsored by an organiza-
tion called Save Our State, a loose coalition of anti-immigrant forces
30 Legacies of Conquest

chaired by Ron S. Prince, an accountant from Orange County. In addition

to denying state services, such as education and health care, to un-
documented immigrants, the measure required that providers of those
services—teachers, doctors, nurses—report individuals to the Immigra-
tion and Naturalization Service (INS) if they suspected them of having
undocumented status.26 The measure was coauthored by Alan Nelson, a
former INS commissioner, and Harold Ezell, Nelson’s former West Coast
director. As its name suggests, Save Our State used imagery that pic-
tured a California “sinking” under the “flood” of immigration.27 Gover-
nor Wilson made his support of Proposition 187 a mainstay of his reelec-
tion campaign, thereby moving the focus away from the state’s economic
problems. The initiative resonated so strongly with voters that it passed
overwhelmingly even though the official campaign was “ill-financed,
loosely organized, and at times seemingly adrift.”28 It also managed to
get Wilson reelected to a second term despite California’s economic and
budgetary crises.
Although the proposition’s provisions targeted all undocumented
migrants, many of the statements by the pro-187 forces, including the
campaign advertising, made it clear that the target was not just migra-
tion but especially Latino migration. One of the most controversial tele-
vision advertisements run by Governor Wilson’s campaign began with
the words, “They keep coming.” It showed grainy black-and-white
footage of people running between cars at the San Ysidro–Tijuana bor-
der crossing. Clearly, the image was intended to invoke Mexican-origin
migrants. The proposition’s proponents were reported as saying that
they “are clearly troubled by population shifts that . . . have rapidly
transformed their once-familiar communities into strange and danger-
ous places where English is heard less and less.”29 Robert Lacey said
California was becoming a “Third World state” and blamed immigration
for the plummeting value of his house. He even claimed that his wife
could not find work because she could not speak Spanish.30 Ruth Coffey,
an activist who ran the group Stop Immigration Now, wrote in her cam-
paign materials, “I have no intention of being the object of ‘conquest,’
peaceful or otherwise, by Latinos, Asians, Blacks, Arabs, or any other
group of individuals who have claimed my country.”31 Similarly,
 Legacies of Conquest 31

another Proposition 187 supporter, Glenn Spencer, head of the Sherman

Oaks–based Voice of Citizens Together, characterized illegal immigra-
tion as “part of a reconquest of the American Southwest by foreign
Hispanics,” and he said, “Someone is going to be leaving the state. It will
either be them or us.”32
Latinos in California heard these overt and covert messages and rec-
ognized that their group was being targeted. Unfortunately, the attacks
were not limited only to rhetoric. Even before the passage of Proposition
187, there were reports of police and INS agents harassing Latinos
because of their citizenship status. On April 21, 1993, two white men
attacked Irma Muñoz, a twenty-year-old engineering student at the
University of California, Davis. They beat her and wrote anti-immigrant
statements such as “Go home illegal wetback” on her arms and legs.33 On
May 20, 1993, border patrol officials stopped Heriberto Camargo, a
sixteen-year-old resident of San Diego, as he was walking out of a corner
store. When he failed to produce his birth certificate, they handcuffed
him and placed him in a van. He was released when his mother pro-
duced the certificate.34 In August 1993, Eddie Cortez, the owner of a car
repair shop and at the time the mayor of Pomona, California, was pulled
over by INS agents while driving home from work. They questioned him
at length regarding his migration status and threatened to put him in a
van “with the rest of them.”35 Cortez, who, ironically, is a conservative
Republican, said he was shocked and embarrassed by the treatment he
received. That same month, the U.S.-Mexico Border Project of the Ameri-
can Friends Service Committee reported a sharp rise in beatings of un-
documented immigrants near the border, evidenced by increasing num-
bers of migrants found with head injuries and broken jaws.36
The passage of Proposition 187 and the slow economic recovery in
California after 1994 did not significantly decrease the racial threat for
Latinos in the state. A good example is the story of the “tagger shoot-
ing.”37 In 1995, William Masters II was a thirty-five-year-old, Anglo, part-
time actor from the San Fernando Valley. On January 31, Masters came
upon eighteen-year-old Rene Arce and twenty-year-old David Hillo as
they were spraying graffiti on a Hollywood Freeway overpass. He shot
both young men, killing Arce and wounding Hillo. Both were unarmed
32 Legacies of Conquest

and shot from behind. The coroner’s report estimated that Masters was
about thirty feet away when he shot Hillo. Later, Masters claimed he shot
Arce and Hillo in self-defense because one of them was brandishing a
screwdriver. However, in press statements after the incident, Masters
referred to the two youths as “skinhead Mexicans,” and in his initial
statement to police, he said he shot them “because they were spray paint-
ing.”38 Hillo was prosecuted for felony tagging, but District Attorney Gil
Garcetti declined to file felony charges against Masters, “ruling that
Masters reasonably felt threatened when Hillo brandished a screw-
driver.”39 Masters was convicted on misdemeanor gun charges and sen-
tenced to three years’ probation and thirty days picking up trash. He
served no jail time.
It seems that Masters’s act struck a chord with many in the Los
Angeles area. After his initial arrest, the Los Angeles Times reported that
the police were “overwhelmed” with calls supporting Masters.40 One vis-
itor to the jail offered to take Masters to dinner for performing a “pro-
found service to the community.”41 Masters himself expressed confidence
that he would go free; he believed it was unlikely that prosecutors could
find twelve people to convict him.42 Gary Henderson, recipient of the
1995 North Hollywood Good Neighbor Award, was so impressed that he
rededicated his award to Masters. In response to an editorial by the Four
Winds Student Movement that asked what kind of message Masters’s
sentence of probation sent to Rene Arce’s family, Ryan Erickson, a resi-
dent of Santa Clarita, wrote to the Los Angeles Times that Arce “made
choices . . . that contributed to his own demise” and that he should “take
responsibility” for his actions. It seems that the only person who ended
up taking responsibility was the deceased, and certainly not the man
who shot him.
These events reflect a system hostile to Latinos on a number of levels.
First, Masters shot the youths because of racial assumptions he made
about them, yet this crime was not conceptualized nor was it prosecuted
as a hate crime. Second, the criminal justice system treated Hillo and
Masters very differently. Though Hillo was wounded, police interro-
gated him for six hours and told him, falsely, that a security guard had
witnessed the shooting.43 Masters’s story was never questioned in depth,
 Legacies of Conquest 33

and when he gave his statement, the police rarely interrupted him.44 The
police never investigated Masters’s claim that he shot Hillo and Arce
because they were “spray painting” and that he did not know Hillo had
a screwdriver until he approached the body. The District Attorney’s
Office concluded its investigation in three days, before they received the
coroner’s final autopsy report, which determined how far Masters stood
from his victims when he shot them.45 The only person ever in real jeop-
ardy of spending time in jail was Hillo.
Although Wilson and many of the proponents of Proposition 187
argued that they were motivated by economic concerns, the campaign in
favor of the measure had strong racial overtones. Not surprisingly, the
next proposition on the statewide ballot, Proposition 209 in 1996, was an
explicitly racially oriented measure that ended all affirmative action pro-
grams in California. There were important overlaps among the partici-
pants in both campaigns. For example, Mickey Conroy, the Republican
assemblyman, was honorary co-chairman of the California Civil Rights
Initiative, the group sponsoring Proposition 209. Californians against
Discrimination and Preferences, the primary support group for the
proposition, explained that the initiative was needed “to end the regime
of race and sex-based quotas and preferences and set-asides now gov-
erning state employment, contracting, and education.” Clearly, this
proposition was racially targeted. During that campaign, there was no
real debate about affirmative action as a policy program or discussion
about its strengths and weaknesses. Exit polling showed that Anglos
were much more supportive of the proposition than were other racial
groups.46 Multivariate analysis of the polling data has shown that racial
concerns, rather than economic ones, are what drove Anglo voting on
Proposition 209.47
The final anti-Latino initiative, Proposition 227, was on the ballot in
California in 1998. It proposed to end bilingual education in the state and
was funded and promoted almost entirely by the Silicon Valley million-
aire Ron Unz. Unz has gone on to sponsor similar initiatives in Arizona,
Colorado, and Massachusetts. Like the Proposition 209 campaign, there
was little debate about the actual merits of the initiative. Unz himself
repeatedly stated that he had never been a teacher or spent time in a
34 Legacies of Conquest

bilingual classroom.48 He often said his initiative was based on “common

sense” rather than research.49 Despite attempts by the educational com-
munity to make voters understand that many of Unz’s assumptions flew
in the face of established research in the field of education, “the non-
Latino electorate of California voted with their gut to enact the referen-
dum.”50 In his detailed analysis of the metaphors used to describe bilin-
gual education and the Latino students in those classrooms, Otto Santa
Ana shows that the same kind of language used during the Proposition
187 campaign was used in 1998 to describe students with limited English
proficiency. In the public discourse surrounding the initiative, Spanish-
speaking Americans were repeatedly constructed as foreigners.51 Santa
Ana argues that Proposition 227 was not about education but rather
“reaffirm[ing] an increasingly antiquated view of America,” one that is
Anglo and English-only.52
The political environment for Latinos in California during the 1990s
echoed previous periods of nativist backlash in the state. Not all of these
targeted Latinos. For example, in the 1880s, California was the source of
the anti-Chinese sentiment that led to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. In
1913, targeting Japanese immigrants, California passed the Alien Land
Law, which prohibited noncitizens from owning land. During World
War II, only those Japanese living in California were interned, though the
Japanese population in Hawaii was much larger and more proximate to
the enemy.53 As I discuss in more detail below, the 1930s and 1950s in
California saw mass deportations of Mexicans, some immigrants, some
native born. Thus, what happened in California during the 1990s was not
a new phenomenon. A look at the history of Latinos in Los Angeles
shows the degree to which events during this decade were a continuation
of the conflict and hostility that Latinos have faced in California since the
American conquest of the Southwest.

Latinos in California
and Los Angeles Politics

Understanding the political context of the 1990s is important because that

was the historical moment the respondents in this study were living
 Legacies of Conquest 35

when they were interviewed. Yet the current political status of Latinos in
southern California forms part of a long history that predates Americans’
arrival in the Southwest. The Latino community’s social, political, and
economic experiences during the first few decades after annexation laid
the foundation for their subsequent inclusion in Los Angeles politics and
society. Because Latino immigrants arriving in the present day are social-
ized into politics by the U.S.-born Latinos in their neighborhoods, this
historical memory remains and affects how Latinos see the U.S. political
system.
Los Angeles became part of the United States during the annexation of
the northern territories of Mexico in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-
American War. In 1848, Los Angeles was the largest city in southern
California. Organized around a hacienda system, its economy was based
on cattle ranching. This semifeudal economic system was one of the jus-
tifications Americans used for the Mexican-American War and subse-
quent appropriation of the Southwest.54 Americans in favor of the war
argued that Mexicans had no right to the land because they were not
using it to its full capacity.55 Americans described themselves as having a
providential right to the land; it was “manifest destiny” to control it and
use it for the sake of the Anglo-Saxon race.56 The war was seen as a “test”
of sorts between the Anglo-Saxons and the “mongrel” Mexicans. Anglo
success in the war was interpreted as proof of Anglo economic and mili-
tary superiority.
This tension between Anglos and Mexicans remains throughout Los
Angeles history. As the historian William Deverell emphasizes, the “myth”
that was created for American Los Angeles relegated all that was “Mexi-
can” to a romanticized past that was not part of the “modernizing” pre-
sent. He goes on to say, “Understanding Los Angeles requires grappling
with the complex and disturbing relationships between whites, espe-
cially those able to command various forms of power, and Mexican peo-
ple, a Mexican past, and a Mexican landscape. . . . [N]arratives about
Mexico and Mexicans are integral to the city’s cultural and economic rise
during the period between the Mexican American War and World War
II.”57 American Los Angeles was built on top of a city and a society that
were already there. The city’s leaders and promoters dealt with this ten-
sion by defining “Mexicans” as “of the past” and Anglo-Saxons as “of the
36 Legacies of Conquest

future.”58 The result was that the extant Mexican-origin population in

southern California at the time of annexation was slowly removed from
the centers of social, economic, and political power.
The word Californio connotes the Mexican-origin population living in
California at the time of annexation. Southern California Californios did
not give up their power without a fight. Unlike in northern California,
the first two decades of American rule in southern California were con-
flict ridden.59 Between 1850 and 1890 Los Angeles earned the reputation
of being one of the most violent cities in the West.60 From 1850 to 1870,
there were thirty-five vigilante hangings, more than in the much larger
city of San Francisco.61 According to Albert Camarillo, during the 1850s in
Los Angeles, “race-related lynchings, murders, social banditry and dra-
matic court trials approximated a race war. . . . Racial conflict, both col-
lective and individual, between the newly arrived Americans and the
Mexican population shaped the tenor of the times.”62 As late as 1860 com-
mentators remarked that everyone in southern California was armed.63
This may be an indication that annexation was strongly contested and
resisted by the Mexican population in the area.64 Deverell contends that
the war did not end in 1848 and that documents from the period show
contemporaries describing Los Angeles during the 1850s as a place
wracked by “race war.”65 He believes that Los Angeles has never recov-
ered from the blood and ethnic hatred of the 1850s.66
Despite this resistance, eventually the Anglo population took control
of the city through manipulation of the legal, economic, and political sys-
tems.67 Annexation changed the legal system in the Southwest from the
civil-law tradition governing Mexican jurisprudence to the American
common-law system. Lack of familiarity with the legal system and the
English language placed the Mexican population at a great disadvantage.
In that context, the Anglo community also used the legal system to con-
trol, both socially and economically, the Mexican and other nonwhite
populations. As Leonard Pitt points out, “Naturally, the introduction of
the Anglo-American legal system in 1850 and the accompanying repeal
of all Spanish and Mexican statutes and institutions (except the juezes del
campo) caused the native-born some discomfort and insecurity. But,
whereas the initial transformation represented the inevitable change of
 Legacies of Conquest 37

systems, later enactments sometimes seemed intent on mischief-making

alone.”68
This was especially true of the state legislature of 1855, which “passed
six laws—sumptuary, labor, and immigration—which bluntly or obliquely
injured the Spanish-speaking.”69 One was a Sunday law prohibiting “bar-
barous or noisy” traditional Mexican Sunday pastimes, such as attending
bull, bear, or prize fights, horse races, circuses, theaters, bowling alleys,
gambling houses, or saloons.70 Another was a new foreign miners’ tax,
which included all Spanish speakers, foreign or native born.71 They also
passed an antivagrancy act, called at the time the “Greaser law,” which
made it illegal for Mexicans to be caught not working.72 Socially, the Sun-
day and Greaser laws served to control the visibility of Mexicans on the
streets and also to limit the public practice of traditional Mexican culture.
If the Mexicans were arrested under these new laws, their use in chain
gangs and as convict labor assured that they served an economic pur-
pose: “The first work of the town council of 1850 was to reenact many of
the old ordinances and add new ones. . . . [S]ome of the more interesting
articles of legislation, especially the first three, [are the ones] that estab-
lished chain gangs. The gangs were usually composed of Indians arrested
for drunkenness. They were employed in public works, and . . . could be
leased to private citizens. When their sentence was over, the Indians were
usually given a bottle of liquor along with their freedom.”73 It is impor-
tant to remember that the “Indian” population included Native Ameri-
cans in the area and also lower-class, darker-skinned Mexicans.74 After
annexation, legal instruments like these were used to keep these sectors
of the population under social control and available as a source of virtu-
ally free labor.75
Economic control was exerted through the transition to a capitalist
economic system and the dispossession of upper-class Mexican hacenda-
dos (owners of large landholdings). This was the result of a number of
factors, including illegal actions on the part of some Anglos, differences
between Anglo and Spanish land and tax law, and bad weather.76 Al-
though there were some hacendados whose lands were taken illegally,
about 75 percent of the land claims brought to court during this period
were found in favor of the original landholder.77 Unfortunately, the aver-
38 Legacies of Conquest

age time it took to settle a claim was seventeen years.78 Many Mexicans
had to mortgage their lands to pay their legal fees. Also, under the Span-
ish tax system landholders were taxed on a percentage of what the land
produced in a given year. If there was a loss, there were no taxes. Under
the U.S. system the land was assessed and taxed, regardless of what it
produced. Unfortunately for the Californios, the 1860s brought extreme
drought and flooding to the area, which decimated the cattle industry.
Despite these losses, the hacendados still owed taxes on the land and
often owed mortgages as well. Many had to sell their land just to pay the
legal fees and taxes. As a result, by 1890 the vast majority of former
hacendados had lost their lands.79 It is estimated that by the turn of the
twentieth century, 70 percent of Mexicans in California had to work as
laborers.80
As Anglos began to attain more control over southern California’s eco-
nomic system, they also slowly took control of the political system. Dur-
ing the first few decades after annexation, Mexicans and Anglos shared
political power in California. Californios were actually overrepresented
at California’s 1849 constitutional convention.81 But the exercise of full
citizenship rights was possible only so long as Californios were defined
as white. The 1849 Constitution gave voting rights to U.S. citizens and
white male citizens of Mexico. Initially, the definition of who constituted
a “white male citizen of Mexico” was rather flexible. For example, one of
the Californio delegates to the constitutional convention, Manuel Domín-
guez, was a dark-skinned mestizo.82 But the rules regarding white blood
became more restrictive over time. In 1849, having one-half or more of
“Indian” blood would lead one to be considered not “white,” and one-
half or more of black blood made a person “mulatto.” In 1851, the law
was changed so that one-fourth Indian blood meant a person was not
“white.” That many Mexicans were mestizo and that the law was made
more stringent only in terms of “Indian” blood suggest that the 1851
change was meant to restrict the citizenship rights of the California
Mexican population. One example is Pablo de la Guerra, a prominent
landholding Californio from Santa Barbara, who was prosecuted in 1870
for trying to exercise the rights of a white person.83 That standard
remained in effect in California until the twentieth century.84
 Legacies of Conquest 39

The Democratic Party controlled southern California politics through-

out the nineteenth century and lured upper-class Mexicans into the party
with the promise of political offices as rewards.85 This led to heavy
turnout among the overall Mexican population, and the Californios were
rewarded with political offices. From 1850 to 1859 Californios were
elected or appointed to eighty-three local or state offices.86 But this shar-
ing of power began to deteriorate fairly quickly as hostilities toward the
Californio population began to grow more heated in the state. By 1855,
these conflicts became evident when Know-Nothing J. Neely Johnson
was elected governor and other Know-Nothings held the offices of lieu-
tenant governor, superior court judge, comptroller, treasurer, attorney
general, land surveyor, state printer, and state senators and assembly-
men. During this election, the Know-Nothings pledged to fight against
free immigration, “Romanism” in government, and “foreign influence”
in the schools and state militia.87 In Los Angeles, Californios saw this
platform as a potential threat to their political life, social life, and religion
and organized against it. They called the Know-Nothings Ignorantes, and
during the 1855 election, “Californios who never before had voted took
the trouble to do so . . . , in recognition of the seriousness of the issues.”88
As a result, Los Angeles County was one of only two counties in Cal-
ifornia where the Know-Nothings were soundly defeated.89
Despite the local defeat of the Know-Nothings in southern California,
the statewide success of the party’s anti-immigrant platform reflected the
declining power of the Californios and the increasing hostility toward
them across California by the mid-1850s. The public humiliation of three
prominent Californios in the late 1850s is indicative of this trend. The first
instance occurred during the 1856 presidential election when Antonio
Coronel, a former mayor of Los Angeles and prominent Democratic Cali-
fornio politician, was running again for mayor. Fellow Democrats publicly
referred to him as “el negro Coronel,” the Black Coronel. On election day,
Anglo Democrats assembled near the polls shouting, “Here comes another
Greaser vote! Here comes another vote for the Negro! If Coronel, the
Negro, comes out to vote, stop him!”90 During this same election, the local
Democrats tried to split Los Angeles County into two districts in order to
increase Anglo control of city elections and weaken the Californio vote.91
40 Legacies of Conquest

The second event took place in April 1857, when Manuel Domínguez,
one of the signers of the California Constitution of 1849, a county super-
visor of Los Angeles, and a highly respected Californio, was not allowed
to testify on behalf of a defendant in a San Francisco court because the
Anglo lawyer for the plaintiff argued that his Indian blood legally barred
him from doing so. The judge agreed and dismissed Domínguez from the
stand.92 The third event was in 1858, when a constable seized former
California Governor Pío Pico to testify in a minor legal matter and liter-
ally dragged him to appear before the San Francisco court.93
These experiences in the 1850s marked the first steps toward the com-
plete erosion of Californio political power. In 1859 Californios attempted
to capitalize on the weakening of the Democratic Party statewide by cre-
ating a “People’s Slate” of former Whigs, Republicans, and indepen-
dents. They ran Californios for a number of key offices but were soundly
defeated.94 Local politics in Los Angeles remained under the control of
the conservative Democratic Party, and the revolt weakened Californio
power by diluting the Mexican vote and raising doubts among Anglo
Democrats about Californio party loyalty. As a result, the number of
Californios holding office decreased after 1860; by the turn of the new
century, no Californios held office in California.95
This internal Democratic Party conflict between Californios and
Anglos coincided with a dramatic increase in the Anglo population and
a concomitant decrease in the importance of the Mexican vote. The late
nineteenth century saw large numbers of Anglo in-migration to Califor-
nia. As Table 1 shows, this in-migration resulted in a significant decrease
in the proportion of the state’s Mexican population. One clear indication
of the decline of Californio power is the fact that by 1875 the minutes of
government bodies were no longer printed in Spanish.96 Through the
1870s Californios still periodically held the position of mayor of Los
Angeles and a few were in the state legislature. But, largely because of
gerrymandering and the population changes outlined in Table 1, there
has been no Latino mayor of Los Angeles since 1872, and there were no
state legislators until the 1960s.97 As Gutiérrez argues, “By the 1870s, and
certainly by the 1880s, unfavorable population ratios, combined with
Americans’ use of gerrymandering and other forms of ethnic exclusion,
 Legacies of Conquest 41

Table 1 Total White and Nonwhite Populations in Los Angeles County, 1860–1930

Total Spanish-
Population Speaking Indian Chinese Negro

1860 4,385 2,565 2,014 11 87

1870 8,504 2,131 219 234 134
1880 11,183 2,231 316 1,169 188
1890 50,395 n/a 144 4,424 1,817
1900 102,479 3,000–5,000 5 2,111 2,131
1910 319,198 9,678–29,738 81 1,954 7,599
1920 576,673 29,757–50,000 189 2,062 15,579
1930 1,238,048 97,116–190,000 616 3,009 38,894

source: Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society, 6th ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1996), 116, 200.

gradually forced Mexican Americans out of the political arena. Conse-

quently, by the turn of the century, Mexican Americans had lost virtually
all direct voice in local and state political affairs.”98 ]1elbaT[

Thus Mexican Americans were effectively shut out of both California

and Los Angeles politics and were socially and economically subordinate
to the Anglo population. According to Deverell, “Within a few short
decades, drought, legal entanglements, intermarriage, the imposition of
a new political economy, outright thievery, and the removal of Californios
from positions of political power had turned the world upside down.
California, the spoils of both place and name, belonged now to the
victors.”99
This social, economic, and political subordination was followed by the
social and geographic segregation of the Mexican population in Los
Angeles. Over time, two distinct societies developed in Los Angeles—
one white, one Mexican. According to James P. Allen and Eugene Turner,
“For the vast number of Angelenos the residential areas of whites and
Mexicans were coalescing into two very large communities, socially and
geographically separate and unequal.”100 By 1872, “half of the town re-
tained its Spanish character, while the other half was becoming Ameri-
42 Legacies of Conquest

can.”101 Mexicans remained concentrated mainly in the central plaza, an

area called Sonora Town, which was separate from Anglo settlements. As
a result, southern California society was “fundamentally structured
along ‘white’ and ‘Mexican’ lines, determining where one lived and
worked as well as one’s social status.”102 Robert M. Fogelson paints a
vivid picture of what Mexican life was like in Los Angeles between 1850
and 1885:

They . . . lived in dreadful accommodations. They had no money to

erect houses in fashionable neighborhoods, and in any case would not
have been welcome there. They congregated in the vicinity of the old
business district, where they rented crowded quarters in dilapidated
dwellings. They took little interest in politics, regarding authority as a
threat and avoiding it as a precaution, and politicians showed little con-
cern for them. They did not join fraternal societies or worship in Prot-
estant churches; nor did they cooperate with civic committees or con-
tribute to commercial organizations. Instead, the Mexicans retained . . .
their own institutions. . . . Unassimilated, unwelcome, and unprotected,
these people were so thoroughly isolated that the American majority
was able to maintain its untainted vision of an integrated community.103

Thus, the social segregation of Anglos and Mexicans that had existed
in Los Angeles since annexation eventually also became geographic seg-
regation. Before 1860, Mexicans made up 75 percent of the city’s total
population.104 During this period, community segregation was not geo-
graphic but social. After 1860, as Mexican economic and political power
decreased, the community began to become more geographically con-
centrated. By the 1880s, 70 percent of the Mexican population lived in
either the central plaza or the southern section of the city. The arrival of
the railroads to the city in the 1870s had led to industrial development
around the central plaza. This made housing expansion impossible.105 To
flee this concentration and shortage of housing, around 1887 some
Mexicans began moving into East Los Angeles.
From 1887 on, the trend has been the increased geographic segregation
of the Mexican American community into one barrio on the east side of
the city of Los Angeles. It is unclear to what extent this concentration and
segregation was forced by the Anglos or self-imposed by the Mexican
 Legacies of Conquest 43

population. There is no question that the use of racially restrictive real

estate covenants limited the areas where Mexicans were allowed to pur-
chase or rent housing. As a Los Angeles realtor from the 1920s said, seg-
regation is “not a problem” because “our realtors do not sell [to] Mexicans
and Japanese outside certain sections where it is agreed by community
custom they shall reside.”106 A Glendale realtor concurred, stating that
through enforcement of “suitable race restrictions, we can maintain our
high standard of American citizenship,” which was critical in “an Ameri-
can town like Glendale.”107 According to Deverell, after 1880 “the domi-
nant Anglo society set about creating certain cultural and physical bound-
aries by which to contain this expanding [Mexican] population, the sheer
size of which troubled whites.”108
Yet Richard Griswold del Castillo argues that Mexican residential con-
centration was the product of poverty and ethnic pride.109 Until this time,
the core of the Mexican barrio had been located in the poorest section of
downtown, the area with the oldest construction. Yet this area had a high
population density, and the cost of housing was high. The new area of
East Los Angeles thus had more available space and was more affordable
than the plaza area. In addition, as the Mexican “barrio” grew in East Los
Angeles, it had positive effects on group support and cohesion, which in
turn encouraged others to move to the area. From a group standpoint, the
“creation of the barrio insured ethnic survival. Proximity of residence
reinforced the language, religion, and social habits of the Mexican Ameri-
cans and thus insured the continuation of their distinctive culture.”110
One result of this geographic and social segregation is that throughout
much of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, there has been
limited contact between formal U.S. government institutions and the
Mexican population of East Los Angeles, and the two societies have
remained largely separate. Those interactions that have occurred gener-
ally have not been positive. For example, during the 1930s, the Los Ange-
les Police Department (LAPD) took it upon themselves to undertake the
widespread deportation of Mexicans in Los Angeles.111 The Great Depres-
sion hit Los Angeles hard. In order to take “aliens” off the relief roles and
to keep them from taking jobs from “Americans,” large numbers of
Mexicans were deported or were asked to leave “voluntarily.”112 It is
44 Legacies of Conquest

estimated that from 1929 to 1939, nearly half a million Mexicans were de-
ported from Los Angeles, many of whom were U.S. citizens.113 This depor-
tation experience was repeated during the 1950s when, because of the eco-
nomic recession that followed the Korean War, the INS reported removing
approximately 1.3 million Mexicans from the United States.114 These depor-
tations once again were carried out with the assistance of the LAPD.
There were other negative interactions between the Mexican American
community and the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1942 the so-called
Sleepy Lagoon incident occurred: twenty-two “pachuco” gang members
were arrested for the alleged murder of a rival gang member in East Los
Angeles.115 The victim was murdered after a party. There was little evi-
dence as to what had actually happened, no wounds on the body, and no
witnesses. The police picked up the twenty-two suspects at their homes,
long after the murder had taken place. The most compelling piece of evi-
dence was that they were pachucos and had attended the party where the
victim was murdered. After a highly irregular trial, an all-white jury
found the twenty-two guilty of charges ranging from assault and battery
to first-degree murder.116 This led to the creation of the Sleepy Lagoon
Defense Committee, which worked for their release. The decision was
reversed two years later when a higher court ruled that the defendants’
constitutional rights had been violated and that there was no evidence
linking them to the crime.117
While the Sleepy Lagoon defendants were in jail, in spring and summer
1943, the Zoot Suit Riots occurred.118 Hundreds of U.S. Navy sailors on
shore leave attacked Mexican pachucos in East Los Angeles. One of their
battle cries was “Let’s get ’em! Let’s get the chili-eating bastards!”119 Many
Mexican youths were stripped, had their hair shorn and their clothes torn
off, were beaten by the mobs, and then were arrested by Los Angeles police
officers for disturbing the peace. Despite the fact that the sailors had insti-
gated the riots, none was arrested. The police did arrest more than six hun-
dred Mexican Americans during the violence, many as a “preventive”
measure to keep them from inciting violence on the streets.120
As is the case with instances of segregation, the line between coercion
and individual choice is blurred. On the one hand, there is no question
that incidents such as those described above made it clear to Mexican
 Legacies of Conquest 45

Americans that Anglo society was hostile toward them and that leaving
their immediate area may result in negative outcomes.121 On the other
hand, many of the members of the community remained in their barrio
by choice. The key is that the segregation experience created a negative
relationship between formal Anglo institutions and the community, one
that remains today. This is despite the fact that formal legal structures
supporting segregation are no longer in force.
A more positive result of this segregation was the development of a
distinct Mexican American identity in Los Angeles and the maintenance
of Mexican language and cultural life. Before annexation, class divisions
were quite salient in Californio society. Most upper-class Mexicans did
not necessarily see themselves as having anything in common with their
lower-class neighbors.122 Many of the rancher class supported annexation
because they felt they would prosper economically under American rule
and because they were generally disenchanted with the central govern-
ment in Mexico City.123 During the first few years after annexation, there
was a great deal of intermarriage between the Anglo and Mexican upper
classes, and a clear class distinction was made between the hacendados
and their families and the rest of the Mexican population. This distinction
is one of the reasons that some Mexicans were legally categorized as
“white” after annexation.124 To a large extent this classification was ap-
plied only to upper-class Mexicans; the rest were included in the “In-
dian” category.125
As a result of the loss of Californio political and economic power, class
distinctions eventually became less important within the Mexican Ameri-
can community, and a broader “Mexican American” identity began to
develop. Gutiérrez argues that “the combination of military conquest and
the subsequent racial prejudice and social subordination helped pull
Mexican Americans together by providing the political and social context
in which a new sense of community and common purpose would de-
velop. . . . [T]his rising level of ethnic awareness provided the basis on
which Mexican Americans would later contest their political and socio-
economic subordination in American society.”126
Griswold del Castillo agrees with the assessment that the hostility and
discrimination experienced by Mexicans during this period led to the cre-
46 Legacies of Conquest

ation of a broad multiclass Mexican American identity. He argues that

this process was facilitated by the development of a Spanish-language
press, which had not existed during the Spanish and Mexican periods.
The Spanish-language press “increased Mexican Americans’ solidarity
by reporting common experiences of persecution and discrimination.”127
Among these “common experiences” were lynchings, employment dis-
crimination, problems with land claims, and prejudice.128 The press also
created a sense of community by reporting on cultural celebrations in the
community. It used la raza as a generic term to describe people of
Mexican origin. This term was a reflection of a new self-definition within
the Spanish-speaking community, one based on race instead of class or
culture. Because Anglos viewed them as a separate race, “the Spanish-
speaking were forced to redefine their loyalties in racial terms.”129
As a result of these changes, solidarity among Mexican Americans
increased. Social organizations and political clubs were organized that
drew the community together by defining the boundaries of cultural and
ethnic life.130 The Mexican American experience after annexation, then,
was both negative and positive. The Mexican-origin population was
forced into a position where they were socially, economically and politi-
cally subordinate to the Anglo population. They were socially and geo-
graphically segregated from the core institutional structures of Los
Angeles but were able to create their own internal institutions. As a result,
that very segregation allowed the community to retain its distinctive char-
acter, including its language and cultural traditions. The segregation expe-
rience also led to the development of a more inclusive Mexican American
identity and more solidarity in the community as a whole. Yet Mexican
Americans were highly aware of their subordinate position, and of their
lack of power within city and state political institutions. This history, both
positive and negative, has affected Mexican American attitudes toward
the political system and political participation.

East Los Angeles

East Los Angeles, which currently has a population of about 126,000, is

located just east of downtown Los Angeles. One segment of it falls
 Legacies of Conquest 47

within the boundaries of the City of Los Angeles and the other, fifteen
square miles, is unincorporated Los Angeles County land.131 In the nine-
teenth century, Jewish developers established Boyle Heights in the area
that is now city land, and City Terrace, Maravilla, and Belvedere on
what is now county land. Initially intended to be Jewish residential
neighborhoods, they later became home to large Russian and European
immigrant communities.132
Mexican-origin people have always lived in the area but first began
moving to East Los Angeles in large numbers in 1887. This migration
expanded along with the rapid growth in Mexican immigration early in
the twentieth century. Most of these immigrants were fleeing the violence
and displacement caused by the Mexican Revolution. Between 1910 and
1920, the Mexican population in Los Angeles grew from five thousand to
more than thirty thousand, and tripled from 1920 to 1930.133 The resulting
crowded living conditions along with the industrial development that
had begun with the arrival of the railroads left plaza residents with little
choice. They began moving to the east side of the city. Most settled
Maravilla and Belvedere, where they lived alongside settlements of Jews,
Armenians, and Russians. After the 1910s, many of the European immi-
grants began to move to the west side of the city, and East Los Angeles
slowly became a majority Mexican area.
From 1910 until the late 1970s, East Los Angeles served as the center of
Mexican American life in Los Angeles. Politically, the movement of the
Mexican American community from the central plaza to the east side
resulted in the literal removal of the area from Los Angeles politics.
While Boyle Heights is part of the City of Los Angeles, the rest is unin-
corporated Los Angeles County land. Practically, the unincorporated
area has to depend on the county government for services and does not
have its own local government, fire, or police force. Institutionally, the
area is governed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which
was made up of five members throughout much of the twentieth century.
Each supervisor represents millions of constituents, ensuring that the
area’s vote is so diluted that there is little chance of its having any direct
political influence. For example, there was no Latino representation on
the County Board of Supervisors until the 1990 Garza ruling, in which the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the creation of a Latino-majority
48 Legacies of Conquest

Los Angeles County Supervisorial District.134 That district became the

First District, and it is currently represented by Gloria Molina, the first
Latino to serve on the board in the twentieth century. The court based its
ruling on proof of historic gerrymandering and exclusion of the Los
Angeles Mexican American population. Similarly, the portion of East Los
Angeles that is within the Los Angeles city limits constitutes only a small
percentage of the city as a whole, and thus the Latinos in that area have
less ability to elect their own representatives or to influence city politics.
The segregation of the Mexican American population into East Los Ange-
les, then, also resulted in their political separation and exclusion from Los
Angeles city and county politics.
Nevertheless, this geographic concentration of population did allow
the Mexican American community to retain its cultural life. Throughout
the twentieth century, Belvedere Park was a center of community life.
The community held annual celebrations for Cinco de Mayo and the 16th
of September, which recognize Mexican independence from the French
and the Spanish respectively. Immigrants tended to settle in the barrio
because it was a source of social and economic networks and facilitated
their transition into American society.135 But it is also important to keep in
mind that while many Mexicans chose to remain in the area because of
social and kinship ties, those that desired to leave could not move to
Anglo neighborhoods because of restrictive real estate covenants and
general prejudice.136 Here again we see the two sides of residential segre-
gation: the creation of the barrio allowed for the maintenance of Mexican
cultural life and the development of group solidarity, but the concentra-
tion of the population was not by choice and limited Mexican Americans’
social, economic, and political opportunities.137
Mexican Americans in Los Angeles counteracted the negative effects
of this lack of opportunity through the development of racial solidarity.
The development of a Mexican American identity after annexation also
led to the creation of mutualistas, or mutual aid societies. These organiza-
tions developed in the nineteenth century in Mexico and were present
throughout the Southwest by the 1870s. They served social welfare func-
tions; many of them explicitly banned discussions of religion or politics
at their meetings. Interestingly, they defined “politics” as being the polit-
 Legacies of Conquest 49

ical situation in Mexico and not the civil rights problems being faced by
Mexican Americans in the United States.138 These organizations served
the needs of both citizen and noncitizen Mexicans and were essentially
working class in character. They provided an important safety net for
people in a vulnerable socioeconomic position. They also facilitated the
incorporation of new immigrants into the community. The mutualista
“acted as a crucial institutional buffer that eased new immigrants’ adjust-
ment to the United States. . . . In addition, the intimate contact that
occurred between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the
culturally familiar mutualistas helped to break down barriers between the
two groups, improved communication, and promoted a spirit of cooper-
ation among them.”139 Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles, then,
responded to their subordinate status by developing group solidarity
and important support systems for the most vulnerable members of their
group.
Though this kind of community organizing was present throughout
the early twentieth century, in most cases Mexican American organiza-
tions went out of their way to emphasize that they were not overtly
“political.” Mexican American organizations such as the League of United
Latin American Citizens (LULAC) that organized during the 1920s and
1930s were operating in a very hostile and nativist environment. As a
result, they took great pains not to be seen as making political demands
but as simply fighting for the “American” way of life.140
World War II served as a watershed. After the war, for the first time,
large-scale political organizing on the part of Mexican Americans took
place in Los Angeles. The first explicitly political Mexican American
organization in California was the Community Service Organization
(CSO). It was created by working-class Mexican World War II veterans
upset about their treatment on returning from service. Many had diffi-
culty getting access to their GI Bill benefits and generally felt disillu-
sioned about returning from the war to a segregated society. Like many
African American veterans during this period, Mexican American veter-
ans used their veterans’ status to demand full inclusion and civil rights.141
The CSO began as the Community Political Organization (CPO) and
evolved into the CSO in 1947 when the group organized support for
50 Legacies of Conquest

Edward Roybal’s unsuccessful bid for a Los Angeles City Council seat.
Fred Ross, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Founda-
tion, originally organized the CPO. Much of the organization’s legwork
was done by Mexican American steelworkers and volunteers, who later
formed the backbone of the CSO. Their effective confrontational style is
largely credited with Roybal’s subsequent election to the Los Angeles
City Council in 1949.142 He was the first Mexican American to serve on
the Los Angeles City Council in the twentieth century. He left the city
council in 1962 to run for a congressional seat, which he won. Another
Mexican American did not sit on the city council until Richard Alatorre’s
election in 1985, twenty-three years later.
The CSO also helped to train organizers such as César Chávez and
began pushing for political rights for Mexican Americans. Many of the
veterans involved in the CSO were able to attend college under the GI
Bill and continued to organize for more political power. Their influence
was limited by the fact that during this period, the Latino vote was
diluted by gerrymandering, making the election of Mexican American
officials difficult.143
The next political organization that came out of the Mexican American
community in Los Angeles was the Mexican American Political Associa-
tion (MAPA), which was established in 1959. The organization was cre-
ated by Edward Roybal to protest what he saw as racist attitudes within
the California Democratic Party. Two Mexican Americans had been nom-
inated for California statewide office in the 1950s—Edward Roybal for
lieutenant governor in 1954 and Henry López for secretary of state in
1958.144 The party encouraged both men not to run and subsequently
gave no support to either campaign.145 During the López campaign, some
Democratic officials even refused to join López on campaign platforms
during public appearances.146 López ended up being the only statewide
Democratic candidate to lose that year. MAPA, whose members were
middle-class Mexican Americans, became very active in Los Angeles
politics and was instrumental in the successful organization of the Viva
Kennedy campaign of 1960. During this get-out-the-vote effort, MAPA
worked to register record numbers of East Los Angeles residents. The
organization’s leaders were later disillusioned when they were ignored
 Legacies of Conquest 51

by the Democratic Party and the Kennedy administration and not given
the political appointments they had been led to expect.147 Despite this dis-
illusionment, the establishment of MAPA was an important first step in
the development of Mexican American political activity in the 1960s and
1970s.
During this period, Mexican American community activity also took
the form of grassroots organizing in favor of community development.
The first such organizing led to the creation of the East Los Angeles Com-
munity Union (TELACU) in 1968.148 This organization arose as a grass-
roots barrio movement demanding economic empowerment for the Mexi-
can American community after the Watts riots. Their main goal was to
find the venture capital needed to stimulate and develop the eastside
economy. The organization’s success was facilitated by funds from the
Johnson administration’s War on Poverty. They also received grants from
the United Auto Workers, the Ford Foundation, federal poverty agencies,
the Model Cities program, and the Department of Labor. TELACU created
a bank, an industrial park, commercial shopping malls, and low-income
housing in East Los Angeles, and remains active and influential today.
The 1970s saw other forms of community organizing in East Los
Angeles. Early in the decade Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles
were deeply involved in the Chicano Movement. In 1970 the Chicano
Moratorium March was held in Belvedere Park. The park was renamed
Salazar Park in honor of the journalist Rubén Salazar who was “acciden-
tally” shot by Los Angeles Police in an East Los Angeles bar shortly after
the march.149 The 1970s also saw the growth of grassroots organizing in
the area. The United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) was established
in 1975 to improve living conditions in East Los Angeles. It was based on
the Industrial Areas Foundation model and was instrumental in forcing
insurance companies to stop redlining the area in the 1970s.150
An example of grassroots organizing among women in East Los
Angeles is Mothers of East Los Angeles, “a loosely knit group of over 400
women.”151 This organization grew out of opposition to a state plan to
build a prison in East Los Angeles. Many of the women who began the
organization had been adversely affected by the freeway construction
that had divided East Los Angeles communities during the 1960s. Some
52 Legacies of Conquest

of the women had been forced to move more than once during that
period and transformed that experience into “a springboard for resis-
tance to the state prison, which [to them] represented an additional
encroachment.”152 These women used their “traditional” roles and net-
works to defeat the prison construction, and later to prevent construction
of a toxic incinerator in Vernon, a small industrial city adjacent to East
Los Angeles. This organization still exists in the area and works with
other environmental organizations to address quality of life issues in the
community. Mary Pardo argues that “[t]hese women have defied stereo-
types of apathy and used ethnic, gender and class identity as an impetus,
a strength, a vehicle for political activism. They have expanded their—
and our—understanding of the complexities of a political system, and
they have reaffirmed the possibility of ‘doing something.’”153
Over the course of the twentieth century, then, East Los Angeles be-
came home to numerous effective and politically significant Mexican
American organizations. After World War II, these organizations, while
still serving important social and integrative functions, became explicitly
political. Although gerrymandering and the area’s location in an unin-
corporated part of Los Angeles County limited Mexican Americans’ abil-
ity to hold office at the state and local levels, these organizations served
important functions on the local level by fostering group cohesion and
empowerment. Though there were still many socioeconomic problems in
East Los Angeles after the creation of TELACU and UNO, these organi-
zations have achieved important successes and have shown organizers
that collective action can make a difference on the local level. As we will
see in subsequent chapters, this history of collective group organization
has had a beneficial effect on the development of mobilizing identities
among Latinos in East Los Angeles.

Montebello

Montebello is a suburb east of the city of Los Angeles, with a population

of about sixty thousand. Montebello is, like East Los Angeles, a majority
Latino area, but this has not always been the case. Although Montebello
 Legacies of Conquest 53

was a Mexican-majority area at the turn of the twentieth century, from

the 1920s until the 1970s it was a middle-class Anglo city and was home
to many southern and midwestern immigrants. Documents from early-
twentieth-century Montebello show the degree to which those who set-
tled there shared a particular racial vision. One example is the annual
Pioneer Day celebration, which remembered and honored the settlers
who arrived in southern California by covered wagon. During the first
Pioneer Day celebration in 1936, the mayor of Montebello said, “We owe
much to these pioneers. Let us strive to be what they visioned of the
future generations. In those who strive for race perfection the personal
and petty individual things are forgotten. This thing which the modern
psychologists call ‘race vision’ must have burned ardently in the hearts of
these people who traveled in the covered wagons.”154 This belief in “race
perfection” and Anglo superiority, along with the highly segregated sta-
tus of Mexican Americans, limited the amount of local organization that
occurred among Mexican Americans in Montebello, thus decreasing their
access to contextual capital.
Montebello was the first Spanish settlement in Los Angeles County. In
1771 the first mission, San Gabriel Archangel, Misión Vieja, was built on
the site.155 It was abandoned in 1776 because of floods, and the Spanish
built the San Gabriel Mission nearby. The city also has the dubious dis-
tinction of being the location of the decisive battle of the Mexican Ameri-
can War, the Battle of the Río San Gabriel. On August 17, 1847, General
Kearney and Commodore Stockton defeated the Mexican garrison
defending the southern portion of the state. According to the Montebello
Chamber of Commerce, “This struggle annihilated the remaining resis-
tance, and led to the independence of California, a step preceding its
admission to the Union.”156
In addition to being where the Mexican forces were defeated in
California, Montebello was home to the famed Californio “bandit”
Tiburcio Vásquez, known as the “Robin Hood of California.” Vásquez
was one of the more famous Californios who maintained resistance to
American rule after annexation. That resistance led to the importation of
the “El Monte Boys,” a group of Texans who moved to El Monte (an area
just east of Montebello) during the 1850s. They were involved in numer-
54 Legacies of Conquest

ous lynchings of Mexicans in the area to “establish order.”157 They were

also called in periodically to help in other areas of Los Angeles when
whites felt threatened by Mexican violence.158 In 1857, a group of them
were seen bowling with the head of a murdered Mexican.159 Vásquez was
finally killed in 1874 in the hills of Montebello while attempting to rob
Allessandro Repetto, an Italian immigrant who owned a 5,000-acre ranch
in the area.
Repetto died in 1885, and his brother sold the estate to a group of Los
Angeles developers: Harris Newmark, Kaspar Cohn, John Bicknell, and
Stephen White. Newmark and Cohn took 1,200 of the 5,000 acres and
founded Montebello in 1899. At the suggestion of William Mulholland, a
town site of 40 acres was called Newmark and the remainder was called
Montebello. Mulholland divided the area into five- and ten-acre lots and
laid out the water system. At this point, the town was made up primar-
ily of small farms and nurseries and was advertised as an ideal agricul-
tural community.
Two things happened in Montebello in 1905. First, a Benedictine monk
moved to Montebello from Oklahoma to build a monastery. It turned out
that the site he chose sat on a large reserve of oil, which was important to
the future development of the city. Second, the Simons brothers, Joseph,
Elmer, and Walter, decided to expand their brick-making business by
building a plant in Montebello.160 They located the plant on a hundred-
acre tract located next to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad
tracks. They chose Montebello because it had “plentiful clay deposits,
cheap land and an available labor force of cheap unskilled Mexican
workers.”161 Montebello at the time was described as “beautiful” and “all
Mexican.”162 The plant was called the Simons Brick Company Yard No. 3
and included housing for a labor force of one hundred fifty Mexicans and
their families.163 By late spring 1907, the Mexican “Village of Simons” had
become a “fully engaged brick-making company town” turning out
160,000 bricks a day.164 By the 1920s, the brickyard spread out over 350
acres and was the world’s largest common brick manufacturing plant.
Over its history, the plant “became a microcosm of the divisive social
order that dominated southern California during the formative years of
the early 20th century.”165
 Legacies of Conquest 55

At the time, the Simons plant was considered a model “industrial

town.” The plant included “housing, a restaurant, general merchandise
store, post-office, school house, amusement hall, water works, electrical
plant, etc.”166 By 1907 it even included a company cafeteria to cook for the
seventy-five bachelors in residence. The houses rented for $3 to $4 a
month and had no foundations (the moisture from the clay would seep
upward during the wet winter months). They were single-wall construc-
tion, so most families used newspaper to cover the interior walls. There
was no electricity and no plumbing. The outhouses were in back, and
water could be drawn from spigots outside that were connected to the
company well. The houses had woodstoves that were used for both
cooking and heating. The roads were unpaved, and some workers were
able to purchase livestock that roamed the streets outside the houses.
Workers were allowed to have vegetable gardens, which many turned
into second incomes by selling the produce, particularly during the wet
winter months when the plant was closed.167
Since brick making is impossible when it rains, the workers had to
make as many bricks as possible during the dry “season.” Shifts were
nine to twelve hours per day, starting at 3:00 A.M. Work stopped when the
sun got hot in the afternoons. Early in the century wages were about 20
cents an hour, and the cost of a subsistence standard of living was $5 to
$7 a week. Many of the workers’ children worked as well. They were
paid a penny a brick to turn them while they dried. The company con-
trolled all aspects of the workers’ lives. Workers paid for groceries, shoes,
dry goods, and rent on company script or with company credit.168 The
plant had its own Catholic church, and the company had a “marital rela-
tions court” to adjudicate domestic disputes. Drinking was forbidden in
town, even inside a private home. Violators of company rules were fired
immediately. Anyone who even talked about union organizing lost his
job.169 The company provided a dance hall, organized an official band
and a semiprofessional baseball team, held boxing matches, and showed
films on site.170
These efforts to provide entertainment were necessary because the
plant’s gates were locked at night in order to keep the Mexican workers
from leaving the grounds. As a result, the rest of Montebello developed
56 Legacies of Conquest

as a highly segregated, Anglo-majority city. In 1916, when oil was dis-

covered on the Benedictine monk’s land, the wells were bought by Stan-
dard Oil. By 1918 Montebello was producing twenty thousand barrels of
oil daily, and by 1920 the city was producing one-eighth of California’s
crude oil. As a result of the oil boom, between 1920 and 1930 the popula-
tion increased from 2,582 to 7,564. The boom in development was orches-
trated by the Ransom real estate development company, which adver-
tised that Mexican labor was readily available in Montebello and used
pictures of the Simons plant as a promotional tool in its advertising.171
According to Deverell, Montebello grew so quickly as a city because the
success of the Simons plant could be presented as proof of the area’s
industrial promise.172 Montebello incorporated itself as a city in 1920
with a population of about 2,500.
Montebello realtors advertised the area as a “city of flowers.” But from
the beginning their vision of Montebello was a segregated one, and
“racially restrictive policies and practices occupied center stage in Monte-
bello’s city planning through the prewar era.”173 In the 1920s, a prominent
Montebello realtor said, “It is the practice of the [Realty] Board to watch
carefully to see that undesirable races are kept out of the older sections of
town.”174 The same board listed “controlling race conditions and enforc-
ing race restrictions” as one of its top goals.175 In a 1927 survey conducted
by the California Real Estate Association, of the forty-seven cities that re-
plied, thirty-two maintained some kind of segregated “Mexican” district.
These districts were enforced through deed restrictions and collusion
among realtors and property owners to enforce restrictive covenants.176
Montebello is listed in the survey as one of twenty-four cities with explic-
itly racially defined segregated areas. Segregation remained a problem
into the 1950s, when Mexican American World War II veterans led demon-
strations in Montebello against segregated housing developments.177
Segregation in Montebello went beyond housing. The city’s pool and
playground were off limits to Simons residents.178 The schools also were
segregated. The school located on the Simons grounds, called the
“Mexican school” by locals, had only Mexican students. Ostensibly, the
Mexican students were integrated once they got to junior high, but they
were all placed in the same home room, and most did not go on to high
 Legacies of Conquest 57

school. Many of the eighth-graders were seventeen or eighteen years

old.179 The education they received was clearly substandard; many of the
children of Simons workers did not learn to read and write in English or
Spanish until they served in the military in World War II.180 So, although
Montebello had a significant Mexican-origin population throughout its
history, during most of that time, the population was literally locked
behind closed gates. It is not surprising that a former Simons resident
reported rarely venturing out of the Simons plant area because of con-
cerns about how he would be treated.181
The Simons plant constituted a “town within a town.” For nearly half
a century, it appeared on area maps as “Simons.”182 At its height in the
1920s, the plant housed three thousand Mexican workers and their fam-
ilies, a population that was roughly equivalent to the size of the rest of
the city of Montebello. The bottom fell out of the brick-making industry
in the 1930s as a result of the Great Depression and changes in southern
California building codes following the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The
plant remained, however, producing brick at much lower levels. By 1940
the plant housed only eight hundred residents. Of the 182 homes on site,
only four had flush toilets. None had bathtubs. The homes had not been
improved since they were built almost fifty years before.183 In 1952, a Los
Angeles County health inspector found 90 percent of the houses unfit for
human habitation, and the plant was shut down. When the plant closed,
the families were displaced. Many ended up moving to South Monte-
bello because restrictive covenants kept them from buying land else-
where in the city. The area is now called Barrio Simons.184 During the
1980s, the Montebello City Council considered condemning their homes
to make way for new housing projects but was unsuccessful.185
The Simons plant is important for two main reasons. First, the bricks
produced at this plant literally built Los Angeles, including important
city landmarks such as Royce Hall at the University of California, Los
Angeles; the University of Southern California; Walt Disney Studios; and
many of the mansions in Hancock Park.186 Deverell contends:

The Simons Brick Company Yard No. 3 was a place of great importance
to the growth of Los Angeles in the first half of the century. The com-
58 Legacies of Conquest

pany literally helped build the city: its hotels, its universities, its homes,
its businesses. Yet ninety years after the construction of the brickyard
company housing, Ismael “Mayo” Vargas recalls Simons as a place
where human potential was never allowed to flower. Workers at the
brickyard worked their entire lives trying to get hold of something
approximating the California Dream. But the odds were against them
in the hole.187

This raises the second important aspect of the plant, the “benevolent pa-
ternalism” toward the Mexican population that the plant represented.188
Why did the Simons brothers need to create a “company town”? Why not
simply have their workers live nearby? The Los Angeles Times routinely
praised the Simons plant as a model of modern industry, a modern “mis-
sion,” and compared Walter Simons to Father Junípero Serra.189 The pater-
nalism inherent in this mission theme shows the degree to which this form
of industrial organization was meant to control the behavior of Mexican
workers and their labor. Deverell contends that the Simons plant was part
of larger attempts to “Americanize” and “civilize” the Mexican popula-
tion in California. He writes, “There is no doubt that self-contained
Simons . . . existed as a place where Mexican laborers could be closely
attended to, gradually brought forward toward ‘civilization.’”190
The closing of the Simons plant led to full racial integration in the city
of Montebello. Since the 1950s the city has experienced significant demo-
graphic change. For example, from 1965 to 1975 the student population
of Montebello schools went from being 35 percent to more than 65 per-
cent Mexican origin. Latinos were attracted to Montebello because it was
considered the Beverly Hills of East Los Angeles. The perception among
many was that “the move from urban settings, especially East Los Ange-
les, to suburban Montebello was the capstone of Latino upward mobil-
ity.”191 As a result, by 1990, 67 percent of Montebello residents were
Latino and only 17 percent were Anglo. Thus, it was not until quite re-
cently that the Anglo population of Montebello had to incorporate its
Mexican-origin neighbors, and this seems to have remained a source of
group conflict. For example, in 1995 one of the two Catholic churches in
Montebello attempted to add a Spanish Mass to its services and as a
result lost a number of parishioners.192 This is very different from
 Legacies of Conquest 59

Catholic churches in East Los Angeles, all of which hold at least one
Spanish-language Mass.
Mexican Americans in Montebello have had a very different historical
experience than those in East Los Angeles. They have experienced a
much more paternalistic attitude on the part of the dominant group and,
likely as a result, much less community-based activity and organization.
A 1999 study of social organizations in Montebello supports this posi-
tion.193 Similar to my findings, respondents in that study reported low
levels of community-based political activity in the city and a general lack
of knowledge about what was happening politically.194 They complained
of a lack of good sources of information, such as community newspapers,
and reported high levels of political apathy among community members,
especially young people.195 Few said they felt “national and statewide
events of political significance had any real impact on their lives.”196 As of
that study, Montebello had thirty-seven community-based organizations.
But these organizations tended not to be Latino-focused. Instead, they are
groups such as Friends of the Library, Kiwanis, Rotary, and the Monte-
bello Historical Society. This lack of specifically Latino organizations
might explain why the Latino respondents in Montebello report such
high feelings of political alienation and low levels of political efficacy,
particularly at the local level.
Thus, though Montebello has had a significant Mexican-origin popu-
lation since before it became a city, that population has been segregated
from the Anglo community until fairly recently. Although segregation led
to community organization and identity-based political organizing in
East Los Angeles, the same was not the case in Montebello, largely
because their activities were controlled by the Simons Brick Company. As
a result, though Montebello Latinos are relatively well off socioeconomi-
cally, their neighborhoods possess a limited amount of contextual capital.

Conclusion

Given the historical experiences of Latinos in California and Los Angeles,

the anti-Latino attitudes present in California during the 1990s are not all
60 Legacies of Conquest

that surprising. The ballot initiatives of this period echo previous political
movements and deportation campaigns against Latino presence in the
state. But despite the fact that Latinos in Los Angeles have been in a sub-
ordinate social, economic, and political position in southern California
society, they have been able to maintain a vibrant cultural and community
life. Over the course of the twentieth century, Mexican Americans in East
Los Angeles have used local organization to counteract the negative
impact of their stigmatized position. Although their political victories
have been limited, this organizing experience has left a legacy of group
organization and solidarity. In Montebello, for the first half of the twenti-
eth century, the Mexican population was literally fenced off from the rest
of the city. Their political, social, and economic life was controlled and
proscribed by the Simons Brick Company. The eventual integration of
Mexicans into the city of Montebello was not welcome and remains a
source of conflict. The result has been little group organization and polit-
ical activity. In the following chapters, we will see how the historical dif-
ferences in these communities have affected the psychological and con-
textual capital available not only to the Latinos who have been living there
but also to the new immigrants who recently have settled in these areas.
THREE A Thin Line between Love and Hate
language, social stigma,
and intragroup relations

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for

the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for
the appalling silence of the good people.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Scholars studying Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Latinos

in the United States have long emphasized the important role of lan-
guage and culture.1 Spanish-language use and maintenance (or not) has
been seen as an important aspect of how Latinos define their culture
and identity.2 Language use affects the integration of Latino immi-
grants, Latinos’ understanding of their own social identity, and intra-
group relations. These processes are structured by the negative stereo-
types Latinos feel that Anglos have of the Latino social group and by
the way in which those stereotypes are seen as applying, by extension,
to Spanish-language use. I explore here how Latinos’ attempts to de-
velop a positive collective identity despite negative attributions affect
their feelings about themselves and the relations between immigrant
and native-born Latinos.

61
62 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

Language, Identity, and Social Stigma

The development of Latino group identity is problematic because of

Latinos’ status as a stigmatized group in the United States. The experi-
ence of stigma is at the heart of the question of Latino identity. Jennifer
Crocker and colleagues define stigmatized individuals as ones who “pos-
sess (or are believed to possess) some attribute, or characteristic, that con-
veys a social identity that is devalued in a particular social context.”3 The
existence of stigma in relation to an individual’s group identity(ies) leads
him or her to find ways to have a positive attachment to the social group.4
To do this, social identity theorists contend, individuals may either dis-
sociate themselves from the stigmatized group or, if that is impossible,
embrace the group identity and work collectively to improve the status of
the group.5 Similarly, studies of the effects of stigma have found that
members of a stigmatized group are usually acutely aware of the nega-
tive characterizations of their group, and they will engage in a number of
strategies to enhance their self-esteem.6 These strategies include using
only in-group members as points of reference and disengagement and
disidentification with certain societal domains.
When examining racialized groups, then, it is important to consider
how stigma affects individual and group attitudes. This is different from
simply looking at the effects of discrimination. Discrimination infers a con-
crete negative experience or denial of some benefit. In fact, this is often the
standard used by the courts to determine whether they believe that dis-
crimination has occurred. However, in the post–civil rights era this kind of
blatant discrimination is not as common. In fact, the “shift in expressions of
prejudice away from blatant, unambiguous prejudice, and toward subtle,
indirect and modern forms, may paradoxically result in more, rather than
less, threat to the self-esteem of stigmatized individuals.”7 This is because
stigmatized individuals know prejudice exists but cannot be certain when
it is occurring. Individuals prefer to blame failure on themselves, rather
than accept that they are the victims of prejudice, because in that way they
can maintain some sense of control over the situation.8 Stigma can also lead
groups to believe they should not enjoy “full and equal participation in
social and economic life.”9 Members of stigmatized groups often accept the
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 63

“legitimating myths” of society that justify their stigmatization.10 So expe-

riences of stigma can have varied, and important, effects on the percep-
tions, attitudes, and actions of members of stigmatized groups.
The Latinos I interviewed were well aware of the stigma attached to
their social group. Javier, a first-generation Mexican from East Los Ange-
les, put it this way: “They [the United States] always give preference to
the immigrant with white skin over the immigrant with dark skin, or that
comes from South America, Mexico, or Central America. There’s a very
big difference.” Verónica, a twenty-four-year-old woman from East Los
Angeles who is also a first-generation Mexican, expressed a similar opin-
ion about why Proposition 187 was put on the ballot:

I have an idea that, maybe it was because of racism, no? Because, you
know, they always blame us, the Hispanics. There is a great deal of
racism, and I feel that that is why they did it. They [Americans] are
against the Hispanic race because that is what they see the most. Per-
haps this also applies to other nationalities, this racism, but not as
strongly as it does for Hispanics.

Juan, a second-generation Mexican-Salvadoran from Montebello, agreed.

He said that whites are prejudiced against Mexicans especially because
the government wants to “make the perfect United States of America.”
He went on to say, “They just want to make a perfect country. They don’t
want us here anymore. They want people to stay where they came from.”
The Latinos in this sample repeatedly said that they believe prejudice
exists against their group and that that prejudice affects how they are
treated in this country.
But what is the relationship between stigma and language? As socio-
linguists recognize, language is important in the maintenance and ex-
pression of ethnic identities. Language use, the representation of shared
meanings, and culture have been found to be closely related.11 Studies of
sociolinguistic groups around the world reveal that language is key to
how ethnicity is “recognized, interpreted and experienced.”12 Ethnic
groups communicate, develop feelings of solidarity, and preserve group
histories through language. However, that relationship to language can
become problematic when a group’s language exists in a subordinate
64 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

position within a system of sociolinguistic stratification.13 A paradox

arises, as the language is a source of pride and group solidarity, on the
one hand, and of stigma, on the other. As a result, “persons who speak
the socially disfavored varieties [of language] frequently appear to be-
come alienated from their own variety of language and to judge it as, for
example, inferior, sloppy, ugly, illogical or incomprehensible.”14
Sociolinguistic studies in the Latino community have also shown the
important ways in which language use relates to group identity, racial
stigma, and social power relations.15 Ana Celia Zentella finds that for
Latino groups of various national origins, the propensity of a group to
adopt the Spanish lexicon of another group depends in part on the rela-
tive racial and class status of the two.16 In a more recent analysis of lan-
guage shift among Puerto Ricans in New York City, Zentella finds that
feelings of racial, ethnolinguistic, and economic subordination play a key
role in parental language behavior.17 Similarly, Bonnie Urciuoli argues
that Puerto Rican linguistic behavior must be understood in the context
of what she calls “racialization”—how the value attributed to particular
languages is intimately tied to larger understandings of race and racial
hierarchy in U.S. society.18 So a lack of power and status is an important
part of the stigmatization process and affects Latino attitudes toward
both Spanish and English. Although these studies have examined pri-
marily the experiences of Puerto Ricans in the United States, their find-
ings lead us to expect that issues of linguistic and racial stigma affect the
development of collective identities for other national-origin Latinos.

Stigma, Spanish, and U.S. Language Policy

The history of Latino racial subordination in California is intimately

related to the use of the Spanish language.19 The social stigma attached to
Spanish is largely related to the role of the English language in the devel-
opment and maintenance of U.S. national identity.20 As the historian
Arthur Schlesinger puts it, “A common language is a necessary bond of
national cohesion in so heterogeneous a nation as America. . . . [I]nstitu-
tionalized bilingualism remains another source of the fragmentation of
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 65

America, another threat to the dream of ‘one people.’”21 From that point
of view, in order for American national identity to be cohesive, immi-
grants must not simply speak English, they must speak only English:
“The remarkable rapidity and completeness of language transition in
America is no mere happenstance, for it reflects the operation of strong
social forces. In a country lacking centuries-old traditions and culture
and receiving simultaneously millions of foreigners from the most
diverse lands, language homogeneity came to be seen as the bedrock of
nationhood and collective identity. Immigrants were not only compelled
to speak English, but to speak English only as the prerequisite of so-
cial acceptance and integration.”22 American national identity requires
English monolingualism because speaking another language has often
been seen as a sign of allegiance to another nation or culture and thus
antithetical to being a “true” American: “[L]anguage in America has a
meaning that transcends its purely instrumental value as a means of
communication. Unlike in several European nations, which are tolerant
of linguistic diversity, in the United States the acquisition of nonaccented
English and the dropping of foreign languages represent the litmus test
of Americanization. Other aspects of immigrant culture (religion, cuisine,
and community celebrations) often last for several generations, but the
home language seldom survives.”23 This explains why Americanization
programs for Mexican Americans and Native Americans forbade the use
of native languages, and, for Native Americans, required physical re-
moval from the family in order to remove any un-American influences.24
Thus becoming a “true” American requires not only the mastery of
English but the concomitant loss of the native language as well.25
In addition to viewing English monolingualism as the foundation for
American national identity, throughout U.S. history individuals promot-
ing a particular racial composition in America have proposed the use of
literacy tests and language requirements to achieve their exclusionary
goals. For example, during the immigration debates around the turn of
the twentieth century, literacy tests were proposed to keep out “undesir-
able” immigrants from southern Europe. In an 1896 speech to the U.S.
Senate, one of the main proponents of these tests, Henry Cabot Lodge,
acknowledged that this racially restrictive goal was their main purpose:
66 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

“It is found, in the first place, that the illiteracy test will bear most heav-
ily upon the Italians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks and Asiatics,
and very lightly or not at all, upon English-speaking immigrants or Ger-
mans, Scandinavians, and French. In other words, the races most affected
by the illiteracy test are those . . . races with which the English-speaking
people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are most alien to the
great body of the people of the United States.”26 Lodge’s argument is
strikingly similar to that made by Peter Brimelow one hundred years
later. In 1996, Brimelow, an English immigrant, argued that an English-
language proficiency requirement for immigration to the United States
would be a positive step because it would decrease immigration from
Latin America and increase immigration from Europe:

That [the adoption of an English proficiency test] would make a big dif-
ference (seriously). The Census Bureau reported a remarkable 47 per-
cent of the U.S. foreign-born population do not speak English “very
well” or “at all.” So emphasizing English proficiency would inevitably
cut down immigration a lot. Particularly of Hispanics. Some 71 percent
of foreign-born Mexicans report not speaking English “very well.”
Essentially all of them—96 percent—speak Spanish at home. In addi-
tion, an English-language requirement would probably increase immi-
gration from the developed countries of Europe.27

Language skills and English language use, then, historically have been an
important basis for American national identity, and this emphasis on lan-
guage often has had ascriptive, racial undertones. These undertones are
heard loud and clear by immigrants who speak “less desirable” lan-
guages. As a result, the immigrant language becomes stigmatized, and
the adoption of English plays an important role in the development of
collective identity and group cohesion within Latino immigrant groups.

Spanish, Stigma, and the First Generation

Immigration studies have long shown that immigrants tend to settle in

areas where they already have established familial ties or social net-
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 67

works.28 Often, social networks are present in communities with large

concentrations of immigrants from the same country of origin and even
from the same town or village. These settlement patterns provide immi-
grants with an environment in which they can function using their native
language and in which many of the norms and customs are familiar,
which eases their transition in the host country.
East Los Angeles and, to a lesser extent, Montebello, are communities
of this type. Both have high concentrations of Latinos who are available
to provide resources and assistance to new arrivals. East Los Angeles
especially has been an entry community for Latino (mostly Mexican) im-
migrants since the 1910s.29 Montebello has been less so, because of its his-
toric racial and socioeconomic makeup. But it has a number of businesses
and services that cater to the Spanish-speaking population and is located
near other immigrant communities, such as East Los Angeles, City of
Commerce, and Pico Rivera, where resources are also available to them.
In both communities, immigrants can take care of most of the necessities
of daily life—paying bills, shopping, going to the doctor—without
speaking English or by doing so only in a limited way.
The existence of ethnic enclave communities is often cited as a key rea-
son why new immigrants are not assimilating into U.S. society as rapidly
as did European immigrants in the early twentieth century.30 Proponents
of this view have argued that the provision of services accessible to
someone who speaks only Spanish makes life easy for immigrants by
making it unnecessary for them to learn English or adapt to the mores of
the United States. I found exactly the opposite. The first-generation
respondents were acutely aware of their linguistic isolation from the
dominant culture. These feelings of isolation adversely affected their
sense of self-worth, even though they live in Spanish-dominant areas.
Some negative feelings arose from their understanding that there is an
English-speaking world “out there,” from which they are segregated.
However, negative feelings also arose from the unpleasant interactions
they had in their own neighborhoods with native-born, English-speaking
Latinos.
In general, language was an important issue for the first-generation
respondents. All but one of them said that language is important for job
68 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

opportunities, supervising their children’s education, or simply negotiat-

ing the demands of everyday life. One of the most common phrases they
used to describe this feeling was not being able to defenderse—literally, “to
defend themselves”—socially, economically, or politically. Verónica de-
scribed the problem as vergüenzitas, or little embarrassments, that she felt
in situations when people asked her questions in English and she was not
able to respond. She said the question, “Oh, you don’t speak English?”
embarrassed her and left her “feeling bad,” even when the other person’s
intentions were benign.
Marta, a thirty-six-year-old Mexican woman from Montebello, went
further, saying that not speaking English is a problem wherever she goes
and that people give her “bad looks.” She said, “[This makes me feel]
very bad, as if I were something that had no value, as a human being, that
is, as if we had no rights, and that is not right.” A little later in the con-
versation, her voice very heavy and sad, she said, “I feel like, I feel as if I
am not in my place—as if I were in a strange place, because I cannot
defend myself as I would like, because I cannot express myself as I
would like.”
Not “having” English, as they put it, limited where they could go,
what they could do, and their ability to protest or even question author-
ity when they felt they were being taken advantage of. Two women, one
from East Los Angeles and one from Montebello, talked about their feel-
ings of fear and confusion when they were pulled over for traffic viola-
tions. They were both quick to point out that the policemen did not be-
have badly but that the experience was very unpleasant because all they
could do was accept the ticket without understanding fully what it was
for and without the ability to speak on their own behalf. These experi-
ences, repeated in many areas of their lives, left them feeling frustrated
and powerless.
María, a sixty-three-year-old Guatemalan woman from Montebello,
discussed how language affects access to good health care. When I inter-
viewed her, she had just recently spent a long time in the hospital recu-
perating from a serious gastrointestinal illness that left her on a strict
dietary regimen. None of the nurses on the floor spoke Spanish, and she
said she felt they resented having to deal with her because of the com-
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 69

munication problem. Out of resentment or simply neglect, they often

brought her meals that she could not eat. When she complained, the
nurses would act as if they did not understand, so she usually went hun-
gry. She talked about how frustrated and angry this made her. However,
for her, the worst aspect was the degree to which she felt disrespected
and disregarded as a human being. Her frustration stemmed from the
knowledge that she was powerless to do anything about it.
Some of the women mentioned similar feelings of frustration and pow-
erlessness when it came to monitoring the progress of their children’s edu-
cation. All of the first-generation women with school-age children said
they were very concerned about staying abreast of their children’s progress
in school. When asked if they went to parent-teacher conferences and
other school events, most said yes but complained that it was difficult to
communicate with their children’s teachers, most of whom did not speak
Spanish. The schools generally provided translators for these events, but in
most cases there was only one, who, of course, was in great demand. As a
result, in many cases parents went to the events but did not have the
opportunity to have substantive conversations about their children.
An example of language issues as a source of discrimination in the job
market is the story told by Marta. She had been taking English classes for
a number of years and felt fairly confident about her progress. Until then,
all of her jobs had been house cleaning or factory work. But because she
had improved her language skills, she felt confident enough to inquire
about a position in an office in downtown Los Angeles. She would be
doing mostly clerical work, with little interaction with outside clients,
and she felt she had all the qualifications listed in the job description.
When she arrived at the office, she said, the boss took one look at her and
said to the receptionist in English, “Tell her we don’t need anyone any-
more.” Marta asked why they would not consider her, and the recep-
tionist replied, “We need someone with more English.” Marta answered,
“How do you know about my English [skills] if you haven’t asked me
any questions?” But the receptionist would not allow her to apply, so
Marta left. She ended up taking a job caring for an elderly Anglo man,
which does not pay very well and has long hours, but she needed
employment, and that was her only option.
70 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

When she told this story, Marta was near tears and very upset. When
asked how the experience made her feel, she said:

Well, I felt, I felt as if they were turning me into something that had
no value. I felt sad because I think if I am a person that is looking for
work, I am looking for an honorable way to survive, because of the
necessity a person has—you have to work to survive. And where there
is discrimination, well one feels sad, you feel as if they think that you
as a person are not worth very much. And I think that if you are look-
ing for a decent job, you are worth something, no? If you look for a
decent job, no one is worth less than anyone else, because everyone
that looks for an honorable way to make their living deserves their
respect, at a minimum.

Rosa, a first-generation Mexican, summed up a number of respondents’

feelings about how language limitations lead to discrimination in their
lives:

Yes, when we got to the schools, when we go to our jobs, when we

go—whatever service we are trying to obtain, if it is a person that
does not speak Spanish. And, the people who speak Spanish, many
times they [know how to] speak Spanish but they don’t want to speak
Spanish [to us]. That is discrimination.

These women’s descriptions show that experiences of stigma affect more

than their access to services; they have powerful psychological effects as
well, decreasing their self-esteem and making them question their role
and value in this country.
The general feelings of insecurity, frustration, and powerlessness that
these first-generation women expressed are not surprising considering
the fact that they are living in an English-speaking society. What is sur-
prising is the frequency with which these negative experiences were the
result of their interaction with other Latinos, not Anglos. Roberto, a sec-
ond-generation Salvadoran, reported that this happens in Montebello:

I see problems with immigrants. I remember when I was in inter-

mediate [middle school]. I would see kids that have Mexican parents,
they were Mexican American. There was one who had just come from
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 71

Mexico, and they would look at him like, oh, they’d look down on him.
And why? You’re both Mexican. Either way you both have Mexican
blood. I don’t see why you should do that.

Forty-year-old-Mercedes, a first-generation Mexican, told a similar story

regarding how she was treated in an East Los Angeles junior high school
after she first arrived in this country:

And, I go to junior high and it was the worst experience of my life,

everybody called me, because I didn’t speak English, everybody called
me, us, well, at that time I had two friends, we were together because
we couldn’t speak English, and people born from here, or speak
English, they called us Mexicans, TJs, and other things.

Were they Americans or Mexicans who called you that?

No, no white people because there’s no white people here then, same as
now. Same people, if they’re not Mexican, their parents are Mexican.

How did that make you feel?

Um, I don’t know, I felt terrible because I wanted to learn English, but
I couldn’t, I couldn’t because people laughed at me and the other girls.
One time I had to fight with one of the girls because the things they said
just made me explode, so I had to, I fight with one of them. I don’t
know. I dropped out, I couldn’t go to school. I finished ninth grade,
but I couldn’t go to school here, it was too much.

Did that surprise you?

Yes, I didn’t expect that, because they are your own race, what makes
them say those things? I don’t know, because they feel superior because
they know English, I don’t know.

Both Roberto and Mercedes described schools in which Latino stu-

dents are divided according to whether they are foreign or native born.
Mercedes’s experience was so extreme that she dropped out of school
and did not return until more than twenty years later, after she had had
her children. She said the experience had a very negative effect on her
self-esteem and that as a result for years she was afraid to express her-
self verbally in public. Had she had a positive experience in that school,
72 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

her life and subsequent socioeconomic status may have been very
different.
A number of studies have examined the historically conflictual rela-
tionship between immigrant and native-born Mexicans in the United
States.31 David Gutiérrez argues that historically relations between Mexi-
can immigrants and Mexican Americans have been a reflection of a
deeper debate about the evolution of Mexican Americans’ sense of cul-
tural and ethnic identity.32 Martha Menchaca sees this intragroup conflict
as the result of Anglo discrimination and a movement toward greater
acculturation among the native born.33 Gilda Ochoa finds similar conflict
between native-born and immigrant Mexicans in La Puente, California, a
community near both areas in this study.34 So the identification of inter-
generational conflict among Latinos is not new. What is new is the under-
standing of the role that language issues play in this process. Because
laguage is integral to Latino collective identity, that that language is stig-
matized means it negatively affects how group members see that lan-
guage and those who use that language exclusively. As a result, whether
or not a person spoke English, or spoke English with an accent, was very
important to these respondents, and was the reason why many of the first-
generation felt they were treated badly at work and in the community.
For example, in his description of his experiences at work, Carlos, a
first-generation Mexican, talked about the effect speaking accented
English has on how he is treated and how it relates to broader problems
of self-esteem and self-hatred among native-born Latinos:

Yeah, for example, I have my work here, I have the accent of a Spanish
person. I know I can change that with the time, with my work, but right
now I really don’t know if I want to, because I love my country. If I
have the accent of Hispanic people, I know the people talking about
me, the Anglo-Saxon when they hear the accent they think that we’re
stupid, because, for example, I worked in a cleaning room, at first I
only knew about grammar; I didn’t know how to talk, how to improve
my language. There I was trying to make animo [be industrious], only
cleaning, only like a bus boy. [What] I don’t want is that the people
think about me like I was less, you know what I mean? Right now I’m
working in a market. When I start to talk to customers in Spanish, I can
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 73

feel the people thinking about me, because they think that I am taking
something from them, maybe their work, I don’t know. But I think I’m
working hard. I have the right to do it. If I am intelligent, I have the
right to study.

Do you think Anglos feel that way?

Basically, Spanish people treat me that way. The Anglo-Saxon, most of

them are very sympathetic with me. They like me. But Hispanic people,
my brother, it’s like, most of the time they don’t have culture [educa-
tion]; they see [in me] what they don’t like inside of them. They don’t
like Hispanic people because they’re Hispanic people. I am sad about
that because I never felt that in my country, but [when] I come here was
the first time I felt that.

Here we see the process of shifting boundaries in the first generation.

Before Carlos arrived in the United States, he expected to feel connection
and solidarity with people of Mexican origin living here. Instead, he feels
he is singled out as an immigrant and looked down on by other Latinos
because of his inability to speak unaccented English. He feels that other
Latinos treat him badly because they have a negative view of their own
racial group. The end result is that he feels defensive about and saddened
by his position and treatment in the United States. His definition of his
own group identity has been changed by this experience.
As we saw earlier in Marta’s story about being turned away from a
job, immigrants’ negative experiences have psychological as well as eco-
nomic costs. Their feeling of not being able to “defend” themselves
stemmed from problems with language and a general lack of under-
standing of the laws and norms of U.S. society. Many respondents talked
about how the lack of knowledge engendered fear. As Marta put it, “We
are easily frightened by any little thing, because we are not familiar with
many laws.” This fear affects their confidence in their ability to make
informed and accurate political choices. The first-generation respondents
were more likely than those from the other generations to express uncer-
tainty about their ability to “know” anything about politics. This was
especially true among the first-generation women. They would repeat-
edly preface their comments with statements such as “I’m not certain
74 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

how things work here, but . . .” or “I know I don’t know much, but . . .”
These feelings of insecurity were augmented by their lack of faith in the
Spanish-language media. Many said they felt that Spanish-language tele-
vision did not provide as much information as English-language televi-
sion. When asked about political issues, many said that to be well in-
formed, they had to listen to the English-language news.
These feelings of isolation and uncertainty in the first generation affect
not only them but also their family structure and the socialization of the
second generation. Studies have shown that in many immigrant families,
because the parents do not speak English, often it is up to the eldest child
to act as the family’s interpreter. It is the child who interacts with public
institutions. This alters family power dynamics: the child ends up being
the authority and the party responsible for taking care of family concerns,
and this decreases the parents’ control over the child.35
These parent-child dynamics were present in this sample. Bernie is a
good example. He is a nineteen-year-old second-generation Mexican from
East Los Angeles and the eldest child in his family. Although he attended
high school for four years, he did not graduate with his peers because of
his frequent truancy. His mother did not find out about his truancy until
he did not graduate with his class. In his interview, he explained how this
happened. Because his mother cannot read English, it has always been his
responsibility to read the mail and tell her what it says. When letters from
his school about his absences arrived, he either did not show them to her
or lied about the contents. To prevent her from speaking directly with his
teachers, he did not inform her about parent-teacher conferences but told
her that they were no longer held at the high school level in the United
States. Because he was the first of her children to attend high school in the
United States, his mother believed him. She said that her other children
will not fool her, and Bernie feels guilty about lying to her. His role as fam-
ily interpreter gave him the power to act as a mediator between his
mother and his school and to control what information each had about the
other. In cases like these, language limits first-generation parents’ ability
to maintain their authority over and to keep track of their children.
The second generation is also aware of the negative stigma attached to
speaking only Spanish. Ana, whose family came from Mexico, describes
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 75

the difficulties her mother has had finding jobs and the bad treatment she
receives because of language issues:

When they see her they assume that she’s illegal or something, you
know, and that she just speaks Spanish and stuff, you know. And the
thing is, my mom, she understands, but she won’t say anything, be-
cause that’s the kind of person she is. It makes me angry when they
make her feel bad, esa gente desgraciada [those nasty people]. . . .
That’s why she wants to take English classes and stuff. She wants
to prove, not only to herself but also to other people, you know, like
she may be from Mexico and stuff, but she has a brain.

Araceli, a 1.5-generation Mexican, spoke of similar experiences of people

calling immigrant Latinos “wetback” and saying “they’re stupid.” “And
they would laugh, you know, [at] people that don’t know how to talk
English right.” Clearly, speaking English is associated with intelligence,
and speaking only Spanish with a lack of intelligence. Those messages
are understood very clearly by the second generation.
Because of the overall feelings of powerlessness that the first-generation
respondents associated with not being proficient in English, they all felt
very strongly that their children should learn English well and as quickly
as possible.36 Many of them saw it as a way to protect their children and
keep them from having to experience the discrimination and hostility that
they faced. But many also pointed out the contradictory behavior that they
believe is the result of this emphasis on English. A number of the first-
generation respondents said they felt that first-generation parents’ insis-
tence that their children speak English was one of the reasons many of the
native born are unwilling to assist immigrants by speaking Spanish. They
felt the parents’ focus on English makes their children embarrassed to
speak Spanish and, by extension, embarrassed about having a Latino back-
ground. For example, Marta explained:

[They do not speak Spanish] because it embarrasses them to speak

Spanish. They think that Spanish is something that, I don’t know what
they think. Even the children, my nephews now do not want to speak
Spanish. . . . I don’t know, I don’t know [where it comes from]. Perhaps
76 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

from ourselves, from the parents, who begin, who begin to speak English
to their children because, I don’t know, because it is difficult, and maybe
because they had problems here and they do not want their children to
have to go through that. And they give their children the idea that they
have to know English, English, so that they won’t discriminate against
them too.

The first-generation respondents generally agreed that refusing to speak

Spanish was a negative development because they saw it as a sign of the
native born denying their own heritage. Carlos also saw it as a natural
outcome of teenage rebellion but felt that among Latinos it has broader
consequences:

Their fathers, most of their fathers, their parents are Latinos. So, when
a teenager is growing up, their parents, their thing is to fight against
them. So, I think so. Their parents talk with accents, so they don’t like
it. They like to feel like, like they’re from here . . . they’re embarrassed
of their parents. They want to be like Anglo Saxons. . . . They want to
feel, they don’t want Mexico, El Salvador. They don’t want Honduras.
They want U.S.A. And I think they need to find themselves. I don’t
know if you understand me.

The first-generation respondents also saw embarrassment about being

Latino as the underlying reason for the native born treating immigrants
badly. Rosa reported:

I don’t know [why they don’t speak Spanish]. It is because of the same
thing, because of culture. Because they don’t have that ethic, because
they are not familiar with their culture. Because they are a Latino per-
son and they are embarrassed to be Latino. Because they are embar-
rassed of their language then that person cannot [speak it]. They know
how to speak perfectly, but they want to be Americans. So, they, our
own people are the ones that create obstacles for us. And if we, our-
selves, discriminate against ourselves, I don’t see why the white people
are not going to do it.

The first generation’s experiences with Spanish monolingualism and

their conflicts with the native born reflect the difficulty that stigmatized
groups have developing a positive attachment to their social group.
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 77

Linguistic studies have found that language is critical to the construction

of “shared meanings.”37 But what happens when group members do not
share the same language? How do they construct shared meanings?
Studies show that Latinos are likely to become English monolingual by
the third generation.38 Sociolinguists have found that groups can main-
tain group identification after language shift, but they say little about
how that process relates to questions of stigma.39 In these interactions
between the first-generation and native-born respondents, I believe, we
are seeing the complex processes that Latinos, as a stigmatized group,
must go through in order to develop a positive collective identity. They
know that their language is stigmatized, as is their group. At the same
time, Spanish language is a strong marker of Latino culture and history.
Thus language is both positive and negative. The result is that the native
born have conflicted attitudes toward Spanish monolingualism and, by
extension, immigrant Latinos.

Spanish, English, and Latino group Identity

It is inaccurate to take from this discussion the idea that Spanish-language

maintenance has a universally negative connotation in the Latino com-
munity. In fact, the opposite is the case. As María put it:

Yes it is important that they always maintain their language, whether

they come from another country or are born here. It is important
because we will always have our roots there, and one day we go and
the child cannot speak with his grandmother, or with anyone. That
is not correct, no? He can carry the two languages, and any other
languages he can learn. If he learns all the languages, that is not a
sin. That he forget our language, that is a sin.

A number of respondents from East Los Angeles said they thought it was
ridiculous when a Latino “has a nopal [cactus] on their forehead,” in other
words, looks very Indian, and yet does not know how to speak Spanish.
Here I examine how language relates to Latino racial identification and
find that it is an important symbol delineating how these Latinos identify
themselves and their racial group.
78 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

Racial identification was strong among the respondents, even those of

the second and third-plus generations. Only one of the respondents, a
third-plus-generation Montebello woman, defined herself simply as
“American.” The other ninety-nine respondents preferred to use a ra-
cial identifier. Among the first generation, the most favored term was
Mexicana/o for the Mexicans or Latina/o for those of other national origins.
Interestingly, none of the first-generation Central Americans used their
country of origin as an identifier; instead they preferred the pan-ethnic
term Latino. Among the second and third-plus generation, the most
favored term was Mexican American, followed in order of preference by
Hispanic, Latino, Mexicana/o, and Chicano. Milton Gordon argues that
assimilation requires “the disappearance of the ethnic group as a separate
entity and the evaporation of its distinctive values.”40 According to that
definition, these respondents are not assimilated, even in the third-plus
generation. At the very least, this suggests that ethnic identity retains sig-
nificant salience in this community across generations, as has been found
among second-generation youth in California and Florida.41
After being asked how they identify themselves, many of the respon-
dents voiced their thought processes. “Well,” they would say, “Mexicans
are from Mexico, and even though my parents (or grandparents) were
from Mexico, I was born here so I guess that makes me ———.” The most
common answers filling this blank were “Mexican American” or “His-
panic.” The second- and third-plus-generation respondents said they
preferred those terms because they felt they described their experience of
being of Mexican origin but not actually from Mexico. It is important to
point out that their definition of Hispanic in most cases was not how it is
defined by the Census Bureau and other U.S. institutions—that is, Mexi-
can immigrants generally were not included in their definitions. In these
answers, they were struggling to find a term that described the experi-
ence of being born in the United States but being from somewhere else
culturally. They were very clear about not seeing themselves as purely
“American” or “Mexican” but as something else. This is the experience
that is supposed to be captured by the word Chicano, but only seven of
the respondents chose to identify themselves with that term.42
When asked what made a person fit into the category that the respon-
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 79

dent had used to identify herself or himself, the most common answer
was the degree to which the person spoke Spanish. The connection
between language use and identification varied across the generations, in
a way that reflected their linguistic acculturation. Among all the genera-
tions, the most common reasons given for why people could be defined
as “Latino” were Mexican or Latin American origin and the use of Span-
ish.43 How they talked about Spanish, however, changed as they became
more linguistically acculturated. The first generation tended to define
“Latinos” as people who speak Spanish. A few also defined “Americans”
as those who speak only English. The second generation defined “La-
tinos” as those who speak Spanish and English. This in part reflects their
general desire to find a term that described their bicultural and bilingual
experience in the United States. The third-plus generation was more
likely to define Latino as meaning “of Mexican descent,” rarely making
direct reference to language ability. This could be due in part to the fact
that all except for one of these respondents had a strong racial identity,
but the majority of them did not consider themselves fluent in Spanish.
This was especially true of the respondents from Montebello. As has been
found in other studies, these Latinos’ collective identity and language are
related, and the respondents adjusted their definitions of their group
identity to coincide with their own levels of linguistic acculturation.44
The story of Zali, a seventeen- year-old, fourth-generation Mexican,
touches on many of the issues relating to Spanish language and its rela-
tionship to Latino racial identity. Zali’s mother’s family was originally
from Texas and had lived there since before it became part of the United
States. I have categorized Zali’s generational status based on her mother,
who is third generation, because she was raised by her mother alone and
has had almost no contact with her father since she was a toddler. Her
mother learned very little Spanish while growing up in East Los Angeles.
Zali said this was because when her grandmother was younger “they
would hit them and stuff when they spoke Spanish in schools, so she
didn’t teach her kids how to speak Spanish.” When her mother went to
college in the late 1960s, she got involved in the Chicano Movement. This
led her to want to get in touch with her culture, so she moved to Mexico
City to teach English and improve her Spanish. While in Mexico, she met
80 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

Zali’s father, got married, and had two children. Shortly thereafter, she
decided to leave her husband. Afraid of how she would be treated under
Mexican law, she returned to East Los Angeles to become a schoolteacher
and raise her children on her own. Zali spoke Spanish until she was three
and since then has spoken only English, “because,” she said, “my mom’s
natural language is English. She wanted us to have a good vocabulary.
She wanted us to speak correctly instead of having what they call
Spanglish. She didn’t want that.”
Zali said that not speaking Spanish was a problem for her because it
meant that she could not communicate with her father when he called.
But by far the larger issue for her was how it embarrassed her in her
neighborhood:

I feel somewhat, like, shunned in a way. Yeah, shunned by everyone,

you know. Like they call me a “whitesican,” and I get so angry! Yeah,
they call me a whitesican, and it’s horrible sometimes, when I was
growing up. Now I understand, you know, that they’re just joking and
it’s more like a pet name, you know, but it hurt when I was growing up.
It made me feel like I was missing something—like I didn’t fit in because
I was born in Mexico and didn’t know the culture of Mexico. I felt like
kind of, duh, what am I doing, you know? Like, you know how they
would say, um, in elementary school, just to like show that people are—
well, I don’t know why my teacher did this. She said if your name starts
with a Z, if your name starts with an L, you go over there. And if you’re
born in East L.A., and I would be like the only one, or one of the few
standing that I wasn’t born in East L.A. And then you had to say where
were you born, you know, so they could get information about you.
And it’s like, okay, I was born in Mexico. I couldn’t even say Guerrero
[the state in Mexico where she was born]. I still can’t say it [laughs].
And I couldn’t even say where I was from, and it was kind of hard.

Zali felt bad about not speaking Spanish but also, paradoxically, was sep-
arated out from her classmates because she was not born in the United
States. She was different because she could not speak Spanish and also
because she was born in Mexico.
Similarly, a number of the English monolingual third-plus-generation
respondents said that not speaking Spanish in their neighborhoods caused
problems. Emma, a thirty-eight-year-old, fourth-generation woman from
Montebello, enrolled her son in a Spanish class because she thinks it is
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 81

important to know “what people are saying about you.” She recounted a
story of a woman calling her names in Spanish and said she was upset
because she did not understand the words. Emma heard the woman call
her a pocha, which she interpreted as meaning “a white person.” In Span-
ish, it actually means a Mexican who does not know Spanish or is removed
from Mexican culture. Similarly, Desiré, a twenty-two-year-old woman
from Montebello, said:

I get a lot of criticisms about that, [people say,] “You’re Mexican and you
don’t speak Spanish?” I just tell them, I’m not Mexican, I’m an American.
I don’t need to speak Spanish. That’s always been, kinda my excuse for
not speaking Spanish—I was born here, why should I speak Spanish?
You should learn English. . . . Why should I learn another language if the
main language here is English?

Desiré was the only respondent who defined herself as “American.” In

this discussion, she clearly felt a need to defend the fact that she did not
speak Spanish and to have an “excuse.” Her definition of herself as an
American seems to be related to her inability to speak Spanish and again
shows how language and identity are related among Latinos.
Mary, a fifty-two-year-old, fifth-generation generation woman from
Montebello, felt she received bad treatment because she does not speak
Spanish. She said, “Some people think I’m snobby because I don’t speak
Spanish.” She also felt it had affected her job prospects:

People think I’m doing it [not speaking Spanish] because I don’t want
to, or [that] I understand it, and I read it, and I’ve lost a lot of jobs
because of that. I haven’t worked for four years. And, “Oh, you’re
bilingual,” they just look at me [and assume], “Oh, you’re bilingual
you speak Spanish, you’re gonna get this.” “And you don’t? Your own
language and you don’t know?” And I never have [spoken Spanish],
never. So it has been a problem that way. My own in-laws I can’t
[communicate with], all I can say is, like hello, because the mother
only speaks Spanish and the father does too, but they understand a
little bit, but not enough to [really talk]. But if I tell them something
they’ll understand. I mean, it makes it very difficult.

The above responses reveal the two sides of these Latinos’ relationship
to the Spanish language. On the one hand, knowing only Spanish causes
82 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

negative experiences for immigrants; on the other, not knowing Spanish

can be a disadvantage for the native born. This is another example of
how Latinos struggle to feel positive about themselves and their group.
Their collective identification is intimately related to their language, so it
becomes problematic for some when they lose their connection to that
language. Living in areas where they come into regular contact with
immigrants who outsiders define as part of their racial group and yet
who, at least from a linguistic standpoint, seem so different from them
further complicates how they understand and experience their own
group identity.

Stereotypes, Identity, and Group Cohesion

Latinos’ relationship to the Spanish language is problematic largely be-

cause of the positive value attributed to English-language use, the result-
ing negative value attributed to Spanish-language use, and the stereo-
types associated with both.45 Bilingualism and monolingualism would be
less of an issue in the community if they did not have such important
effects on Latino identity, socioeconomic mobility, and life chances.
Carlos summed up this relationship when he said, “[Proposition 187]
separated us, the Hispanic people. You’re Hispanic, I’m Hispanic. If I
hear you talking English with an American accent, different from me, I
hate you. Why? Because you have things that I don’t have.” The result is
that many of the native-born respondents are attempting to distance
themselves from Latino immigrants.
This reaction to social stigma may be a product of the social and polit-
ical context in California at the time. Studies of stigma have shown that
its effects are “powerful, but context-dependent.”46 The political climate
in California at the time of the interviews was especially anti-immigrant.
Both Proposition 187 and the debates over the 1996 welfare reform explic-
itly framed immigrants as a “problem” group. It is likely that this context
brought to light cleavages that already existed among Latinos but were
exacerbated by the rhetoric surrounding these campaigns. This demon-
strates that stigmatizing messages can affect cohesion within subordinate
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 83

groups. The Latinos’ negative attitudes toward immigrants reflect ex-

pressions of power not only between the dominant culture and Latinos
but also within the Latino group itself.47 The respondents believed
Anglos stereotyped Latinos as gang members and “wetbacks.” Yet none
of the current or former gang members in the sample reported negative
experiences with group members, other than their immediate family, for
their gang membership. The difference in treatment between gang mem-
bers and immigrants is logical—fear. A native-born Latino can criticize
an immigrant for his or her lack of English skills with few repercussions.
But criticizing a gang member could lead to personal harm. Those nega-
tively associated group members with the least power are the most likely
to experience negative treatment as a result of their lower status relative
to other group members. Similar to Cathy Cohen’s finding of multiple
marginalities within African American communities, here forces of hier-
archy and power operate in important ways within groups as well as
between them.48
Before discussing the respondents’ perceptions of Latino stereotypes, I
want to stress that these communities are geographically and socially seg-
regated. Only two of the respondents, whom I discuss at more length in
chapter 4, had significant primary-level interactions with non-Mexicans.
The remaining ninety-eight respondents lived, worked, and shopped in a
Latino-majority world. Though at Montebello High School there were a
few Anglo, African American, and Asian American students, the respon-
dents repeatedly emphasized that socially each group remained essentially
separate. The members of different races may have been acquaintances,
but few people had close friends of another race.49 Despite their lack of con-
tact with non-Mexicans, the answers the respondents gave regarding the
kinds of images they felt Anglos had of Latinos were remarkably consis-
tent. From the first-generation homemaker and mother of six to the fourth-
generation gang member, their answers were strikingly similar. This shows
the degree to which members of racialized groups are aware of the nega-
tive images attributed to their group, even when they have little direct
interaction with members of the dominant culture.
When asked if they felt Anglos had a negative image of Latinos, only
three respondents said they did not. By far the most commonly reported
84 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

negative image was that Latinos are seen as gang members. Second was
the image of Latinos as wetbacks or illegal aliens. The respondents ex-
pressed the general feeling that Anglos saw Latinos as uneducated, dirty,
lazy, and stupid. These perceptions were consistent across genders, areas,
and generations. The one generational difference regarding perceptions
was that the first-generation respondents were more likely than the sec-
ond and third-plus generation to say that Anglos’ negative image was
one of Latinos taking advantage of welfare. Again, this is most likely the
result of the fact that the 1996 welfare reform bill was being debated at
the time of the interviews and that Proposition 187 recently had been
passed. Both laws were promoted based on the argument that immi-
grants, both legal and illegal, were taking advantage of the welfare sys-
tem and that the abuse had to be controlled. It is understandable that the
first-generation respondents would be especially sensitive to these
charges.
The second- and third-plus-generation respondents were more likely
than first-generation respondents to say that the most common negative
image of Latinos was of cholos, gang members or criminals. Their focus
on the “gangster” image could be due to their relative youth and their
perception of how they are portrayed in the mass media. The second- and
third-plus-generation respondents were generally younger than those in
the first generation. Recent studies have shown that African American
and Latino youth see themselves portrayed negatively in the media. A
poll by Children Now of 1,200 Euro-American, black, Asian, and Latino
youths age ten to seventeen found that children of all races agreed that
television news portrayed blacks and Latinos, especially young people,
more negatively than other groups.50 Similarly, in their study of KABC
news coverage in Los Angeles, Frank Gilliam and colleagues found that
in stories about crime, even when the race of the suspect was not identi-
fied, viewers remembered seeing a black suspect. They found that 90 per-
cent of the false recognitions on the part of viewers involved African
Americans or Latinos.51 These perceptions of the representation of Latino
youth in the news media were also present in this sample. The second-
and third-generation youth were especially concerned with news cover-
age that portrayed only Latinos as gang members, and they reported feel-
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 85

ing that those images negatively affected how they were treated by the
larger society.
This is probably why the second- and third-plus-generation respon-
dents were more likely than the first generation to see stereotyping as the
most damaging form of discrimination Latinos faced. They felt these neg-
ative stereotypes caused Anglos to judge them by sight. Ana’s feelings
about this were typical:

[I want people to know j]ust that we’re not all bad. But, there’s like
good in everyone, you know. Even the so-called troublemakers or what-
ever, they’re doing it for a reason. Just, maybe something’s not right at
home, or something, like, they’re really nice inside. People just expect
them to be bad, and they think, “Oh well, I’m expected to do this, so
I’m just gonna go ahead and do it,” you know. Everyone expects them
to be a troublemaker, so it’s just assumed you go do it. Even like teach-
ers or something, you dress a certain way and they just automatically
assume oh, you’re bad. And it’s like the first impression, I hate that.
First impressions are what people think of you. I hate that.

Norma, a second-generation Mexican-Salvadoran, echoed Ana’s feelings

when expressing concern that people made assumptions about her based
on the clothes she was wearing:

Well, I went to Magic Mountain [an amusement park] with my friend.

They were dressed like, you know, all teenagers they dress like gangsters
but they’re not. Um, we went and then some security, they tell us to take
off our jackets and they were like searching us and my friend had Mi
Vida Loca [the name of a chola gang] and they told her why did she have
that if she’s not from there.52 And she goes she just likes that, she likes
tattoos. And they were telling us that they were, like if we did something
wrong that they were gonna kick us out of the park, just because we were
dressed like, you know . . . I don’t know. I think that’s wrong, because
they, they don’t know [anything about us], they did that because of the
outside, because of what we were wearing, you know. That’s not right.

In addition to reporting having been followed in stores or searched

when entering amusement parks, a number of respondents complained
about bad experiences they had had with police. Interestingly, none of
the respondents mentioned these experiences when asked if they had
86 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

ever experienced “discrimination.” Rather, they came up in other parts of

the conversation. The respondents from East Los Angeles in particular
tended to discuss these events as a regular part of their day-to-day lives.
Here are some examples:

We were standing around like at my friend’s house, and he [the police

officer] was like, you look familiar, and I had never seen him before.
They stopped and searched us, and they didn’t find anything, so they
just left. (Abraham, second-generation Mexican)

Yeah, just walking down the street, they [the police] will ask what are
you doing? Outside my house. I was outside with a friend and he’s
like, the cop was like, well what are you doing out here? And I’m all
I’m just here, talking, and he’s like why? And I was like do you have
a right to be questioning me? Am I doing something wrong? Because,
just let me know, and then I’ll answer you. And he was like, oh, well,
we’re just checking and he drove off. But I was like, God, I can’t believe
it! . . . I was mad! I can’t believe that! Outside my house, I was just sit-
ting there with a friend, my friend’s bald, so the cop was like, do you
know her?53 Like he was harassing or bothering me. And then he starts
questioning me, like, what are you doing? And I was like, you don’t
have a right to do this, I know you don’t. (Araceli, second-generation
Mexican)

These respondents’ answers were consistent in that they all felt strongly
that their outward appearance dictated how persons of authority—
whether teachers, security guards, or police— treated them.
The respondents from both Montebello and East Los Angeles agreed
that these kinds of experiences were more likely to occur if they left their
Latino neighborhoods and ventured into a “white” area. Many of the neg-
ative experiences the respondents mentioned had happened in places
such as Seal Beach, Thousand Oaks, and Diamond Bar, which are rela-
tively affluent, majority Anglo cities. Richard, a third-generation Mexican,
offered a typical experience:

I have a girlfriend that lives out in Thousand Oaks, and there’s nothing
there but Americans, there’s like no Mexicans at all. So I mean, I’m used
to it, so it doesn’t bother me anymore. I mean, they just look at me in a
bad way, they just stare, you know. But it doesn’t bother me at all.
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 87

Why do you think they stare?

Because there are no Hispanics there, you know, so it’s like shocking to
them seeing me. Because it’s not like here. Out there there’s like a lot of
American people, you know, in Thousand Oaks.
Do you think Hispanics in places like that get discriminated against?

I pretty much think so, because it’s all like one kind over there.

Arturo, a first-generation Mexican, spoke of a similar experience when he

visited Diamond Bar:

Like this weekend I went to Diamond Bar, went to see my friend there.
Have you ever been to Diamond Bar? It’s pretty white. So we walk into
Denny’s to use the restroom. We knew people were talking about us. . . .
When we walked in, they didn’t say nothing. But when we were walk-
ing into the restroom, they were just looking at us. We walk in, not a
word, they [all] stopped talking. We came out and they were just look-
ing at us. They were talking about us.

Jesús, a second-generation Mexican, had problems during a college visit:

We went to some trip and there were a lot of white people there. It was a
trip to college. And, like, they just like, look at you, and they’re like, “Oh,
what are you doing up here?” You know? Like, it was, you could say a
white neighborhood, and they were like looking down at you, like, trash,
or whatever. And they told us, you know, there were a couple that said
stuff to us. They like, they feel, they don’t want to be around you. That’s
how it is.

Like many respondents, Richard explicitly said that discrimination is not

a problem in his area because “most people in here are Mexican, so it’s all
the same.” It is only when you leave that Mexican area that you risk
being treated badly.
All respondents were aware of living in an environment of racial threat.
In addition to general reports of native-born Latinos being harassed
regarding their migration status, one of the more disturbing stories that
came out of the interviews was that of a group of white skinheads
88 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

severely beating a Mexican youth in “old town” Whittier.54 A few of the

respondents, from both areas, mentioned the story. They reported that
the skinheads literally had begun to peel the skin from his body before
being stopped by police. I have not been able to confirm that this event
took place. But for the respondents who shared the story with me,
whether or not it actually occurred was less important than the fact that
the overall racial environment in Los Angeles at the time was such that
they believed it easily could be true. They said that at the very least it
would make them think twice before going to old town Whittier.
These kinds of stories help to explain why most of the respondents
rarely left the general vicinity in which they grew up. The majority
reported only rarely going to the beach, the mountains, or any city out-
side a ten-mile radius from where they lived. In that context, Linda’s
frustration makes complete sense:

Every time I go to places like that, [white neigborhoods] right away like
we’d get into trouble. It makes me like, you know how they say we’re not
supposed to think about color. But they’re doing that—they’re only look-
ing at the outside, how we look, but they don’t even know the inside.

How do you think they could get to know the inside?

By not giving into conclusions, you know, right away thinking stuff
about us.

Have you had people say something to you, or is it just a feeling?

Yeah, it’s a feeling like, the look on their face, you know, is bad.

Fear of racial animosity goes a long way toward explaining why Monte-
bello and East Los Angeles remain highly segregated and insular: it is
generally understood that you will be treated better if you remain with
people like yourself. This is very similar to what Menchaca found in her
study of Santa Paula, California. Though segregation is no longer legally
enforced, it has been replaced by what she calls “social apartness.”55
Mexican Americans in the “Mexican” area understand that they will not
be well received if they venture into the Anglo area, and so they simply
choose not to.
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 89

It makes sense that this conflict with the “outside” world happens in the
second and third-plus generations. In addition to often acting as the bridge
between their parents and the larger U.S. society, second-generation chil-
dren are likely to be the first to leave the ethnic enclave and move into
employment with Anglos. In the Los Angeles labor market, socioeconomic
mobility generally means moving into industries where the dominant lan-
guage is English and the dominant racial group is Anglo. Immigrants and
less educated racial minorities generally have been relegated to the infor-
mal economy or low-skill, low-paying jobs.56 Thus it is the upwardly mo-
bile second- and third-plus generation that are more likely to feel affected
by how Anglos stereotype Mexicans. And they are the ones that feel com-
pelled to counteract these stereotypes. In many cases, it is the need to coun-
teract stereotypes that leads them to treat first-generation Latinos badly.
Social identity theorists contend that group members will either deny
or embrace their ethnic identity. Among the respondents, there is a desire
to establish a positive social identity for themselves, but they are not
employing either of these two options. Instead, they are engaging in a
process of what I call selective dissociation; that is, they are maintaining
their identification with their racial group, but instead of dissociating
with the entire group, they are excluding from their definitions of their
identity those who they see as perpetuating a negative image. It is possi-
ble that the respondents, because of the racialized environment and their
residence in majority-Latino areas, find complete dissociation difficult.
Instead, they were maintaining their racial identity but defining that
identity in such as way as to exclude those behaviors, especially in terms
of language use, that they consider undesirable and detrimental to the
group’s collective image. Though gang activity was defined as the most
common stereotype applied to Latinos, the respondents often were will-
ing to give gang members the benefit of the doubt. Many saw them as
“lost” or as victims of circumstance. That was not the attitude expressed
about immigrants. The native-born respondents often saw the problems
immigrants faced as “their own fault” and felt strongly that they knew
how “they,” meaning Mexican immigrants, should act.
A good example is Mary, the fifth-generation woman from Montebello
who does not know Spanish. She reported feeling embarrassed when she
90 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

was unable to offer help to Latino immigrants who spoke only Spanish.
But then she said, “They’re the ones that oughta learn, so they don’t let
anybody push them around, ’cause I’ve seen too much of that. And I say
here I am, and I can’t help them.” She continued:

I don’t know, they should learn. I mean, that’s all there is to it. For me,
I don’t think it’s as important for me, because I’m here and I speak
English, but it’s not as important for me to speak Spanish as it is for
them to speak English because they’re here. I think they should learn,
that way, I don’t know, so that they don’t have to ask people and think
maybe they’ll be getting wrong answers. ’Cause I’ve seen it! And it
makes me really angry because, I go, “That’s not true!” But how am
I gonna tell them the truth when I can’t tell them myself?

Mary’s feelings about immigrants and language reveal the contradictions

surrounding Spanish and bilingualism. On the one hand, she feels guilty
for not being able to speak Spanish or provide assistance but then says
the problem is theirs, not hers. In our conversation she was very hostile
about the times she has felt “un-Mexican” for not speaking Spanish. She
told the story of going to buy Mexican bread and being ridiculed by the
woman behind the counter when she mispronounced the name of the
bread in Spanish. In a near-shout, Mary said her response was, “I says
don’t laugh at me, I go, you’re the one who doesn’t even know how to
speak English, okay? I’m the one that should be laughing at you, because
you don’t even know how to speak English!”
Cassandra, a third-generation Mexican who was raised in Montebello
and now lives in East Los Angeles, also talked about having problems in
her neighborhood because she did not know Spanish:

I just wish some of these people would learn English! ’Cause I know it
would be great to learn Spanish too, and it’d be great to learn Japanese
and what other languages—to do that would be fun. But, I think, and it
is a requirement, it is a requirement to become a United States citizen to
learn the language. And there’s a lot of people that come here that aren’t
legal, so they don’t learn it, you know, and they go to an area where
they know that they don’t have to learn it because it’s majority Spanish-
speaking and that’s where I live. And it bothers me, because I think it
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 91

would be good for them to learn English. It would be better for every-
body to be able to communicate better in that way. So sometimes when
I’m at a store and I don’t have somebody that’s gonna translate for me,
I get frustrated. Because I don’t know how to speak and they don’t
know how to speak English and it’s just like, “Oh God!” So, it bothers
me a little bit.

Cassandra made a number of interesting points. Her definition of U.S. cit-

izenship as related to language recalls the connection between the English
language and American national identity. She makes the assumption that
those immigrants who do not speak English are undocumented, which
indicates the internalization of one of the stereotypes the respondents
mentioned, that of non-English-speaking Latino immigrants as wetbacks
or illegal aliens. Here she is assuming that language skills have a direct
relationship to migration status and that most of the immigrants in her
neighborhood are therefore illegal and a problem. Ironically, her frustration
about needing a translator in a store echoes the problems mentioned ear-
lier by the first-generation women when visiting their children’s schools.
Both Mary and Cassandra are concerned that immigrants are taken
advantage of, but in essence they think the blame rests with the immi-
grants for “refusing” to learn English. Because they see that decision as a
conscious choice and one that immigrants have control over, they feel
that in some ways immigrants are “asking” to be treated badly. This high-
lights the difference between “visible” and “controllable” sources of
stigma.57 Visible stigma is caused by characteristics outside the person’s
control—race, gender, disability, and so on. Controllable stigma is based
on something the person’s behavior could change. Studies have shown
that the tendency is for individuals to treat more harshly, and with sev-
erer social penalties, those who have traits defined as “controllable.” In
this instance, the native-born Latinos may be seeing Spanish monolin-
gualism as a “controllable” trait and therefore treating those with this
negative trait more harshly.
This is likely part of what is happening, but power and context also
come into play. Both the images of undocumented immigrants and of
gang members are considered a problem. Yet immigrants are seen as re-
92 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

sponsible for their own problems, whereas gang members’ problems are
attributed to societal structures. During the interviews, the concerns
about immigrant behavior and prescriptions for how immigrants should
“help themselves” often came after the respondents voiced frustration
about the assumptions “Americans” made about “Mexicans” and dis-
cussed how those assumptions negatively affected their lives. According
to their logic, if immigrants would just learn English and acculturate
more rapidly, Anglos would not stereotype Latinos in this way, and that
form of discrimination would disappear. Similar to what has been found
among African Americans during the Great Migration, these Latinos feel
they must “police” their own in order to construct a more positive iden-
tity for their group.58
In some ways, this is a reasonable assumption from the point of view
of the respondents who rarely have any substantive contact with immi-
grants. They only see the result, which is they are regularly confronted
with people with whom they cannot communicate, and with negative
stereotypes that they cannot control. What they are less cognizant of is
the structural constraints that make it difficult for Latino immigrants to
learn English. The majority of Latino immigrants arrive in the United
States with low levels of formal education.59 This makes it difficult for
them to sit in a classroom and learn in their native language, much less
learn a new one. In addition, adult ESL courses have been oversub-
scribed since the mid-1970s in Los Angeles County, making it difficult for
immigrants to get access to the courses they need. And finally, the fact
that wages for low-skilled jobs are generally low and the cost of living in
Los Angeles high means that many immigrants have to have more than
one job to make ends meet. This limits the amount of time available for
them to attend school. All these factors combine to keep Latino immi-
grants from having the time or the opportunity to learn English in a
structured educational setting.
The respondents’ assumptions about the propensity (or not) of Latino
immigrants to learn English also could be the result of media coverage of
the community. Victor Valle and Rodolfo Torres find that a common
theme in news coverage of Latinos is Latino “foreignness” or Latinos as
illegal aliens.60 They also report that of four thousand news stories that
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 93

covered women and minorities in 1992, only 1 percent focused on Lati-

nos, and most of those representations were negative ones.61 Otto Santa
Ana also finds that the media coverage of Proposition 187 emphasized
Latinos as foreigners “flooding” the United States and overwhelming
state institutions and resources.62 Non-Latinos are not the only ones af-
fected by these images. In their discussions of stereotypes, most of the
respondents said they felt that the negative images of Latinos came from
how the media covered the community. Because many of the native-born
respondents who expressed these concerns did not have regular interac-
tions with the immigrant sectors of the community, the only images they
had of Latino immigrants were those portrayed in the popular media. As
a result, they are susceptible to believing those very stereotypes and, log-
ically, feel upset when they are included in them. Their only recourse is
to selectively dissociate themselves from those sectors of their group that
they believe increase their social stigma.
This is an empirical representation of how discrimination can nega-
tively affect a community and in some ways cause it to turn against parts
of itself. The second- and third-plus-generation respondents were frus-
trated when they were judged by the color of their skin and their dress
outside their home communities. These were not pleasant experiences,
and in many cases the respondents expressed strong feelings of unhap-
piness about being judged before people got to know them and about
being powerless to change how people react to them. In this situation, it
is only natural to search for power where you can find it. In their com-
munities, power comes from knowing English and understanding the
U.S. system. Thus, native-born Latinos are attempting to use the limited
power they have to change the behavior of the first generation, to make
them “fit in” in the United States. By doing so, they are attempting to
improve the image of the group with whom they identify. By policing
those members of the community that are farthest from U.S. culture, they
are hoping to improve their own image. But, unfortunately, those images
are created by the mass media, outside of the group.63 Thus, perceptions
of stereotypes have created intergenerational hostility and conflict among
Latinos, but that internal conflict does nothing to change or to decrease
the detrimental effects of the stereotypes themselves.
94 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

Most popular discussions of the situation of racial and ethnic minori-

ties in the United States define the effects of discrimination as concrete,
measurable negative effects on a particular individual. For example, a
person is denied a job, a promotion, or a real estate loan. It is generally
assumed that once these overt expressions of discrimination disappear,
the United States will have moved to being a free and fully equal society.
This is the underlying rationale for maintaining data on affirmative
action hiring practices and other empirical information that can “prove”
or “disprove” the existence of discrimination in the United States.
Yet this sample shows another side to the discrimination equation, one
that is more intangible but that nonetheless has serious psychological
effects on individuals and groups—the effect of stigma and stereotypes
on people’s group identity(ies). This sample shows the ways in which
dominant stereotypes of racial-ethnic groups are understood by mem-
bers of that group even without the physical presence of the dominant
group. Despite their geographic and social separation from Anglos, the
respondents have a very clear and consistent understanding of the nega-
tive images Anglos have of them. Because of the permeation of mass
media and other forms of communication, Anglo stereotypes of Mexicans
can be present even when Anglos are not. The respondents’ perceptions
of these stereotypes in turn affect how they see themselves and other
members of their racial group. Their desire to feel good about their group
identity(ies) leads them to distance themselves from immigrant Latinos
and results in a decrease in group solidarity and cohesion.

Politics and Intragroup Conflict

Other than affecting the development of collective identity among La-

tinos, how does the selective dissociation process affect politics? Inter-
generational conflict is important not only because it has negative effects
on Latino identity but also because of the effects it has on group political
cohesion and the kinds of coalitions that develop around specific policy
proposals. Three good examples are the degree to which Latinos in
Montebello and East Los Angeles supported Proposition 187, the 1994
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 95

California ballot initiative to ban social services to illegal immigrants;

Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot proposition to end affirmative action in
state government hiring, contracting, and institutions of higher educa-
tion; and Proposition 227, the 1998 ballot proposition to end bilingual
education in California public schools.64 Given the stated goals of these
proposals, it is reasonable to argue that Propositions 187 and 227 were
directed mainly at the immigrant population and that Proposition 209
could be seen as affecting all Latinos, including the native born. An
examination of area voting on these propositions shows the political
effects that can arise from the conflict between immigrants and the native
born that I have discussed in this chapter.
Because the interviews were conducted before Propositions 209 and
227 were on the ballot, the respondents were asked only about their atti-
tudes toward Proposition 187. I begin by looking at these attitudes and
then turn to an analysis of how both areas voted on all three propositions.
When asked about Proposition 187, the respondents’ attitudes toward
immigrants played an important part in how they felt about the proposi-
tion and why they supported or opposed it. Though not all of the respon-
dents were voters, the majority in both areas saw the measure as anti-
Mexican, and 70 percent of the sample said they opposed it. The difference
lay in their reasons. The East Los Angeles respondents tended to say they
were against 187 because it was both anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant;
the Montebello respondents mostly said they were against 187 because it
was anti-Mexican. As a result, those from Montebello showed more ambi-
valence toward the measure. While 90 percent of the respondents from
East Los Angeles reported being against the measure, only 53 percent of
those from Montebello did. Twenty percent of the Montebello respon-
dents said they were in favor of the measure, or said they saw it as both
good and bad. In contrast, none of the East Los Angeles respondents said
they were in favor of the measure, and over 80 percent expressed strong
negative opinions about it, saying they felt it was a direct attack on La-
tinos. Overall, the Montebello respondents were more likely to say posi-
tive things about the measure, even if in the end they said they were
against it.
The discussion of reasons for opposing or supporting Proposition 187
96 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

shows the degree to which respondents’ attitudes reflected how they

defined their social group. In their discussions of why they were against
it, more than 80 percent of East Los Angeles respondents cited their iden-
tification with immigrants as a reason, while only 30 percent of the
Montebello respondents did.65 In general, the East Los Angeles respon-
dents tended to express their opposition to 187 in terms of the connection
they felt with immigrants. For example:

Well, a lot of them, like our family, well they have papers. But you have
like other families that’s around them that are illegal. You never know,
that might just be anyone, you know. . . . I mean, just because they don’t
have papers or whatever, don’t mean nothing. It’s just like a border line
that doesn’t mean nothing, really. Other than that, we’re all here. (Linda,
second-generation Mexican)
We all have to be working on the same things, you know? My parents
came in the same way, and if they had gone through this [187] then
we would have been affected. (Norma, second-generation Mexican-
Salvadoran)

Even if you were born here, maybe your parents weren’t or your grand-
parents or someone along the line, along your heritage. So it’s like,
you’re part of it, part of these people coming here. (Vilma, 1.5-generation
Salvadoran)
[Talking about the protests against 187] It was good to see them march-
ing and expressing themselves against something they don’t like. Like
there was people that are legal, people from Mexico that are legal. They
went ’cause that includes them too. (Sandro, second-generation Mexican)

In contrast, because of their emotional distance from immigrants, the

Montebello respondents tended to talk about them as “they.” Emma, a
fourth-generation Mexican, was the most extreme in this view, seeing
economics as a zero-sum game in which benefits for immigrants mean
fewer opportunities for the native born:

The main ones that should be cut off [from welfare] is the people that
don’t belong here in the United States. Because we’re [the native born]
the ones that are getting hurt, you know, they’re not. . . . This is our home,
this is where we live. . . . The immigrants, they get more than we do.
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 97

Some Montebello respondents said they could understand immi-

grants’ difficult situation, but many did not identify with their plight
enough to oppose the measure. The quotation below, from Collette, a
fourth-generation Mexican, is representative of the feelings of ambiva-
lence and distance expressed by many of the Montebello respondents:

Honestly, I’m gonna tell you what I thought about. I thought, if I was
an immigrant, of course I would think it was being unfair. And I would
have been against it. But because I’m not, and none of my family mem-
bers are, it didn’t bother me. Because I knew that none of them would be
leaving me. I mean I felt bad, for other people, but . . . I wasn’t for it, and
I wasn’t against it. I was just neutral, I guess. There were a lot of pros and
cons to that [proposition]. ’Cause being that there were a lot of immi-
grants taking advantage of the welfare system. . . . Some of the bad things
was that families, some people, they would have had to, some people
were born here and their families weren’t. So here they would have to
leave and what were they gonna do? They’re gonna be by themselves. I
think that was part of it. And probably the fact that a lot of people would
have thought—I don’t know about a lot of things. Probably they were
being discriminated against and stuff like that. . . . I wasn’t for it. Like I
said, I was okay ’cause my family was gonna stay here. Maybe that’s a
pretty selfish reason, whatever, but that’s my reason.

In Montebello the 187 issue was defined as being about “illegals,” and
respondents made a clear distinction between “legals” and “illegals.”
Angela, a third-generation Mexican, said she felt “if you’re not a citizen
you shouldn’t be here” that the problem is that “when you hear ‘illegal
immigrant,’ right away you think Mexicans.” Cassandra, also a third-
generation Mexican, pointed out that it is better if immigrants enter the
United States legally:

I think that it’s great that they’re coming over here because there’s oppor-
tunities here and that’s great, you know. But I just think the people should
do it legally, no matter who they are, from anywhere, they should do it
legally instead of coming in here illegally, because it’s just harder on them.

The importance of “legality” for the Montebello respondents is clear in

the opinion of Caroline, a first-generation Colombian who supported
187. When asked if she thought the proposition would affect her as an
98 A Thin Line between Love and Hate

Figure 1. Percentages of votes in favor of Propositions 187, 209, and 227 in

Montebello and East Los Angeles. Source: Election returns recorded by the Los
Angeles County Registrar of Voters, 1994, 1996, 1998, compiled by the author.

immigrant, she said, “It doesn’t concern me. . . . I’m not a citizen, but I’m
legal.” This is in contrast to the views of the second- and third-plus-
generation respondents from East Los Angeles who were able to imagine
themselves and their neighbors being adversely affected by the measure,
regardless of their migration status.
These differences might explain how both areas voted not only on
Proposition 187 but also on 209 and 227. Figure 1 shows support for all
three propositions by voters in East Los Angeles and Montebello, as
reported by the Los Angeles County Registrar. As we can see, the support
for these propositions was much higher in Montebello than in East Los
Angeles. It is possible that the differences between these two areas stem
from the larger numbers of Anglos in Montebello. But if that were the
case, Montebello’s support would be similar across all the measures. In
light of what we have seen in this chapter, a more likely explanation is
that the salient issue affecting how Latino residents of Montebello voted
on these propositions was whom they perceived as being most affected
by the measures. Both Propositions 187 and 227 addressed issues of lan-
guage and the provision of services to immigrants. And in both cases
those from East Los Angeles were more likely than those from Monte-
 A Thin Line between Love and Hate 99

bello to vote against eliminating services for immigrants. In fact, almost

exactly the same percentage of respondents from the two areas voted in
favor of 187 and 227: 40 percent of voters in Montebello and about 28 per-
cent of voters in East Los Angeles. Proposition 209, which would have
adversely affected all Latinos, immigrant and native born, was supported
by much smaller margins in both areas. This is just one concrete example
of how attitudes toward immigrants and intragroup cohesion could af-
fect Latino voting patterns.]1erugiF[

Conclusion

Perceptions of stigma cause native-born Latinos to create distance be-

tween themselves and immigrant Latinos. In this way, they are hoping to
distance themselves from negative stereotypes and develop a positive
collective identification for themselves. But the result is that immigrants
are excluded from that identity, and that in turn leads to the first genera-
tion’s ill treatment by other Latinos when they interact with them.
Because Montebello has fewer immigrant residents, Latinos growing up
there tend to have fewer personal connections to immigrants and thus
seem to have developed more negative attitudes toward them. This em-
phasis on their native-born status, and how that differentiates them from
newcomers, is a reasonable response in light of the negative integration
history their families have had in Los Angeles. But it is important to
understand the impact this intergenerational hostility can have on group
cohesion and politics. On the one hand, as we saw in the campaign
around Proposition 187, it allows opportunistic politicians to split the
Latino vote by exploiting these divisions when writing legislation or ref-
erenda. On the other hand, it keeps Latinos from being able to unite and
effectively pursue a common agenda. Both these issues will likely affect
the shape and development of Latino politics in the future.
FOUR Why Vote?
race, identity(ies),
and politics

The Mexican sleeping giant never woke up. It died in its sleep
in the summer of 1993.

Otto Santa Ana

The discussion thus far has focused on the nature and effects of Latino
identity—the identification Latinos have as members of a racialized
group. Yet, like all individuals, these respondents have multiple identi-
ties, including gender- and class-based ones. Feminists of color and crit-
ical theorists have emphasized the need to look at the intersections of
race, class, and gender in order to fully understand the social, political,
and economic experiences of communities of color in the United States.1
However, the attempt to incorporate this kind of analysis into empirical
work raises important theoretical problems. First, we must consider why
exactly we believe that race, class, and gender affect an individual’s
worldview, group consciousness, and political ideology. As Michael
Dawson points out, a racially stratified society creates “systematically
different patterns of outcomes . . . [that] shape individual life chances as
well as the perceptions of society, thereby providing the basis for the
huge racial gulf in public opinion.”2 But what exactly do those patterns

100
 Why Vote? 101

look like? How do they vary both within and among racial groups, espe-
cially in terms of class and gender? As political scientists, we have just
begun to examine and address these questions.3
Looking at the effects of race and class in particular, Jan Leighley and
Arnold Vedlitz delineate five models of minority political participation:
socioeconomic status (SES), psychological resources, social connected-
ness, group consciousness, and group conflict.4 The SES model has
been the dominant paradigm in studies of political behavior.5 These
studies have found that socioeconomic status—education, income, and
occupation—is the best predictor of a person’s likelihood to vote. Re-
cent work by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady has moved beyond SES to
examine what resources it actually provides people that facilitate their
political participation.6 They found that the factors driving different
kinds of participation are different and that “unique configurations of
participatory factors—and, therefore, unique participatory publics and
sets of issue concerns—are relevant for voting, for forms of participa-
tion that require inputs of time, and for forms of participation that
require inputs of money.”7
But, despite the robustness of the SES model in studies of Anglos, the
results in studies of the political behavior of other racial groups have
been mixed. Katherine Tate found that education and income are only
occasionally related to African American participation, and studies of
Latinos have found that SES can explain only in part the gap between
Latino and Anglo electoral and nonelectoral participation.8 Also, the SES
model cannot seem to explain why, despite the fact that educational and
socioeconomic status have increased overall in the United States over the
past few decades, political participation levels have decreased.9 Scholars
searching for other explanations have turned to psychological resources—
feelings of efficacy, trust in government, and civic duty—as the explana-
tory factors.10 Scholars using this approach have found political interest
and efficacy have a significant effect on participation.11 Leighley and
Vedlitz treat the emphasis on psychological factors as analytically distinct
from social connectedness and group consciousness explanations. But, in
fact, all these explanations center on the idea that feelings of “linked
fate,” “political alienation,” “group identity,” and “group conflict” have
102 Why Vote?

an impact on political attitudes and behavior.12 In other words, individu-

als feel connections to particular groups (or not), and their political atti-
tudes and participation are affected by those feelings.
All these models assume that groups will behave in a monolithic fash-
ion, driven by either class or race. Specifically, the SES model presumes
that all people of a particular class, regardless of race or gender, will en-
gage in political activity at the same rate, even if they are not necessar-
ily expressing a “class” conscious identity; and group consciousness–
identity models also assume that members of a particular racial group,
regardless of their gender or class, will behave in similar ways. That
these models have not been successfully applied to multiple groups
across multiple situations suggests that they are missing important
aspects of how participation patterns vary within groups and among
different contexts, namely, how the same racial identification can coin-
cide with varied feelings of efficacy and political engagement.
The same may be true in terms of our understanding of the effect gen-
der may have on political participation.13 Burns, Scholzman, and Verba
argue that there are roughly six competing hypotheses that attempt to
explain the relationship between gender and political activity.14 Two hy-
potheses emphasize how differential demands on women’s time, espe-
cially in terms of the responsibilities of child rearing and other household
duties, keep women from participating in organizations that provide po-
litical information and access to political networks. Another focuses on
how patriarchal family structures relegate women to the “private” sphere
rather than the “public” sphere of politics.15 Similarly, another argues that
male and female socialization patterns in childhood create unique envi-
ronments for men and women that influence how they make political
decisions. The final two emphasize socioeconomic issues, arguing that
women’s generally lower levels of income, education, and occupational
status, in addition to the discrimination they experience in economics
and the law, are what decrease their participation.16 Burns, Schlozman,
and Verba test these hypotheses and find that, because of differences in
overall political engagement and access to politically relevant resources,
men are more interested, informed, and efficacious about politics than
are women.
 Why Vote? 103

As was the case with theories of group consciousness, this analysis

tends to treat women as a monolithic group. An important factor that is
missing in the study of race and gender is the way in which marginal-
ization along any of these dimensions affects how individuals see them-
selves vis-à-vis their community(ies) and the political system in general.17
The key question is what exactly we believe causes gender, race, or class
differences in behavior and attitudes. Is it group identity, marginaliza-
tion, socialization, or some combination of these? Does one trump the
other in certain contexts?18 For example, the current wisdom among
scholars of organizational behavior is that female managers tend to be
less hierarchical and to foster more inclusive decision-making environ-
ments.19 Is this just the formal acceptance of a gender stereotype, or are
we to assume that female managers really tend to manage this way and
that it is because they are women? These female managers are roughly, at
least now, of the same class as their male counterparts, so the underlying
assumption is that this is a gendered issue. Studies from linguistics have
also found that women’s linguistic styles tend to be more collectively ori-
ented and less hierarchical than men’s.20 Again, it is not clear why this is
the case, nor how these tendencies vary by race and class. This highlights
the need to better understand the effects of what Diego Vigil calls “mul-
tiple marginality,” the marginalization of particular populations across
multiple dimensions.21 Intersections scholars argue that racial, gender,
and class oppressions are not separate but rather mutually constitutive.22
Therefore, analyses need to look at the “whole person,” rather than at-
tempt to break individuals up into their component parts (i.e., race, sep-
arate from gender, separate from class, etc.).
In addition to looking at the whole person, analyses need to pay
more attention to the role context plays in making identities mobilizing
in particular political moments. A number of recent studies have shown
the importance of context for understanding the political mobilization
and activity of different racial groups. In their study of the effects of
poverty on African American participation patterns in Detroit, Cathy
Cohen and Michael Dawson argue that “different neighborhoods pro-
duce political environments, which, in turn, structure African American
political choice.”23 In addition, they contend that “African American
104 Why Vote?

social institutions and networks are critical elements in providing an

information nexus through which African American perceptions of
racial group interests are framed.”24 They find that poverty affects “per-
ceptions of the effectiveness of political acts, perceptions of commu-
nity efficacy and perceptions of group influence.”25 In the same vein,
Melissa Marschall finds that “attachments to neighborhood and reli-
gious institutions most strongly predict the participatory behavior of
African Americans and Latinos.”26
Leighley argues that contextual factors such as elite mobilization,
access to relational goods, and the racial-ethnic context are key to ex-
plaining the political activity of minority groups.27 Two recent experi-
mental studies of get-out-the-vote efforts among minority groups also
suggest that social context is important. In her study of the effects of
mobilization on Asian American turnout in southern California, Janelle
Wong finds that get-out-the-vote contact is more effective in areas with a
larger presence of Asian American social, political, and cultural institu-
tions, such as ethnic newspapers, social service organizations, and Asian-
centered political organizations.28 Melissa Michelson’s results in her
experiment among Latino voters in Fresno, California, were similar.29 She
found that Latino canvassers are more effective in mobilizing Latino vot-
ers than canvassers of other races and that the mobilization effects were
greater in low SES Latino neighborhoods. All these studies suggest that
we need to take more seriously how local context frames racial groups’
collective identities, especially in terms of whether or not certain kinds of
political messages will mobilize them to engage in politics.
Thus, experiences of stigma and marginality, along one or multiple
lines, affect the development of an individual’s group identity(ies). Those
identities, in turn, interact with the social context in which that individ-
ual is situated. Again, we are seeing structure interact with agency, and
vice versa. In this chapter and the next, I explore how the interaction
between identity and context has an important effect on respondents’
political attitudes and how they choose to engage the political system,
both formally and informally. I begin the analysis by looking at the
respondents’ attitudes toward “politics” in general. Given that natural-
ization is the first step in formal political incorporation, I then turn to a
 Why Vote? 105

discussion with the first-generation respondents regarding their attitudes

about naturalization. Finally, I relate that to a larger discussion regarding
the respondents’ attitudes about formal electoral politics and reported
levels of electoral participation.

Interest in Politics

I opened the discussion of respondents’ attitudes toward politics by ask-

ing them, “Are you interested in politics?” This question is important
because studies of the effects of social networks on political participation
have shown that frequent political discussions within networks are
essential to participation.30 Conversely, having infrequent political con-
tacts or no discussion partners at all has been found to decrease electoral
participation. The causality in this case is largely circular. If members of
a social network have no interest in politics, they are not likely to discuss
politics. That lack of discussion, in turn, depresses political interest, and
so on. The propensity of network members to discuss politics also is
likely to be related to political mobilization. Those groups with high lev-
els of political contact are more likely to have political discussion within
their networks because contact often leads to discussion.31 So the exis-
tence of political interest among individuals and within their social net-
works is an important first step in their political engagement.
I purposely did not define the word politics for the respondents. In her
study of Latina community activists in Boston, Carol Hardy-Fanta found
that the women did not define their activism as participating in “poli-
tics.”32 Therefore, I thought it was important to let the respondents define
the word for themselves. None of the respondents interpreted this ques-
tion to mean area or local politics; all interpreted the question to refer to
national politics and elections, which they tended to relate to Anglos and
see as distant and separate from them. Because politics generally was
defined as something outside the community, it is not surprising that few
expressed an interest in it. Eighty-three of the one hundred respondents
said they were not interested in politics. This lack of interest was consis-
tent across genders, generations, and areas. In general, the question
106 Why Vote?

elicited stuttered and incoherent responses such as “I don’t know” and

“It doesn’t catch my eye.” Those who explained why they were not inter-
ested in politics tended to talk about politics in terms of “us” versus
“them.”33 The answers of both the male and female respondents were
similar in this regard and showed that they saw political power as
located in the realm of “politics,” which is outside their local sphere. For
example:

I’m not into politics, any of them. I mean, politics, like the White House,
just the whole thing. I don’t know about politics, or like the Republicans,
or whatever, I heard that they were against us or whatever, I just don’t
know. (Jay, fifth-generation Mexican)

I don’t know. In a way [I’m interested in politics] because it changes. In

a way yes, I’m interested in the changes the government makes, like the
propositions, you know, things like that, that hurt our raza, our people.
(Araceli, second-generation Mexican)

In the second quotation above, though Araceli expressed some interest, it

is based on the fact that “the government” is able to make “changes” that
cause harm to her racial group. Jay’s and Araceli’s responses are similar
insofar as both see the political system as one that is acting on them,
rather than one in which they can act. Their feelings of disempowerment
vis-à-vis politics are a reflection of their overall understanding that there
are forces of power at work in the political system, forces over which they
have little voice or control.
Though disinterest in politics was present throughout the sample, the
underlying reasons varied by gender and generation. The generational
differences reflected differences in how the respondents understood the
relationship between personal agency and institutional structures. The
first-generation respondents emphasized their own agency and tended to
say that they were disinterested because of a personal lack of information
and ability to “know” what was happening in the United States. The sec-
ond and third-plus generation, in contrast, emphasized structure and
were more explicit about their disinterest stemming from their overall
feelings of disempowerment within the political system. This movement
across generations from personal to structural explanations could be the
 Why Vote? 107

result of the respondents’ process of socialization into a position as mem-

bers of a stigmatized group in the United States. This could help to ex-
plain why native-born Latinos have been found to have lower levels of
political trust than the foreign born.34 Power is an important part of the
stigmatization process. It is reasonable, then, that having experienced
stigma would make an individual aware that he or she has less power
relative to members of less marginal groups. In terms of gender differ-
ences, I found that men were three times more likely than women to
express an interest in politics, which may be a reflection of differences in
male and female conversational styles, a point I return to later.35
The first-generation respondents most often said they were not inter-
ested in politics because they felt they did not know enough about it. In
discussions of immigration, it is commonly assumed that first-generation
immigrants do not get involved with politics in the United States because
they are still focused on the politics of the home country.36 Among these
immigrants, disinterest in U.S. politics did not stem from focusing on
what was happening in their countries of origin. Instead, home country
politics became a problem only to the extent to which they used it as the
lens through which they viewed politics in the United States. Those who
came from countries with only limited democracy said that immigrants
sometimes assume that democracy functions in the same way in the
United States. Mercedes, a first-generation Mexican, told me:

Because, I don’t know, because you come from a country where, even
if you vote they [the PRI] already know who is going to win. So we
think that here things are going to be the same. In fact, perhaps in some
areas it is the same, but in others we don’t know yet. What we are see-
ing is that the person you vote for, the one that wins the most votes is
the one that is going to win. But, we arrive here, well, accustomed that
way, with that mentality that, even if you vote, your vote does not
count. Because, in the end, the one that they want is going to win.

Instead, the bigger problem faced by the first-generation respondents

was their overall feeling that they were incapable of fully understanding
politics in the United States. Both men and women said that while they
felt it was important, especially because they believed Latinos were being
108 Why Vote?

attacked politically, it was difficult for them to develop an interest in pol-

itics.37 They considered politics too confusing and complicated to have an
accurate opinion about what was going on. This lack of confidence in
their ability to interpret and understand U.S. society was especially
prevalent among the women. Most of the first-generation women
expressed a lack of confidence in their own opinions. The women from
this group, when asked to be interviewed, tended to say something like
“All I have ever done is take care of my husband and children. I do not
have anything interesting to say!” After a bit of coaxing, it turned out that
they did have a lot to say, and they had very firm opinions about group
problems and the education of their children. But their general insecuri-
ties regarding their own opinions were magnified when discussing the
realm of politics.
Only two of the twenty first-generation women expressed any interest
in politics. In general, the women’s voices would become lower and more
tentative when they answered these questions. When asked if they paid
attention to the presidential campaign, most laughed nervously after
they said no and quickly gave reasons why they could not, almost as if
they felt they were doing something wrong. The women often said that,
given everything that was happening politically at the time, they knew
they should pay attention but just could not bring themselves to do so. It
was too confusing, too complicated for them to understand, and so they
were generally just not interested. The following responses are good
examples:

It does not attract my attention, no, politics does not interest me. The
thing is that I don’t understand much. With regard to politics I don’t
understand much. They can say this and that and I don’t even know
what that means. I don’t even know what a Democrat is, what that is
or what it means. (Marta, first-generation Mexican)

I would not be able to tell you exactly why [I am a Democrat], like I told
you before, I regularly don’t understand politics. But it seems like they
are more, like they do more for human beings. Not in terms of benefits
but that they have more consideration for the necessities of poor people.
(Ester, first-generation Mexican)

I am not sure. Well, I voted in the primary. I’m not certain if I have to
vote for the same person. What happens is that here there have been
 Why Vote? 109

many changes in the politicians, and so I’m not sure. It’s a lot of infor-
mation [to understand]. (Mercedes, first-generation Mexican)

My findings with regard to the first-generation women’s disinterest in

politics support David Leal’s finding that noncitizen Latinos were more
likely to be politically engaged when they were well informed.38
The first-generation men were four times more likely than the women
to say that they were interested in politics. Interestingly, their descrip-
tions of why they were interested were similar to the women’s reasons
for their disinterest. The men tended to say they were interested in learn-
ing more about the political system because they did not feel they knew
enough yet. Like the women, they said that they were trying to pay more
attention to the news in order to be up to date about what was happen-
ing politically. One male respondent, José Luis, showed a great deal of
sophistication in his analysis of the presidential campaign and the obsta-
cles facing Latino legislators because of their minority status. Despite his
detailed knowledge about politics in the United States, however, he
repeatedly said that he felt he did not know anything and that he wished
he understood things better. He then went on to tell me he had had only
five years of primary education in Mexico and did not feel quite com-
fortable in English, so he did not feel he could know anything. This man
read newspapers and watched television news regularly, in both Spanish
and English, but all that information did not give him confidence in his
ability to really know what was going on. Our discussion about his party
identification is a good example:

I still define myself more as a Democrat because they are more in favor
of the poor, yes more on the side of [those in] poverty, more for helping
people. And the Republicans are like a party of the rich, of millionaires
and multinational corporations. Companies that give a great deal of
money for [political] publicity. Although, if a Democrat has a good
attitude, good intentions towards Latinos, towards immigrants, they
are not going to let him win, because it still depends on the Congress,
it depends on the Senators and all that. That’s why the welfare law is
going to pass very soon. Bill Clinton can be against it. But, if he does
not do it, he will have big problems. That’s what I think. If he does
not sign that bill, he will remain on par or drop below [Robert] Dole
[in the polls]. He has to approve [the bill] in order to gain a few votes.
110 Why Vote?

When I said that it seemed to me that he did have a good idea about what
was happening in the political system, his response was, “I would like
very much to know more, but I have no education. I only received a pri-
mary education in Mexico. [That is why] I am studying, but I do like [pol-
itics].” He feels his lack of education makes it impossible for him to under-
stand what is happening in the United States, no matter how much he
reads and how much he informs himself.
The first generation’s reasons for their interest (or not) in politics high-
lights the interaction of a number of factors. First, the male and female
differences in terms of their confidence in their overall capacity to have
opinions on political matters reflect the gender hierarchy and the fact that
women’s issues are often relegated to the private sphere whereas men’s
issues are considered public.39 Because politics is public, men seem to feel
more comfortable in that sphere. But the first-generation respondents,
male and female, were not very confident about their ability to under-
stand the U.S. political system. This may be a product of intergenera-
tional hostility (see chap. 3). The first generation, because they are new to
this country, regularly find themselves in unfamiliar situations. Often the
native born do little to facilitate those experiences. The result could very
well be a lack of confidence overall. Those experiences, in turn, color how
they see politics and their ability to understand that sphere.
Second, the first generation’s expressed interest in politics seems to
be a product of the political environment at the time of the interviews.
Of the seventeen respondents in the sample who expressed an interest
in politics, nine were first generation and four were 1.5 generation.40
That means that only five of those expressing political interest were sec-
ond generation or more. All but one of the politically interested first-
generation respondents said that their interest was driven by the polit-
ical environment at the time and their concern about the changes in the
laws affecting them. So their interest is, to a large extent, a product of
the environment of racial threat in which they are living. Here we see
political interest being driven by the political context and, to some
extent, resulting feelings of social stigma.
The native born had a different reaction to the same political environ-
ment. They tended to say they were not interested because they felt they
 Why Vote? 111

had no power to make a difference in the political arena. Female and

male respondents from both areas reported feeling that “things are
already decided,” so that their individual participation cannot really
make any difference:

People in general say, like the people in office say, oh, that the system
works for you, we’ll help you out or whatever. But I don’t know, I
don’t think it does. Because you see on the news, they don’t treat all
the people right. They don’t treat us fair, you know. They don’t want
to be equal. (Juan, second-generation Mexican)

[We] can’t do nothing. They always get what they want anyways.
(Armando, second-generation Mexican)

It’s not, it [politics] won’t change. Because you have to go further out
to make things change. You know, like with Clinton, he’s not gonna
change what’s here. Things are gonna be the same. Things are gonna
be harder. They’re gonna be more harder now than they were before.
As the years go by it gets harder and harder. We’re all gonna suffer
more and more. (Emma, fourth-generation Mexican)

Not much. I’m just not interested [in politics]. I don’t get much involved
in it. If there’s a war, I’ll go [he’s planning on joining the military], it
doesn’t matter. Mostly politics is just bull, most of it is. But, I don’t find
it [of] much interest [to me]. (Chris, fourth-generation Mexican)

The second and third or fourth generations paint a picture of people feel-
ing uncertain about politics and also disempowered. Because many of
these respondents, especially of the second generation, were part of the
high school sample and teenagers when they were interviewed, it is pos-
sible that their disinterest in politics is no different from that of other
Latino adolescents. In a national survey of youth attitudes toward voting,
Latino youth were found to have the least trust in government and to be
the least likely to believe that their vote counted.41 Importantly, young
Latinos were found to be the least likely racial group to report having dis-
cussed politics with their parents.42 In their national study of youth civic
attitudes, Scott Keeter and colleagues found that whether or not parents
discuss politics with their children can be an important factor in deter-
mining youth civic engagement.43 It is possible that the uncertainty about
112 Why Vote?

politics expressed by the first-generation respondents translates into the

absence of political discussions at home. The general lack of family polit-
ical discussions among Latinos could have an overall depressive effect on
the political interest and engagement of the second generation.
The older native-born respondents in this sample tended to be of the
third-plus generation. In their responses about politics, they expressed
even more pessimism than their younger second-generation counter-
parts. A few, like Gilbert, said that the government is consciously trying
to hurt Latinos instead of help them, and for that reason nothing good
can come from politics:

[T]hat’s what I see with the government and all that. They don’t really
want to see these communities come up, you know. One, because la raza’s
so big, votes, counting, on the vote side of it, you know, they know that if
we consolidate.44 That’s been proof of fact already. The Pomona Freeway,
the Long Beach Freeway, they wanted to divide it [the community] be-
cause of the strength in numbers, you know.45 And then, and then you
get the politicians that come out of this community, you say, dang, they
get there, they make all kinds of promises to the people, and the people
get them in and then boom! They stab ’em in the back, you know. They
start siding with other politicians, you know. And they pat each other on
the back. I’ve sat on the congressional panels with a bunch of city leaders
and I talk with them, and they always ask me, what is it about you? Why
is it that you refuse to leave the community? And I tell them, because
people like you refuse to stay in the community. You want to try to dic-
tate things. Even now they’re saying whether or not it’s a democracy,
but there is a certain amount of dictatorship in the sense that they, it’s
like, well, we’ll permit so much to go in there, but you’re going to have
to do this for us. And it’s not a thing of saying from the heart that we
want to see the community change. What they’re doing is we’re gonna
get something, and then we get ours and we’ll let so much go, you know.

Gilbert is referring to the historical experiences of Latinos in southern

California—the freeway construction that physically divided East Los
Angeles and had a negative effect on Latino neighborhoods in that area.
His lack of interest is related to a different part of the social context, com-
munity history.
One interesting difference in the third-plus generation is that none of
 Why Vote? 113

the men in this group expressed an interest in politics. This is true despite
the fact that most of them are middle class and one of them, Gilbert,
quoted above, was a Brown Beret during the Chicano Movement.46 Gil-
bert lived in East Los Angeles and was an evangelical minister who found
God while serving eighteen years in prison for assault and armed rob-
bery. Though he felt strongly about the importance of his ministry, he did
not believe that any overtly political action can make a difference. In his
view, the government hates all Mexicans and will do anything to keep
them from succeeding, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it.
Needless to say, he has no interest in participating a political system that
he sees as determined to destroy him and his racial group. Though Gil-
bert was pessimistic about electoral politics, however, he was extremely
active in his community and interacted regularly with elected officials.
Since leaving prison, his life’s work has been to help young people get
out of gangs. Yet he believed that the potential effectiveness of that work
was limited to his immediate neighborhood. Like many of the native
born, he believed his ability to exert any influence over politics “out
there” was limited at best.
Since the native-born respondents tended to define politics as things
the government or politicians were involved in, they were unlikely to
include their own activism in their definitions of the political. Many did
not include the protests they had participated in against Proposition 187
as political activity, because they viewed politics as the exercise of power
outside of the community. It is likely that these feelings of distance and
separation from the political process are in part reflections of the geo-
graphic segregation that exists in both areas. However, it is important to
reiterate that all the elected representatives at all levels of government for
both these areas were Latino. But this did not seem to make the political
institutions in which they operate seem any more accessible to the
respondents. I believe this is largely because the respondents see power
as located in those institutions and therefore outside their control. This
finding is different from that of Adrian D. Pantoja and Gary M. Segura
and indicates that the effects of descriptive representation on feelings of
political efficacy and alienation may also vary by context.47
Here we see different aspects of the social context driving Latinos’ lev-
114 Why Vote?

els of political interest. The strong anti-immigrant political climate is

pushing the first generation to pay attention to politics, but their lack of
knowledge about the U.S. political system generally made them lack con-
fidence in their political opinions. The native born, likely because of the
absence of political discussions within their families and social networks,
also expressed little political interest. In addition, because of the negative
historical experiences Latinos have had in these areas, which many in the
third-plus generation actually experienced, these respondents tended to
define politics as “out there” and about “them” rather than “us.”
How can we explain the seventeen respondents who were interested
in politics? What can we learn from their responses? First, gender was a
key distinction, with men more than three times more likely than
women to have expressed an interest. In contrast, the female respon-
dents were more likely than the males to report actually having partici-
pated in electoral politics, as I discuss below. In chapter 5 I demonstrate
that the same trend exists with regard to nonelectoral participation. The
male respondents tended to express higher feelings of efficacy than the
females, yet they were less likely to have actually participated in those
activities. This could be a reflection of different linguistic styles on the
part of men and women, with men being less willing in a conversational
setting, especially with a woman, to admit they lacked these feelings of
efficacy because it may put them at a conversational disadvantage.48
Here perceptions of relative power are gendered; men were more likely
to overstate their power, women to understate it. As a result, there is
some distance between these Latino men’s attitudes and their actual
participation in politics, and the opposite is the case among these Latina
women.
Second, the generational differences were not as expected. The first
generation was by far the most likely to say they were interested in poli-
tics. Many analysts assume that for the most part immigrants are not
interested in the politics of their adopted country. In this sample, it seems
that was the case before the political changes of the 1990s. The 1996 immi-
gration and welfare reform bills were being debated in Congress at the
time of these interviews, and many legal immigrants were concerned
about possible changes in their status. All but one of the first-generation
 Why Vote? 115

respondents said this led them to become more aware of what was hap-
pening politically. But that political context should also have had a posi-
tive effect on the political interest of the second and third-plus genera-
tion. Proposition 187 had recently passed, and Proposition 209 was on the
ballot that November. The political mobilization in the community
around these two propositions was focused on schools and thus on these
second- and third-plus-generation respondents. Many of them had par-
ticipated in protests against these issues. And yet that experience did not
lead them to express an interest in politics.
This may be a reflection of differences between immigrants and the
native born in terms of attitudes toward U.S. government institutions.
Immigrants are a self-selected group. Most Latino immigrants come to
the United States for economic reasons, but they also come because of a
general belief in the openness and freedom that characterize the U.S.
political and economic systems. In addition, immigrants have a point of
reference, their home country, with which to compare their political expe-
riences in the United States, which can make the U.S. system look more
positive. As a result, it is likely that the first generation simply has more
faith in the fairness of U.S. government institutions. The native born, on
the other hand, did not choose to be present in this country and have no
point of reference. All they know is that they regularly experience social
stigma and that their social networks contain limited political discussion.
In addition, they live in areas that rarely are targets of political mobiliza-
tion. So they are less likely to see U.S. political institutions in a favorable
light, and they consider politics something that has little relevance in
their particular social context.49
Third, two of the four women who said politics interested them were
members of the third-plus generation. Both were the only respondents
who reported having significant primary social interactions with racial
groups other than Latinos. An examination of their experiences high-
lights how racially homogeneous and depoliticized social networks affect
group political engagement. Cassandra was an eighteen-year-old woman
who grew up in Montebello. At sixteen, she dropped out of high school,
and got pregnant shortly thereafter. When her father found out she was
pregnant, he threw her out of his house. She went on public assistance
116 Why Vote?

and kept the baby. At the time of the interview she was receiving welfare
and living in a multiracial family shelter in Boyle Heights. She was at the
adult school as part of the GAIN program.50 She said she had never been
interested in politics before but that the family shelter she lives in brought
in speakers during the fall election and required all the residents to attend
the talks. They also provided campaign information, and the residents
talked a great deal about the election because they were concerned about
how the proposed welfare reforms would affect them. She said that being
surrounded by people who cared about these issues had changed her
outlook and that she had learned a great deal about politics just by living
in the shelter and attending adult school:

I really don’t think it was because I didn’t want to [pay attention to pol-
itics], it was the type of lifestyle that I lived, what I was exposing, have
you ever heard that saying, “The circles that you walk in”? You know,
it’s like you’re always doing the same thing and you’re around people
that don’t really care. So, you put somebody around a bunch of people
that do care and that do know about what’s going on, and you start to
somehow, you know, pay attention more and to get more involved and
to get more educated. So, leaving the people that I used to hang around
with and choosing a different crowd so to speak, or a different type of
one, and just a whole other lifestyle you’re exposed to a whole, you
know, world of new things. Things that I wouldn’t pay attention to
when I was out there doing nothing, you know, good, but that I pay
attention to now because of what I do. You know, how could you know?
You know, if you go to school, and you know, you stay home or you
turn the TV on you hear about, you know, the elections and the cam-
paigns, you know, all that’s going on. And you go to school and people
talk about this stuff, so you become interested in it, you know. And
that’s why, I guess.

Cassandra is a good example of the importance of social networks to

political socialization. As David Knoke points out, “People constantly
compare themselves to those with whom they have close ties and seek to
emulate the attitudes and actions of these intimates.”51 Of course, that the
political reforms occurring during that period were directly affecting her
livelihood also played a role in increasing Cassandra’s interest in politics.
But the key issue for her was that her environment changed and that she
 Why Vote? 117

was exposed to different kinds of people. Those people helped her to feel
more confident about herself and her abilities. This new consciousness
and identity changed her outlook on politics.
The other politically interested third-plus-generation woman was
Collette, a forty-two-year-old, fourth-generation Mexican American wo-
man who worked as an executive secretary and lived in Montebello. She
recently had been laid off from her job with Bank of America and was at
the adult school to improve her typing and computer skills. She ex-
pressed strong interest in the 1996 presidential campaign and said she
was interested in politics because she thinks the president has a strong
influence on the state of the economy. She said she became interested in
politics because of her family: her grandfather, father, uncles, and broth-
ers were in the military.52 They served in World War II, Korea, and Viet-
nam. She said that because they had risked their lives as a result of other
people’s political choices, her whole family became much more inter-
ested in political issues, and now they discuss politics whenever they get
together. She also talked a great deal about how she felt about working in
a majority Anglo environment. She felt that Anglos generally assume all
Mexicans are “ignorant and unsophisticated.” To contradict their stereo-
types, she took great pains to express herself well in English and to stay
informed about current events. Her interest in politics and her need to be
informed are related to her family, her work environment, and her desire
to not be included in negative stereotypes of Mexicans. Again, we see the
power of social networks and family political discussion in fomenting
political interest and the role stigma can play in that process.
In an interesting way, like the first-generation respondents, both
women had become interested in politics as a form of self-protection.
Cassandra was concerned about keeping her welfare benefits. Collette
was concerned about maintaining a good self-image in the face of per-
ceived discrimination and about the safety and well-being of her family
members in the military. Both were acquiring knowledge in order to
counteract their insecurity. Yet neither saw politics as a way to have an
impact on the world. Both were gathering information in order to main-
tain their status quo. Even though they are native born and speak pri-
marily English, the reasons for their interest in politics are similar to those
of the first generation—self-protection rather than real empowerment.
118 Why Vote?

Attitudes toward Naturalization

For immigrants, the first step toward exercising the right to vote is natu-
ralization. Immigration scholars see naturalization as a significant step in
the integration of immigrants and in determining their future political
power. Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut argue that the rate, rapid-
ity, and level of citizenship acquisition within different immigrant groups
determine their ability to affect and influence politics in the United
States.53 Louis DeSipio argues that low levels of Latino citizenship are a
key factor that needs to be addressed before this situation can improve.54
But there are many factors, geographic, sociodemographic, and institu-
tional, that influence rates of naturalization and, in turn, immigrants’ for-
mal attachment to U.S. political institutions.
Among immigrant groups, those from countries contiguous to the
United States, Mexico and Canada, historically have had the lowest rates
of naturalization.55 In the case of Mexico, scholars have argued, these low
rates are not only due to the country’s physical proximity to the United
States but also to the low levels of educational attainment and socio-
economic status of Mexican immigrants. No study has determined con-
clusively why physical proximity would have such a negative effect on
naturalization. Some argue that it makes it easier for the immigrant to
maintain the hope of eventually returning to the home country, even if
that never actually occurs. It also makes it easier to maintain ties to fam-
ily and the home country in general, which makes it more difficult for
immigrants to let go of the home country nationality and become citizens.
Another set of reasons given for low naturalization rates among
Mexican and other immigrants is bureaucratic or institutional problems
with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), formerly
called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A quantitative study
of Latino political attitudes, the Latino National Political Survey, found
that while Latinos had a strong psychological attachment to the United
States, many still had not become citizens.56 DeSipio argues that this is in
part because of fear of the (former) INS and putting oneself through the
formal citizenship process.57 That studies have found that the INS re-
jected the applications of immigrants from some countries at higher rates
 Why Vote? 119

than others indicates that these fears are not unfounded.58 Many immi-
grants also fear that if they fail the citizenship exam, they will be de-
ported or their permanent resident status will be revoked, making main-
taining the status quo more attractive than subjecting themselves to the
perceived whims of U.S. immigration officers.
An analysis of my respondents’ attitudes toward U.S. citizenship pro-
vides a glimpse of the factors influencing their decisions about natural-
ization and how that decision-making process relates to their attitudes
toward voting. There were thirty-five foreign-born respondents in this
sample. I classified twenty-seven as first generation and eight as 1.5 gen-
eration because they had lived in the United States since they were young
children and had gone to school in the United States. I include them in
this discussion because, though they have spent most their lives in the
United States, they still must make a conscious decision about whether or
not to become naturalized citizens.59 This is something the native born do
not have to do. Nine foreign-born respondents were from the high school
samples, twenty-six from the two adult schools. Because most of these
respondents were from the adult school, my sample is biased toward
those who want to become naturalized. This is due to the fact that most
of the first-generation respondents came from ESL or citizenship classes
and thus probably would not have been at the adult school had they not
already decided to initiate the citizenship process. Despite this limitation,
the sample provides insight into the reasons underlying the growing
rates of naturalization among Latinos and how that process relates to
their political incorporation.60
Of this group of respondents, twenty were women and fifteen were
men. On average, they had been in the United States for 15.8 years. When
I remove the three respondents who had been in the United States for less
than two years, average time in the United States increases to 17.2 years.
On average, the women had been in the United States longer than the
men, with averages of 19.1 and 11.4 years, respectively. This may explain
why there were more women than men in this group. Time in the United
States has been found to be one of the strongest determinants of natural-
ization, with Latinos being in the United States an average of 13 years
before naturalizing.61
120 Why Vote?

Eighteen of the foreign-born respondents were from Montebello and

seventeen from East Los Angeles. Seven were already citizens, and twenty-
eight were noncitizens. Of those twenty-eight noncitizens, only four said
they did not definitely plan to become citizens. Two of those said they
were uncertain because they had been in the United States for less than
two years and had not yet decided to remain here permanently. The other
two were high school seniors from the 1.5 generation. One said she felt
she could not become a citizen until she could choose between being a
Democrat or a Republican. The other said he felt that naturalization
would mean that he would have to give up his identity as a “Mexican”
and that he was not yet comfortable with the idea of doing that. This is a
common reason given by scholars for why Mexicans do not naturalize.62
Those concerns were voiced by a few of these respondents, but most said
they felt naturalization was simply a bureaucratic act that would not
affect their identity or their “Mexicanness.” This suggests that in an era of
transnationalism the relationship between citizenship and national iden-
tity is not as strong as it once was.63
The foreign-born respondents gave similar reasons for wanting to be-
come citizens. The vast majority of the first-generation respondents—
thirty-one of thirty-five—said they felt citizenship was important because
of the changes in immigration law and because they felt they were being
attacked by politicians such as Pete Wilson.64

Because if they are going to have so much anti-immigrant sentiment,

well, then the best, the best option is to be a citizen. Because once you
become a citizen a person has their, there is no insecurity of any kind.
In order to have those benefits in this country, one has to be a citizen.
Within a few years who knows what will happen? Perhaps that will
change and not even the citizens will have the right to so many things.
So in my opinion the best way to integrate myself totally into this soci-
ety is to make myself a citizen. Independent of the benefits that I would
have. Yes, it’s more the anti-immigrant sentiment. In addition, they say
that people as citizens have the right to vote, and by means of the vote
you can make many changes in all kinds of things. So, all these people,
instead of going around complaining about this and about that, it’s bet-
ter to make yourself a citizen so you will have a voice by means of the
vote. It’s possibly the only way for one to better his situation here as a
Latino in this country. (Javier)
 Why Vote? 121

[I did it] [b]ecause of the same, the politicians, the laws that they’re
passing. So that possibly as citizens we’ll have a bit more of a defense.
[It’s because of] Proposition 187, what happened around that proposi-
tion. If the politicians decide to do things, pass laws or what have you,
if they passed that proposition, they can pass many more. So one is risk-
ing themselves a lot [not being a citizen]. (Rosa)

The first-generation respondents talked about no longer feeling secure as

permanent residents and said they feared that their immigration status
could be changed at any time. A number of people said they were watch-
ing the news every night to ensure that they would not break a law they
had not heard about before. These feelings of insecurity were so great
that two respondents said they felt it was only a matter of time until even
naturalization could not protect the foreign born from being denied ben-
efits or rights.
These feelings of attack and uncertainty led the respondents to talk
about naturalization as a way to “fight back” and “count” in this country.
Many saw naturalization and voting as linked; they were first steps
toward protecting themselves and their families. But there were gender
differences among the first-generation respondents in terms of how they
conceptualized this need for protection. As has been found in other stud-
ies of gender differences in language and politics, the men talked about
the need to fight back in more individual terms, saying that they needed
to respond strongly and assert their rights.65 Rafael’s feelings of anger
and frustration were typical of the male respondents:

Well, I know, I took it [the citizenship class] because of so many attacks

some government officials have made on the Latino community, some
laws that they have passed against Latinos. And since one cannot vote
right now without being a citizen, one cannot vote, I think that finally
the moment arrives when one is up to here [he gestures over his head]
with all the horrible things that they do to Latinos. No, I did not do it
before because, like I told you, I did not plan to become a citizen, I was
going to remain a [permanent] resident here. It’s because before they
didn’t, well, they have always attacked Latinos, but never in the ways
that they have recently, or so frequently. I say no, well, I am already,
well [I think] that’s an abuse. And the more timidly one acts, the worse
it gets.
122 Why Vote?

The men, then, saw citizenship as the first step in a larger fight to keep
themselves, and their racial group, from being taken advantage of. Here
we see the men in this sample defining political conflict as a personal
issue, one that is about the exercise and denial of their “rights.”66
The women were also concerned about their racial group but tended to
frame their answers differently. When talking about their reasons for
becoming citizens, the women did not speak about protecting themselves
but rather about making sure that their children were not hindered by
their parents’ citizenship status. A number of women said they wanted to
become citizens to make certain that their children were not denied op-
portunities for education or financial aid for college:

Why [did I become a citizen]? For my children also. Well, as far as I

understand it, and I’m not certain if it’s true, regularly people who are
not citizens their children, the children of noncitizens, do not have the
opportunity to receive as advanced an education as is possible. Because
their parents are not citizens, they cannot receive a higher education.
For them [my children], I made myself a citizen. (Ester)

So, if I am going to stay in this country, then I have to make the effort to
be able to do something in this country. I want to be, to do everything,
because my children are all going to stay here, we [the family] are going
to stay here. (Herminia)

Other women mentioned that they were becoming citizens because they
wanted to bring their family members to the United States and had
lower priority as permanent residents. This is an interesting finding,
since it has generally been assumed that men naturalize at higher rates
than women because they are responsible for bringing family members
from the home country.67 In this sample at least, the men seemed more
concerned about job opportunities and the women with the status of chil-
dren and family reunification. This indicates that perhaps men’s higher
naturalization rates are linked more to their economic roles than to their
familial ones and that women’s familial roles are driving them to become
citizens so as to protect their families.
The need for self-protection is a direct product of the socioeconomic,
political, and racial environment in California at the time of the inter-
 Why Vote? 123

views. Until the 1990s, permanent residents had most of the rights of cit-
izens. They could own property, make political contributions, and receive
financial aid and were entitled to most constitutional protections. In
some jurisdictions, they even have the right to vote in local elections.68
But Proposition 187 and the 1996 welfare reform bill opened the door to
differential treatment of U.S. residents based on their citizenship status.
That trend has only increased since September 11, 2001. Thus, the calcu-
lations of immigrants with regard to naturalization have changed. The
cost of remaining a noncitizen is now seen as higher than that of going
through the process and risking failure. These immigrants are turning to
naturalization as a first step to achieve power—the ability, to vote, to
count, or to “do something” here in the United States.

Identity, Efficacy, and Voting

Given the first-generation respondents’ view of voting as a way literally

and figuratively to count in the United States, it follows that they would
feel positive about electoral participation overall. All the first-generation
respondents said they felt voting was important. Both the men and the
women thought it was crucial to pick the right president and the right
community leaders. Others mentioned that voting was an important way
for people to express themselves and, ideally, change things for the better.

Yes, when I become a citizen of course I will [vote]. That is a very impor-
tant political power in this country. I hope that many people would think
the way that I do. Because if all those immigrants that already went to be-
come citizens felt the same way that I do, I would say that another, our
[Latinos’] luck would be different. . . . We would have power, access to
the vote, because here live thousands, perhaps millions of Latinos. If we
all had the vote we could all really, well at least stop what the politicians
are trying to do that is against our community. Because if we come to this
country and work and pay taxes, we should have the same rights that a
normal citizen has in this country. (Javier, first-generation Mexican)

I hope that my vote will help for resolving, that it be a help for many of
the [problems]. I hope that being a citizen I would have also the ability
124 Why Vote?

to vote, and that I would have a greater ability to do something for the
community, well at the political level, because that is the way that I can
[do something]. First by going to school and later in that way. (Alba,
first-generation Mexican)

In general, these respondents were very positive about the impact that
voting can have, nationally and locally. Their strong positive feelings
make it likely that they will vote once they become citizens.
The positive attitudes of first-generation respondents are also reflected
in the reported levels of registration and voting among those who were
eligible. Considering the women’s general disinterest in politics, their
participation in electoral activity is not what would be expected. Overall,
of those who were eligible, the women in the sample were 50 percent
more likely than the men to be registered and twice as likely to have
voted. This finding is attributable mainly to the strong political engage-
ment of the first-generation women. They gave the same kinds of reasons
for voting as they had for naturalization: to protect their families and
their community. Their identities, as both women and Latinas, are facili-
tating their incorporation into political activity.
These identities were activated by the Spanish-language media. Many
of the women mentioned hearing on Spanish-language television that if
you were not a citizen in this country and could not vote, then you did
not count. Nancy, a first-generation Mexican, said:

Because, well, lots of people say that the only difference [when you
become a citizen] is getting a passport and voting, or for the monetary
benefits that you can have. In reality I am not interested in any mone-
tary benefit, because I, because I’m preparing myself and studying in
order to value myself for myself, not for the money that the govern-
ment, at the expense of other people, can give me. Okay, why does
citizenship interest me? Because, like they say on the television, if you
don’t vote, you don’t count, you don’t exist. And I want to exist, I want
to be there, I want them to know what I think, that I am in favor of that
person, or that I am of that party, or I participate in that action. It’s a
way to express that you’re interested, that you’re present here.

The responses of Myrna, a first-generation Guatemalan, and Herminia, a

first-generation Mexican, also show the degree to which these women
 Why Vote? 125

consider that voting is related to establishing a sense of “place” for them-

selves in the U.S. political community:

[I want to be a citizen] to vote. Some things that I disagree with, these

propositions that they propose every time there is an election, well once
you’re a citizen you can study the issues, and if you don’t agree, you
vote, and if not, you don’t vote for a particular party. . . . [L]ike they
say in a commercial, that for them to take you into account, you have
to vote and become more or less informed about what is happening
here, because we live here. We already have spent many years here,
one should make herself part of the community, no? (Myrna)

I decided to [become a citizen] to be, I want to, how do you say, to count
in this country. To help them to see that one does count. One can’t vote
because each time they say you should vote for this or for that, you
have to go register to vote or something. And then, so many years that
I have lived here, and I cannot do any of that. (Herminia)

On average, most of the first-generation women had been in the United

States for 19.1 years. Most of them had only recently considered natural-
ization. Their decision to become citizens, and by extension to exercise
their right to vote, is a reaction to the hostile political context that existed
at the time. But what made that reaction possible were their mobilizing
identities as Latinas and as women and their use of already existing
social networks for political ends. María de Jesus is a good example of
this. Because she was uncomfortable about making voting decisions on
her own, she got together with a group of her friends to decide how to
vote:

For me the experience was very interesting because I read the entire
practice ballot, all of the book that they send, and I spent time asking
friends and acquaintances so see if we spent time discussing which
person we wanted to represent us and who we thought would help
all people, especially Latinos. And [with that] I tried to pick the best
[candidates].

This approach worked for two reasons. First, the larger political climate
was so extreme that all the women were in agreement about acting on
behalf of their group. Second, the women already had a social network in
126 Why Vote?

place—which they could turn to political ends. This bodes well for future
organization because it is likely that this network was transformed by the
experience and will continue to be more politically oriented than it was
in the past.
The finding that women made voting decisions as a collective relates
to one of the longest-standing debates in feminist political theory: the
public/private dichotomy.69 Feminist theorists have argued that histori-
cally women have been forced to operate mainly in what has been de-
fined as the private realm. They argue that the definition of politics needs
to be expanded to include the areas of the private sphere where power
and patriarchy operate, areas such as the family and reproduction and
that studies of participation should also be expanded to include informal,
nonelectoral kinds of activities so as to more fully capture women’s polit-
ical activity. The Latinas in this sample, such as María de Jesús, seem to
be moving beyond these public/private, informal/formal distinctions to
develop a more holistic vision of activity, even if they do not define that
activity as “political.” As a result, their private-family roles are motivat-
ing them to act on behalf of their group(s), and for them, acting in the
public realm of politics is simply an extension of their private, collec-
tively oriented identity. They do not see boundaries between the two;
they are doing what they need to do to protect their community of inter-
est.70 In a similar vein, Hardy-Fanta has argued that women’s emphasis
on collectivity and connectedness makes them especially suited to non-
electoral activity.71 Here we see Latinas maintaining that sense of collec-
tivity in the context of electoral participation and thus blurring the lines
between the two categories.
Unlike the first-generation respondents, those from the second gener-
ation do not have any formal impediment to voting besides registering.
Yet this group’s propensity to vote is as yet untested, because at the time
of the interviews many of these respondents were high school seniors,
under the age of eighteen, and not yet eligible to vote. While any conclu-
sions about their future participation are by definition speculative, there
are a few facts about this group that make a discussion of their political
attitudes useful. First, all except two were going to turn eighteen within
a year of their interviews, so they were close enough to voting age that it
 Why Vote? 127

is reasonable to assume that their current attitudes will affect their polit-
ical actions in the near future. Second, most students who will drop out
of high school do so by the tenth grade. The respondents were all at least
high school seniors and thus were likely to finish high school. Because
high school graduates are more likely than dropouts to vote, any bias in
this sample would be toward greater future participation on the part of
these respondents than for Latinos of their generation as a whole.
Of the second-generation respondents who were eligible to vote, 60
percent were registered at the time of their interviews, and they were
equally distributed between males and females. Most of them had regis-
tered because someone had approached them and asked them to, most
often in order to fight a local political battle. One young man from Monte-
bello had registered because the city council had voted to tear down his
housing tract and the adjoining park to build condominiums. A young
woman from East Los Angeles registered because there was a Latina run-
ning in the local school board election. Both respondents said that they
would probably have registered otherwise but that these local issues
gave them an additional impetus to get involved. This demonstrates the
impact that mobilization can have on individual political activity. The
respondents who were eligible to vote but who had not yet registered
said either that they did not realize that registering was necessary or that
they had to find out more about the process before they would feel com-
fortable registering. Thus, a lack of knowledge and understanding of the
political system is present in the second generation and likely is due to
the lack of political information available in their neighborhoods or social
networks.
It is with the second- and third-plus-generation respondents that we
begin to see differences between Montebello and East Los Angeles in
terms of their attitudes toward electoral politics. Almost all the second-
generation respondents, who were high school seniors when interviewed,
said they believed that voting had an impact nationally and locally. The
main difference was the degree to which they felt voting would affect
their racial group specifically. The East Los Angeles respondents were the
only ones who said that Proposition 187 had mobilized them and their
friends into electoral politics. Zali, a fourth-generation Mexican from
128 Why Vote?

East Los Angeles, said, “[The Proposition 187 campaign] did wake up
Mexican Americans, which I thought was maybe one of the best things
that ever happened from that.” Ana, a second-generation Mexican from
East Los Angeles, said she forced her friends to vote during the campaign
and now would like “to get more involved, like with campaigns and stuff
[and giving] out flyers and stuff.” Linda, a second-generation East Los
Angeles Mexican, said that after the 187 campaign she thought about pol-
itics more and that kids her age talked about it more.
In contrast, none of the Montebello respondents mentioned ongoing
interest in politics as a result of their participation in the Proposition 187
campaign. Although they said that they believed voting would make a
difference, most said they believed this because a teacher had told them
so. None said they had heard this from their families or friends. The East
Los Angeles respondents, in contrast, tended to make direct connections
between voting and helping their community. Luly, a 1.5-generation
Mexican, said, “[I want to] vote [for] somebody that’s gonna help minori-
ties. Just not Mexicans, [all] minorities, and not somebody that’s gonna
put us down or something.” Hilda, a second-generation Mexican, said
she voted so that she could elect a Chicana to the local school board.
Javier, a first-generation Mexican, said he felt voting was a very impor-
tant power in this country and that if more Latinos voted, “otra sería
nuestra suerte [our fate would be different].” Norma, a second-generation
Mexican, said that Latinos need to “get in a group” and vote in order to
make a difference. Jesús, a second-generation Mexican, said, “You have
to vote to make a difference in this world.” All these respondents feel that
change needs to happen and that electoral participation is an important
part of making that change. Many made direct connections between vot-
ing and improving the situation for Latinos.
This is consistent with what Marschall calls the “ethnic community”
hypothesis. This theory is based on the idea that “those in a given ethnic
community develop a consciousness of each other and hence cohesive-
ness because of pressures exerted on them by outsiders.”72 Thus, Marschall
finds that Latino respondents with low levels of trust and high levels of
political efficacy were more likely to participate in politics.73 This could
be what is happening in East Los Angeles and again shows the impor-
 Why Vote? 129

tance of the interaction between collective identity and social context.

The native-born Latinos in East Los Angeles and Montebello agreed that
events such as the campaign surrounding Proposition 187 showed that
their group was under attack. But because the East Los Angeles Latinos
had a positive attachment to their group and therefore felt their group
is worthy of their efforts, they were mobilized to act, particularly in
response to issues that directly affected their group. The Montebello
respondents, on the other hand, felt they were under attack but did not
have this sense of individual or group efficacy.
The third generation’s attitudes toward voting look very similar to
those of the second generation. Yet in terms of registration and voting,
their reported participation is higher than expected given their negative
attitudes about politics in general.74 Of those third-plus-generation
respondents who were eligible to vote, 40 percent reported being regis-
tered.75 Of those registered, 83 percent reported having voted in the 1996
primary or national election.76 Thus, similar to other findings among
Latinos, registration seems to be a greater hurdle than actual voting.77
This indicates that social context factors, such as the presence of political
information and discussion within family and social networks or the
presence of political information and/or mobilization in their neighbor-
hoods, seem to be affecting these Latinos’ integration into politics, at least
in terms of encouraging them to register to vote.
Interestingly, even those third-plus-generation respondents who said
they had voted also reported having limited political information avail-
able to them. They tended to express uncertainty and confusion about the
voting process. One of the women, who reported voting for Bill Clinton
in the 1996 presidential election, did not know that he had won. She said
she had followed the Los Angeles Times voting recommendations because
she did not feel she knew enough to decide for herself. In total, 60 percent
of the third-plus-generation voters said the process of voting was con-
fusing, and they all had some kind of outside help making the decisions,
be it a parent or the media. When questioned further about specific prop-
ositions that were on the ballot, none of the third-plus-generation voters
knew the specifics, and many said they had just left those blank on the
ballot because they were too confusing. Though reliance on these meth-
130 Why Vote?

ods for making political decisions is not unique to this group, it is impor-
tant to note that these are linguistically and socioeconomically the most
integrated Latinos. Clearly, that socioeconomic and linguistic integration
has not translated into comfort in the political sphere.
The sense of a general lack of political information was true in both
areas, but especially Montebello, and relates in important ways to atti-
tudes toward voting. Many of the respondents said they believe it is
important to vote, but they did not want to do so until they were certain
about what they were voting for. For them, it was very important to make
the “right” decision, to pick the best leader. They said that it would be
better not to vote at all than to make a mistake:

See, that’s the thing—you register to vote, but you don’t know what
you’re voting for. That’s why I tell my mom, “¿Por qué voy a ir a votar?
¡No sé ni qué voy a votar!” [Why should I go vote? I do not even know
how I am going to vote!] . . . If we could be more informed about what
we’re gonna vote for, or who we’re voting for, then that would be a lot
easier for us. . . . It’s like, I ask my friends, “Hey, have you voted?” and
they’re like, “Yeah, I’m registered to vote, but—” and I say, “Yeah, you’re
registered to vote, but you never vote.” (Juan Carlos, second-generation
Mexican)
You don’t know anything, you know. Only what you see on TV, that’s it.
You wanna go vote. You have to go to a certain school or something, I
think. I don’t even know where to go to vote. My parents don’t know
where they’re gonna vote. A lot of people like me, they don’t know
where to go, this and that. They don’t take the time to find out. That’s
why they don’t go. I don’t think it’s lazy. It’s just, everyone is just
afraid. (Manny, second-generation Mexican)
Well, some of them can’t [vote]. But, some of them don’t even know the
process of voting also. I don’t know if they’re not educated in like how
to vote, where they go, if they’re afraid to vote, but for some reason, we
just, a lot of them don’t vote. I know that for sure. Like my whole neigh-
borhood, I know most of them don’t vote. (María, second-generation
Mexican)

Asked why young people do not vote, Chris, a fourth-generation Mexi-

can, said, “I think they’re just kinda worried about being responsible for
 Why Vote? 131

voting up something that might hurt them, or, you know, hurt us long
term. . . . I think they don’t know enough about what they’re voting on it,
and that they might vote up something that could be against them, but
they’re not too sure about that. I guess they think it’s better to just keep
out of the situation.” Desiré, a fourth-generation Mexican, expressed
similar concerns: “If I don’t understand something, I won’t vote either
way on it. I don’t want to make a bad decision.” Again, though members
of the fourth generation are among the most integrated Latinos in the
United States, their concerns about their political knowledge keeps them
from feeling comfortable about participating in politics.78
Some East Los Angeles respondents also reported hostility toward
politics because politicians cannot be trusted. A number of the male re-
spondents said politicians would promise anything during an election
but then go back on their word when they were in office. Many gave this
as the main reason for not liking politics.

A lot of presidents say that they’ll do this, or politicians say that they’ll
do this for us, and then, you know, once the camera’s off them, or what-
ever, it’ll be a different story. They’ll be proposing laws against us. Like
Pete Wilson has been doing it, says he’s gonna help us or whatever, and
time goes on he gets better, he gets more money, more power, he’s all
putting us, this law against us [187]. (Jesús, second-generation Mexican)
And when it comes to politics, it’s like, say you want to vote for some-
body, because socially he’s doing something for our race. But then he
turns their back. That’s why I hate politics. I don’t like that. If you’re
gonna say something, you’d better know what you’re saying—you’d bet-
ter know what you’re telling those people. That’s why if I went into poli-
tics, and I say, “Well, we’re gonna cut down the border and there aren’t
gonna be no more walls, you know, oh, you can just come through.” If I
say that, all these people are gonna start hoping. And let’s say I win, and
then I turn my back, and I don’t do what I said, it’s gonna look bad on
me, and people are gonna say, “You lied to us.” That’s why I don’t like
politics. It’s like the stab behind your back, you know, you might be fine
face-to-face but turn your back. (Juan Carlos, second-generation Mexican)

As we have seen previously, these men personalized politics and tended

to see behavior on the part of politicians as personal betrayals. They
132 Why Vote?

believe that once individuals become part of larger power structures,

they use that power against Latinos as a group. They see politicians, and
by extension political institutions, as betraying not only themselves but
also their racial group. This could help to explain why political trust
seems to decrease between the immigrant and native-born generations.79
The native-born Montebello respondents took these concerns one step
further, saying they did not want to be involved in politics because they
have no power over the outcome. Juan, a third-generation Mexican, said he
does not bother to vote because “something’s gonna go wrong, no matter
what, no matter which side you fall on. Something’s gonna get screwed
up. . . . Everybody that gets in office has a chance to screw up something,
so why bother with it?” Others said they believed their votes did not count
because the government determined the outcome in any case:

I had always told myself I wasn’t gonna vote. Either it’s nothing differ-
ent or they promise things and never keep their promises. A vote’s not
gonna count, I mean, they know who’s gonna come out on top. That’s
what I think, you know. They always have everything planned out,
how it’s gonna go. [Who’s “they”?] The government, the people that
are in office, you know. My friend says, you know, it’s all a plan just
to make us think we’re gonna get what we want. The government
already has everything under control. They just wanna have us think
we’re gonna put a person up there and have them. It’ll never happen.
It’s the government that’s making us think that. There’s no way you
could change things. Some people change things, but they’re the ones
that have power. The government has power. No matter what you do—
you burn your city [referring to the 1992 L.A. riots], you’re gonna get
screwed. . . . I don’t think there’s a way you could change things at all.
(Juan, second-generation Mexican)

The government’s not gonna listen to anybody. They just say, you know,
we the people. You know, we’re supposed to be the government. Well
that’s, that doesn’t exist anymore. . . . The government is gonna do what
they want to do. You can get a bunch of petitions signed but that’s not
gonna do you any good. Have they listed to us before? If they did, what
did they do? Can’t change anything. (Miguel, second-generation Mexican)
To me it’s like, what are you gonna do? Can’t do nothing about it.
Something’s voted in, yes, what can we do? It’s the people that are
 Why Vote? 133

voting. The government just says, oh well, look how many votes we
got, better for us. . . . You can’t stop them because they have more
power than the people do. (Johnny, fifth-generation Mexican)

Abraham, a third-generation Mexican from Montebello, said, “I always

was predisposed to thinking, oh, like government is all corrupt and
stuff . . . so it [voting] doesn’t really interest me.” Roberto, a second-
generation Mexican who is also from Montebello, said he thinks candi-
dates are “just trying to BS their way into office,” so why vote?
Among all the respondents, the discussions about formal politics were
shorter and less animated than the discussions about volunteer work and
other kinds of nonelectoral activity. Respondents from both areas show
the lack of political information and comfort with the political system
that comes from living in areas that contain few regular voters and as a
result are the targets of little political mobilization. Few respondents
reported seeing lawn signs or political activity at the time of the 1996
presidential election. Given their political context, a general pessimism
about electoral politics is not surprising. What is surprising is that the
most pessimistic respondents are those who are most well off socio-
economically—the ones from Montebello. Their comments show that
they feel little ability to influence the political system. The native-born
East Los Angeles respondents and those from the first generation, on the
other hand, while expressing discomfort with the electoral system, seem
to have been politicized by the events in California during the 1990s. The
difference lies in the affective attachment they have to their racial group,
which in turn gives them a stronger sense of political efficacy with regard
to electoral politics.
The differences I find in this sample could help to explain why there
was increased electoral participation among Latinos in East Los Angeles
during the 1990s. Figure 2 summarizes electoral turnout in both Monte-
bello and East Los Angeles from the general election of 1990 to the June
1998 primary election, as reported by the Los Angeles County Registrar.
We see that at the beginning of the decade, turnout in Montebello was
about 10 percent higher than in East Los Angeles. But over the course of
subsequent elections, this gap narrowed and finally reversed itself in the
134 Why Vote?

Figure 2. Percentages of voter turnout in Montebello and East Los Angeles, 1990–
1998. Source: Election returns recorded by the Los Angeles County Registrar of
Voters, 1990–1998, compiled by the author.

1998 June primary election when Proposition 227 was on the ballot.80 This
indicates that the increasing naturalization rates, political mobilization,
and general tumult increased Latino political participation in East Los
Angeles, especially among the foreign born. These findings are consistent
with those from Ricardo Ramírez’s longitudinal quantitative analysis of
Latino turnout in California during the 1990s. He found that mobilization
increased among native- and foreign-born Latinos and that those who
registered during the 1990s were the most likely to remain mobilized.81
It is interesting to consider why the same hostile political climate
would not have had the same effect on political participation levels in
Montebello. Granted, Montebello began the decade with higher levels of
registration and voting than East Los Angeles, so a greater change in
overall turnout would need to happen there for their numbers to change
to the same extent. But it does raise some concern when a middle-class
area begins to have lower turnout than a working-class area. What we
have seen regarding identity, group cohesion, and attitudes toward par-
ticipation and what we see in Figure 2 in terms of overall turnout for both
areas during the 1990s could be reflections of differences in how the
 Why Vote? 135

Latinos in these two areas identify racially and the degree to which those
identities include an affective group attachment and feelings of group
worth. Though the Latinos in both areas express high levels of racial
identification, they define that identity differently. The Montebello re-
spondents are less likely to talk about their group identification as con-
nected to a particular community or collective group of people. As a re-
sult, they experience all the negative aspects of social stigma—feelings of
separation, of alienation, and of being negatively stereotyped by the
dominant culture—without the positive aspects of feeling a part of a
well-defined group they can take pride in. Because they do not have a
positive affective attachment to their social group, the hostile racial cli-
mate leaves them feeling pessimistic and disempowered. ]2erugif[

The East Los Angeles respondents’ positive attachment is what makes

them feel empowered to get together and make a difference for their
group. As a result, their identities have motivated them to overcome their
insecurity and discomfort with the political system and vote. The in-
creases in electoral turnout for East Los Angeles as a whole during the
1990s suggest that the respondents in this sample are not the only people
in East Los Angeles who have been affected in this way. If these feelings
of collective purpose and mobilization continue in East Los Angeles, they
are likely to have a positive impact on Latino formal and informal activ-
ity in that area over the long term. Conversely, if the Latinos in Monte-
bello begin to develop a more positive attachment to their group, their
feelings of efficacy may be enhanced, leading them to become more pos-
itive about their ability to effect change through their political actions.

Conclusion

We have seen that race, class, and gender affect how and when particu-
lar groups can become mobilized to participate in politics. We have also
seen that the effects of these identities are mediated by, and interact with,
the social context. Because Latino social networks, like those of other
racial groups, are highly homogeneous, they are unlikely to entail the
exchange of political information or engage network members in politi-
136 Why Vote?

cal discussion. In addition, these Latino respondents live in areas with lit-
tle outside political mobilization. The result is that those in the more socio-
economically well off area are not noticeably more positive about their
political efficacy than those from the working-class neighborhood. As has
been found in African American communities, neighborhoods and local
institutions structure Latino political attitudes and engagement in impor-
tant ways.82
These findings also show that when two group identities are activated
simultaneously, in this case that of Latinas as women and as members of
a particular racial group, the result can be a strong movement toward
mobilization. The 1990s in Los Angeles were a decade of riots, natural
disasters, and hostility among racial and ethnic groups. The respondents
in this sample, across both genders, clearly felt that Latinos in particular
were being targeted. While informal and grassroots organizing among
women has had a long history in East Los Angeles, it seems now to be
shifting into the electoral arena.83 The nature of the measures that were
being proposed—kicking illegal immigrant children out of school, deny-
ing medical care to the elderly, decreasing Latinos’ opportunities to
attend college—appealed directly to these women’s roles as the caretak-
ers and protectors of their families and neighborhoods and served as
effective catalysts for their incorporation into the electoral arena. It is
likely that so long as issues of education, health care, and community
well-being remain at the forefront of the political agenda in Los Angeles,
these Latinas will remain involved in electoral and nonelectoral politics.
FIVE Community Problems,
Collective Solutions
latinos and nonelectoral
participation

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

Frederick Douglass

The term nonelectoral politics refers to any community or collectively ori-

ented activity the respondents engaged in. This included volunteer work
such as cleaning up their neighborhoods, removing graffiti, engaging in
church activities, helping to improve local schools, or assisting local chil-
dren. Most studies of political behavior focus on voting behavior; how-
ever, political participation is multidimensional, with many different
modes of activity, including community activism, contacting govern-
ment officials, protests, and communicating with community members.1
Employing a broader definition of participation is especially important
when studying groups that historically have not participated in electoral
politics. Robert Wrinkle and colleagues argue that nonelectoral political
activity is “essential to minority empowerment” as an alternative or a
supplement to voting.2 Brady, Schlozman, and Verba point out the sig-
nificance of nonpolitical voluntary activity for those groups that have
faced limited opportunities in the workplace.3 They argue that volunteer

137
138 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

activity is an important way for minority groups to develop political

skills and consciousness, which can counteract the effect of negative
socioeconomic indicators.4
A broader definition of political activity is important also because, as
many feminist theorists argue, the separation between the public and pri-
vate spheres is an artificial one, and an individual’s activity does not have
to be explicitly political to be considered as such.5 In fact, according to
Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, involvement in nonpolitical institutions
often lays the groundwork for formal political activity: “Both the motiva-
tion and capacity to take part in politics have their roots in the fundamen-
tal non-political institutions with which individuals are associated
throughout the course of their lives. The foundations for future political
involvements are laid early in life—in the family and in school. . . . [T]he
factors that foster political activity . . . are stockpiled over the course of a
lifetime, frequently conferring additional advantage on the initially privi-
leged.”6 Thus, feelings of efficacy regarding nonelectoral activity may have
important implications for the political incorporation of marginal groups.
Political scientists have long recognized that feelings of efficacy are
important for political participation, but they have tended to measure
only whether or not it “exists” in individuals.7 The focus has not been on
the source of these feelings but rather the effect their presence has on sub-
sequent political behavior. For members of racialized groups, the con-
textual sources of efficacy become important. Their efficacy is not only
the result of their individual capacities but also of their group identities
and experiences of social stigma. Because stigma is intimately related to
issues of power (i.e., only those without power in a particular context can
be stigmatized), it likely has a negative effect on individuals’ feelings of
personal and group power and therefore on their sense of efficacy. What
is efficacy if not having feelings of personal power in a particular politi-
cal context?
If this is true, then the nature of the political context also could have
important effects on feelings of personal efficacy. This might explain
why Latinos, especially those of Mexican and Puerto Rican origin, have
been found to be more likely to participate in nonelectoral activity such
as marches and protests than in formal political activity such as voting.8
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 139

It is possible that they are more likely to feel powerful in a nonelectoral

context than in an electoral one. This might also explain why the findings
regarding what drives Latinos to participate in nonelectoral activity have
been mixed. Though socioeconomic status—income, education, and
occupation—has been found to be important, it does not explain fully
Latino nonelectoral activity.9 The differences may lie in the fact that, un-
like formal electoral activity where the collective is predefined as the
state or the nation, nonelectoral activity gives individuals the power to
define their community of interest however they choose. This provides
them with more contextual flexibility and with the ability to choose to act
on behalf of those social groups with whom they feel a stronger sense of
identification. Here I am imagining people’s social identities within the
nation-state as a series of concentric circles. On the local level, it may be
easier for group members to see and identify with other members of the
smaller bounded circle. Though they may understand themselves as also
being situated within the larger bounded circle of the nation, that under-
standing of collectivity is more distant, and therefore it may be less
salient to their everyday lives.

Nonelectoral Participation:
Protests, Community Work, and Efficacy

I began the discussion of the respondents’ nonelectoral activity by asking

them what kinds of activities they participated in and whether they saw
this activity as effective. Respondents were asked about two areas:
marches or protests and community work. Community work refers broadly
to any group activity undertaken to assist a larger collective entity, how-
ever defined. This includes work for churches, schools, and other organi-
zations whose mission may not be explicitly political. The respondents
themselves also did not need to define the work as “political” for me to
include it in this discussion. After discussing whether or not they engaged
in these kinds of activities, I asked whether they thought that their partic-
ipation could make a substantive difference for their neighborhoods.
In both East Los Angeles and Montebello, the campaigns against Prop-
140 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

osition 187, the 1996 welfare reform, and Proposition 209 gave the re-
spondents many opportunities to participate in marches or protests. This
was especially true among the high school respondents. One of the main
forms of protest against Proposition 187 was a series of walkouts that
were symbolic of what opponents saw as the proposition’s goal of pre-
venting undocumented students from attending school.10 In November
1994, the Los Angeles Times reported that more than ten thousand high
school students in southern California had participated in the walkouts.11
The walkouts sometimes turned into marches or other kinds of rallies to
show opposition to the measure.12 It was estimated that students from
more than thirty schools participated in these protests. Two of those
schools were Garfield High School and Montebello High School.
The respondents in the high school sample were sophomores at the
time, and it would have been relatively easy for them to engage in these
protests. But it is also important to note that their involvement in the
protests was affected by how their schools dealt with the problem. At
Garfield High School, because the Latino student population was very
large, both school administrators and public officials joined forces to keep
students from leaving school. As an alternative to walking out, the school
held a teach-in at which community leaders talked about Proposition 187,
and students were given the opportunity to use the microphone and say
publicly how they felt about it. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria
Molina was present at this event and encouraged the students to stay in
school. All the respondents from Garfield who did not walk out said they
attended the teach-in. Montebello High School held no such “alternative”
action, and thus many more of the students chose to walk out.
Overall, the female respondents and those from Montebello were most
likely to report having participated in protest activities. This was the
product of the social context at the time, a context that motivated these
respondents to take action.13 However, this participation did not lead to
greater feelings of empowerment among the Montebello participants. In
fact, it may have led to a deeper sense of alienation. Thus, a mobilizing
context alone may be a necessary but not sufficient precondition for
political mobilization. As we will see from the East Los Angeles respon-
dents, it seems that for members of marginal groups, a positive group
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 141

identity and a sense of group worth are also necessary parts of this
process.
Those respondents who were not in high school during these cam-
paigns also were likely to have participated in marches or rallies. Overall
in the sample, the largest differences in participation fell across gender
lines. The Latinas were about twice as likely as the men to have partici-
pated in marches or other kinds of political protests. This was true regard-
less of generation or area. This is in keeping with Wrinkle and colleagues’
study of nonelectoral activity, which found Chicanas more likely to par-
ticipate than Chicanos.14 In my sample, 50 percent of the women from
East Los Angeles and 40 percent of the women from Montebello had par-
ticipated in this kind of nonelectoral political activity. Among the men, 22
percent of those from East Los Angeles and 17 percent of those from
Montebello had participated. Most of the protests were organized against
Proposition 187. Because the female respondents felt this proposition
would hurt children and people who need medical care, many of them
talked about their participation as a logical extension of their roles as
mothers. They described their action as an attempt to protect the weak-
est members of the community, much as they protect their families.
Again, we see their gender identity interacting with their racial identity
to motivate them to act on behalf of their community of interest.
This is similar to Hardy-Fanta’s findings among Latina political activists
in Boston: the women in her sample did not consider politics and the com-
munity separate from their families. They tended to define politics more
holistically than the men and saw their actions as building families, and by
extension, the community.15 The women in my sample also talked about
their activity in terms of helping to protect other families and to build
social community. Two first-generation women who participated in the
marches against Proposition 187 with their families said they had done so
because they identified with the people who would be affected by the
proposition and wanted to help them:16

[I participated] because we also came like that, we came as immigrants

and if now we [had] not . . . if my children had not been born here, they
would not be able to have an education. I put myself in the place of
those people who don’t, who are here illegally, because I too was illegal.
142 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

I also arrived that way; so did my husband. The majority of the ones that
came here came that way. Like I said, how are they going to take away
education from the children, their medical care, also medicine from those
that are ill? That’s not right. (Mercedes, first-generation Mexican)

I went to the march, with my church. We walked with my children,

my husband. I felt very good, because there was a great deal of support
from people, not only Latinos but people from other nationalities. I can
only hope that that action meant something. It’s simply a march, but
[it’s important that Americans] see things, that they see us. (Alba, first-
generation Mexican)

These women said they felt very positive about this kind of action and
about Latinos and members of other groups getting together to support
each other. They saw this activity as a form of help, of mutual support
that they did as a family to help other families like theirs.
These women’s family roles also facilitated their engagement when
they felt the need to protest school or government officials about a par-
ticular policy issue. For example, two women in the sample got very
involved in actions relating to their children’s educations. Mary, a fifth-
generation Mexican from Montebello, wrote letters and attended protests
in order to stop the school board from closing her daughter’s preschool.
She was a working single parent and was concerned about losing this
inexpensive day care option. She also felt her daughter was receiving
high-quality care and did not want her to have to become accustomed to
a new environment. These two factors motivated her to become involved
in this struggle. She and other mothers protested at school board meet-
ings, organized letter-writing campaigns, and talked to elected officials.
Though they were unsuccessful in keeping the school open, they man-
aged to have the closing date postponed.
María, a first-generation Mexican from East Los Angeles, told a simi-
lar story. She began to get more involved with the schools when she
wanted to remove her daughter from a bilingual program in which she
had been placed. María met with the principal, attended school board
meetings, wrote letters, and talked to administrators. The school admin-
istrators told her they could not put her daughter in an English-only pro-
gram because of district policy. She continued to contact school officials
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 143

for more than a year but with no success. She finally stopped when her
daughter entered a new grade where there was no bilingual teacher and
thus was taken out of the bilingual program by default.
In both these cases, women who had not been politically active were
motivated to become involved in nonelectoral political activity because
they felt their children’s well-being was at stake. María talked about how
embarrassed she had always been to speak English to school officials.
What she perceived as a threat to her daughter’s educational well-being
was sufficient inducement to get her to overcome her embarrassment,
contact school officials, and even protest her treatment by them. Un-
fortunately, neither of these women felt their efforts had been successful.
Their experience, and those of the high school students generally,
highlights why both group identity and social context are important to
the development and maintenance of political efficacy. A number of
recent studies have emphasized the role that mobilization can play in
political participation, especially in minority communities.17 For the high
school students, the overall mobilization around Proposition 187 facili-
tated participation. For Mary and María, the motivation was the per-
ceived threat to their children and the appeal that made to their identities
as women. Yet, in the absence of any other direct political mobilization in
the community, this activity did not lead them subsequently to become
more involved in politics, either electoral or nonelectoral. Mary has only
voted in one election in her life, and that was at her daughter’s urging.
María is becoming a citizen but now feels that administrators and elected
officials do not really listen when people complain. Like many of the
Montebello High School students who walked out, in the end they re-
main pessimistic about their ability to change things. Had there been
more institutions present in the community to channel these women’s
concerns about their children and keep them mobilized, perhaps they
would have become more involved politically overall.18
In contrast to the women, the male respondents who had participated
in either marches or protests did not mention family issues when dis-
cussing why they participated. They did talk about community but pri-
marily in terms of actions that were necessary to protect their social
group and defend themselves from attacks. A number of men from
144 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

Montebello said they participated in the actions against Proposition 187

because they thought the measure was anti-Mexican, and they wanted to
respond to what they saw as attacks on Latinos. They saw the attacks as
an attempt by Anglos and the government to “put them down” and dis-
respect them. Again, the male respondents conceptualized the political
problem in terms of their feelings and needs as individuals rather than as
part of a collective.19 As we saw with regard to electoral activity, these
men saw politics in more adversarial terms than the women did, and that
affects how they conceptualized their political activity. In this sample,
their gender identity as men motivated them to act when they felt they
were being attacked.
The gender differences I found in the cases of both voting and protest
activity contradict many gender stereotypes. Many Chicana feminist
writers complain about characterizations of Chicanas as subservient be-
cause of their acceptance of traditional gender roles.20 Within these gen-
der roles, men are seen as having more power than women because they
have greater physical and economic power. But my results raise the pos-
sibility that this conceptualization of power among Latinos is too one-
dimensional.21 As Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo points out, “While women’s
motives for becoming political actors and neighborhood community
activists may be rooted in their traditional identities as mothers, their
actions provide a rich source of support for fundamental changes in
multiple arenas.”22 In my sample, the women’s “traditional” roles seemed
to be facilitating their participation. Many of them mentioned that they
dragged their husbands and children with them to protests. One woman
laughingly said that she threatened not to feed her husband and sons if
they refused to go with her. In addition, though their husbands earned
the money in their households, many of the female respondents men-
tioned that they were the ones who decided how to spend it. An under-
standing of power within the family as based on economics is too sim-
plistic and ignores the many ways that these “traditional” women
exercise power within their families and their communities.
It also is important to emphasize what kind of activity these women
were engaging in: protests. These are the same women who, in their
interviews, often expressed uncertainty about their own opinions. Yet
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 145

they were willing to take to the streets to make their voices heard. It is the
strong connection they feel to their larger racial group—one that they see
as an extension of their roles as mothers—that motivates them to over-
come their discomfort and act. Here, as we saw with electoral activity,
their gender and racial identities combine to motivate them to partici-
pate. As I discuss below, that combination also propels them to do other
kinds of collective work on behalf of their social group(s).
In addition to their participation in marches and protests, the respon-
dents were asked about their volunteer work. It is in the discussion of
community work that I find unexpected differences between the respon-
dents from the two areas. In general, political scientists have found that
more socioeconomically well off individuals are more likely to partici-
pate in voluntary organizations and do volunteer work.23 This is intu-
itively logical given that those with more economic resources tend to
have more time available to engage in this activity. However, it is unclear
whether these findings apply to the Latina/o experience. On the one
hand, that Latinas in general are less educated and earn less than Latinos
would lead us to expect that they would be less likely to engage in this
activity. Or at the very least we would expect that both the Latino men
and women from Montebello, because they are better off economically,
would be more likely to volunteer than those from East Los Angeles.
However, women’s familial roles and their need for connectedness
would lead us to expect that they would be more comfortable with vol-
unteer work than with formal electoral activity.24 These contradictions
highlight the difficulties inherent in “fitting” the experiences of Latinas
and other women of color into established theoretical frameworks.
Contrary to expectations, the Latinas in this sample were very
involved in volunteer work. The Latino men from East Los Angeles were
very engaged in this kind of activity as well. The women from East Los
Angeles were most likely to do volunteer work, with 64 percent reporting
taking part in some community activity. By far the most common activ-
ity reported was directly or indirectly related to children and schools. As
we saw with marches and protests, the women’s family roles, especially
regarding children and education, played a large part in motivating them
to engage in volunteer activity. In contrast, only 20 percent of the Monte-
146 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

bello women said they volunteered. Considering that the women from
both areas had similar levels of participation in marches and protests, it
seems strange that the difference in community activity would be so
great.
One possible explanation for these differences is the degree to which it
was their gender and racial identities that motivated them to act. Most of
the marches and protests the women had participated in were against
Propositions 187 and 209. The women from both areas said they were
against these propositions because they adversely affected children.
Specifically, they felt the propositions limited Latino children’s opportu-
nity for a good education. In addition, they said that the media campaigns
surrounding the propositions, especially the border-crossing images dur-
ing the 187 campaign, made them feel that Mexicans specifically were tar-
geted.25 These two factors, their need to defend children and feelings of
racial attack, motivated them to participate in the marches and protests.
But because of differences in affective group attachment between
Latinos in the two areas, that same level of motivation and efficacy was
not present when the focus of the activity was the “Latino community.”
The Montebello respondents, in part because of the particular character-
istics of Montebello as a suburban middle-class area, had less of a sense
of themselves as a part of any particular “community.” When asked
about community problems, the Montebello respondents were five times
more likely to ask me to define the word community for them. This was
despite the fact that all but one of the Montebello respondents described
themselves as having a racial identity and that the Montebello women
involved in the marches identified themselves as “Mexicans” in the ab-
stract. The problem was that on the local level they did not feel they had
a concrete geographically based social group to which they could attach
that identification. As a result, they had more difficulty determining
what tangible collective group they belonged to. The East Los Angeles
respondents, on the other hand, because of that area’s long history as a
“Mexican” neighborhood, had a stronger sense of community and as a
result a more positive group identity. We saw in the previous chapter
how this provided them with the efficacy necessary to participate in elec-
toral politics; the same is true for their volunteer work.26
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 147

That positive racial group attachment is what led the male respon-
dents from East Los Angeles to have high feelings of efficacy regarding
the potential impact of community activity and to engage in that activity
at high rates. These men were much more involved in community work
than in electoral politics. In general, the men showed relatively high rates
of community involvement: 50 percent of the men from East Los Angeles
and 30 percent of the men from Montebello. But the nature of their work
was different from that of the female respondents. Male respondents
were more likely to work with parks and recreation programs or with
church youth groups doing community cleanup. None of them worked
with schools, children, or the elderly. Traditional gender roles, then, affect
the nature of the community work that these Latinos do.
That the men from East Los Angeles are more involved in community
work than the women from Montebello raises the question of what dri-
ves volunteer activity. In their answers, the female respondents from both
areas had a more collective interpretation of the political situation than
did the male respondents, and the latter tended to define issues in more
personal and adversarial terms. Yet the East Los Angeles men took that
perceived personal animosity and used it as motivation to get involved in
their community; to some extent, the Montebello men and women did
not. This suggests that perhaps women’s focus on “connectedness” is the
result of their stigmatized, subordinate position within a racialized, patri-
archal society and the need to develop a positive sense of “collective
place” within that society. The men from East Los Angeles, because they
too are marginalized from the dominant culture, may, like women gen-
erally, have a stronger need to look for connections with others than do
other men. Their low socioeconomic status and sense of social stigma
could be leading them to take on more “feminine” characteristics in how
they relate to collective action. Again, we are seeing how identity and
social context interact to affect the development of racial identities. In this
case, the East Los Angeles men’s gender identity is not following “tradi-
tional” lines because of the other ways in which they are subordinated in
the United States. Here, class, race, and gender are interacting, and
power, historical context, and social institutions structure that interac-
tion. The result is that the more socioeconomically marginalized men are
148 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

showing “feminine” characteristics in how they define their group iden-

tity(ies) and in their propensity to engage in collective action.
The low levels of nonelectoral engagement among the Montebello
respondents could be a product of the idiosyncrasies of Montebello as a
community. Many of those who live in Montebello moved there from
East Los Angeles. Being able to live in Montebello has been considered a
sign of “making it” by those in East Los Angeles. Thus, it is possible that
Montebello residents are a self-selected group of Latinos who want to
distance themselves from their racial group and who place more empha-
sis on their middle-class identity than on their group identity. Aída
Hurtado, Patricia Gurin, and Timothy Peng found that Mexican Ameri-
cans with a stronger middle-class identity were less likely to identify
with their group culture.27 This may be what is happening in Montebello.
If Montebello respondents identify with their socioeconomic status more
than with their racial group, it will be difficult for them to develop an
affective attachment to that group. Yet, given the racialized environment
in the United States, they have little choice regarding their inclusion in
that stigmatized group, regardless of their personal level of group attach-
ment. That lack of group attachment, in turn, could decrease their sense
of efficacy in the political sphere. The key is how Latinos internalize their
perceptions of social stigma and how that internalization affects the feel-
ings they have about their racial group.28
In terms of gender differences among these respondents, these find-
ings are important in relation to future mobilization within the Latino
community. The respondents’ answers indicate that the issues and tactics
that would mobilize the collective identities of women would not neces-
sarily mobilize those of men, and vice versa. If both Latinas and Latinos
are to get involved in politics, these differences need to be considered
when designing mobilization strategies for Latinos. They also need to be
considered when designing surveys or research projects on Latino par-
ticipation. As Hardy-Fanta points out, Latinas have generally been
absent in studies of Latino participation.29 None of these women de-
scribed their volunteer activities as political, and only four of the women
in the sample expressed a general interest in “politics.” So it is likely that
their community activity would not come up in a discussion that was
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 149

framed as being about “politics.” When studying political activity,

researchers must be aware of how a particular group defines what is
political. Among Latinos, looking only at what respondents define as
political could result in missing much of the nonelectoral political activ-
ity that is actually occurring.
These identity-driven differences in how the respondents related to
community-level activity become even more clear when looking at how
efficacious they felt that activity was. As was the case with electoral activ-
ity, the first-generation respondents were the most positive about their
ability to make a difference through collective action, and the native-born
respondents from both areas felt that the government and those in posi-
tions of power were not going to help their racial group. The respondents
from Montebello, many of whom had participated in Proposition 187
protests, remained pessimistic about the effectiveness of those actions
given the power of government. The East Los Angeles respondents also
felt that the government was powerful, but they said that nonelectoral
activity was important because it made their racial group more visible to
those in power. And, as we will see in their discussion of area problems,
this motivated them to help their group unite to solve its own problems.
The respondents were asked how effective they felt nonelectoral activ-
ity was overall. This included marches, protests, and community work.
As was the case with electoral activity, the men were more positive about
their feelings of efficacy than their actual participation would indicate.
But this finding is largely due to the combined effect of quite high feel-
ings of efficacy among the male respondents from East Los Angeles and
very low feelings of efficacy among the females in Montebello. The first
serves to inflate the numbers for the men and the second to depress those
for the women. Thus, the main differences among respondents in terms
of their feelings of efficacy about nonelectoral activity fall along geo-
graphic lines. Because of their more positive attachment to their racial
group, the respondents from East Los Angeles, both male and female,
were much more positive about the effectiveness of these kinds of actions
than were the respondents from Montebello. Eighty-two percent of the
female respondents and 86 percent of the male respondents from East
Los Angeles said they felt that nonelectoral activity could make a differ-
150 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

ence. Of the Montebello sample, 64 percent of the women and 47 percent

of the men felt that they could have an impact. This finding is surprising
considering that the differences in actual activity were not as great
between the areas, especially among the men.
Those respondents who said they believed these kinds of activities
made a difference gave similar reasons across genders and areas. The
respondents often expressed concern about establishing a “place” for
themselves within the larger political environment. As a result, the most
common answer respondents gave about nonelectoral activity was that
they felt protests are effective because they “get our voices heard.” Most
of the respondents from both areas seemed to feel that their racial group
and its needs were invisible to the outside world. As a result, they
believed it was important to have ways of expressing their opinions and
forcing the outside world to see how they felt about issues. They reported
a general sense that other Americans did not know what was going on in
their neighborhoods. They believed that the protests were beneficial
because they forced other Americans to become aware of how Latinos felt
about issues, especially those who were against the propositions:

Make people, like, more aware. Just talk about what’s going on, letting
people know that it’s just not right, we’re all part of America, you know,
and letting people know that. (Ana, second-generation Mexican)

Yeah, it got noticed. You know what people are thinking. They are
against it. It got noticed in the news and everything, so it really made
an impact. It got the word, the message through. (Miguel, second-
generation Mexican)

It showed the government, the state, and everything, how kids are
against it [Proposition 187]. I mean, some kids, they did the walkouts
because they didn’t like it, you know. (Julian, second-generation Mexican)

Others talked about how the protests, in addition to raising aware-

ness, showed group strength and made Anglos take Latino issues more
seriously:

[During the walkouts] there [were] people that really were into it, that
were really against it, and really wanted to tell white people you know.
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 151

People felt like, we have to show them that we’re not just gonna stand
here and cross our hands, you know. (Vilma, first-generation Salvadoran)

If we would all unite, if we would all speak, all vote, all go out into
the street and tell them, “You know what? We don’t like this! We want
that!” If we Latinos all were really united, then we would really be
able to [change things] because they would listen to us. (María, first-
generation Mexican)

As we saw in the discussion of their interest in politics, these respondents

talked about feeling separate from what was happening politically, being
ignored by “them”—the government, the state, “those people” who have
the power to affect what happens to them. As a result, they felt a strong
need to have a way to be heard. Marches and other kinds of protests pro-
vided an outlet for those needs and are effective in making the outside
world see, hear, and understand their needs.
Interestingly, the Montebello respondents who did not think nonelec-
toral activity was effective also focused their reasons on issues of being
heard, particularly being heard the “wrong way,” which they believed
would foster more negative images of Latinos. The Montebello men
tended to say they wanted to be heard but in the “right” way. Many said
it was better to let elected representatives speak for the community than
to take to the streets:

Marches make a difference because people will know, but they also have
to go talk to the people in the government and stuff. They have to speak
out. They just can’t march and say, “Yeah, we don’t want it, and we’re
marching for that.” You have to speak up and tell them why you don’t
want it. (Pedro, second-generation Guatemalan-Mexican)
Oh, for one thing, I don’t think, you don’t have to go and have a protest
walking up and down the street, all you have to do is get a Hispanic
member for Congress, Gloria Molina.30 All they had to do was get her
to speak out, you know, they didn’t have to have a bunch of people. I
mean, when that happened I was at Shurr [High School] and when 187
passed they went crazy at Shurr and started leaving school. So I thought
that was kinda ridiculous. All the kids were just getting pissed off over
something which they didn’t know about. You know, at that time, like I
152 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

said, I didn’t know much about it either, so that gave me a reason not
to get involved in it, because, um, I didn’t know what it was about.
But everyone else, all the other kids were like, “Oh! If everyone else
is gonna protest why can’t we?” (Chris, fourth-generation Mexican)

These respondents were concerned that protests would serve as another

source of social stigma for their group. This concern about stigma, and
their general feeling that power is located in the government and outside
their group, led them to focus on the government for solutions. Unfor-
tunately, the result is that they felt that they could not have a direct
impact on their group’s concerns, either individually or collectively.
In addition to wanting to let their representatives speak for them, the
Montebello respondents tended to say that instead of protesting, it would
be more effective to write letters or petitions to government officials:

No, no, I didn’t participate [in the protests against 187]. I watched them
on television and everything, but no, I didn’t participate. And in my
opinion that, that is, in my personal opinion I think that that is worth-
less, well, that’s what I think, because it makes people look bad. That’s
how I saw it, for me I see it as a mode of expression that is not appro-
priate. I think that there are other methods that are better for expressing
things[,] . . . for example, you could send letters, or I don’t know, other
methods so that the Anglo community knows that we exist here, that
we are a strong community and that we can move forward. (Federico,
first-generation Mexican)
Marches, they are more riot than march, because I have seen that in
some places they have made things worse. I am an enemy of those
things. . . . [F]or example, collecting signatures and sending them di-
rectly to the interested party [is better], that’s how a person wants to
be heard, and say what is happening. Those other methods I don’t feel
that they bring anything good. (Rafael, first-generation Mexican)

The Montebello respondents were concerned about their group’s ability

to express its interests. But, as discussed in chapter 3, they were also con-
cerned about how they would be perceived by the government, elected
officials, and Americans in general. Their negative feelings about the
effectiveness of marches and protests stemmed from their belief that
these actions would not be taken seriously by the government and would
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 153

worsen Latinos’ group image. By leaving the “voice” to the representa-

tives, they felt Latinos would be able to express themselves in a way that
would be less stigmatizing and thus more effective.
This reliance on official channels and government representatives to
speak for them is problematic because many Montebello respondents
showed little familiarity with their elected officials. Another contradic-
tion was that the respondents from Montebello were overall less trusting
of government than those from East Los Angeles. The Montebello re-
spondents were more likely to say that the government does what it
wants and that people have no power to change anything. These respon-
dents’ thoughts were representative:

What did you think about the marches?

They don’t really make a point, you know, they didn’t make anything,
they didn’t make no difference.

What do you think would have made a difference?

Leave it up to the people, the politics, you know, there’s nothing we can
really do.

Do you feel like people can’t really change things?

Stuff like walking out, protesting, doing stuff like that, that ain’t really
gonna change anything. (Angela, third-generation Mexican)
Do you think it made a difference that people protested?

I don’t think so. I mean, it’s all in the government’s hands. They have to
pass through all those, the people that have the power are the ones that
make the difference not us. (Eduardo, second-generation Mexican)
I don’t know. Most of the people that [are] over here, and like, there’s
like a lot of people here that think that Mexicans should stay where
they’re at. A lot of people have that opinion, like people like Mexicans
don’t come over here . . . I don’t know. I don’t think that [protesting]
makes a difference. I don’t [think] that makes a difference, whether
you go or not. It’ll be the same thing. (Sergio, second-generation
Mexican)

Though Montebello respondents were more likely than East Los Angeles
respondents to feel that Latinos should depend on representatives and
154 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

formal government channels, they were also more likely to say people
cannot influence what the government chooses to do. They did feel the
government and representatives can change things, but they did not nec-
essarily trust them to change things for the good of their group. Marschall
found that low trust in government combined with high feelings of effi-
cacy lead to Latino political participation.31 Here we see low trust com-
bined with low efficacy leading to disengagement. These low feelings of
efficacy stem from the Montebello respondents’ experiencing stigma but
having no positive group attachment with which to counteract it.

Community Problems, Community Solutions

The differences in identification and feelings of collectivity are present in

the respondents’ approaches to solving community problems. It is possi-
ble that much of what I found regarding protest and community activity
was artificially skewed by the extreme political environment in Califor-
nia at the time. The discussion of respondents’ communities cannot be
removed from that larger context, but it does reflect how the respondents
felt about the ongoing problems facing their neighborhoods and whether
or not they felt the political system provided the best institutional struc-
tures for solving those problems.
I began this discussion by asking the respondents to define the main
problems facing their communities. I did not define what I meant by
“community” but let the respondents determine that for themselves.
Once they had identified a problem, I asked them to tell me what they
thought was the best way to solve it. The respondents tended to frame
the problems in very concrete terms. They saw their community’s most
pressing problems as gang activity and crime and a lack of opportuni-
ties for employment. Only one mentioned discrimination as the biggest
problem. Though many respondents spent a significant amount of time
during their interviews discussing anti-Latino sentiment in the state
and discrimination, they did not tend to mention those issues when
asked what they felt were the community’s greatest problems. For
them, what constituted a “problem” was something that directly af-
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 155

fected their daily lives, such as gang violence in their neighborhood and
the lack of good jobs.
Overall, 64 percent of the respondents from both areas, men and
women, and all the generations named gangs as the biggest problem fac-
ing their communities. One area of variance was that concern about
gangs increased across generations, with 55 percent of the first generation
naming gangs as the biggest problem, 70 percent of the second, and 79
percent of the third-plus generation. This could be because gangs are a
problem rooted in U.S. society and thus possibly have less relevance for
the first generation, except from a neighborhood standpoint. The second-
and third-plus-generation respondents were more likely to have had
personal involvement in gangs, or a personal connection to someone who
was a gang member. Another possibility is that this is a reflection of the
socioeconomic status of each group, since 27 percent of the first genera-
tion were more concerned about jobs than about gang activity.
Interestingly, the respondents from the two areas did not vary as much
as expected in their discussion of community problems. Because Monte-
bello is a middle-class community, one would expect that it would have
fewer problems. To some extent, this was the case. Fourteen percent of
Montebello respondents said there were no community problems that
needed solving. In contrast, none of the East Los Angeles respondents
said there were no problems. Yet that means that 86 percent of Monte-
bello respondents did identify problems. Forty percent of those ex-
pressed concern about gangs and 20 percent about job opportunities.
This could be because Montebello is located near working-class cities that
have gang problems. Or it could reflect the fact that Latinos, even if mid-
dle class, are more likely than Anglos to have friends or family members
living in poverty. This makes them more aware of these sorts of prob-
lems, even if they are not directly affected by them. This could affect, in
turn, their policy concerns and relative feelings of security regarding
their socioeconomic status.
This finding reminds us that even ostensibly “objective” measures
such as socioeconomic status have different meanings, and effects, in dif-
ferent social contexts. As Jan Leighley and Arnold Vedlitz emphasize, we
cannot assume that the same level of education provides the same privi-
156 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

leges and feelings of security for a Latino as it does an Anglo.32 In addi-

tion, Dalton Conley has emphasized that income alone cannot measure
the other sources of wealth, or “cultural capital,” that Anglos have access
to, and which are generally unavailable to members of minority groups.33
The Montebello respondents’ economic concerns indicate that economic
insecurity remains even in middle-class Latino areas.
While the respondents across areas, genders, and generations agreed
that gangs were the largest problem their areas faced, they differed in
how they conceptualized that problem. These differences were attribut-
able not to gender or area but to generation. The male and female first-
generation respondents in both cities tended to see gangs as the result of
an inability on the part of parents and the local community to control and
take proper care of their children. They saw this as due in part to a lack
of education among the parents and to the government’s laws regarding
child abuse. They felt these laws were giving children too much power
over their parents. They said that the fact that parents were not allowed
to use corporal punishment meant that the government was hindering
parents’ ability to control their children. Marta’s feelings in this regard
were typical:

[Youth get involved in gangs] because the parents work. The children
grow up with other people. And because the government and the police
do not let you tell them [your children] anything. For example, if you
slap your child, now that is bad. If you punish them, now that is bad.
They don’t allow the parents to say anything to their children because
they [the government or police] say that it is abuse and not acceptable.
That’s fine if the parents are about to kill the children but not if the chil-
dren need a spanking.

José Luis spoke about the fear that made people join gangs and how they
need help and support to find their way out of that life:

[Young people get involved in gangs] because of a lack of education, a

lack of guidance, on the part of the parents and the community. Of course
we need to have in the community people who are trained, psychologists,
that can help people to overcome a problem that they have, because they
have a problem. Good folks, good people find themselves caught up in
that [gangs] because they feel obligated to. It’s a fear. And by joining up
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 157

with so many friends, they feel good. But alone, they’re trembling [with
fear]. [They need] someone that will help them overcome that [fear].

The first-generation respondents interpreted the gang problem as

being caused by a lack of cooperation and education. They felt that the
problem was caused by insufficient support for parents on the part of
both government and community. They felt that if there were more coop-
eration, more economic and educational help and support for parents,
gangs would not be a problem. Here the first generation was emphasiz-
ing the need for support and unity within their racial group and inter-
preting community problems as the result of the lack of those things.
The second-generation men and women from both East Los Angeles
and Montebello also saw gangs as the largest problem but with a differ-
ence. They felt the existence of the gangs adversely affected how non-
Latinos perceived Latinos. As we saw in chapter 3, the native-born re-
spondents were concerned about negative community stereotypes and
social stigma. They resented that gangs affect the images Anglos and
others have of them. Regardless of income, many of these respondents
mentioned feeling that Anglos assume that all Mexicans are cholos.34 This
negative image affected how they were treated in stores and in Anglo
neighborhoods. These respondents, especially the ones from Monte-
bello, were very concerned about how this image affected their chances
for jobs and other career opportunities. Miguel’s concerns were typical:

[The problem is] Chicanos are fighting Chicanos. It’s giving us a bad
reputation. I think that’s the biggest problem. Chicanos do this to other
Chicanos and it comes out on the news all the time, that’s basically all
the things that’s hurting us, just Chicanos fighting Chicanos, and Chi-
canos getting a bad reputation from other races, you know. Other races
say, like, well, Chicanos are no good, they’re violent, Hispanic people,
and they’re always fighting on each other, you know. Whenever you
wanna, say for instance you go to a job and they see you, they see a
Chicano person, and they don’t wanna hire you ’cause they think you’re
a gang member, you know.

Ironically, Miguel was a former gang member. He said that he thought

it was reasonable for Anglos and other groups to have a negative image
158 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

of Latinos because some Latinos did act stereotypically. He, like many
others in the second generation, said that gangs increased the social
stigma attached to group members. Even those who said that they had
friends who had been shot or killed as a result of gang violence did not
point to violence itself as the problem. Instead, they focused on how the
existence of gangs affects how people see them. These respondents
directed their anger at members of their own group instead of at the peo-
ple of other races who were acting on stereotypes. Instead of seeing the
problem as negative stereotyping by Anglos and others, they saw it as a
few Latinos ensuring that the stereotype continued to exist and, as a
result, hurting the image of the entire community through their actions.
The third-plus generation tended to describe stereotyping as a sepa-
rate issue from the problem of gangs. For male and female third-plus-
generation respondents from both areas, gangs and violence were a prob-
lem in and of itself, instead of an image problem, like they were for the
second generation. This may be due to the fact that one-fourth of this
group had actually been involved in gangs, more than any other group of
respondents. Those third-plus-generation respondents who had not been
gang members also reported more experience with gang culture, either
among their friends or within their families. Possibly, this is because
these respondents simply have had a longer history in the United States
and their families have had more opportunities to become involved with
gangs or to have contact with others who have. In any case, as a result,
the third-plus-generation respondents were more concerned about the
gang problem than the first or second generation.
Because they had more direct experience with this issue, the third-
plus-generation respondents’ discussion of the gang problem was less
abstract and much more personal than that of the other respondents.
They talked very specifically about the human cost that gang activity can
have on the families and friends of those who are involved. Three of
these respondents had been in prison because of their gang activity and
talked about how that experience had affected their lives. Al, a seventeen-
year-old gang member from Garfield High School, said that he was plan-
ning to enter the military immediately after high school because he knew
that if he stayed in East Los Angeles he would most likely end up dead
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 159

or in jail. He said that he knew himself well enough to realize that he does
not have the willpower not to “do bad stuff,” as he put it, when he is near
his friends, so he wanted to remove himself from the area. He saw that as
his only way out. For the third-plus generation, then, gangs were not an
abstraction but had direct and negative effects on their lives.
How these respondents defined the gang problem varied more by
generation than by gender or area. Because the gangs had affected the
respondents differently, the nature of the gang problem was seen differ-
ently by the different generations of respondents. The first generation,
because they were generally older and parents, were concerned about
gangs in reference to their children and their neighbors’ children. The
second-generation respondents, because they are generally younger,
were concerned about the negative images created by gang members
and how those images affected how they were treated and their overall
life chances. The third-plus generation, while also concerned about neg-
ative images, were more cognizant of the direct impact that gangs have
on youth and their families. So the different life experiences and life
cycles of these respondents create a filter through which they interpret
and understand group problems. But it is important to keep in mind that
those contextual filters are similar across generations, regardless of the
respondents’ socioeconomic status.
The second most common problem mentioned by the respondents was
salaries and opportunities for jobs. As discussed in chapter 3, salaries and
a lack of job opportunities because of language limitations were seen as
one of the most common forms of discrimination faced by the first gener-
ation. Similarly, the first- and third-plus-generation respondents were the
most likely to mention the availability of high-quality jobs as one of the
most important issues facing their racial group. Just over one-fourth of the
first-generation respondents and one-fifth of the third-plus-generation
respondents mentioned this as a problem. This is probably due to the fact
that these respondents were on average older than the second-generation
respondents and therefore likely to have had more direct experience with
the labor market. The surprising thing was that many of the second-
generation high school seniors also mentioned this problem, though they
had yet to enter the workforce full time. For example, a seventeen-year-
160 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

old second-generation woman from East Los Angeles talked about people
lining up at 4:00 A.M. outside of Burger King when the restaurant adver-
tised that it was hiring. She saw this as a sign of how desperate people in
the area were to find work. Many people also mentioned their anger that
police were cracking down on the street venders selling oranges on cor-
ners and at freeway exits. In their view, the vendors were entrepreneurs
trying to make a living in a difficult economy and examples of how diffi-
cult it is for Latinos to survive economically in Los Angeles.35
The consistent mention of jobs as an important issue across genera-
tions, genders, and areas could reflect the fact that economic uncertainty
remains in Latino communities even after significant socioeconomic and
generational integration. In a recent study of the economic integration of
immigrants in California, Kevin McCarthy and Georges Vernez found
that of all immigrant groups in California, Mexicans and Central Ameri-
cans are the slowest to achieve wage parity with Anglos.36 They also
found that Mexicans receive the lowest wage return of any group per
year of education.37 The economic uncertainty expressed by this sample
could be a product of being an immigrant community in addition to
being a racial group that historically has had high levels of poverty and
low levels of education and has experienced wage discrimination. The
McCarthy and Vernez study indicates that over time Latinos in California
remain worse off economically than any other immigrant group. This
could be the reason why so many of these Latinos, even in the second and
third-plus generations, remain concerned about finding secure, well-
paid employment.
Almost all of the respondents proposed the same solution for these
problems: education. The differences were the degree to which they felt
the solution had to come from inside or outside the community. This
finding may be the result of sample selection. Because my sample came
from educational institutions, it is most likely biased toward people who
feel that education is important. But the number of people who men-
tioned education was so overwhelming and so consistent across genders,
areas, and generations that it is reasonable to assume it has some rela-
tionship to overall sentiment in the community. In public opinion polls,
Latinos “consistently cite education as their top policy concern.”38
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 161

Additionally, the 2004 Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation

“National Survey of Latinos” found that 95 percent of Latino parents
thought it was important for their children to get a college education,
compared to 78 percent of white parents.39 These findings contradict
arguments that have been made to explain low levels of educational
attainment among Latinos, especially Mexican Americans. A number of
studies have argued that low attainment is attributable to Latinos’ lack of
cultural emphasis on education.40 These respondents’ strong feelings
about education, feelings that were true across the entire sample, contra-
dict this assumption. It is not a lack of emphasis on education that is
responsible for low attainment levels among Latinos but other issues
such as immigration status, the educational level of parents, and socio-
economic indicators.41
The first-generation respondents from both areas placed a great deal of
emphasis on education as a solution to community problems. When
these respondents talked about the importance of education, they meant
it in terms of the Spanish word educación. The literal translation is “edu-
cation,” but in Spanish this word has a broader meaning. It refers to years
of actual schooling and also to the quality of one’s upbringing, having
good manners and a strong sense of propriety. So in Spanish an uncouth
college graduate would not be considered educado in the broader sense of
the word. This distinction must be kept in mind when considering what
these respondents meant when they said that education is the answer to
solving community problems.
In terms of their emphasis on education, the first-generation female
respondents were slightly more likely than the males to mention educa-
tion as a solution for the community’s problems, but in general the first-
generation respondents’ answers were surprisingly consistent across
genders as well as areas. The most common complaint was a lack of ori-
entación, or guidance, among children and their parents. They saw par-
ents as not educated or knowledgeable enough to steer their children in
the right direction and felt that there were not enough resources outside
the home for children to turn to for help. Many suggested activities for
children and programs for adults to teach them how to cope with prob-
lems and keep their children out of trouble. When respondents were
162 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

asked what was needed to solve these problems, José Luis’s suggestions
were typical:

[We need] more help, more help for the community. Not money—
poverty does not go away by handing money to people. It goes away
by helping the people, educating them, informing them about how
they can obtain more. If the government gives help to the people
involved with drugs, alcohol, gangs, if you give them help, it is
possible to begin to change the ideas and, together with the parents,
work to help these people. But in addition the parents need education.

Like Alba and María de Jesús, many of the women emphasized the need
for educational and after-school programs to keep youth off the streets
and out of trouble:

There should be lots of programs, it should be possible for all kids of

a certain age to be involved in something that they like, to keep them
busy in whatever interested them, but in a positive way. Perhaps fixing
a car, if that is what they like, or painting something. There are pro-
grams now, but I think that there should be many more. (Alba)

I think that that [the gangs] will end. Not completely, but it would de-
crease significantly if all the people would help a little more supporting
the programs that they have in the parks, the programs that they have
in the schools, playing sports or for example where they can study.
They should give the children opportunities to study, to play sports
after school, where one does not have to pay, because many times the
parents, we don’t have the money to pay for classes. And in almost the
majority of cases, if the children are going to study for something, some-
one has to pay. And many of the parents now cannot because either the
father works or the mother works, or if they both work they only earn
the minimum [wage] and they do not have enough left over to pay for
classes for their children. As a result, the children often end up staying
home alone, because the father and mother go to work, they have to go
to work, and that is when the children go out into the street they get
involved with the wrong kind of people, and things fall apart. But I
think that if there were programs, if there were higher salaries for the
parents so that only one would have to work and the other could be in
charge of the children, I think that perhaps that [the gang problem]
would decrease substantially. (María de Jesús)
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 163

Because for the first generation the problem is multifaceted, so are their
proposed solutions. They feel that if parents made more money and had
more neighborhood and government support, they would be able to ded-
icate more time to their children, which would be beneficial overall.
The first generation also sees a strong role for the government in help-
ing to solve the community’s problems. Like José Luis, who is quoted
above, many felt government should not provide direct monetary assis-
tance but instead fund services such as psychologists and other profes-
sionals to teach people how to solve their own problems. Other respon-
dents said they felt it was important for people to get together to solve
problems and for the government to facilitate that process:

I don’t know but I imagine that, for example, first you could put forth
a project, an idea. Then [you find] people who agree with you, that you
know can support and help you, that they have a way to get around, to
do this. Once you have enough people that agree with you and you
think it can work, I don’t know if you take it to the level of the law, to
the vote, or to the politicians, I don’t know, but we’ll assume that we
have all of that squared away. [Then] look for companies to promote
the idea, and that give money. That is, the government gives money
for arms or money for welfare, for WIC [Women, Infants, and Children
food program], for a number of things. The government has money for
many things. But if the issue is education, then the government doesn’t
have any money. AmeriCorps [which she is involved in] has money, but
the program is new. [In general,] there isn’t money for all that [educa-
tion]. So use rich companies. All the companies are rich: Coca-Cola,
Toyota, all the cars. So, so many companies, all of them are rich, they
all have money. So I’m not certain how all that would go, but you can
ask for donations, or explain the programs. I know that Toyota gave
money for the day care center [at the adult school]. And that is a good
thing. (Rosa, first-generation Mexican)

Here Rosa is expressing her uncertainty about how one appeals to official
government channels. Yet she is able to gloss over that uncertainty by
emphasizing the power of people uniting around a good idea. Her belief
in the efficacy of that collective process increases her confidence in her
proposed solution, despite the fact that she clearly does not feel she
understands how politics or government work.
164 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

As with electoral activity, the first generation’s solutions for community

problems reflected their strong feelings of individual efficacy coupled with
their overall faith in the U.S. government. This is not surprising given that
they chose to come here and take part in this system. As a result, they sug-
gested combining the efforts of their racial group with those of the gov-
ernment. They saw the gang problem and other corollary problems such as
alcohol and drug abuse as stemming from a general lack of available edu-
cation and information. They said that if people had more access to activi-
ties and programs for youth and families and were more informed about
the resources available, many of these problems would be solved. They
saw government, along with the local community and private sector, as
playing important roles in both facilitating and funding this process.
Though their definitions of the problems were similar to that of the
first generation, the second-generation respondents from East Los Ange-
les and Montebello had different approaches to community solutions.
Like the first-generation respondents, the second-generation respondents
from East Los Angeles had a strong collective orientation and saw edu-
cation as a key component in finding solutions for community problems.
In addition, they stressed the importance of communication. But they did
not consider formal political institutions part of the solution. When asked
how to solve the problems, they said that people not only had to educate
themselves but also to go out and talk to each other in order to build con-
sensus and find collective solutions. Unlike the first generation, a number
of these second-generation respondents explicitly said that the govern-
ment and police should not be depended on to solve these problems but
that it is up to their local neighborhoods. Juan Carlos talked about the
importance of communication and Latinos taking care of themselves:

[You should] reach out to people and make them realize a lot of things.
No con coraje, not with anger, but talk to people. I guess make them feel
at home, make them feel that you’re determined about them. . . . You
cannot wait for the president to come by and say, “We’re gonna take
these kids and these gang members here and get them out of here.” We
gotta do [it], we gotta take action. . . . It’s real hard to reach out to peo-
ple. They think that, well, if one person falls, then they think, I’m gonna
fall too. Instead of saying, “You know what? If that person falls, why
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 165

not just pick them up?” And tell them, “You know what? If you do,
come on and I can help you out.” And that’s what we need.

Some, like the second-generation respondents quoted below, felt strongly

that Latinos need to come together in order to move forward and that
they should not wait for help from Anglos, government, or the police,
which they see as outside, and in some ways hostile to, Latinos.

They’re the ones that can make the change. No white person’s gonna
come here and make the change for them, for our community. Why do
I wanna do it? If we’re not gonna do it, who is? And the people that go
away, well they just forget. They don’t wanna remember how it was,
how they lived, and they don’t wanna be part of their culture. They just
want to live the illusion of the American Dream. . . . I’m gonna come
back and help my community, and work in my community, work for
the people and not for myself. I think that’s important. (Hilda)

I just, I think that like, Chicanos need to help themselves because others
aren’t gonna help them. And, if people will help them, it’s very few. So
we need to think about progressing and showing all these people that
put us down that we don’t fit the stereotype of dumb field-workers or
whatever, that we’re baby machines. (Verónica)

If you want your community cleaner, safer, you know, let’s have a meet-
ing, let’s set up a group that will do that, you know. ’Cause, I mean, the
people around here think the city should do all this. They city’s not
gonna do nothing, you know, they have their own problems to worry
about. They don’t either have the money or the time, you know, and
what’s gonna happen is the community has to get involved to change
the community. You can’t just expect the city to do it . . . I think that’s
the best way, you know, talk to people and tell them that we can make
a difference, you know. (Bernie)

Many of the East Los Angeles respondents mentioned that East Los An-
geles has a “bad image” or a “bad rep” and that that was one of the rea-
sons they needed to get together to improve their community. As Jesús
put it, when discussing why much of the housing where he lives is sub-
standard, “Like the city, they don’t want to do nothing about it, like, [they
think] it’s a bad community, so why fix it?”
166 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

Like the first-generation respondents from both areas, the second-

generation respondents from East Los Angeles felt a strong sense of
group identity and of social stigma. In some ways, their feelings of being
attacked by the government and other institutions seemed to be moti-
vating them to adopt a self-help approach to problem solving. Thus,
while they may feel strongly about the importance of education, com-
munication, and collective solutions, they also feel strongly that the gov-
ernment is not going to serve as a positive force for change within their
group. Their sense of stigma is similar to what we saw among the Monte-
bello respondents regarding the effectiveness of protest activity. The dif-
ference is that their strong sense of local community and group worth,
which likely is a product of East Los Angeles’s long history as a Latino
area and location for Latino mobilization, gives them a positive identity
that makes them feel efficacious and motivates them to engage in collec-
tive action to solve area problems.
In contrast, most of the solutions proposed by the second-generation
respondents from Montebello were to be implemented by government.
They suggested hiring more police, enforcing the curfew, and providing
more activities to keep people off the streets. Two suggested that the com-
munity should communicate more to make people feel better about
themselves and to make Anglos see that not all Mexicans are cholos. In
general, their answers to these questions were much shorter and less ani-
mated than those from East Los Angeles. This may simply be due to the
fact that these respondents live in an area where gang violence is not as
prevalent. They think someone else, like the government, should try to
fix it but do not see the need for collective or community-based solutions.
The respondents from East Los Angeles have a more collectively
grounded vision of their racial identity(ies), see the gang problem as a
very real threat to their area, and feel strongly that the community can
and must get together to take care of its own problems. They see that as
the only real solution.
The perception on the part of these respondents that government insti-
tutions are hostile to them is likely a product of the negative political
environment prevalent in California during the period when these inter-
views were conducted and the larger historical experiences of Latinos in
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 167

these areas. What is interesting is that not all these Latinos reacted in the
same way to the same negative environment. The second-generation
East Los Angeles respondents used government disinterest in commu-
nity problems as a catalyst for a community-based program of self-help.
They may feel somewhat alienated from Anglo society, but they feel con-
nected to their racial group and derive feelings of efficacy and empower-
ment from the strength of that group. The Montebello respondents, in
contrast, had no positive group attachment to counteract the negative
effects produced by the larger environment. The result is that they are
pessimistic about the possibility that things can change for the better.
These differences in identity and community orientation are even
more striking among the third-plus-generation respondents. All of the
third-plus-generation East Los Angeles respondents said that the best
solution for these problems is for people to get together, talk to each
other, and decide how best to fix things. One woman mentioned the story
of a public housing project the County of Los Angeles had tried to build
next to the adult school where she was being interviewed. She said it
made her feel good that the people in the neighborhood had gotten
together to fight it and that they had won. She was hoping that these
kinds of things would happen more in the future. Two of the men were
also very involved in church activities and programs to try to reform
gang members. They both felt very strongly that it was possible to
change things, to make a difference in people’s lives and get them away
from gang life. They felt what mattered was talking to people and show-
ing them love and respect. Jay, a fifth-generation respondent, described
his participation in a recent rally he had helped to organize:

We had a big rally and we blocked off the street and had to get permis-
sion and we just put food out there for everybody to eat, you know, for
the community. And we had a balloon for the little kids to jump in. And
there was some singing and stuff like that, you know, for the church,
and they were just trying to compel them to come out and to associate
with them and just be a part of what they had there, to like, to try to fol-
low. To deal with their troubles, and stuff, they were just trying to get
them to come out and try something new, you know, ’cause it’s kinda
hard for people in our community to be different. They see something
168 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

like, through all the gangs and stuff you see a lot of young people that
see gangs and think, oh yeah, that’s cool, I wanna go do that, you know.
They get attention, they get respect. There’s not a lot of people that see
that being different, to have like a purpose, or a cause, they don’t think
that’s as effective. . . . [I like j]ust the little events that we have. Singing
or eating or whatever. Or the parks or whatever, we get to clean them.
And I like doing the things with people, to like, all their normal every-
day that they’re caught up in. Every day is like the same routine for
them, or whatever, at their house or whatever, like the cholos every day
with their homeys kicking back in their house and we say, “Why don’t
you come and try this?” And they’re there with their violence or their
drugs or whatever and we try to take them out of it.

Like the second generation, these third-plus-generation East Los Angeles

respondents were saying explicitly that government cannot be expected
to solve Latinos’ problems, but Latinos themselves can. Further, they
were certain that, working collectively, the local community could solve
its own problems; it was simply a matter of communication, coordina-
tion, and commitment among neighbors and parents.
The third-plus-generation Montebello respondents were very pes-
simistic about the chances of anything changing for Latinos. Some explic-
itly said that people cannot change anything because it is the government
that decides how things are and that it will not allow people to make
things better. Some of them said they felt that the government had pur-
posely caused Latinos’ problems. The following exchange with Juan, a
third-generation tattoo artist, reflects these general feelings.

Do you feel there’s any way to solve those problems?

Yeah, there is, but it’s not going to.

How come?

Politicians won’t let it.

How could it change?

What situation are you talking about now? There’s a lot of things that
need change.
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 169

Like what?
Well, there’s a lot of things. It’s, there’s a lot of things going wrong, such
as dealing with the Native American Indian. [The] government’s not
gonna give them back their land, that’s not gonna happen. Hawaiians
are fighting over their own, you know, they want their country back,
that’s not gonna happen either. What the government takes, they take,
they’re not gonna give it back. They can promise you a bunch of things,
but it’s not gonna happen. The government is all for the government.
They want to benefit first.

Do you think the common people ever benefit?

Depends on the situation. So far nobody’s benefiting. The government

can say, “Hey, we’re doing great right now.” But nobody’s doing great.
When they tell you you’re doing bad, hey, then we’re going good. They
play head games with people. It’s not right, it’s not correct.

Do you think people like you can do anything about that?

Well, everybody can, you know, say something about it. But how long
have the people been saying things, trying to speak up, and the govern-
ment will hear it, but they’re not gonna do anything about it. The gov-
ernment is for the government.

Johnny expressed similar feelings when asked if he saw any way to solve
Latinos’ problems:

You can’t. I wish you could. I wish we could make it better. Like I say
it’s all the government that’s doing everything. They’re the ones that
want all the minimum wage or benefits put down, or something. Like
they’re trying to take the benefits away from the retirement people.
They shouldn’t take it away. They’ve been here all their lives and
worked for all that money. Now you want that money for something
else? That ain’t right.

Other Montebello respondents proposed government action, in the shape

of stricter laws and sentencing of criminals, as the only solution. Some
suggested locking up gang members for life; two suggested simply hav-
ing them all killed. Underlying these extreme suggestions was a sense of
futility. They felt that maybe tougher laws would do something about the
170 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

current generation of gang members, but there would always be another

group ready to take their place.
Considering the historical experience of the Latino community with
institutions of the U.S. government, it seems reasonable for the respon-
dents to feel this way. Combine that with their general feelings of being dif-
ferent from and stigmatized by Anglos, and their alienation and pessimism
make sense. The second- and third-plus-generation respondents from both
areas agreed with each other to the extent that they expressed little faith in
the government’s ability to solve their group’s problems. The difference
among the East Los Angeles respondents is that they did have faith in
Latinos’ ability to do so. Their affective attachment to their group and feel-
ings of group worthiness served as a mobilizing force in their participation
because it allowed them to channel their frustrations into working on
behalf of the group. The Montebello respondents did not have the same
mobilizing impetus. Although they felt separate from Anglo society—and
by extension, government institutions—they did not feel a connection to
any collective that was more meaningful and powerful than themselves as
individuals. Because they had no constructive outlet for their frustration,
all that is left is feelings of alienation and futility.

Segregation and Community Activity

This analysis has shown that the factors influencing and motivating
Latinos’ feelings about nonelectoral participation are complex and inter-
active. Women seem more willing than men to protest on behalf of their
racial group, especially when they see the issues as relating to family. The
respondents from East Los Angeles place more emphasis on community-
based solutions to problems and feel more positive about success. The
differences among the respondents cut across gender, area, and genera-
tional lines. This suggests that intragroup differences, along with gender
and contextual issues, need to be taken into consideration when analyz-
ing Latino involvement in nonelectoral activity.
These findings raise a number of other issues. One is that none of the
major community problems, as the respondents defined them, was
political. Though it is true that the first-generation respondents men-
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 171

tioned throughout their interviews the current political situation and

anti-immigrant sentiment as problems, in the end their most pressing
concerns were the violence in their neighborhoods and their economic
well-being. One of the female first-generation respondents said that all
Latinos have is la honradez y el trabajo—honor and work. She resented
the movement to take away community services because she felt it
meant that Americans were saying that Latinos had no honor and
wanted to take away their right to work. So her concern with what was
in many ways a political problem stemmed from how she saw it affect-
ing her ability to work and support her family. Looking at these inter-
views, one is reminded that the Latino community is at heart a working-
class, immigrant community. People want to be able to work, receive a
decent salary, take care of their children, and live with dignity. Gangs
and jobs are seen as the biggest problems because they keep people
from accomplishing those things and interfere directly with their qual-
ity of life. In this context discrimination is important but secondary.
Because they live in highly segregated neighborhoods, they see how
Anglos feel about them “out there,” outside the neighborhood, as
important but not crucial to everyday life.
It is this separation between the community and the rest of American
society, the “social apartness” that Martha Menchaca describes, that cre-
ates a separation between the Latino community and “politics.”42 This
was also true for the middle-class Montebello community because ra-
cially its residents are as segregated as those from East Los Angeles. It is
important that none of these respondents described their community
activity as political. Even the youth who had been most involved in
actions against Proposition 187 did not see this activity as political. As we
also saw in chapter 4, they define politics as separate from them and
something located outside their group. A number of respondents who
said that they were not involved in politics or interested in it went on to
talk about local political fights they had been involved in. One woman
fought to keep her child’s preschool open. A young man organized to
keep his house from being torn down by real estate developers. There are
other examples. Yet they did not define this activity as political. The
respondents who did volunteer work or community outreach do not
define that work as political either. For them, there is a strict line between
172 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

politics and the community, just as there is a clear geographic line sepa-
rating them from Anglos.
This geographic segregation has an effect on their feelings of political
“separateness.” A number of respondents mentioned residential segre-
gation as an important issue, which they saw as having both political and
cultural repercussions. For example, Ana said:

We’re not aware; we just do our own thing. We just think that, oh East
L.A., and that’s it. We don’t look outside the doors of East L.A., we
don’t look outside our stuff just right here. We just stay here and do
our own thing, let others decide for us, like people off in Congress and
stuff. Like even Governor Wilson and stuff, we just let them do their
own thing over there in Sacramento and we just sit here.

Ramón believed segregation allowed Anglos to ignore the issues that

affect Latinos:

[Segregation is both] good and bad. Good, because I guess it’s easier to
get along with your kind. There’s no really, well, there is conflict, but
there’s no conflict having to do with maybe, white people living here
and then white people not liking Hispanics. That’s really it. The bad
part is that we don’t get, we don’t get the representation that we need
and we don’t get, what I’ve heard, if we’re kept or segregated in a little
place, who are we gonna talk to? If we talk to someone outside they
might hear us once as far as something getting done, they don’t do
anything. Maybe if it was mixed, or if it was, if there was someone
that cared—I know there’s people that care, but it’s just hard sometimes
to get stuff done, I understand that. But if they really saw that it needed
to be done, I mean, if we pushed them, they would do it.

David felt segregation limited economic opportunity and kept people

from being exposed to other races and cultures. He thought this increased
racial tension among groups:

Like, they [Latinos] all stay in, roughly segregated like in the same area.
Not a lot of Hispanics live around L.A. County. And like East L.A., a lot
of them are usually there, and they’re afraid to like move out to differ-
ent places, to like where it’s more white populated, or more black popu-
lated. They like, they just wanna stay with each other. And I think that
 Community Problems, Collective Solutions 173

might affect us later on. ’Cause you might not be able to get a job out-
side of this, like certain L.A. County. You go somewhere and you might
not even get a job. And I think, I think, maybe [it would be] very excit-
ing, it would be more everybody, just like, it would be more integrated.
People really feeling like, it might just be like [a] better community.
They’ll stop a little bit more of the racial. Get to know each other. It’ll
be like [when people say,] “Oh man the blacks are all this, and the Mexi-
cans this,” they’ll know each other [so they will be able to say,] “No, it’s
not true, you know, this and that.”

In the previous chapters, we have seen how the homogeneity of

Latino social networks and the fact that they are not usually sites of
political discussion have a negative effect on Latino political engage-
ment. This homogeneity is largely driven by their geographic segrega-
tion. Therefore, for these respondents, segregation is both good and bad.
On the one hand, it helps them to feel more positive about their racial
group. Many respondents mentioned that it was very comfortable al-
ways being around people like themselves. There was conflict, but it
was generally not racialized. On the other hand, this separation keeps
Latinos from seeing formal political institutions as related to commu-
nity problems, keeps representatives from having to address group
needs, limits economic opportunity, and increases interracial tensions in
Los Angeles.

Conclusion

Consistent with the findings from the Latino National Political Survey,
the Latinos in this sample were more comfortable with nonelectoral polit-
ical activity than with participation in electoral politics.43 Their answers
to these questions were longer and more animated than those in response
to questions about electoral politics. In general, they felt more comfort-
able about these topics and more confident in their ability to participate
in these kinds of activities. This is largely because they can see clear con-
nections between nonelectoral activity and addressing group problems.
When it came to electoral politics, these connections were more difficult
174 Community Problems, Collective Solutions

for the respondents to see. Their general sense of separateness from

Anglo society, and by extension formal politics, decreased their level of
comfort with the electoral system.
This sample also shows some important positive trends among
Latinos. The high level of nonelectoral participation among Latinas and
the strong positive feelings the respondents from East Los Angeles have
about nonelectoral activity in general bode well for future levels of par-
ticipation among both Latinas and Latinos in East Los Angeles. This sug-
gests that the grassroots political activity that has occurred historically in
the area has had a positive effect on the residents’ feelings of efficacy and
their sense of group attachment. It is possible that their positive feelings
about the efficacy of nonelectoral political activity mean that the East Los
Angeles men could become much more active in the future. It also indi-
cates that the same kind of political organizing could have a positive
effect on the racial identification and group orientation of Latinos in
Montebello. And in the long term, this nonelectoral activity should serve
as an educational process that ideally will increase Latinos’ confidence in
their ability to participate in other forms of politics. As a result, over time
this activity on the part of both Latinas and Latinos should translate into
increased electoral and nonelectoral political participation.
The findings for both electoral and nonelectoral activity show that
racial identification per se is not what really matters for marginal groups
but the degree to which it includes a positive affective attachment to the
racial group, including feelings of group worthiness. All these Latinos
were aware that they were living in a period of racial threat. Most felt
strongly that Latinos faced important problems that needed to be ad-
dressed. Yet their belief that they had both the skill and the capacity to
respond positively to that threat and act collectively to solve those prob-
lems varied. The importance of context and identity to this process shows
the degree to which members of subordinate groups need a positive
group attachment to counteract their feelings of social stigma. Once in
place, that positive identification makes them feel that they have the abil-
ity to effect change in their community of interest. Without that sense of
personal agency, they are left with feelings of social distance and politi-
cal alienation.
CONCLUSION Fluid Borders
latinos, race, and
american politics

In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account

of race. There is no other way.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun

Political engagement requires that individuals have particular under-

standings of themselves vis-à-vis the political system. For members of
subordinate groups, affective attachment to their social group forms an
important part of that understanding. Thus it is the content of their col-
lective identities that determines whether or not a particular campaign,
political movement, or social issue will mobilize group members to
become engaged in politics and how they will choose to be engaged.
These collective identities are constructed by individuals’ experiences of
stigma, by their social context, and by the social networks in which they
are engaged. History matters, including past political experiences and
the organizational and institutional makeup of the particular geographic
space where individuals live. The interaction between the individual
and the social context is what makes identities fluid and changeable. The
result is that there are multiple possible identities individuals can pos-
sess, and individuals possess multiple identities (simultaneously) over

175
176 Conclusion

the course of their lifetimes. These identities and contexts provide indi-
viduals with psychological and contextual capital that they may draw
from to enhance their political engagement.
These findings raise an important cautionary note. The positive group
attachment felt by the East Los Angeles respondents could be character-
ized as what Wendy Brown calls an identity of “shared injury.”1 In other
words, these Latinos felt a strong sense of identification with their group
and local area because they felt that both were routinely attacked and
criticized by the outside world. That sense of shared attack is what, in
part, drove them to want to work to help their group and to improve
their community. But, as Alejandro Portes points out, success stories
undermine group cohesion if that cohesion is based on a common story
of adversity.2 If a person is successful, that success contradicts the group
narrative of shared injury, and the only option left to that person is to exit
the group. As a result, “solidarity grounded in a common experience of
subordination can help perpetuate the very situation it decries.”3 If this is
true, then the collective identity present in East Los Angeles may have a
mobilizing effect only until it reaches a certain point of success. At the
very least, we should not assume uncritically that all positive group
attachments are beneficial across all contexts.
Beyond this cautionary note, there are important methodological con-
siderations that arise from my findings. Scholars of political behavior
need to incorporate more nuanced measures of group identity into their
studies. The attitudes of my respondents show the degree to which iden-
tity is situational and socially constructed. In terms of politics, we have
seen that the same identity (i.e., “I am a Latino”) can have very different
effects on political attitudes and activity depending on whether that
identity includes an affective attachment to a particular social group. In
addition, people hold multiple identities at any given time. It is likely
that no measure can grasp all aspects of this complex question, but polit-
ical scientists could do much better than they have up until now. We need
better measures for identity, measures that include the effect that the
intersection of multiple identities—race, gender, class, sexuality—can
have. Such measures would need to (1) allow individuals to express mul-
tiple group memberships; (2) allow individuals to express the degree to
 Conclusion 177

which they believe their fate is linked to that of each group and the affec-
tive attachment they have to those groups; and (3) allow individuals to
report the amount of stigma they believe applies to each group.
The importance of allowing individuals to express multiple group
memberships is important given this study’s findings regarding how
race, class, and gender identities interact. But there are some caveats.
Such an understanding must not see these group memberships as addi-
tive or hierarchically ordered. It may be true that particular member-
ships, for important political and historical reasons, are more salient with
regard to certain issues and contexts. This has been found to be true in
terms of racial versus gender identities in the U.S. context.4 But any
extant ordering is likely a political product rather than any “natural”
ordering of these identifications.5 As the intersections literature shows,
we need to treat individuals as whole people with multiple identifica-
tions rather than try to separate out, and hierarchically order, particular
identifications.6
Also, the acceptance of multiple potential memberships should keep
scholars open to the potential for multiple experiences both within and
among different groups. Many contemporary commentators point to the
lack of a universal “Latino,” “gay,” or “female” experience as justification
for ignoring these categorizations altogether. Part of what has allowed
this and other “color-blind talk” to take root in American political dis-
course has been scholars’ inability to show how this multiplicity of expe-
rience is in fact the direct result of inequality of opportunity in American
society across multiple dimensions. As hooks points out, all forms of op-
pression support one another.7 Rather than attempt to generalize across
what are very different experiences, a more flexible model of collective
identity would allow scholars to see how marginalization is cross-cutting
and how it expresses itself differently across groups, contexts, and expe-
riences. Thus, as we try to measure multiple identities, we cannot forget
that all are related and mutually constitutive of one another, even within
one individual.
In addition to including the possibility of multiple group identities,
collective identity measures must incorporate some understanding of
what Michael Dawson calls “linked fate”—the extent to which the indi-
178 Conclusion

vidual sees his or her (social, economic, and/or political) as related to the
fate of the larger group—and his or her affective attachment to that
group.8 Dawson convincingly shows the importance of this factor for
African Americans, but little has been done to look at the role of linked
fate in the attitudes of members of other racial groups. Cathy Cohen’s
work on gays in the black community would lead us to expect that feel-
ings of linked fate vary significantly across multiple marginalities, but
these questions need to be explored further.9 In addition, measures of
linked fate must be coupled with measures of individuals’ affective
group attachment. This study’s findings suggest that feelings of group
connection tell only part of the identification story; understanding the
positive or negative attributions individuals attach to those connections
is important as well. The combination of these two measures of group
identification will provide a more accurate picture of how identities may
vary within and among groups. It will also provide important informa-
tion about how individuals’ group affinities relate to their perceptions of
external negative group attributions.
The issue of external group attributions reminds us that we must
include a measure of social stigma along with measures of group identity.
While it would be difficult if not impossible to measure “actual” levels of
stigmatization in a particular society across all possible dimensions, it is
possible to arrive at some sense of individuals’ feelings of personal
stigma and relate those feelings to their group identification(s) and feel-
ings of linked fate. Stigma is a relational concept, one that is more about
perception than concrete experience. To contend with multiple group
memberships, scholars should construct questions that address the rela-
tive stigmatization respondents may feel across different group member-
ships. Such a framework would allow scholars to see how feelings of
stigma can exist along multiple dimensions, and how they may vary, for
different reasons, both within and among marginal groups. For example,
a Latino man is marginalized in terms of his racial identity but dominant
in terms of his gender. In this study we have seen that Latinas’ racial and
gender identities interact in important ways and affect their political
activity. A model that looks at intersection must allow for a more complex
picture of how power operates both within and among groups. Such a
 Conclusion 179

model would provide a more accurate picture of how inequality, mar-

ginalization, and feelings of social stigma interact in American society
and affect the life experiences of members of both marginal and domi-
nant groups.
Social psychologists have developed a number of scales that hold
promise as potential measures of this question.10 For example, in his work
on party identification, Steven Greene provides a useful critique of the
standard National Election Survey(NES)/Michigan measure of partisan-
ship, much of which is applicable to other measures of group identifica-
tion. He suggests the use of a psychologically based measure of group
identity, one that contains measures of group affinity, linked fate, and
feelings of group stigma.11 Jean Phinney has created a model of ethnic
identity development that is based on a fourteen-item Multigroup Ethnic
Identity questionnaire. It includes measures of group attachment, feel-
ings of belonging, and group behaviors.12 Kathleen Either and Kay Deaux
use a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures to look at
social identity and the meanings it holds for individuals.13 Though quite
involved, portions of their method could be incorporated into studies of
political behavior. Finally, Riia Luhtanen and Jennifer Crocker have
developed a “collective self-esteem” scale that measures senses of stigma
both individually and for the group, in addition to general group identi-
fication.14 This is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of all the measures
available for group identity but to show that social psychologists have
been working to develop quite sophisticated measures of identity and
stigma and that it would be relatively easy for political scientists to incor-
porate these more complex measures into studies of political behavior.
In addition, this study, along with many others, suggests the need for
scholars of political behavior to take more seriously the effects that social
context has on individual attitudes and activity. We have seen in this
study that this is especially true in terms of the politicization of social net-
works and an area’s organizational history.15 Other studies have high-
lighted the importance of poverty, mobilization, and racial heterogeneity
to political outcomes. For example, in their study of poverty in the
African American community, Cathy Cohen and Michael Dawson found
that neighborhood poverty has a significant effect on political attitudes
180 Conclusion

and behavior.16 In her comparative analysis of the voting behavior of

Anglos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos, Leighley
found that contextual factors, such as mobilization and the size of the
racial community, play an important role in the participation patterns of
racial groups.17 Similarly, in his analysis of the role of state-level racial
heterogeneity in political conflict, Rodney Hero showed that states’ racial
makeup has important effects on state politics and public policies.18 Hero
recently applied his racial heterogeneity model to an analysis of commu-
nity social capital and found that more unequal and racially hetero-
geneous communities have less social capital, whereas more homo-
geneous communities have more.19 All these findings strongly suggest
that the factors driving politics and political behavior in the United States
are multidimensional and entail variables beyond the scope of the indi-
vidual. To reflect more accurately the factors driving participation, polit-
ical behavior studies need to do a better job of incorporating contextual
measures into their models.
This study’s findings also indicate a need to return to the study of
political socialization. Socialization studies were popular during the
1960s and early 1970s in political science but have since lost favor.20 To a
large extent, this is because it was believed that this area of inquiry had
been played out. The assumption was that there were no new insights to
be drawn from it. However, since much of this work was done, the
United States has undergone significant demographic, economic, and
technological change. This study suggests that we should reopen the
study of political socialization from two directions: how individuals
become socialized into politics and how particular institutions, organi-
zations, and/or local contexts socialize individuals into politics. The two
are related yet distinct areas of inquiry.
In terms of the socialization of the individual, the political socializa-
tion literature had a number of conceptual and methodological problems,
which I will not get into here.21 I am interested in discussing the relevance
of this literature to the study of new immigrant groups in the United
States. As Wendy Tam Cho points out, most of the work on political
socialization and participation in the United States was done at a time
when the U.S. population was quite homogeneous.22 Therefore, the socio-
 Conclusion 181

economic theories that came out of these analyses tell us little about the
socialization or participation processes of the diverse racial-ethnic groups
now present in the United States. Cho argues, “Because immigrant groups
are socialized through different channels and thus bring unique experi-
ences to bear upon the political perspective in America, they provide a
new degree of variation to the participation data.”23 Thus, though socio-
economic status provides skills that ease participation, “if these [socio-
economic] variables do not concurrently socialize an individual into
stronger beliefs about the efficacy of voting and democratic ideals, they
will not result in the expected higher participation levels.”24 In addition,
Cho contends that “if minorities have informational and social networks
that provide unique political information and a different source of polit-
ical socialization, they may not derive the same sort of satisfaction from
affirming allegiances to the political system.”25
We have seen in this study that Latino informational and social net-
works are highly homogeneous, suggesting that Latinos will experience
the differential socialization trajectory Cho hypothesizes. Also, my find-
ings indicate that these networks can vary significantly even within com-
munities, further increasing the complexity of the socialization process.
Yet, as James Gimpel, Celeste Lay, and Jason Schuknecht point out, “sur-
prisingly little research has been done on the role of the local context in
the political socialization process.”26 In Cultivating Democracy, these schol-
ars do an excellent job of integrating individual-level and contextual fac-
tors into their analysis. However, the findings from their work and this
study show that many questions remain unanswered. For example, pre-
vious work on political socialization has emphasized the role parents
play in this process.27 We know that in immigrant families it is often the
case that the children socialize the parents into the norms of the host
country, rather than the other way around. So we need to know more
about how the parental role varies in immigrant versus nonimmigrant
households. Also, the segmented assimilation model in sociology sug-
gests that immigrants can follow very different trajectories in their accul-
turation processes.28 Yet we know little about how those varied trajecto-
ries relate to political incorporation. Currently, one in five Americans is
either an immigrant or the child of immigrants. Given the size and polit-
182 Conclusion

ical significance of this population, it is important that scholars find out

more about how political socialization occurs across groups and how that
process varies both within groups and among localities.
Political participation studies have also paid little attention to the
other half of the socialization equation—political mobilization.29 This is
largely due to the influence of Robert Dahl’s vision of pluralism on the
study of American politics.30 In the pluralist model, the political system is
made up of multiple competing groups that must vie with each other in
order to gain political support. Because all groups must gain popular
support in order to be successful in terms of public policy, it is assumed
that all members of a democratic system will eventually be targeted for
mobilization. The work of scholars such as E. E. Schattschneider and
Anthony Downs leads us to believe that the most likely entities to do this
mobilization work are political parties.31 This is because parties continu-
ally need to forge majority coalitions. Any group not organized by one
party, it is assumed, will be the focus of mobilization by the other. Yet
Paul Frymer has shown that this assumption does not hold in the case of
racial groups.32 In fact, because of the stigma attached to African Ameri-
cans as a group, he found that both major political parties in the United
States have continually tried to distance themselves from issues that
would lead to their identification with blacks. Also, we know that in the
era of advanced technologies for targeted mail, telephone, and in-person
get-out-the-vote efforts, campaigns can focus on likely voters and virtu-
ally ignore new voters or nonhabitual voters. Thus, the assumption that
the mobilization of all groups will be driven by political interest is not
borne out by much of what we know about how parties decide on their
coalition partners and how political campaigns expend their limited
resources.
The lack of political mobilization in East Los Angeles and Montebello,
despite the fact that Montebello is a middle-class area, speaks to the need
for scholars to better understand why some groups (or areas) are the tar-
gets of mobilization more often than others and the differential effects
that may have. Some recent experimental work is encouraging in this
regard. In their study of political mobilization of youth in different states,
Alan Gerber and Donald Green have found that the effects of get-out-the-
 Conclusion 183

vote contact vary depending on the type of contact and whether it was
peer-to-peer.33 Applications of this model, with important modifications,
to Latino and Asian American voters suggest that contactability, in addi-
tion to the voter’s racial-ethnic political context, is an important factor.34
These studies also indicate that the relative effect of contact can vary
among groups as well as within them. This kind of research provides
important information about how mobilization happens and how and
when it is most effective. A complement to these studies would be more
information regarding how and why political campaigns or parties
choose to mobilize in some areas rather than others and how those deter-
minations relate to questions of group stigma and political power.
This study’s findings suggest the need for important changes in how
we conceptualize and conduct political behavior research in the United
States. They also indicate the need for important practical changes in
how we work to foster group political incorporation. If we believe that a
positive group attachment, politicized social networks, and community-
level organization are important to the political incorporation of marginal
groups, it is important to consider how we would go about fostering their
creation. I have three suggestions: (1) encourage the development of pos-
itive collective identities by decreasing stigma and increasing group
members’ opportunities to encounter positive images of their group; (2)
enhance the politicization of social networks by reconceptualizing how
we teach civic engagement; and (3) work to build local organization by
organizing around group and context-relevant issues.

Fostering a Positive Group Identity

This study found that the key question for the respondents was not
whether or not they had a group identity but what kind of affective
attachment and feelings of group worth was part of that identity. It also
found that the development of a positive group attachment is intimately
related to experiences of negative stereotypes and social stigma.35 There-
fore, the most direct way to facilitate this kind of attachment is to lessen
the amount of stigma a group experiences. Currently, the most common
184 Conclusion

approach to addressing stigma is to target a specific practice, for exam-

ple, employment, and encourage employers to hire members of stigma-
tized groups. The assumption is that encouraging ongoing interaction
among members of different groups will lead to a change of attitude and
a decrease of stigma. Unfortunately, this approach is doomed to fail
because it ignores the fact that stigma is created and reinforced by a
larger context that exists beyond the scope of a particular employment
environment. That larger context serves to reinforce the negative atti-
tudes of the dominant group, which eventually will erode any positive
effects that arise from the change in hiring practices.
Because of this, Link and Phelan argue, any attempt to change stigma
must be multifaceted and multileveled and must address the fundamen-
tal causes of stigma. They contend such an approach should be “multi-
faceted to address the many mechanisms that can lead to disadvantaged
outcomes . . . and multilevel to address issues of both individual and
structural discrimination[,] . . . [and] it must either change the deeply
held attitudes and beliefs of powerful groups that lead to labeling, stereo-
typing, setting apart, devaluing, and discriminating, or it must change
circumstances so as to limit the power of such groups to make their cog-
nitions the dominant ones.”36 To adequately respond to stigma, we must
choose interventions that “either produce fundamental changes in atti-
tudes and beliefs or change the power relations that underlie the ability
of the dominant group to act on their attitudes and beliefs.”37
This study suggests that while working toward this long-term goal,
there are some things that can be done in the short term to help members
of stigmatized groups feel more positive about their own group. Studies
of second-generation immigrant youth have found that “how these
youths think and feel about themselves is critically affected by the par-
ents’ modes of ethnic socialization and by the strength of the attachment
that the child feels to the parents and to the parents’ national origin.”38
Similarly, in this study I find that those respondents who had a strong
grounding in their cultural history, from their parents, school, or the local
area, had a more positive group attachment. Those from East Los Angeles
regularly mentioned that people having mariachis give serenatas to
neighbors or attending the 16th of September parades made them feel
 Conclusion 185

positive about their culture and their traditions.39 Many of the East Los
Angeles respondents also had taken a Chicano Studies course in high
school, which gave them much of this historical information. In Monte-
bello, in contrast, these traditions were not as visible, and the only offer-
ing in the high school curriculum was a multicultural studies class,
which did not seem to have as great an impact on the respondents’ feel-
ings of group attachment.40
The importance of having an attachment to the history and culture of
the social group could be a reflection of the fact that, in a stigmatized con-
text, having a positive group identity requires that individuals be able to
construct for themselves an alternative narrative to the dominant one.
That narrative would include a positive sense of the group’s history,
accomplishments, and place in society. Many pundits dismiss the inclu-
sion of multicultural curricula and development of a broader spectrum of
positive role models for youth as simply superficial “political correct-
ness” and argue that it does little to improve group relations. Though it
is true that these kinds of efforts are largely symbolic, that symbolism
may have important effects on self-esteem and collective identification
within stigmatized groups. At the very least, the findings from this and
other studies of immigrant youth indicate that encouraging parents to
talk about their culture and history with their children and encouraging
schools and localities to add curricula and hold events that create posi-
tive images of stigmatized groups could go a long way toward reducing
feelings of stigma and encouraging youth to feel good about themselves
and their social group. That positive group attachment could, in turn,
facilitate their acculturation into American society on a number of differ-
ent levels.

Politicizing Social Networks

Among these respondents we have seen that the absence of political

information and discussion within their social networks has detrimental
effects on their political engagement. Gimpel, Lay, and Schuknecht found
similar processes occurring among youth in urban and suburban Mary-
186 Conclusion

land.41 One simple way to encourage the politicization of social networks

is to incorporate these concerns into school curricula. As Richard Niemi
and Jane Junn have pointed out, schools are one of the most important
links between education and citizenship.42 The premise is that if youth
see politics as relevant to their lives and discuss it with their friends at an
early age, it is more likely that these kinds of discussions will continue to
be parts of their networks later in life. In addition, findings from the Kids
Voting program show that civic engagement activities that include
parental discussions with children about politics had positive, and unex-
pected, socialization effects on the parents.43 Michael McDevitt and col-
leagues found that this program has a circular effect. It increases peer-to-
peer political discussion and enhances political exchange at home, and
then the products of the home conversations are shared with peers, cre-
ating a “loop of influence in which the family and the school enliven the
political discussion of each other.”44 Particularly of relevance to this study
is their finding that participation in these programs significantly narrows
the political engagement gaps between Anglo and Latino students. Thus,
the implementation of new programs and approaches to encouraging
student political engagement could have significant positive effects on
adult political socialization as well.
But how do we do this most effectively? A recent report, The Civic
Mission of Schools, reviews the extant literature on civic education and
makes six recommendations for what schools can do to ensure the polit-
ical engagement of their students: (1) provide instruction in govern-
ment, history, law, and democracy, because having this subject matter
taught has been shown to increase engagement, so long as it is not done
in a rote fashion; (2) incorporate discussion of current events (local,
national, and international) into the classroom, and frame these discus-
sions around issues that young people see as relevant to their lives; (3)
provide opportunities for students to perform community service that is
linked to formal classroom curriculum and instruction; (4) offer extra-
curricular activities; (5) encourage student participation in school gov-
ernance; and (6) encourage student participation in simulations of
democratic processes and procedures, such as voting, trials, legislative
deliberation, and diplomacy.45
 Conclusion 187

This is not to suggest that a one-size-fits-all civic education program

would be appropriate. Jonathon F. Zaff and colleagues caution that pro-
grams to promote citizenship among youths of color must focus on the
“information interactions in youths’ lives, such as with parent and peers,
and on the culture in which youth are raised.”46 They found that “ethnic-
related experiences and attitudes that are salient or matter to the youths’
self-concepts appear to be important predictors of later citizenship
engagement.”47 Gimpel and colleagues also emphasize the importance of
the larger school environment—in particular, the students’ perception of
the school as “fair”—to the effectiveness of any civic education pro-
gram.48 Thus, a successful approach to youth civic engagement would
have to be context-specific and include in its curriculum programs and
projects that are relevant to the life experiences and collective identities of
the youths involved.
This kind of approach to teaching civic engagement would be very dif-
ferent from the situation today. In California, students are required only
to take one semester of U.S. government in order to graduate from high
school. Only twenty-nine states in the United States currently require
some kind of civics course. Most of the assessment tests students must
take to receive the high school diploma contain no civics or social studies
questions. Many states have adopted community service requirements
for high school graduation, but many of those programs are not in any
way connected to actual coursework or curricula. So we are a long way
from what has been found most effective.
There is reason to believe that such a program could work. Whereas
studies have found that today’s youths are less interested in voting,
political discussion, and political issues than their predecessors, they
have been found to be highly involved in community service, and they
express strong support for the principles of tolerance and free speech.49
Of course, such a program would require significant investment of re-
sources at a time when public schools are being asked to do more with
less. For this kind of program to become an academic priority, we would
need to reconceptualize the role schools play in preparing youths to be
members of the polity. In addition, as a society we would need to accept
responsibility for ensuring that we have an engaged and participatory
188 Conclusion

citizenry.50 Though it will be difficult to create such a consensus, the

potential payoffs are too great to be ignored.

Building Community Social Capital

My findings demonstrate that organizational mobilization, even if not

explicitly political, can have long-term positive effects on feelings of effi-
cacy in the nonelectoral arena. So how do we go about building mobi-
lization and organizational capacity in communities? First, we need to
focus organizational efforts on the specific needs and experiences of local
communities. Studies, as well as the experiences of political organizers,
show that the best way to mobilize people is to organize around some-
thing very specific that is important to them. This is the core of Saul
Alinksy’s model of organizing: ask the group to tell you what is impor-
tant to them, organize around that, and work from there.51 In his study of
Mexican American political organizations, Benjamin Márquez found
organizations that emphasize particular racial and class-based identities
are more successful at organizing than those that depend simply on
shared ethnicity and experiences of racial discrimination.52 Thus, organi-
zational efforts that appeal to particular collective identities will likely be
most effective. As we saw in the case of the Mothers of East Los Angeles,
organization that arises in response to a particular threat, in this case a
prison construction project, can grow into something very different, yet
remain effective.53 The Mothers have successfully blocked construction of
a toxic incinerator project in a nearby city, and now candidates and envi-
ronmental organizations regularly seek their endorsement of policy pro-
grams and proposals.
Second, we need to make efforts to ensure that more political mobi-
lization occurs in immigrant communities. Because models of political
party behavior assume that parties will, because of self-interest, mobilize
all potential voters, it has largely been left up to the political parties to do
this kind of work.54 Yet bringing new voters into the political system is
not necessarily in the parties’ best interest. They would be spending lim-
ited resources on engaging individuals who may or may not vote and,
 Conclusion 189

even more important, may not vote for them. Parties would much rather
spend their time and resources on political “sure things”—likely, parti-
san voters. In addition, the tendency in American politics has been for
congressional and state legislative districts to become “safer.” In these
safe districts, parties have no real incentive to spend resources; the major-
ity party is almost assured of victory, and the minority party knows they
have little chance of winning. The minority party would rather focus its
efforts on races that are competitive.55 The result is that in immigrant
communities there are large numbers of people who need to be brought
into electoral politics at any given time—and no institution in society
whose interests lay in continually mobilizing these new voters. If the
United States is serious about being a participatory democracy, as a soci-
ety we need to create institutions and programs that will foment this kind
of mobilization. But, again, a one-size-fits-all solution is not likely to
work. To be effective, that program would have to be contextually spe-
cific and historically and culturally relevant to the particular community.

For the sake of clarity, I have listed these recommendations separately.

Yet they are highly interrelated. For example, as Frymer points out, one
of the main reasons why the political parties have not targeted African
Americans for mobilization has been the social stigma attached to the
group.56 So decreases in social stigma could also have a positive impact
on party mobilization among African Americans and other racial groups.
Similarly, the politicization of social networks will likely lead to greater
political interest in general, which could make community organiza-
tional efforts more effective. And the effectiveness of all these efforts will
depend, to a large extent, on their ability to appeal to and mobilize indi-
viduals’ group identity(ies). Because they are so interrelated, movement
on only one front will not have as great an impact as movement along all
three fronts.
By making these recommendations, I am skirting close to the line of
normatively driven social science. My efforts here are driven by two con-
cerns. First, I believe it is imperative that social scientists make their work
politically relevant, as well as constructive. It is very easy to find flaws
and problems in programs and in society. It is much more difficult to find
190 Conclusion

ways to address the problems identified. Second, and related to the first,
one of the things that is sometimes missing from political behavior stud-
ies is a reminder of why scholars do this work in the first place, why we
care either about democracy or about participation in democracy. When
John Locke and other Enlightenment theorists were trying to imagine a
form of government that satisfied the laws of nature but was no longer
ruled by a monarch, their goal was to create a better and more just soci-
ety.57 That Locke and his contemporaries denied women and people of
color any formal political voice in the new society is a problem but does
not negate the fact that their goal was to expand political rights and free-
doms beyond those under monarchy. The idea was that, in the end, soci-
ety would be more just because its government was more just.
Yet over the past one hundred years in the United States income
inequality has increased, and levels of political participation are decreas-
ing.58 Thus, the question is whether our democracy is creating a more just
society. One of the main problems with the current state of political par-
ticipation in the United States is that “policy makers are hearing less from
groups with distinctive needs and concerns arising from their social class
and group status.”59 One assumes that if the voices were more represen-
tative, the resulting policies would also be more reflective of the needs of
society as a whole. Based on the findings from this study, I would argue
that the best way to reach a more inclusive politics is through acknowl-
edging and encouraging the development of positive identities and
group attachments among social groups. In other words, for members of
stigmatized groups, establishing a positive attachment to their social
group may be a necessary first step toward their attachment to the polit-
ical community as a whole.60 It is only after they develop a positive sense
of purpose and place within their social group that they are able to see a
place for themselves within the larger U.S. political community. Con-
versely, a less positive attachment may make it more difficult for group
members to identify with the larger society.
This vision is in stark contrast to those who argue that acknowledg-
ment of the existence of race in the United States will lead to increased
conflict and “balkanization.”61 Instead, I am arguing in favor of what Iris
Young calls a “politics of difference,” in which political movements are
organized around the presumption that “justice is best served by acknow-
 Conclusion 191

ledging the cultural and structural social groups differentiating a society,

and by attending to how differences of culture or structural social position
produce conflict and condition relations of privilege and relative disad-
vantage.”62 As such, “accommodating and sometimes compensating for
the consequences of social differentiation are necessary for achieving
equal respect and genuinely equal opportunity for every person to
develop and exercise her or his capacities and participate in public life.”63
This position assumes that by talking about difference, we can actually
increase societal understanding rather than decrease it.64 A politics that
recognizes and values those differences is not subject to fragmentation, as
other authors have argued. Difference per se is not the real concern but
the fact that in the United States racial differences have been constructed
into a hierarchical racial order. In this context, difference by definition
implies stigma. Of course, I am not suggesting that increasing minority
group participation automatically will benefit democracy as a whole and
is guaranteed to make democratic politics more inclusive and egalitarian.
There are other structural changes that must occur as well. As Jane Junn
cautions, increased participation on the part of minorities can change the
structures of inequality in society only if those institutions of democracy
are indeed neutral and if the common understanding of agency and citi-
zenship is fluid.65 If these assumptions are not met, more participation
will only, on the one hand, reinforce and legitimate existing structures of
domination and, on the other, force groups who are different from the
norm to either assimilate or exit the system.66 Ignoring that reality only
serves to justify and maintain an unequal ordering of social relations.67
This study’s findings have highlighted some of structural considera-
tions that need to be included in analyses of stigmatized groups in
American society. The analysis I have presented is antithetical to the idea
that the United States can “move beyond” race. Racialization has affected
Latinos in Los Angeles from the day the Southwest became part of the
United States, and it affects Latino immigrants from the day they step
onto U.S. soil. That racialization, and the stigma that accompanies it,
affects how they constitute themselves and their social group. It affects
how they define their community of interest and how they choose to act
on behalf of that interest. When analyzing the political participation of
Latinos and other marginal groups, that reality cannot be ignored. Only
192 Conclusion

by understanding the complexity and multiple layers of internal and

external border crossings underlying the Latino experience can we
understand how, why, and when Latinos incorporate themselves into the
political system. Integration into politics requires a shift in Latinos’ bor-
ders; these borders are constituted by forces of power within the indi-
vidual and the larger society. This process is complex and fluid, but sift-
ing through the multiple layers is necessary if we are to understand fully
the Latino political experience in the United States.
APPENDIX A Study Respondents

This appendix lists all study respondents. “Age,” “Years in U.S.,” and
“Citizen” refer to the respondent’s age, length of time in the United
States, and citizenship status at the time of the interview. In the
“Generation” column, 1 = foreign born; 1.5 = foreign born but immi-
grated to the United States as a child; 2 = first generation, born in the
United States; 3 = second generation, born in the United States; and 4 =
third or third-plus generation, born in the United States. Some of the
respondents’ parents had arrived in the United States at different times.
So, for example, “3 mother/2 father” means that the respondent is third
generation on the mother’s side and second generation on the father’s.
Schools are listed to indicate the location of the interview and the respon-
dent’s area of origin. Four schools were used for the interviews: Garfield
Adult School (GAS) and Garfield High School (GHS) in East Los Angeles
and Montebello Adult School (MAS) and Montebello High School (MHS)
in Montebello.

193
 Interview Years
Name School Gender Age Nationality Generation Language in U.S. Citizen

Javier GAS Male 28 Mexican 1 Spanish 9 No

Mercedes GAS Female 40 Mexican 1 Both 25 Yes
Alfredo GAS Male 68 Mexican 1 Spanish 37 Yes
María GAS Female 38 Mexican 1 Spanish 25 No
Alba GAS Female 28 Mexican 1 Spanish 10 No
Jaidy GAS Female 43 Honduran 1 Spanish 25 No
Herminia GAS Female 52 Mexican 1 Spanish 21 No
Arturo GAS Male 27 Mexican 1 English 15 No
José Luis GAS Male 39 Mexican 1 Spanish 10 No
Roberto GAS Male 23 Mexican 1 Spanish 3 No
Rosa GAS Female 35 Mexican 1 Spanish 17 No
Lilia GAS Female 24 Mexican 1.5 English 21 No
Luly GAS Female 24 Mexican 1.5 English 20 No
María GAS Female 34 Mexican 1.5 English 26 No
Guillermina GAS Female 15 Mexican 2 English 15 Yes
Hilda GAS Female 20 Mexican 2 English 20 Yes
Ramón GAS Male 24 Mexican 2 English 24 Yes
Bernie GAS Male 19 Mexican 2 English 19 Yes
Juan Carlos GAS Male 19 Mexican 2 Both 19 Yes
César GAS Male 19 Mexican 2 English 19 Yes
María Josefina GAS Female 25 Mexican 2 English 22 Yes
John GAS Male 60 Mexican 3 English 60 Yes
José GAS Male 41 Mexican 3 Both 41 Yes
Zali GAS Female 17 Mexican 4 mother/ English 17 Yes
1.5 father
Gilbert GAS Male 44 Mexican 4 English 44 Yes
José GHS Male 17 Mexican 1.5 English 12 Yes
María GHS Female 18 Mexican 1.5 English 13 No
Vilma GHS Female 17 Salvadoran 1.5 English 16 No
Salvador GHS Male 16 Mexican 2 English 16 Yes
Teresa GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Verónica GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Will GHS Male 16 Mexican 2 English 16 Yes
Fernando GHS Male 18 Mexican 2 Spanish 8 Yes
Ana GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Miguel GHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Jonathan GHS Male 17 Mexican 3 English 17 Yes
Arturo GHS Male 17 Mexican- 2 Both 18 Yes
Salvadoran
José GHS Male 17 Mexican 2 Both 17 Yes
Agustín GHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Ana GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Norma GHS Female 19 Mexican- 2 Both 15 Yes
Salvadoran
Armando GHS Male 18 Mexican 2 English 18 Yes
Linda GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 0 Yes
Jesús GHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Araceli GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 15 Yes
Abby GHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 15 Yes
 Interview Years
Name School Gender Age Nationality Generation Language in U.S. Citizen

Laura GHS Female 17 Mexican 3 English 17 Yes

Miledy GHS Female 16 Mexican 3 mother/ English 16 Yes
2 father
Al GHS Male 17 Mexican 4 English 17 Yes
Jay GHS Male 17 Mexican 5 English 17 Yes
Martin MAS Male 33 Mexican 1 Spanish 17 No
Marta MAS Female 36 Mexican 1 Spanish 16 No
María MAS Female 63 Guatemalan 1 Spanish 13 No
María MAS Female 48 Salvadoran 1 Spanish 26 Yes
Lupe MAS Female 35 Mexican 1 Spanish 20 No
Artemio MAS Male 23 Mexican 1 Spanish 1 No
María de Jesús MAS Female 38 Mexican 1 Spanish 19 Yes
Hector MAS Male 26 Mexican 1 Spanish 0 No
Ester MAS Female 46 Mexican 1 Spanish 19 Yes
Carlos MAS Male 26 Mexican 1 Both 2 No
Adán MAS Male 37 Mexican 1 English 19 No
Myrna MAS Female 46 Mexican 1 Spanish 30 No
Nancy MAS Female 27 Mexican 1 Spanish 10 No
Rafael MAS Male 44 Mexican 1 Spanish 20 No
Juan MAS Male 21 Mexican- 2 English 21 Yes
Salvadoran
Miguel MAS Male 20 Mexican 2 English 20 Yes
Jonathon MAS Male 19 Mexican 2 mother/ English 19 Yes
3 father
Enrique MAS Male 19 Mexican 2 mother/ English 19 Yes
3 father
Michelle MAS Female 24 Mexican 3 English 24 Yes
Cassandra MAS Female 18 Mexican 3 English 18 Yes
Juan MAS Male 40 Mexican 3 English 40 Yes
Adela MAS Female 30 Mexican 4 English 30 Yes
Chris MAS Male 18 Mexican– 4 English 18 Yes
Native American
Desiré MAS Female 22 Mexican 4 English 22 Yes
Collette MAS Female 42 Mexican 4 English 42 Yes
Emma MAS Female 38 Mexican 4 English 38 Yes
Johnny MAS Male 21 Mexican 5 English 21 Yes
Mary MAS Female 52 Mexican 5 English 52 Yes
Federico MHS Male 18 Mexican 1 Spanish 5 No
Caroline MHS Female 17 Colombian 1 English 10 No
Jesús MHS Male 17 Mexican 1.5 English 13 No
Israel MHS Male 18 Mexican 1.5 English 8 Yes
Araceli MHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Roberto MHS Male 17 Salvadoran 2 English 17 Yes
Sergio MHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Francisco MHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Laura MHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Eduardo MHS Male 18 Mexican 2 English 18 Yes
David MHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
 Interview Years
Name School Gender Age Nationality Generation Language in U.S. Citizen

Pedro MHS Male 18 Guatemalan- 2 English 18 Yes

Mexican
Julian MHS Male 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Yessica MHS Female 17 Mexican 2 English 17 Yes
Angela MHS Female 18 Mexican 3 English 18 Yes
Abraham MHS Male 17 Mexican 3 mother/ English 17 Yes
2 father
Richard MHS Male 17 Mexican- 3 mother/ English 17 Yes
Colombian 2 father
Celina MHS Female 17 Mexican 3 mother/ English 17 Yes
2 father
Cynthia MHS Female 17 Salvadoran 3 English 17 Yes
Julianna MHS Female 18 Mexican 3 English 18 Yes
Marianna MHS Female 17 Mexican 4 English 17 Yes
Corrine MHS Female 16 Mexican 4 English 16 Yes
APPENDIX B Interview Questionnaire

Because the interviews were semistructured, the questions were not

always asked in the same order, except for the first question, with which
I began all the interviews. But I attempted to ask each respondent all of
the questions that applied to him or her. This version of the questions is
written as if the respondent were Mexican; for other Latinos, the ques-
tions would be worded to refer to the group they belonged to.

1. How did you (or your family) come to be in the United States?
2. Have you (or your parents) ever had any negative experiences
because you were Mexican?
3. Do you think there is discrimination against Mexicans in Los
Angeles?
4. When you think of the word discrimination, what kinds of experi-
ences does that bring to mind?
5. [For second generation and beyond] Are you glad you (or your
parents) immigrated here?
6. Do you speak Spanish at home?

199
200 Appendix B

7. Would you want your children to learn Spanish? Why?

8. Does your family maintain Mexican culture? Why?
9. How do you identify yourself?
10. Do you think you could define yourself as more than one of these
terms at the same time?
11. Do you think Mexicans have things in common with Salvadorans,
Guatemalans, and other people of Latin American descent? What
things?
12. Do you think most Americans can tell the difference between a
Mexican and a Salvadoran? Why, or why not?
13. Do you think that some Americans have a negative image of
Mexicans? What is that image?
14. Where do you think that image comes from?
15. Do you think it will ever change?
16. Do you watch TV in English and Spanish? Have you noticed any
differences between the two?
17. Are you interested in politics? Why?
18. Did you pay any attention to the presidential campaign last
November?
19. What are your general feelings about the political system in this
country?
20. Are you a citizen?
21. If yes, are you registered to vote? Why?
22. Did you register with a particular party, or independent? Why?
23. If no, do you plan on becoming one? Why?
24. During the campaign, do you feel like you received enough infor-
mation from the parties and about the issues in order to make your
decision?
25. Do you think your vote matters?
26. Do you think people like you can affect what government does?
27. Why do you think so many Latinos, even if they’re citizens, don’t
vote?
28. Did you have any opinion about Proposition 187?
29. Did you feel the proposition was directed at any group in
particular?
30. Have you ever participated in walkouts, marches, or other kinds of
protests?
31. Did you think these actions were good ideas? Do you think they
made a difference? What kind of activity do you think would have
made a difference?
32. If Proposition 187 gets enforced, do you think it will affect the com-
munity? What about legal immigrants?
 Appendix B 201

33. Do you think 187 will keep people from immigrating here?
34. Have you heard about Proposition 209? What do you think
about it?
35. What do you think are the good things about living in this
community?
36. What are the bad things?
37. Can you think of any way to resolve these problems?
38. Do you do any volunteer/community work?
39. Do you think if more people volunteered, it would make a
difference in the community? What do you think would make
a difference?
40. What do you think is the biggest problem facing your community
today? How would you solve it?
41. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you think is
important, or that you would like to add?

For those who went to high school in the United States:

42. Do you feel like you’ve gotten a good education here? In what
ways?
43. Do you think the teachers have high expectations of the students?
Why?
44. Did you ever take a Chicano Studies or Minority Cultures course?
If so, did you like it?
45. Have you taken Government? Did you like it? After taking it, were
you more interested in politics in general?

For those who said they were not citizens:

46. Are you planning to become a citizen? Why?

47. How long have you been in the United States?

201
Notes

Chapter 1. Latino Political Engagement

Epigraph: Frederick Douglass, “An Address on West India Emancipation,” in

John W. Blassingame, ed., The Frederick Douglass Papers, series 1, Speeches, Debates,
and Interviews, 1855–63 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).
1. I define political engagement broadly, to include not only political activity,
which includes both electoral and nonelectoral participation (voting, marching,
protesting, community work, etc.), but also interest in politics. This broader def-
inition is appropriate because Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans have been
found to be less likely than Anglos to vote, but more likely to engage in activities
such as marches and protests. See Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry
Brady, and Norman Nie, “Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources: Participation in
the United States, British Journal of Politics 23 (1993): 453–97; Robert D. Wrinkle,
Joseph Stewart Jr., J. L. Polinard, Kenneth J. Meier, and John R. Arvizu, “Ethnic-
ity and Nonelectoral Participation,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 18
(1996): 142–53; Natasha Hritzuk and David K. Park, “The Question of Latino Par-
ticipation: From an SES to a Social Structural Explanation,” Social Science Quar-
terly 81 (2000): 151–66.

203
204 Notes to Pages 1 – 2

2. Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998), xv.
3. The study’s respondents came from many Latin American countries, in-
cluding Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras. Although I
discuss my findings in terms of “Latinos,” more than three quarters of my re-
spondents (83 percent) were Mexican or Mexican American. When discussing the
experiences of particular individuals, I use their national origin identifier.
4. Economic sociologists such as Alejandro Portes have developed a large lit-
erature that shows the importance of ethnic enclaves and social context to the
ability of immigrants to experience socioeconomic mobility in the United States.
For an overview, see Alejandro Portes, ed., The Economic Sociology of Immigration:
Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship (New York: Russell Sage Foun-
dation, 1995).
5. Rogers M. Smith provides an in-depth discussion of this need for psycho-
logical attachment to the nation and the narratives that arise from it. See Stories of
Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Membership (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), esp. chap. 1.
6. See, e.g., John R. Logan, Brian J. Stults, and Reynolds Farley, “Segregation
of Minorities in the Metropolis: Two Decades of Change,” Demography 41 (2004):
1–22; Richard D. Alba and John R. Logan, “Minority Proximity to Whites in Sub-
urbs: An Individual-Level Analysis of Segregation,” American Journal of Sociology
98 (1993): 1388–1427; Richard D. Alba, John R. Logan, and Brian J. Stults, “The
Changing Neighborhood Contexts of the Immigrant Metropolis,” Social Forces 79
(2000): 587–621; Richard D. Alba, John R. Logan, Wenquan Zhange, and Brian J.
Stults, “Strangers Next Door: Immigrant Groups and Suburbs in Los Angeles and
New York, “ in Phyllis Moen, Donna Dempster-McClain, and Henry A. Walker,
eds., A Nation Divided: Diversity, Inequality and Community in American Society
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).
7. Suzanne Oboler, “It Must Be a Fake! Racial Ideologies, Identities, and the
Question of Rights,” in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Pablo De Greiff, eds., Hispanics/
Latinos in the United States: Ethnicity, Race, and Rights (New York: Routledge,
2000), 127.
8. For historical overviews of these experiences, see Leonard Pitt, The Decline
of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846–1890, 2d
ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault
Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994); Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos,
3d ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1988); Martha Menchaca, The Mexican Out-
siders: A Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Martha Menchaca, Recovering History,
Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans (Austin:
 Notes to Pages 2 – 5 205

University of Texas Press, 2003); James Jennings and Monte Rivera, Puerto Rican
Politics in Urban America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984).
9. Just one example is the fact that U.S. immigration policy varies significantly
by country of origin, particularly among those petitioning for political asylum.
Once granted asylum, political exiles, like Cubans, have a much easier and more
streamlined process for being granted citizenship than do asylum seekers from
other countries. Immigrants seeking political asylum from countries with whom
the United States has good relations, like those from Central America in the 1980s,
have found it very difficult to normalize their status in the United States, regard-
less of their personal desire to do so.
10. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed. (Springfield, Mass.:
Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).
11. See Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin, “Network Analysis, Culture,
and the Problem of Agency,” American Journal of Sociology 99 (1994): 1411–54.
12. Yen Le Espiritu, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Com-
munities, and Countries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 1–2.
13. E.g., see Suzanne Oboler, Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics
of (Re)presentation in the United States (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1995).
14. Iris Marion Young, “Structure, Difference and Hispanic/Latino Claims of
Justice,” in Gracia and De Greiff, eds., Hispanics/Latinos in the United States, 153.
15. Ibid.
16. Jorge J. E. Gracia and Pablo De Greiff, introduction to Hispanics/Latinos in
the United States, 10.
17. For an overview of these perspectives, see Judith A. Howard, “Social Psy-
chology of Identities,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 367–93.
18. Ibid., 388.
19. For an overview of studies of the effects of stigma on behavior, see Bruce
G. Link and Jo C. Phelan, “Conceptualizing Stigma,” Annual Review of Sociology 27
(2001): 363–85. To understand the effects of stereotypes on self-image, see M. A.
Hogg and J. C. Turner, “Intergroup Behaviour, Self Stereotyping and the Salience
of Social Categories,” British Journal of Social Psychology 26 (1987): 325–40.
20. Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major, and Claude Steele, “Social Stigma,” in
Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social
Psychology, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 504–53, quote on 505.
21. Link and Phelan, “Conceptualizing Stigma,” 367.
22. Hogg and Turner, “Intergroup Behavior”; and Crocker, Major, and Steele,
“Social Stigma.”
23. Angus Campbell, Phillip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E.
Stokes, The American Voter (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1960).
24. See Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America: Political
206 Notes to Pages 5 – 7

Democracy and Social Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972); Steven
J. Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in
America (New York: Macmillan, 1993); Raymond Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosen-
stone, Who Votes? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980); Sidney Verba, Nor-
man H. Nie, and Jae-on Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation
Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); and M. Margaret
Conway, Political Participation in the United States, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Con-
gressional Quarterly Press, 1991).
25. Verba, Schlozman, and Brady expand on the SES model and analyze the
myriad resources (occupational experience being only one example) and civic
skills that arise from SES. Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry
Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1995).
26. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of
Groups, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971).
27. For an overview of this literature, see Francesca Polletta and James M.
Jasper, “Collective Identity and Social Movements,” Annual Review of Sociology 27
(2001): 283–305.
28. Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-
American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 4.
29. Polletta and Jasper, “Collective Identity and Social Movements,” 285.
30. The term collective identity “denotes those aspects of the self concept that
relate to race, ethnic background, religion, feelings of belonging in one’s com-
munity, and the like.” Riia K. Luhtanen and Jennifer Crocker, “A Collective Self-
Esteem Scale: Self Evaluation of One’s Social Identity,” Personality and Social Psy-
chology Bulletin 18 (1992): 302–18, quote on 302.
31. See Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity,
Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43 (1991):
1241–99; Patricia Hill Collins, Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the
Politics of Empowerment, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000); and Kimberlé Cren-
shaw, Kendall Thomas, Neil Gotanda, and Gary Peller, eds., Critical Race Theory:
The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (New York: New Press, 1995).
32. For a discussion of the importance of relational analyses in social science,
see Mustafa Emirbayer, “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology,” American Journal of
Sociology 103 (1997): 281–317. For a look at how identity has been conceptualized
and measured by social psychologists, see Luhtanen and Crocker, “A Collective
Self-Esteem Scale”; and Marilynn B. Brewer and Rupert J. Brown, “Intergroup
Relations,” in Gilbert, Fiske, and Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology.
33. My understanding of race as a socially constructed concept comes from
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the
1960s to the 1990s (New York: Routledge, 1994).
 Notes to Pages 7 – 10 207

34. European social psychologists use the term social identity to refer to what I
am calling collective identity. My definition of collective identity is the same as that
of social identity, as defined by Henri Tajfel and J. C. Turner. See “The Social Iden-
tity Theory of Intergroup Behavior,” in Stephen Worchel and William G. Austin,
eds., Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986); and “An
Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict,” in William G. Austin and Stephen
Worchel, eds., The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (Monterey, Calif.:
Brooks/Cole Books, 1979).
35. Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston III, “Social Capital and the Adaptation of
the Second Generation: the Case of Vietnamese Youth in New Orleans,” Interna-
tional Migration Review 28 (1994): 821–45, quote on 821. See also Kathryn Harper,
“Immigrant Generation, Assimilation and Adolescent Psychological Well-Being,”
Social Forces 79 (2001): 969–1004.
36. Sociologists use the term human capital to denote resources that belong to
the individual, such as educational level or job skills. For a discussion of the rela-
tionship between social capital and human capital, see James S. Coleman, “Social
Capital and the Creation of Human Capital,” American Journal of Sociology 94
(1988): S95–S120.
37. Rubén Rumbaut, “The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem, and
Segmented Assimilation among Children of Immigrants,” International Migration
Review 28 (1994): 748–94, quote on 756.
38. María Eugenia Matute-Bianchi, “Ethnic Identities and Patterns of School
Success and Failure among Mexican Descent and Japanese-American Students in
a California High School: An Ethnographic Analysis,” American Journal of Educa-
tion 95 (1986): 233–55.
39. For a detailed overview of this history, see Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals:
Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1997).
40. Katherine Tate’s finding that descriptive representation among African
Americans does affect their feelings of trust and efficacy in government supports
this proposition. See Katherine Tate, Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans
and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2003).
41. Michael Dawson uses the term linked fate. Katherine Tate calls this “com-
mon fate.” They are largely describing a sense that one’s fate is tied to that of other
group members. See Michael Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-
American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Katherine Tate,
From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 90–92.
42. Dawson, Behind the Mule; and Tate, From Protest to Politics, 90–92.
43. One could argue that such feelings would be captured by traditional mea-
208 Notes to Pages 10 – 11

surements of political efficacy. Yet it would be useful to know more about where
those feelings of efficacy come from and whether the sources vary among and/or
within groups. Such an analysis is difficult using current measures. Thus, looking
at group attachment and feelings of stigma may prove a fruitful avenue of
inquiry.
44. In Voice and Equality, 355, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady also argue that
measurement problems may explain in part why they did not find that group
consciousness had an effect on the participation patterns of the racial groups in
their study.
45. See David Easton and Jack Dennis, Children in the Political System: The Ori-
gins of Political Legitimacy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969); M. Kent Jennings and
Richard G. Niemi. “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child,”
American Political Science Review 62 (1968): 169–184; and M. Kent Jennings, Laura
Stoker, and Jake Bowers, “Politics across Generations: Family Transmission Reex-
amined,” Working Paper (Institute for Governmental Studies, Berkeley, Calif.,
2001).
46. Chicano Studies was offered at Garfield High School and Multicultural
History was offered at Montebello High School. Those were the only explicitly
“multicultural” course offerings available to the respondents at the time of the
interviews.
47. These celebrations are organized yearly and are the largest in the southern
California area. They recognize Mexico’s independence from Spain.
48. This idea of counternarrative is similar to Michael Dawson’s idea of black
“counterpublics.” But, given the relatively recent nature of Latino political orga-
nizing, I do not believe the community has developed ongoing movements that
could credibly be described as “counterpublics.” It is reasonable to assume, how-
ever, that this kind of counternarrative, as with African Americans, is a necessary
first step to contesting the political status quo. See Dawson, Black Visions, esp.
chap. 1.
49. Zhou and Bankston, “Social Capital and the Adaptation of the Second
Generation.”
50. Here the ideas of agency and efficacy are related but not the same. By effi-
cacy, I mean, as is found in the political behavior literature, people’s perception
that they can make change through their actions. This is related to feelings of
agency, but it is used specifically in relation to political activity. For an overview
of the literature on the relationship between efficacy and socioeconomic status,
see Verba and Nie, Participation in America; Rosenstone and Hansen, Mobilization,
Participation, and Democracy in America; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Voice and
Equality; and Wolfinger and Rosenstone, Who Votes?
51. By white, these respondents were referring to Anglos.
 Notes to Pages 12 – 14 209

52. Stephen J. Worchel, Francisco Morales, Dario Páez, and Jean-Claude

Deschamps, Social Identity: International Perspectives (London: Sage, 1998).
53. I say “little” choice since American history is full of stories of members of
racial groups that were able to “pass” as white. But, again, this is the result of
phenotype differences that are an accident of birth, rather than of any conscious
act on the part of the individual.
54. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Com-
munity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). For critiques of Putnam, see Ale-
jandro Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology,”
Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 1–24, particularly pages 17–20; and Theda
Skocpol, “Unraveling from Above,” American Prospect 25 (1996): 20–25.
55. Portes, “Social Capital.”
56. Kent E. Portney and Jeffrey M. Berry, “Mobilizing Minority Communities:
Social Capital and Participation in Urban Neighborhoods,” American Behavioral
Scientist 40 (1997): 632–644.
57. Janelle Wong, “Getting out the Vote among Asian Americans: A Field
Experiment,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, Philadelphia, Pa., September 2003.
58. This is what Meyer calls the political “opportunity structure.” See David
S. Meyer, “Political Opportunity and Nested Institutions,” Social Movement Stud-
ies 2 (2003): 17–35.
59. Gerald C. Lubenow and Bruce E. Cain, eds., Governing California: Politics,
Government and Public Policy in the Golden State (Berkeley: Institute for Govern-
mental Studies, 1997).
60. We will see in chapter 5 that the East Los Angeles respondents emphasize
the need for “self-help” at the local level. This may partly be a result of the fact
that they have no local government to turn to for assistance.
61. For an overview of this literature, see Portes, “Social Capital.” See also
Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in J. G. Richardson, ed., Handbook of The-
ory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York: Greenwood Press, 1985),
241–258; and Coleman, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.”
62. Portes, “Social Capital,” 8.
63. For a review of this literature, see Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin,
and James M. Cook, “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks,” Annual
Review of Sociology 27 (2001): 415–444.
64. Lee Sigelman, Timothy Bledsoe, Susan Welch, and Michael Combs, “Mak-
ing Contact? Black-White Social Interaction in an Urban Setting,” American Jour-
nal of Sociology 101 (1996): 1306–1332.
65. Peter Marsden, “Core Discussion Networks of Americans,” American Soci-
ological Review 52 (1987): 122–131.
210 Notes to Pages 14 – 16

66. Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders, 169.

67. Although the effects of interracial contact received a great deal of scholarly
attention after the end of segregation, that attention has faded in recent years. In
addition, little work has looked at the effects of Latino-Anglo contact. The work
that has been done found little effect but also did not look at equal-status contact,
which has been found to be important in the case of black-Anglo interaction. For
work on Latinos, see Susan Welch and Lee Sigelman, “Getting to Know You?
Latino-Anglo Social Contact,” Social Science Quarterly 81 (2000): 67–83. For an
overview of the contact literature, see Lee Sigelman and Susan Welch, “The Con-
tact Hypothesis Revisited: Black-White Interaction and Positive Racial Atti-
tudes,” Social Forces 71 (1993): 781–795. For a discussion of the importance of
equal-status contact, see Jerry W. Robinson and James D. Preston, “Equal-Status
Contact and Modification of Racial Prejudice: A Reexamination of the Contact
Hypothesis,” Social Forces 54 (1976): 911–924; and Cornelius Riordan and
Josephine Ruggiero, “Producing Equal-Status Interracial Interaction: A Replica-
tion,” Social Psychology Quarterly 43 (1980): 131–136.
68. David Knoke, “Networks of Political Action: Toward Theory Construc-
tion.” Social Forces 68 (1990): 1041–1063, quote on 1058. See also Kathryn Ray,
Mike Savage, Gindo Tampubolon, Alan Warde Brian Longhurst, and Mark Tom-
linson, “The Exclusiveness of the Political Field: Networks and Political Mobi-
lization,” Social Movement Studies 2 (2003): 38–60.
69. Ronald La Due Lake and Robert Huckfeldt, “Social Capital, Social Net-
works, and Political Participation,” Political Psychology 19 (1998): 567–584.
70. Melissa J. Marschall, “Does the Shoe Fit? Testing Models of Participation
for African American and Latino Involvement in Politics,” Urban Affairs Review 37
(2001): 227–248.
71. Hritzuk and Park, “The Question of Latino Participation.”
72. Ibid., 164.
73. For an overview of these historical experiences, see Almaguer, Racial
Fault Lines; Douglas Monroy, Thrown among Strangers: The Making of Mexican
Culture in Frontier America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Matt
García, A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los
Angeles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); George J.
Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano
Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); and Rodolfo
Acuña, Anything but Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles (New York:
Verso Press, 1997).
74. For a recent work that reviews findings on family political socialization
from the 1960s to the 1990s, see Jennings, Stoker, and Bowers, “Politics across
Generations.” With regard to immigrant political socialization, part of the prob-
lem is that there has been so little work on this topic. See Alex Stepick and Carol
 Notes to Page 16 211

Dutton Stepick, “Becoming American, Constructing Ethnicity: Immigrant Youth

and Civic Engagement,” Applied Developmental Science 6 (2002): 246–257.
75. For a historical overview of these processes of segregation, see David G.
Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Pol-
itics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), chaps. 3, 5, and 6.
For a discussion of Latino residential segregation, see Douglas Massey and
Nancy Denton, “Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and
Asians, 1970–80,” American Sociological Review 52 (December 1987): 802–825.
Massey and Denton found that Latino segregation in Los Angeles was increasing
over time, which was contrary to what was happening with black segregation in
Los Angeles during the same period.
76. By third-plus-generation, I mean individuals who are third, fourth, or fifth
generation. Second-generation refers to individuals who were born in the United
States to immigrant parents. The term 1.5-generation describes individuals who
are foreign born but migrated to the United States at a young age. First-generation
applies to the foreign-born respondents.
77. Zhou and Bankston, “Social Capital and the Adaptation of the Second
Generation,” 825.
78. Two exceptions are José E. Cruz, Identity and Power: Puerto Rican Politics
and the Challenge of Ethnicity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); and
Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement (New York: Verso
Press, 1989). Some examples of works from other disciplines are Ruiz, From Out
of the Shadows; Antionette Sedillo-López, ed., Historical Themes and Identity: Mesti-
zaje and Labels (New York: Garland, 1995); Menchaca, Recovering History, Con-
structing Race; Gracia and De Greiff, eds., Hispanics/Latinos in the United States;
Mary Romero, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Vilma Ortiz, eds., Challenging
Fronteras: Structuring Latina and Latino Lives in the United States: An Anthology of
Readings (New York: Routledge, 1997); Andrés Torres, ed., The Puerto Rican Move-
ment: Voices from the Diaspora (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998);
Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, eds., Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants
in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Alejandro Portes and
Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Stories of the Immigrant Second Generation (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 2001); Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorg-
mher, Ethnic Los Angeles (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1996); Martha E.
Bernal and George P. Knight, eds., Ethnic Identity: Formation and Transmission
among Hispanics and Other Minorities (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1993); William V. Flores and Rina Benmayor, eds., Latino Cultural Citizenship:
Claiming Identity, Space, and Rights (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997); Latina Feminist
Group, Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 2001); Ed Morales, Living in Spanglish: The Search for Latino Identity in Amer-
ica (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002).
212 Notes to Pages 17 – 18

79. See Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Voice and Equality; Verba and Nie, Par-
ticipation in America; Rosenstone and Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and
Democracy in America; Wolfinger and Rosenstone, Who Votes?; Verba, Nie, and
Kim, Participation and Political Equality; and Conway, Political Participation in the
United States.
80. Some examples are Cathy J. Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and
the Breakdown of Black Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Daw-
son, Black Visions; James S. Jackson, Patricia Gurin, and Shirley J. Hatchett, The
1984 Black Election Study (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Interuniversity Consortium for Polit-
ical and Social Research, 1989); Andrea Simpson, The Tie That Binds: Identity and
Political Attitudes in the Post–Civil Rights Generation (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1998); and Tate, From Protest to Politics.
81. Louis DeSipio, Counting on the Latino Vote: Latinos as New Electorate (Char-
lottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 4–5.
82. Carol Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture and Par-
ticipation in Boston (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993). See also Mary
Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Ange-
les Communities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
83. See F. Chris García, introduction to Pursuing Power: Latinos and the Political
System (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1997), and “Inputs into the
Political System: Participation,” 31–43; Rodney Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political
System: Two-Tiered Pluralism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), chaps.
1 and 2; David Rodríguez, Latino National Political Coalitions: Struggles and Chal-
lenges (New York: Routledge, 2002); and Rodolfo D. Torres and George Katsiafi-
cas, eds., Latino Social Movements: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives: A New
Political Science Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999).
84. Putnam, Bowling Alone.
85. Wolfinger and Rosenstone, Who Votes?
86. María Antonia Calvo and Steven Rosenstone, “Hispanic Political Partici-
pation” (Southwest Voter Institute, San Antonio, 1989).
87. F. Chris García, Angelo Falcón, and Rodolfo de la Garza, “Ethnicity and
Politics: Evidence from the Latino National Political Survey,” Hispanic Journal of
Behavioral Sciences 18 (1996): 91–103.
88. Verba et al., “Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources.”
89. Briefly, studies have different approaches to identifying “Latino” respon-
dents. For largely financial reasons, many studies use Spanish-surname lists
rather than random- digit dialing. Or they may focus sampling on the states that
contain the largest proportion of the Latino population. Both create difficulties in
asserting that the sample is “truly” representative of the national Latino popula-
tion as a whole.
90. From 1968 to 1972 Latinos in southern California and other areas of the
 Notes to Pages 18 – 19 213

country engaged in a set of mobilizations and protests that have been called the
Chicano Movement. The organization in southern California culminated in the
1970 Chicano Moratorium march, held in East Los Angeles’s Belvedere Park
(later renamed Salazar Park after the Los Angeles Times journalist who was shot by
police during this event). For a history of the Chicano Movement in California,
see Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power; and Mario T. García, ed., Rubén Salazar, Border
Correspondent: Selected Writings, 1955–1970 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995).
91. See, e.g., Simon Romero, “1,500 Students Leave Class to Protest against
Prop. 187,” Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 1994, 3; Beth Shuster and Chip Johnson,
“Students at 2 Pacoima Schools Protest 187,” Los Angeles Times [Valley Edition], 21
Oct. 1994, 1; Fred Alvarez and Maia Davis, “1,500 Students Leave Schools over
Prop. 187,” Los Angeles Times [Ventura West Edition], 29 Oct. 1994, 1; Amy Pyle
and Greg Hernández, “10,000 Students Protest Prop. 187 Immigration: Walkout
in Orange and L.A. Counties Is Largest Yet,” Los Angeles Times [Orange County
Edition], 3 Nov. 1994, 1.
92. Jon D. Markman, “Prop 187’s Quiet Student Revolution Activism,” Los
Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 1994, 3.
93. Dennis McLellan, “Stirring up Activist Passion in Today’s Youth,” Los
Angeles Times, 4 Nov. 1994, 1.
94. Quote from UCLA education professor James Trent, as reported by Mark-
man, “Prop 187’s Quiet Student Revolution Activism.”
95. For studies looking mainly at Anglos, see Campbell et al., The American
Voter; Verba and Nie, Participation in America; Rosenstone and Hansen, Mobiliza-
tion, Participation, and Democracy in America. For studies that include Latinos, see
Wolfinger and Rosenstone, Who Votes?; Verba et al., “Race, Ethnicity and Political
Resources;” García, Falcón, and de la Garza, “Ethnicity and Politics”; DeSipio,
Counting on the Latino Vote; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Voice and Equality; and
Jan Leighley, Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic
Minorities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
96. According to the 2000 census, East Los Angeles is 97 percent Latino, and
Montebello is 75 percent Latino. The 2000 census reported a median household
income of $28,544 for East Los Angeles and $38,805 for Montebello. On average,
East Los Angeles households are larger than those in Montebello, 4.2 versus 3.2
persons, so the income difference is even greater. The median household incomes
in my sample were similar: $28,321 and $37,877, respectively. Nationally, Latinos
have a median household income of $30,735, and for Latinos of Mexican origin it
is about the same, $30,400. So the income levels in the East Los Angeles sample
are similar to that of Latinos nationally, and the Montebello sample is slightly bet-
ter off than Latinos nationally. Also, according to the 2000 census, 43 percent of
Latinos aged 25 and older in East Los Angeles had less than 9 years of education,
214 Note to Page 19

compared to 19 percent of those from Montebello. Only 3 percent of Latinos from

East Los Angeles had a college or professional degree versus 10 percent of those
from Montebello. This puts Montebello at about the national average; about 10.6
percent of Latinos nationally have a college education, compared to about 27 per-
cent of Anglos. While we know that the sample respondents from the two areas
vary in terms of income levels, a comparison along the other parameter of socio-
economic status, years of education, is more difficult to make in the context of this
sample. All of the high school respondents were seniors and therefore have the
same amount of education, almost 12 years. The census data indicate that it is
likely that the parents of those from East Los Angeles are less educated than those
from Montebello, and this should affect their children’s political socialization and
attitudes. But for the adult school students, especially the foreign born, it is diffi-
cult to make a direct translation of years of education in Mexico or Latin Amer-
ica to years of education in the United States. One of the main problems with my
research design is that it does not allow for an analysis of the effect of education,
and the adult school students, specifically in Montebello, may be less educated
than the general population in the area. But since more of my Montebello Adult
School respondents were college educated than those in East Los Angeles, and
they were more likely to have white-collar jobs, I believe that the socioeconomic
differences between the two communities with regard to education are still pre-
sent in this sample. Forty-nine percent of East Los Angeles residents and 38
percent of Montebello residents were foreign born. Likewise, my East Los Ange-
les sample contained twice as many first-generation respondents as the Monte-
bello sample, and the Montebello sample had about twice as many third-plus-
generation respondents as the East Los Angeles sample.
97. One methodological problem with this study is that neither community is
a “discrete” space; both are “nested” in the megalopolis that is southern Califor-
nia. Thus, determining boundaries and understanding their meaning is difficult.
Self-selection is also an issue, in that individuals are living in these areas by
choice, and the differences I found among the residents could have existed prior
to their settlement in the particular area. However, as previous studies, done at
the neighborhood level, have found that the density of social ties and conditions
of mutual trust have important positive effects on immigrant adaptation, this
level of analysis can provide important information regarding the role of local
context in political socialization. These particular geographic spaces have a
meaningful impact on the social networks, organizational opportunities, and
community ties that the respondents experience in their day-to-day lives. These
networks and resources influence the development of collective identity(ies) for
residents in both communities. See Robert J. Sampson, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and
Thomas Gannon-Rowley, “Assessing ‘Neighborhood Effects’: Social Processes
and New Directions in Research,” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002): 443–478;
 Notes to Pages 19 – 21 215

and James G. Gimpel, J. Celeste Lay, and Jason E. Schuknecht, Cultivating Democ-
racy: Civic Environments and Political Socialization in America (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 2003).
98. For a discussion of qualitative sampling and interviewing methods, see
Robert S. Weiss, Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview
Studies (New York: Free Press, 1994).
99. Another reason that I chose schools to find my respondents is that one of the
central questions I wanted to look at was Latino identity. Choosing respondents
from “Latino” organizations, even if not explicitly political, would presume a cer-
tain level of group identification. Using Latino-majority schools allowed me to find
Latino respondents without requiring that they identify as “Latinos,” per se.
100. The sample was made up of 100 respondents: 50 seniors from the two
high schools (25 from each) and 50 adult school students from the two adult
schools (25 from each). At Garfield High School the respondents were chosen
from nontracked, required senior courses. At Montebello High School every fifth
name was chosen from a computerized list of the senior class. The choice of
respondents was less structured at the two adult schools because of the nature of
the adult school population. Because people attend adult school voluntarily and
because they may have conflicts that prevent them from attending class, the stu-
dent population fluctuates from day to day. The adult school respondents in both
adult schools were chosen from English as a second language (ESL), citizenship,
vocational education, and computer classes. The sample also included a few staff
people who grew up in the area where the school was located. About a third of
the interviews were conducted in Spanish, and some were conducted in both
Spanish and English. Participation was voluntary. A list of the respondents is
available in Appendix A.
101. I conducted all of the interviews and transcribed and translated more
than 85 percent of them. A bilingual research assistant completed the remainder.
Here I provide only the English translation.
102. In the discussion, I present the percentage of the respondents who held a
particular position to give a sense of what respondents thought relative to other
respondents. I also include quotations that are representative of the general per-
ceptions in order to let the respondents’ own voices be heard.
103. Irving Seidman, Interviewing and Qualitative Research: A Guide for Re-
searchers in Education and the Social Sciences (New York: Columbia University
Teachers College Press, 1991), 4.
104. Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research: Tech-
niques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2d ed. (Thousand Oaks,
Calif.: Sage, 1998), 12.
105. Ibid.
106. For a discussion of these anti-immigrant tendencies in California, see
216 Notes to Pages 21 – 23

Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); and
William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2004). For an account of the ascriptive undertones of these movements, see Smith,
Civic Ideals.
107. DeSipio, Counting on the Latino Vote.
108. For the qualitative work, see Ochoa, Becoming Neighbors; Gary M. Segura,
F. Chris García, Rodolfo O. de la Garza, and Harry Pachón, Social Capital and the
Latino Community (Claremont, Calif.: Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, 2000), 42–52.
For the quantitative studies, see Ricardo Ramírez, “The Changing California
Voter: A Longitudinal Analysis of Latino Political Mobilization and Participation”
(paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Associ-
ation, San Francisco, September 2001); and Luis Ricardo Fraga and Ricardo
Ramírez, “Unquestioned Influence: Latinos and the 2000 Election in California,”
in Rodolfo de la Garza and Louis DeSipio, eds., Muted Voices: Latinos and the 2000
Elections (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004).
109. For examples of how these kinds of messages were sent by mainstream
California media sources, see Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising.
110. Ochoa’s study of Mexican Americans in La Puente, California, during the
same period presented very similar findings regarding intracommunity rela-
tions. See Ochoa, Becoming Neighbors.
111. This perception is a fairly accurate one, given the stratification that exists
in the labor market in Los Angeles and the importance of English skills in the
stratification process. See Rebecca Morales and Paul M. Ong, “The Illusion of
Progress: Latinos in Los Angeles,” in Rebecca Morales and Frank Bonilla, eds.,
Latinos in a Changing U.S. Economy (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993), 55–84. For
a larger discussion of immigrants in the California economy, see Kevin McCarthy
and Georges Vernez, Immigration in a Changing Economy: California’s Experience
(Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1997), chaps. 5–9.
112. At the time of the interviews, Matthew Martínez and Esteban Torres were
the congressional representatives for Montebello. At the state level, Montebello
was represented by Charles Calderón in the senate and Martha Escútia and
Grace Napolitano in the assembly. At the local level, of five seats, the Montebello
City Council had three Latinos: Art Payán, Kathy Salazar, and Arnold Alvarez-
Glasman. Both East Los Angeles and Montebello were represented by Gloria
Molina on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. On the congressional
level, East Los Angeles was divided between Congressman Xavier Becerra and
Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard. On the state level, East Los Angeles’s
senator was Richard Polanco, and its assemblypersons were Antonio Villaraigosa
and Luis Caldera. In the Los Angeles City Council, Boyle Heights and El Sereno
(both parts of East Los Angeles) were represented by Richard Alatorre.
113. As Tate cogently points out, we know little about representation in gen-
 Notes to Pages 23 – 27 217

eral and descriptive representation in particular. Her work provides important

insights into its impact in the African American community. Similar work needs
to be done on the effects of Latino representation on Latino political attitudes and
activity. See Tate, Black Faces in the Mirror, esp. chap. 1.
114. Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics, chap. 5.
115. Jimy M. Sanders, “Ethnic Boundaries and Identity in Plural Societies,”
Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002): 327–357, 330.
116. Ibid., 329.
117. For a discussion of how to incorporate relational analyses into social sci-
ence research, see Emirbayer, “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology.”
118. E.g., see Peter Skerry, Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), chap. 1; and Earl Shorris, Latinos:
A Biography of the People (New York: Avon Books, 1992), chap. 7.
119. For an overview of the experiences of the Mothers of East Los Angeles,
see Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists.

Chapter 2. Legacies of Conquest

Epigraph: Christopher Rand, Los Angeles, the Ultimate City (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1967), 10.
1. For an overview of these historical experiences, see Tomás Almaguer, Racial
Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1994); Douglas Monroy, Thrown among Strangers: The
Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier America (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993); Matt García, A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making
of Greater Los Angeles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002);
George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in
Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); and
Rodolfo Acuña, Anything but Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles (New
York: Verso Press, 1997).
2. Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary Pub-
lic Discourse (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).
3. Daniel Weintraub, “State’s Budget Mess: Will It Ever Clear Up?” Los Ange-
les Times, 24 Oct. 1994. California’s even more severe budget crisis at the start of
the twenty-first century shows the degree to which these budget problems have
yet to be resolved.
4. Ronald Brownstein and Richard Simon, “Hospitality Turns into Hostility:
California Has a Long History of Welcoming Newcomers for Their Cheap
Labor—Until Times Turn Rough. The Current Backlash Is Also Fueled by the
Scope and Nature of the Immigration,” Los Angeles Times, 14 Nov. 1993.
218 Notes to Pages 27 – 30

5. Weintraub, “State’s Budget Mess.”

6. Fred Alvarez, “Rebuilding the Economy: Businesses Adapting to a New
Climate. Labor: Workers Displaced by the Devastation of the Past Four Years Are
Shifting Gears, Striking out on Their Own or Transferring Old Job Skills to New
Professions,” Los Angeles Times, 22 May 1994.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Weintraub, “State’s Budget Mess,”
10. Benjamin Zycher, “Governor Wilson, Come Clean on the Tax Hike Instead
of Immigrant-bashing, Let’s Talk about the Catastrophe Left by His Budget ‘Solu-
tion,’ ” Los Angeles Times, 22 Oct. 1994.
11. In fact, Wilson made a brief, aborted run for the presidency in 1996. His
main message was his opposition to immigration and affirmative action.
12. Brownstein and Simon, “Hospitality Turns into Hostility.”
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Vlae Kershner, “A Hot Issue for the ’90s: California Leads in Immigration—
and Backlash,” San Francisco Chronicle, 21 June 1993, A1.
16. Ibid.
17. Gebe Martínez, “The Times Poll; As Orange County Neighborhoods
Change, Tensions Build: Ethnic Makeup of Many Communities Is Shifting. Many
Fear the Change Is Not Always for the Better,” Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 1993, A1.
18. Kershner, “A Hot Issue for the ’90s.”
19. Ibid.; and Eric Bailey and Dan Morain, “Anti-Immigration Bills Flood
Legislature; Rights: Republicans See the Measures as a Way to Help the State Cut
Costs. Critics See the Move as Political Opportunism and, in Some Cases,
Racism,” Los Angeles Times, 3 May 1993, A3.
20. Kershner, “A Hot Issue for the ’90s.”
21. Ibid.
22. Bailey and Morain, “Anti-Immigration Bills Flood Legislature.”
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. As of March 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, formerly
located in the Justice Department, was reorganized under the Office of Homeland
Security. It is now called the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
27. For a highly detailed discussion of the metaphors used to describe immi-
grants during this campaign and their effects, see Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising.
28. Gebe Martínez and Patrick J. McDonnell, “Proposition 187 Backers Count-
ing on Message, not Strategy,” Los Angeles Times, 30 Oct. 1994, A1.
29. Martínez and McDonnell, “Proposition 187.”
 Notes to Pages 30 – 34 219

30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Suzanne Espinosa and Benjamin Pimentel, “Anger at Immigration Over-
flow,” San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Aug. 1993, A1.
36. Ibid.
37. For an overview of this story, see Luis A. Carrillo, “Perspectives on the
‘Tagger Shooting’: How to Kill a Latino Kid and Walk Free; The Treatment Given
the Killer of an Unarmed 18-Year-Old Tagger Proves That the Real Affirmative
Action Is for White Males,” op-ed, Los Angeles Times, 27 Nov. 1995; Efraín Hernán-
dez, “Masters Will Clean Trash, Not Graffiti: Judge Changes Punishment for Gun
Violations due to Concerns for the Safety of a Man Who Killed a Tagger,” Los
Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 1995; Ann W. O’Neill and Nicholas Riccardi, “Hurt Tagger
Was Treated as Suspect, not Victim, Lawyer Says Crime: Police Deny Accusations
That Investigation of Jan. 31 Shooting Favored the Gunman. They Cite Conflict-
ing Stories Given by the Youth,” Los Angeles Times, 15 Mar. 1995.
38. Carillo, “Perspectives on the ‘Tagger Shooting.’ ”
39. O’Neill and Riccardi, “Hurt Tagger Was Treated as Suspect.”
40. Mike Davis, “The Social Origins of the Referendum,” NACLA Report on the
Americas 29 (1995): 24–28.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. O’Neill and Riccardi, “Hurt Tagger Was Treated as Suspect.”
44. Carrillo, “Perspectives on the ‘Tagger Shooting.’ ”
45. Ibid.
46. This is borne out by the fact that all racial-ethnic groups in California other
than Anglos voted against Proposition 209: 76 percent of Mexican Americans, 75
percent of African Americans, and 61 percent of Asians. Santa Ana, Brown Tide
Rising, 129.
47. R. Michael Alvarez and Lisa García Bedolla, “The Revolution against
Affirmative Action in California: Politics, Economics and Proposition 209,” State
Politics and Policy Quarterly 4 (2004): 1–17.
48. Ron Unz, Roundtable presentation to the Heritage Foundation, Washing-
ton, D.C., Oct. 1998.
49. Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising, 200.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 247.
52. Ibid. This is similar to Schmidt’s finding that language policy debates are
more about competing visions of national identity than the costs and/or benefits
220 Notes to Pages 34 – 37

of particular language policy programs. See Ronald J. Schmidt Sr., Language Pol-
icy and Identity Politics in the United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
2000).
53. Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
(Boston: Back Bay Books, 1993).
54. Leonard Pitt, The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-
speaking Californians, 1846–1890, 2d ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1970), 16–17.
55. See Takaki, A Different Mirror, 166–169; and David J. Weber, ed., Foreigners
in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans (Albuquerque: Uni-
versity of New Mexico Press, 1973), chap. 2.
56. Takaki, A Different Mirror, 170–172.
57. Willam Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remak-
ing of Its Mexican Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 6–9.
58. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 2; emphasis in the original. See also William
Alexander McClung, Landscapes of Desire: Anglo Mythologies of Los Angeles (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 2000), esp. chap. 2.
59. Monroy, Thrown among Strangers, 208–9.
60. Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York:
Verso Press, 1990); and Raphael J. Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White: Race and
Power in Los Angeles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), chap. 2.
61. Robert Mayer, Los Angeles: A Chronological and Documentary History, 1542–
1976 (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1978), 112.
62. Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to
American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848–1930, 6th ed. (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 108.
63. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 13.
64. See Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society; and Richard Griswold del
Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850–1890 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1979).
65. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 12.
66. Ibid., 25.
67. See Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 38; and Camarillo, Chi-
canos in a Changing Society, chaps. 3, 5.
68. Pitt, Decline of the Californios, 197.
69. Ibid.
70. The word greaser was actually included in the act until it was removed by
amendment the following year. See Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society, 108;
and Pitt, Decline of the Californios, 197.
71. For a discussion of the economics and politics behind the original foreign
miners’ tax during the gold rush, see Pitt, Decline of the Californios, chap. 3.
 Notes to Pages 37 – 40 221

72. Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society, 108; and Pitt, Decline of the Cali-
fornios, 198.
73. Mayer, Los Angeles, 110.
74. Martha Menchaca provides a detailed account of how different incentive
structures encouraged Mexicans to define themselves either as Native American or
as Mexican, depending on their interests and their state of residence. See Martha
Menchaca, Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of
Mexican Americans (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), esp. chap. 4.
75. Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines, chaps. 1–3.
76. The Native American population’s inability to confirm their land grants
was due to problems that began under Mexican rule and only worsened after
annexation. For a detailed discussion of this history, see Lisbeth Haas, Conquests
and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995).
77. Menchaca, Recovering History, Constructing Race, 264.
78. Ibid., 66.
79. David G. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immi-
grants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995),
20–25.
80. Menchaca, Recovering History, Constructing Race, 272.
81. Pitt, Decline of the Calfornios, 42–45.
82. Ibid., 45.
83. Visitors to Santa Barbara probably have seen De la Guerra Street, which is
named after this prominent family in Santa Barbara. Menchaca, Recovering His-
tory, Constructing Race, 221.
84. Ibid., 220–21.
85. Pitt, Decline of the Californios, 132–33; Griswold del Castillo, The Los Ange-
les Barrio, 154.
86. Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 156.
87. Pitt, Decline of the Californios, 136.
88. Ibid.
89. The other county where the Know-Nothings were defeated was Santa Bar-
bara. For a fuller discussion, see Pitt, Decline of the Californios, 137.
90. Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 154–55; Pitt, Decline of the Cal-
ifornios, 201.
91. Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 158.
92. Pitt, Decline of the Californios, 202.
93. Ibid.
94. For example, in his campaign for assemblyman, Spanish-language news-
paper editor Francisco Ramírez won only 692 of 2,245 ballots cast. See Pitt, Decline
of the Californios, 203–4; and Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 158.
222 Notes to Pages 40 – 44

95. Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 159.

96. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 264 n. 47.
97. James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in
Southern California (Northridge: Center for Geographical Studies, California State
University, Northridge, 1997), 10; and John R. Chávez, Eastside Landmark: A His-
tory of the East Los Angeles Community Union, 1968–1993 (Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 1998), chap. 6.
98. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 24.
99. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 17.
100. Allen and Turner, The Ethnic Quilt, 95.
101. Mayer, Los Angeles, 117.
102. Allen and Turner, The Ethnic Quilt, 93
103. Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850–1930
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 188.
104. For a discussion of the history of Mexican American geographic and
political isolation, see Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, chap. 5.
105. Ibid., 26.
106. Quoted in Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 47.
107. Ibid.
108. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 31.
109. Ibid., 149.
110. Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 150. In July 2003, the Mexi-
can American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of
those U.S. citizens who were deported to Mexico during these campaigns. The
suit requests reparations on their behalf. The outcome of the suit is still pending.
111. Mayer, Los Angeles, 125–26. History does repeat itself. In the Rampart
scandal that erupted in the late 1990s in the LAPD, there were reports of police
colluding with INS agents to deport suspected gang members, some of whom
were legal immigrants who had not been convicted of any crimes.
112. For a discussion of the Mexican American experience in Los Angeles dur-
ing the depression, see Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez, Decade
of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1995); and Abraham Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the
Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929–1939 (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1974).
113. Balderrama and Rodríguez, Decade of Betrayal, 2–3.
114. See Juan Ramón García, Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexi-
can Undocumented Workers in 1954 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980); and
Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 3d ed. (New York:
HarperCollins, 1988), 266–269.
 Notes to Pages 44 – 48 223

115. For a summary of the Sleepy Lagoon incident, see Acuña, Occupied Amer-
ica, 255–57.
116. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 124.
117. Ibid., 256.
118. For a more extensive discussion of the causes and effects of the Zoot Suit
Riots, see Mauricio Mazón, The Zoot Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihi-
lation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984).
119. Acuña, Occupied America, 256.
120. Ibid., 257.
121. Menchaca describes this well in her discussion of the “social apartness”
of Anglos and Mexicans in Santa Paula, California, during the late twentieth cen-
tury. Martha Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginal-
ization and Discrimination in California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995).
122. Monroy, Thrown among Strangers.
123. See Weber, Foreigners in Their Native Land; Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines;
and Takaki, A Different Mirror.
124. For a more detailed discussion of the legal and historical specifics of Mex-
ican racial categorizations in the United States, see Ian F. Haney-López, White by
Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: New York University Press, 1996);
and Menchaca, Recovering History, Constructing Race.
125. Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines, 57. But, as we saw earlier in this chapter in
the case of Manuel Domínquez, the limitations on the rights of “Indians” some-
times also had a negative effect on upper-class Californios. Pitt, Decline of the Cal-
ifornios, 202.
126. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 14.
127. Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 127.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid., 133.
130. Ibid., 134.
131. This history of East Los Angeles is based on information from Ricardo
Romo, East Los Angeles: History of a Barrio (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1983); Leonard Pitt and Dale Pitt, Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and
County (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 129–30; and Griswold del
Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio.
132. See George W. Mohoff and Jack P. Valov, A Stroll through Russiantown (Los
Angeles: G. W. Mohoff and P. Valov, 1996).
133. Romo, East Los Angeles, 62.
134. Garza v. County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, 918 F.2d 763 (9th Cir.
1990). J. Morgan Kousser, who provided expert testimony in the case, argues in
chapter 2 of Colorblind Justice that the evidence of discriminatory intent against
Mexicans was overwhelming. See J. Morgan Kousser, Colorblind Injustice: Minor-
224 Notes to Pages 48 – 53

ity Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1999).
135. Romo, East Los Angeles, 10.
136. Ibid.
137. For a more general discussion of the negative impact segregation can
have on the socioeconomic status of communities of color, see Douglas S. Massey
and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Under-
class (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993).
138. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 96.
139. Ibid., 97.
140. See Julie Leininger Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of
Power (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), chap. 3.
141. For an extensive description of the activities of the GI Forum, a Mexican
American veterans’ organization, see Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans.
142. Pitt and Pitt, Los Angeles A to Z, 102.
143. See Sonenshein, Politics in Black and White, chap. 1.
144. No Latino held a state executive office during the twentieth century in
California until Cruz Bustamante was elected lieutenant governor in 1999. See
Mart Martin, The Almanac of Women and Minorities in American Politics (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview Press, 1999), chap. 3.
145. Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement (New York:
Verso Press, 1989), 55–56.
146. Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, 121.
147. Muñoz, Youth, Identity, and Power, 55.
148. For an overall history of TELACU, see Chávez, Eastside Landmark.
149. Rubén Salazar was a prominent journalist for the Los Angeles Times and
wrote highly controversial political columns criticizing race relations in Los
Angeles and the United States. For an overview of his life and work, see Mario T.
García, ed., Rubén Salazar, Border Correspondent: Selected Writings, 1955–1970
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
150. Chávez, Eastside Landmark, 256.
151. This discussion is based on Mary Pardo, Mexican American Women
Activists: Identity and Resistance inTwo Los Angeles Communities (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1998), chaps. 2, 3, 5; and Mary Pardo, “Mexican Ameri-
can Grassroots Community Activists: ‘Mothers of East Los Angeles,’ ” in F. Chris
García, ed., Pursuing Power: Latinos and the Political System (Notre Dame: Univer-
sity of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 151–68.
152. Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists, 62.
153. Pardo, “Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists,”
163–64.
154. Montebello News, 4 Sept. 1936.
 Notes to Pages 53 – 56 225

155. Cecelia Rasmussen, “Community Profile: Montebello,” Los Angeles Times,

24 Jan. 1997, 2.
156. Montebello Chamber of Commerce, “A History of the City of Monte-
bello,” pamphlet, Montebello, Calif., 1985.
157. Monroy, Thrown among Strangers, 208–9.
158. Deverell describes just such an instance in 1857. Whites were concerned
that Mexicans would retaliate after a white deputy marshal shot and killed an
unarmed Mexican over two dollars. The El Monte Boys were called in to help
protect the city. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 15–19.
159. Ibid., 23.
160. The majority of my information on the Simons Brick Plant is taken from
Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, chap. 4. I also gathered information from Virginia
Escalante, “El Pueblo de Simons,” Los Angeles Times, 23 Sept. 1982, 1–4.
Escalante’s piece was based on five years of research conducted by Montebello
resident Ray Ramírez on the history of the Simons plant. See also Margarita
Nieto, “Chicano History Brick by Brick,” Los Angeles Times, 18 Sept. 1988, 3.
161. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 137.
162. Ibid.
163. By 1905, the Simons family had already been making bricks in southern
California for over two decades. They also had plants in Santa Monica and
Pasadena. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 133–34.
164. Ibid., 135.
165. Nieto, “Chicano History Brick by Brick,” 3.
166. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 140.
167. Ibid., 142–43.
168. Cecelia Rasmussen, “Brick Firm Cemented Lives,” Los Angeles Times, 6
Nov. 1995, 3.
169. Ibid. The inability of workers to organize a union was often praised by
the Los Angeles Times as one of the best aspects of the Simons model. See Deverell,
Whitewashed Adobe, 141.
170. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 149–53.
171. Ibid., 164.
172. Ibid., 166.
173. Ibid., 154.
174. Ibid.
175. Ibid.
176. City historical records, City of Montebello Public Library.
177. Gary M. Segura, F. Chris García, Rodolfo de la Garza, and Harry P.
Pachón, eds., Social Capital and the Latino Community (Claremont, Calif.: Tomás
Rivera Policy Institute), 43.
178. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 154.
226 Notes to Pages 57 – 62

179. Ibid.
180. Ibid.
181. As quoted in Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 154.
182. Rasmussen, “Brick Firm Cemented Lives,” 3.
183. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 168.
184. Rasmussen, “Brick Firm Cemented Lives,” 3.
185. Escalante, “El Pueblo de Simons,” 1–4.
186. Rasmussen, “Brick Firm Cemented Lives,” 3.
187. Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 169–70.
188. Nieto, “Chicano History Brick by Brick,” 3.
189. Ibid., 159.
190. Ibid., 160.
191. Segura et al., Social Capital and the Latino Community, 43.
192. Ibid., 51.
193. Ibid., 46–52.
194. Ibid., 46.
195. Ibid., 46–47.
196. Ibid., 47.

Chapter 3. A Thin Line between

Love and Hate

Epigraph: Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” in David
A. Hollinger and Charles Capper, eds., The American Intellectual Tradition, 2d ed.,
vol. 2, 1865 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 327–34.
1. See, e.g., F. Chris García and Rodolfo de la Garza, The Chicano Political Expe-
rience: Three Perspectives (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977);
Rodney Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism (Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press, 1992); Juan Gómez Quiñones, Chicano Politics:
Reality and Promise, 1940–1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1990); Andrés Torres and José E. Velázquez, eds., introduction to The Puerto Rican
Movement: Voices from the Diaspora (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998);
María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South
Florida, 1959–1994 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), chap. 3.
2. For a discussion of those that deemphasized language maintenance, see
Mario T. García, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930–1960
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); for those emphasizing language main-
tenance, see Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 2d ed. (New
York: Harper & Row, 1999).
3. Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major, and Claude Steele, “Social Stigma,” in
 Notes to Pages 62 – 64 227

Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey, eds., The Handbook of Social
Psychology, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 504–53, quote on 505.
4. Henri Tajfel and J. C. Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Con-
flict,” in William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel, eds., The Social Psychology of
Intergroup Relations (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Books, 1979), 33–47; Henri
Tajfel and J. C. Turner, “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior,” in
Stephen Worchel and William G. Austin, eds., Psychology of Intergroup Relations
(Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986), 7–24; and Marilynn B. Brewer and Rupert J. Brown,
“Intergroup Relations,” in Gilbert, Fiske, and Lindzey, eds., The Handbook of Social
Psychology, 554–94.
5. Amado Padilla and William Pérez, “Acculturation, Social Identity, and
Social Cognition: A New Perspective,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 25
(2003): 35–55.
6. Ibid., 518.
7. Crocker, Major, and Steele, “Social Stigma,” 519.
8. Ibid.
9. Bruce G. Link and Jo C. Phelan, “Conceptualizing Stigma,” Annual Review
of Sociology 27 (2001): 363–85, 380.
10. Crocker, Major, and Steele, “Social Stigma”; and Link and Phelan, “Con-
ceptualizing Stigma.”
11. Robert M. Krauss and Chi-Yue Chiu, “Language and Social Behavior,” in
Gilbert, Fiske, and Lindzey, eds., The Handbook of Social Psychology, 41–88.
12. Joshua A. Fishman, Language and Ethnicity in Minority Sociolinguistic Per-
spective (Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 1989), 6. See also Joshua A. Fishman,
“Macrosociolinguistics and the Sociology of Language in the Early Eighties,”
Annual Review of Sociology 11 (1985): 113–27; and Gillian Sankoff, The Social Life of
Language (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980).
13. Lesley Milroy, “Language and Group Identity,” Journal of Multilingual and
Multicultural Development 3 (1982): 207–16, 209–10.
14. Ibid., 209.
15. Ofelia García, José Luis Morín, and Klaudia M. Rivera, “How Threatened
Is the Spanish of New York Puerto Ricans? Language Shift with Vaivén,” in
Joshua Fishman, ed., Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Reversing Language Shift,
Revisited: A 21st-Century Perspective (Buffalo, N.Y.: Multilingual Matters, 2001),
44–73.
16. Ana Celia Zentella, “Lexical Leveling in Four New York City Spanish
Dialects: Linguistic and Social Factors,” Hispania 73 (1990): 1094–2015, 1102.
17. Ana Celia Zentella, Growing Up Bilingual: Puerto Rican Children in New York
(New York: Blackwell, 1997).
18. Bonnie Urciuoli, Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language,
Race and Class (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997).
228 Notes to Pages 64 – 67

19. Donaldo P. Macedo, Bessie Dendrinos, and Panayota Gounari, The Hege-
mony of English (Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2003).
20. For an overview of this history, see Ronald Schmidt Sr., Language Policy and
Identity Politics in the United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000),
chaps. 3, 6.
21. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multi-
cultural Society (New York: Norton, 1992), 109–10.
22. Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 194; emphasis in the original.
23. Ibid., 196.
24. For Americanization and Mexican Americans, see George J. Sánchez,
Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles,
1900–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), chap. 4; George J. Sánchez,
“‘Go after the Women’: Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant Woman,
1915–1929,” in Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Mul-
ticultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 1994), 284–
97; Vicki L. Ruiz, Out of the Shadows (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998),
33–35; Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on the Anglo-
Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880–1940 (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1987), 63–86; Gilbert González, Chicano Education in the Era of Seg-
regation (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1990), 30–61. For Native Americans,
see Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (Boston:
Back Bay Books, 1993), chap. 9. For discussions of twentieth-century American-
ization programs in the United States, see Richard Conant Harper, The Course of
the Melting Pot Idea to 1910 (New York: Arno Press, 1980), chap. 1; and Joseph
Dorinson, “The Educational Alliance: An Institutional Study in Americanization
and Acculturation,” in Michael D’Innocenzo and Josef P. Sirefman, eds., Immigra-
tion and Ethnicity: American Society—“Melting Pot” or “Salad Bowl?” (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), 93–108.
25. Richard Rodríguez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
(New York: Bantam Books, 1983), 5. See also Patricia Gándara, “Learning English
in California: Guideposts for the Nation,” in Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and
Mariela M. Páez, eds., Latinos: Remaking America (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 2002).
26. U.S. Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge, “Speech to the Senate.” 28th Cong., Con-
gressional Record, vol. 177 (1896), 281.
27. Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense about America’s Immigration
Disaster (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 89. Parenthetical statement and empha-
sis in the original.
28. Alejandro Portes and Robert L. Bach, Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican
 Notes to Pages 67 – 78 229

Immigrants in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984),

chap. 4.
29. Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850–1890: A Social
History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 176.
30. See Brimelow, Alien Nation; and Linda Chávez, Out of the Barrio: Toward a
New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation (New York: Basic Books, 1991), introd. and
chap. 1.
31. For examples of works that address this conflict, see Rodolfo de la Garza
and Adela Flores, “The Impact of Mexican Immigrants on the Political Behavior
of Chicanos: A Clarification of Issues and Some Hypotheses for Future Research,”
in Harley L. Browning and Rodolfo de la Garza, eds., Mexican Immigrants and
Mexican Americans: An Evolving Relation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986),
211–229; David Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Immigrants, Mexican Amer-
icans, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995);
Martha Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginalization
and Discrimination in California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), chap. 9.
32. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 6.
33. Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders, 200–202.
34. Gilda Ochoa, Becoming Neighbors in a Mexican American Community: Power,
Conflict and Solidarity (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004).
35. Amado M. Padilla and David Durán, “The Psychological Dimension in
Understanding Immigrant Students,” in Rubén G. Rumbaut and Wayne A. Cor-
nelius, eds., California’s Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for
Educational Policy (San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of
California, San Diego, 1995), 131–60.
36. This could help to explain why some Latino parents supported Proposi-
tion 227, an initiative to end bilingual education in the state. This question is
addressed in more depth at the end of this chapter.
37. Krauss and Chiu, “Language and Social Behavior,” 54.
38. Schmidt, Language Policy and Identity Politics.
39. John Edwards, “Language in Group and Individual Identity,” in Glynis M.
Breakwell, ed., Social Psychology of Identity and Self Concept (London: Surrey Uni-
versity Press, 1992), 129–46.
40. Milton Gordon, Assimilation in American Life (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1964), 81.
41. These findings are consistent with findings from the Children of Immi-
grants Longitudinal Survey (CILS), conducted by Rumbaut and Portes. The CILS
included 4,288 respondents, all of whom were of either the 1.5 or second genera-
tion. They found that in 1995–96 only 1.2 percent of their Mexican-origin respon-
dents and 0.4 percent of their Nicaraguan respondents reported a purely “Amer-
ican” identity. See the introduction to Rubén Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, eds.,
230 Notes to Pages 78 – 85

Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America (Berkeley: University of California

Press, 2001), 1–19.
42. For a discussion of the political process underlying the adoption of the
term Chicano, see Acuña, Occupied America, 338–39.
43. It is important to keep in mind that when I say Latino, I mean whatever
ethnic-origin identifier the interviewee used to describe himself or herself. I used
the term chosen by the interviewee when I asked questions regarding how he or
she defined and felt about the members of his or her racial group.
44. Again, this is consistent with findings from the Children of Immigrants
Study and previous studies of Latino self-identification and language. See Rubén
G. Rumbaut, “The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem, and Segmented
Assimilation among Children of Immigrants,” International Migration Review 28
(1994), 748–94, 779–80; and Aída Hurtado and Carlos H. Arce, “Mexicans, Chi-
canos, Mexican Americans or Pochos . . . ¿Qué Somos? The Impact of Language
and Nativity on Ethnic Labeling,” Aztlán 17 (1987): 103–30.
45. Mahzarin R. Banaji and Nilanjana Dasgupta, “The Consciousness of Social
Beliefs: A Program of Research on Stereotyping and Prejudice,” in Vincent Y.
Yzerbyt, Guy Lories, and Benoit Dardenne, eds., Metacognition: Cognitive and
Social Dimensions (London: Sage, 1998).
46. Crocker, Major, and Steele, “Social Stigma,” 532.
47. Cathy Cohen calls this in-group marginalization secondary marginaliza-
tion and describes how it affects the African American community’s response to
the AIDS crisis. Her important work reminds us that we need to be aware of the
existence of hierarchy among groups and also within them. See Cathy J. Cohen,
The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1999).
48. Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness.
49. As noted in the introduction, this is consistent with other studies that have
shown social networks in the United States to be remarkably homogeneous. For
a review of this literature, see Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James
M. Cook, “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks,” Annual Review of
Sociology 27 (2001): 415–44.
50. Children Now, “A Different World: Children’s Perceptions of Race and
Class in Media” (http://www.childrennow.org/media/mc98/DiffWorld.html,
1998), 1.
51. Frank Gilliam, Iyengar Shanto, Adam Simon, and Oliver Wright, “Crime
in Black and White: The Violent, Scary World of Local News,” Harvard Interna-
tional Journal of Press/Politics 1 (1996): 6–23.
52. At the time of the interviews, gang members would speak of their gang
affiliations as being “from” a particular place or gang.
 Notes to Pages 86 – 96 231

53. Being shaved bald was at the time a common feature among some Latino
gangs.
54. Whittier is a relatively affluent, majority-Anglo city near Montebello. “Old
town” is the city’s historic district, which consists of a group of restaurants, bars,
and other nightlife venues along one main street. It is a popular night spot for
young people.
55. Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders, chap. 8.
56. For a more detailed discussion of racial and ethnic stratification in the Los
Angeles labor market, see Rebecca Morales and Paul M. Ong, “The Illusion of
Progress: Latinos in Los Angeles,” in Rebecca Morales and Frank Bonilla, eds.,
Latinos in a Changing U.S. Economy (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993), 55–84. For
a fuller discussion of immigrants in the California economy, see Kevin McCarthy
and Georges Vernez, Immigration in a Changing Economy: California’s Experience
(Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1997), chaps. 5–9.
57. For a more in-depth discussion of these differences, see Crocker, Major,
and Steele, “Social Stigma,” 507–8.
58. For a discussion of this process among African Americans, see Hazel V.
Carby, “Policing Black Woman’s Body in an Urban Context,” in Cathy J. Cohen,
Kathleen Jones, and Joan C. Tronto, eds., Women Transforming Politics: An Alter-
native Reader (New York: New York University Press), 151–66.
59. A recent RAND study estimates that immigrants to California from Mex-
ico and other Latin American countries have from 7.5 to 10.5 years of education.
McCarthy and Vernez, Immigration in a Changing Economy, 38.
60. Victor M. Valle and Rodolfo D. Torres, Latino Metropolis (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 2000), 54–55.
61. Ibid, 54.
62. Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary
American Public Discourse (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). For an
overview of how the media treats immigration in general, see Leo R. Chávez,
Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 2001).
63. Valle and Torres report a 1998 study that found that Latinos make up only
2.8 percent of editorial employees in the nation’s newspapers. As a result, “it is
hard to imagine Latinos having much of an impact on the culture of mainstream
journalism.” Valle and Torres, Latino Metropolis, 57.
64. It is estimated that 23 percent of Latinos in California voted in favor of
Proposition 187. For an overview of the proposition and the politics surrounding
the campaign, see Caroline J. Tolbert and Rodney E. Hero, “Race/Ethnicity and
Direct Democracy: An Analysis of California’s Illegal Immigration Initiative,”
Journal of Politics 58 (1996): 806–18.
65. Although the nature of this sample makes it difficult to separate the com-
232 Notes to Pages 100 – 101

munity and generational effects, the fact that the first-generation respondents
from Montebello tended to be more anti-immigrant and that the third-plus-
generation respondents from East Los Angeles tended to be more pro-immigrant
leads me to believe that the effect is contextual more than generational. Genera-
tional conflict does exist in East Los Angeles, but the multigenerational nature of
the community and the levels of community identity and cohesion that exist
there temper its effects.

Chapter 4. Why Vote?

Epigraph: Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary
American Public Discourse (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 1.
1. See, e.g., Michael Dawson’s analysis of Black feminism in Black Visions: The
Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001), chap. 4. See also bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to
Center (Boston: South End Press, 1984); Latina Feminist Group, Telling to Live:
Latina Feminist Testimonies (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001); Kim-
berlé Crenshaw, Kendall Thomas, Neil Gotanda, and Gary Peller, eds., Critical
Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement (New York: New Press,
1995); Audre Lorde, Sister/Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing
Press, 1984); and Adrien Katherine Wing, ed., Critical Race Feminism: A Reader
(New York: New York University Press, 1997).
2. Dawson, Black Visions, 4.
3. Among the political scientists who do address these questions are Michael
Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994), and Black Visions; Jennifer Hochschild, Facing
up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1995); Michael Jones-Correa, Between Two Nations: The Polit-
ical Predicament of Latinos in New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998);
Katherine Tate, From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); and Jan Leighley, Strength in
Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2001).
4. Jan E. Leighley and Arnold Vedlitz, “Race, Ethnicity and Political Partici-
pation: Competing Models and Contrasting Explanations,” American Journal of
Political Science 61 (1999): 1092–1114, 1095–97.
5. One of the first studies in this area was Angus Campbell, Phillip E. Con-
verse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York:
John Wiley and Sons, 1960). See also Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and
Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cam-
 Notes to Pages 101 – 102 233

bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); Steven J. Rosenstone and John
Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America (New York:
Macmillan, 1993); Raymond E. Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosenstone, Who Votes?
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980); Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Par-
ticipation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1972); Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie, and Jae-on Kim, Participation
and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1978); and M. Margaret Conway, Political Participation in the United
States, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1991).
6. Henry E. Brady, Sidney Verba, and Kay Lehman Schlozman, “Beyond SES:
A Resource Model of Participation,” American Political Science Review 89 (1995):
271–94. See also introduction to Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Voice and Equality.
7. Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Voice and Equality, 5.
8. Tate, From Protest to Politics. For Latino findings, see F. Chris García, Angelo
Falcón, and Rodolfo de la Garza, “Ethnicity and Politics: Evidence from the
Latino National Political Survey,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 18 (1996):
91–103; and John A. García, “Political Participation: Resources and Involvement
among Latinos and the American Political System,” in F. Chris García, ed., Pur-
suing Power: Latinos and the Political System (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1997), 44–71.
9. Leighley and Vedlitz, “Race, Ethnicity, and Participation,” 1094.
10. Ibid.
11. Rosenstone and Hansen, Mobilization and Participation.
12. For linked fate, see Dawson, Behind the Mule; for political alienation, see
Marvin E. Olsen, “Two Categories of Political Alienation,” Social Forces 47 (1969):
288–99; for group identity, see Tate, From Protest to Politics; and Carol Hardy-
Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture and Political Participation in
Boston (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993); for group conflict, see Henri
Tajfel and J. Turner, “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior,” in
Stephen Worchel and William Austin, eds., The Psychology of Intergroup Behavior
(Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986), 7–24.
13. For works that look at gender differences among Latinos, see Lisa J. Mon-
toya, “Gender and Citizenship in Latino Political Participation,” in Marcelo
Suárez-Orozco and Mariela M. Páez, eds., Latinos: Remaking America (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002); Mary Pardo, Mexican American Women
Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Communities in Los Angeles (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1998); and Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics.
14. Nancy Burns, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba, The Private
Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality and Political Participation (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001).
234 Notes to Pages 102 – 104

15. Much of this work came out of Carol Gilligan’s findings regarding gender
differences in moral development. See Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psycho-
logical Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1982); Cass Sunstein, ed., Feminism and Political Theory (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1990); and Kay Lehman Schlozman, Nancy Burns, Sidney
Verba, and Jesse Donahue, “Gender and Citizen Participation: Is There a Differ-
ent Voice?” American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995): 267–93, 268–72.
16. See, e.g., Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life
and Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).
17. Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity,
Politics and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43 (1991):
1241–99; Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness
and the Politics of Empowerment, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000).
18. Studies commonly assume that in the U.S. context race trumps gender. But
this is for historical reasons rather than any characteristic implicit in the race cat-
egory itself. Jane Mansbridge and Katherine Tate, “Race Trumps Gender: Black
Opinion on the Thomas Nomination,” PS: Political Science and Politics 25 (1992):
488–92; and Claudine Gay and Katherine Tate, “Doubly Bound: The Impact of
Gender and Race on the Politics of Black Women,” Political Psychology 19 (1998):
169–84.
19. Judith R. Gordon, Organizational Behavior: A Diagnostic Approach, 5th ed.
(Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996), 266–67; Deborah Tannen, ed., Gender and
Conversational Interaction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
20. For an overview of linguistic differences between men and women, see
Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (New
York: Morrow, 1990).
21. James Diego Vigil, A Rainbow of Gangs: Street Cultures in the Mega City
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).
22. hooks, Feminist Theory; Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins”; and Hill
Collins, Black Feminist Thought.
23. Cathy J. Cohen and Michael C. Dawson, “Neighborhood Poverty and
African American Politics,” American Political Science Review 87 (1993): 286–302,
287.
24. Ibid., 289. See also Cathy J. Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the
Breakdown of Black Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
25. Cohen and Dawson, “Neighborhood Poverty,” 298.
26. Melissa J. Marschall, “Does the Shoe Fit? Testing Models of Participation
for African American and Latino Involvement in Local Politics,” Urban Affairs
Review 37 (2001): 227–48, 243.
27. Leighley, Strength in Numbers, 7–12.
28. Janelle Wong, “Getting out the Vote among Asian Americans: A Field
 Notes to Pages 104 – 110 235

Experiment” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political

Science Association, Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 2003).
29. Melissa Michelson, “Mobilizing the Latino Youth Vote,” Working Paper 10
(Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Wash-
ington, D.C., 2003).
30. David Knoke, “Networks of Political Action: Toward Theory Construc-
tion,” Social Forces 68 (1990): 1041–63, 1058.
31. The importance of political contact to participation is just one example of
why immigrant communities are less likely to be mobilized politically. Cam-
paigns tend to contact likely voters. Immigrant communities contain large num-
bers of new voters, who therefore are unlikely to be targeted for mobilization. Yet
findings from recent get-out-the-vote experiments indicate that political contacts
in these communities may be even more effective than for voters at large. See
Ricardo Ramírez, “Getting out the Vote: The Impact of Non-partisan Voter Mobi-
lization Efforts in Low Turnout Latino Precincts,” Working Paper (Public Policy
Institute of California, San Francisco, 2002); Wong, “Getting out the Vote among
Asian Americans”; and Michelson, “Mobilizing the Latino Youth Vote.”
32. Carol Hardy-Fanta, introduction to Latina Politics, Latino Politics.
33. Segura et al. had the same findings in their study of Latinos in Montebello
during the 1990s. See Gary M. Segura, F. Chris García, Rodolfo O. de la Garza,
and Harry Pachón, Social Capital and the Latino Community (Claremont, Calif.:
Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, 2000), 42–52.
34. Melissa R. Michelson, “Political Trust among Chicago Latinos,” Journal of
Urban Affairs 23 (2001): 323–34, 327.
35. Tannen posits that in conversation, women look for commonality and con-
nection whereas men attempt to establish themselves vis-à-vis the other on a hier-
archical scale. It could be that these men interpreted admitting a lack of efficacy
or interest in politics as something that would affect their hierarchical position in
our conversation, making them less likely than women to express these feelings.
See Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand.
36. See Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Por-
trait, 2d ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), chap. 4; and Louis
DeSipio, Counting on the Latino Vote: Latinos as a New Electorate (Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1996), 121.
37. We will see a more direct discussion of their feelings of political attack in
the discussion of naturalization.
38. David L. Leal, “Political Participation by Latino Non-Citizens in the
United States,” British Journal of Political Science 32 (2002): 353–70, 369.
39. Cass Sunstein, introduction to Feminism and Political Theory.
40. Immigration scholars use the term 1.5 to describe the experience of being
foreign born (and thus subject to the immigration and naturalization processes)
236 Notes to Pages 111 – 118

but having spent the bulk of one’s life and schooling in the United States. For a
more detailed definition of this category, see Rubén G. Rumbaut and Kenji Ima,
“Determinants of Educational Attainment among Indochinese Refugees and
Other Immigrant Students” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Amer-
ican Sociological Association, Atlanta, Ga., 1988).
41. Mark Hugo López, “Electoral Engagement among Latino Youth,” Fact
Sheet (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement,
Washington, D.C., 2003), 12.
42. Ibid.
43. Scott Keeter, Cliff Zukin, Molly Andolina, and Krista Jenkins, “The Civic
and Political Health of the Nation: A Generational Portrait,” Working Paper
(Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Wash-
ington, D.C., 2002).
44. La raza is a term commonly used to refer to the Mexican American com-
munity in the United States.
45. In this section, Gilbert is referring to the large-scale freeway construction
that took place in East Los Angeles during the 1960s that subdivided the com-
munity.
46. The Brown Berets were the Chicano equivalent of the Black Panthers. They
wore tan and brown military-style uniforms and attempted to provide the same
sort of civilian protection from police, child breakfast programs, and Maoist
teaching as the Black Panthers, but they were never as organized or as effective.
47. Adrian D. Pantoja and Gary M. Segura, “Does Ethnicity Matter? Descrip-
tive Representation in Legislatures and Political Alienation among Latinos,”
Social Science Quarterly 84 (2003): 441–60.
48. Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand.
49. Michelson, “Political Trust among Chicago Latinos.”
50. GAIN is a California state welfare program that requires that recipients
attend school for a certain number of hours every week in order to receive their
welfare benefits. In both Montebello and East Los Angeles, the participants
tended to be young unwed mothers.
51. Knoke, “Networks of Political Action,” 1042.
52. During World War II, Mexican Americans won more Congressional
Medals of Honor than any other group (17 total) and constituted a large percent-
age of the casualties. Julie Leininger Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Para-
dox of Power (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), 53.
53. Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America, 115.
54. Louis DeSipio, “The Engine of Latino Growth: Latin American Immigra-
tion and Settlement in the United States,” in F. Chris García, ed., Pursuing Power:
Latinos and the Political System (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1997), 331–37.
 Notes to Pages 118 – 120 237

55. According to the March 1997 Current Population Survey, 85.4 percent of
Mexican immigrants in the United States are not naturalized.
56. DeSipio, Counting on the Latino Vote, chap. 5.
57. DeSipio, “The Engine of Latino Growth.” See also David S. North, “The
Long Grey Welcome: A Study of the American Naturalization Program,” Interna-
tional Migration Review 21 (1987): 311–26.
58. DeSipio, “The Engine of Latino Growth.” It is important to note that the
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has only existed since March 2003. We
do not yet know if it will process applications more efficiently than its predeces-
sor, the INS. But the record thus far (including the lack of movement on the back-
log of applications) makes it reasonable to assume that the new agency will have
many of the same bureaucratic problems as its predecessor.
59. While it is true that children under the age of fourteen can be granted U.S.
citizenship automatically when their parents naturalize, none of these 1.5-
generation respondents had had that happen. As a result, they all needed to
decide about their citizenship status.
60. The INS received more than 850,000 citizenship applications in fiscal year
1998 and at the end of that year was estimated to have an application backlog of
2 million applications. During the 106th Congress, $171 million was appropriated
to the INS to help the agency process applications in those cities with the largest
backlogs, one of which is Los Angeles. But the changes in application review that
were implemented after September 11, 2001, along with the reorganization of the
INS into the USCIS, expanded the problem. At the end of fiscal year 2003 the
backlog was estimated to be 3.4 million cases. The average waiting time then was
thirty-five months—almost three years.
61. Harry P. Pachon, “Naturalization: Determinants and Process in the His-
panic Community,” International Migration Review 21 (1987): 299–310.
62. See Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America.
63. Other evidence of this transnational trend among immigrants can be seen
in a series of articles run by the New York Times about the experiences of Latin
American, Asian, and African immigrants in New York City. See Deborah Sontag
and Celia W. Dugger, “The New Immigrant Tide: A Shuttle between Worlds,”
New York Times, 19 July 1998, A1, A27–28; Deborah Sontag, “A Mexican Town
That Transcends All Borders,” New York Times, 21 July 1998, A1, A16–A17; and
Editorial, “The New Immigrant Experience,” New York Times, 22 July 1998, A22.
64. Pete Wilson was governor of California from 1990 to 1998. During his sec-
ond reelection campaign, he was one of the sponsors of the “Save Our State”
(SOS) campaign, which sponsored Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that
denied services to undocumented immigrants. He also sued the federal govern-
ment to recoup the costs to the state to educate, house, and give medical care to
238 Notes to Pages 121 – 129

undocumented immigrants. Many Latinos saw these measures as targeting the

Latino community in particular.
65. See previous discussion of Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand. These find-
ings echo those of Hardy-Fanta in Latina Politics, Latino Politics and the theoreti-
cal arguments made by Sunstein in the introduction to Feminism and Political The-
ory and by Iris Marion Young in Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990).
66. Sunstein, introduction to Feminism and Political Theory.
67. James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston, eds., The New Americans: Economic,
Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, D.C.: National Acad-
emy Press, 1997), 378–82.
68. Noncitizens have municipal voting rights in five cities in Maryland:
Takoma Park, Barnesville, Martin’s Additions, Somerset, and Chevy Chase.
Noncitizens can vote in school board elections in the city of Chicago. Noncitizen
parents can vote for and serve on community and school boards under New York
State education law so long as they have not been convicted of a felony or voting
fraud. As of 1992 there were 56,000 noncitizens registered as parent voters in New
York. Virginia Harper-Ho, “Noncitizen Voting Rights: The History, the Law and
Current Prospects for Change,” Law and Inequality 18 (2000): 271–322; and Ronald
Hayduk, “Noncitizen Voting Rights: Shifts in Immigrant Political Status during
the Progressive Era,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American
Political Science Association, Boston, Mass., August 2002. There are no munici-
palities in Los Angeles County that allow permanent residents to vote in any elec-
tion.
69. See Sunstein, ed., Feminism and Political Theory; and Schlozman et al.,
“Gender and Citizen Participation,” 268–72.
70. Naples finds a similar process among low-income African American and
Puerto Rican women in New York and Philadelphia. The difference is that I find
these attitudes with regard to both electoral and nonelectoral politics. Nancy A.
Naples, “‘Just What Needed to Be Done’: The Political Practice of Women Com-
munity Workers in Low-Income Neighborhoods,” Gender and Society 5 (1991):
478–94.
71. See Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics, chap. 1.
72. Marschall, “Does the Shoe Fit?” 231.
73. Ibid., 239.
74. Since self-reporting of voting information is notoriously inflated, these
numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Again, what is more important is
the degree to which they reflect underlying attitudes and issues in the commu-
nity that vary generationally.
75. This may be compared to the 63.5 percent of African Americans who were
 Notes to Pages 129 – 137 239

registered to vote in 1996 and the 67.7 percent of Anglos. U.S. Bureau of the Cen-
sus, Current Population Report, Oct. 1997.
76. Since my interviews at Garfield occurred before the November 1996 elec-
tion, those who were registered could only have voted in the primary.
77. This is despite the fact that California has been found to have five out of
the six “best practices” listed by a recent study in terms of its registration and vot-
ing laws. In their national study, Wolfinger and colleagues found that state regis-
tration and voting laws have an especially strong negative effect on Latino
turnout. While this study shows the importance of another aspect of the social
context—the legal rules surrounding access to the vote—they find that Califor-
nia is doing relatively well in this regard. See Raymond E. Wolfinger, Benjamin
Highton, and Megan Mullin, “How Postregistration Laws Affect the Turnout of
Registrants,” unpublished manuscript, Berkeley, Calif., 2003.
78. Little work has been done on Latino political knowledge. One of the few
is Adrian Pantoja, “The Dynamics of Political Knowledge” (Ph.D. dissertation,
Claremont Graduate University, 2001). Pantoja explores the relationship between
group consciousness and political sophistication. He develops a dynamic theory
of political knowledge and argues that Latinos have multiple levels of knowl-
edge, and that those levels may vary over time and circumstance.
79. Michelson, “Political Trust among Chicago Latinos.”
80. Proposition 227 ended bilingual education in California. There were also
important county school bond measures on the same primary ballot. Both issues
stimulated Latino turnout.
81. Ricardo Ramírez, “The Changing California Voter: A Longitudinal Analy-
sis of Latino Political Mobilization and Participation” (paper presented at the
annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco,
Sept. 2001).
82. See Cohen and Dawson, “Neighborhood Poverty and African American
Politics”; and Marschall, “Does the Shoe Fit?”
83. See Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists.

Chapter 5. Community Problems,

Collective Solutions

Epigraph: Frederick Douglass, “An Address on West India Emancipation,” in

John W. Blassingame, ed., The Frederick Douglass Papers, series 1, Speeches, Debates,
and Interviews, 1855–63 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).
1. Robert D. Wrinkle, Joseph Stewart Jr., J. L. Polinard, Kenneth J. Meier, and
John R. Arvizu, “Ethnicity and Nonelectoral Participation,” Hispanic Journal of
Behavioral Sciences 18 (1996): 142–53, 150.
240 Notes to Pages 137 – 143

2. Ibid.
3. Henry E. Brady, Sidney Verba, and Key Lehman Schlozman, “Beyond SES:
A Resource Model of Political Participation,” American Political Science Review 89
(1995): 271–94.
4. Ibid., 273.
5. Cass Sunstein, “Notes on Feminist Political Thought,” in Cass Sunstein, ed.,
Feminism and Political Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1–11, 8–9.
6. Ibid., 3–4.
7. The concept of political efficacy was first developed by Campell, Gurin,
and Miller in their study using 1952 survey data. Since then, the concept has been
generally accepted by political scientists as relating to political participation pat-
terns. See Angus Campell, Gerald Gurin, and Warren E. Miller, The Voter Decides
(Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1954).
8. Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Norman Nie,
“Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources: Participation in the United States,”
British Journal of Politics 23 (1993): 453–97.
9. Wrinkle et al., “Ethnicity and Nonelectoral Participation.”
10. The walkouts were supposed to be a modern restaging of the 1968 Blow
Outs in Los Angeles, which many mark as the beginning of the Chicano Move-
ment in California. The students left school at that time to protest the substandard
education they felt they were receiving in their classrooms.
11. Amy Pyle and Beth Shuster, “10,000 Students Protest Prop. 187 Immigra-
tion: Walkouts around Los Angeles Are Largest Yet Showing Campus Opposition
to Initiative. The Teen-Agers Are Mostly Peaceful, with Only 12 Arrests
Reported,” Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov. 1994.
12. Ibid.
13. Admittedly, it is likely that some proportion of the students were moti-
vated by the opportunity to leave school, regardless of how they felt about
Proposition 187.
14. Wrinkle et al., “Nonelectoral Participation,” 148.
15. See Carol Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture, and
Political Participation in Boston (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993),
chaps. 2–4.
16. This is similar to what Mary Pardo found motivated Latina women in
both East Los Angeles and Montebello to be politically active. See Mary Pardo,
Mexican American Women Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Com-
munities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), esp. chaps. 5 and 6.
17. See Wrinkle et al., “Nonelectoral Participation”; Steven J. Rosenstone and
John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America (New
York: Macmillan, 1993); and Michael Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in
African-American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 131–33;
 Notes to Pages 143 – 148 241

and Jan Leighley, Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and
Racial Minorities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
18. One such institution is the Mothers of East Los Angeles. This group does
undertake the kind of mobilization mentioned here, but these women’s experi-
ences indicate that more of this kind of mobilization is necessary in these areas.
For a more in-depth discussion of the activities of this group, see Mary Pardo,
“Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists: ‘Mothers of East
Los Angeles,’ ” in F. Chris García, ed., Pursuing Power: Latinos and the Political Sys-
tem (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 151–68; and Pardo,
Mexican American Women Activists, chap. 3.
19. This is similar to what Hardy-Fanta found in Latina Politics, Latino Politics
and the theoretical arguments made by Cass Sunstein in the introduction to Fem-
inism and Political Theory and by Iris Marion Young in Justice and the Politics of Dif-
ference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
20. See Alma García, “The Development of Chicana Feminist Discourse:
1970–1980,” Gender and Society 3 (1989): 217–38.
21. For examples to the contrary, see Pardo, Mexican American Women
Activists; and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experi-
ences of Immigration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 197–98.
22. Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions, 198.
23. Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equal-
ity: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1995).
24. These were the findings in Hardy-Fanta and Pardo’s studies of Latina par-
ticipation. But they both looked at activist women, so it is not clear whether their
findings would apply to all Latinas. See Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Poli-
tics; and Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists.
25. For an in-depth analysis of the media representations of Latinos during
the 187 campaign, see Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in
Contemporary American Public Discourse (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).
26. This echoes Marschall’s findings among both Latinos and African Ameri-
cans. Melissa J. Marschall, “Does the Shoe Fit? Testing Models of Participation for
African American and Latino Involvement in Local Politics,” Urban Affairs Review
37 (2001): 227–48.
27. Aída Hurtado, Patricia Gurin, and Timothy Peng, “Social Identities: A
Framework for Studying the Adaptations of Immigrants and Ethnics: The Adap-
tations of Mexicans in the United States,” Social Problems 41 (1994): 129–51.
28. It could also be that the Montebello respondents, because of their socio-
economic success, have a greater belief in society’s “legitimating myths.” Jim
Sidanius argues that societies create legitimating myths in order to justify
inequality and minimize group conflict. Studies have found that members of stig-
242 Notes to Pages 148 – 161

matized groups that accept legitimating myths, rather than group prejudice, to
explain experiences of stigma are more likely to have psychological problems and
low self-esteem. See Jim Sidanius, “The Psychology of Group Conflict and the
Dynamics of Oppression: A Social Dominance Perspective,” in Shanto Iyengar
and William G. McGuire, eds., Explorations in Political Psychology (Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 1993), 183–219; and Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major, and
Claude Steele, “Social Stigma,” in Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner
Lindzey, eds., The Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1998), 504–53, 532.
29. Hardy-Fanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics, chap. 1.
30. While Chris is recommending contacting an elected official, he is not
aware of the actual position that official holds. Gloria Molina is a Los Angeles
County supervisor, not a member of Congress. Again we are seeing the lack of
political information and knowledge in these areas.
31. Marschall, “Does the Shoe Fit?”
32. Jan E. Leighley and Arnold Vedlitz, “Race, Ethnicity, and Political Partici-
pation: Competing Models and Contrasting Explanations,” Journal of Politics 61
(1999): 1092–1114, 1102.
33. Dalton Conley, Honky (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
34. Cholo is a derogatory word used to describe a Chicano gang member and
sometimes to describe any urban Chicano youth.
35. During the time of these interviews, as a result of the downsizing of the
defense sector after the cold war, southern California was experiencing its
worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This situation probably
made the respondents’ perceptions of the region’s economic outlook more pes-
simistic. According to the 2000 census, even after the economic boom of the late
1990s, levels of Latino unemployment and poverty in Los Angeles remained
higher than that of Euro-Americans and African Americans. Latinos make up
about 45 percent of the population of Los Angeles Couny but comprise more
than 60 percent of those living in poverty. See Weingart Center, Poverty in Los
Angeles (Los Angeles: Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty,
2003), 2.
36. Kevin F. McCarthy and Georges Vernez, Immigration in a Changing Economy:
California’s Experience (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1997), 79–90.
37. Ibid.
38. Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation, “National Survey of
Latinos: Education, Summary, and Chartpack” (Washington, D.C.: Pew Hispanic
Center, 2004), 3.
39. Ibid., 37.
40. For an overview of these cultural arguments, and other reasons that have
been given to explain low Latino educational attainment, see Neil Fligstein and
 Notes to Pages 161 – 178 243

Roberto M. Fernández, “Hispanics and Education,” in Pastora San Juan Cafferty

and William C. McCready, eds., Hispanics in the United States: A New Social Agenda
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994), 113–45.
41. See Georges Vernez and Allan Abrahamse, How Immigrants Fare in U.S.
Education (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1996).
42. Martha Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Margin-
alization and Discrimination in California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995),
chap. 8.
43. For an overview of findings from that survey, see Rodney E. Hero and
Anne G. Campbell, “Understanding Latino Political Participation: Exploring the
Evidence from the Latino National Political Survey,” Hispanic Journal of Behav-
ioral Sciences, 18 (1996): 129–41; and Wrinkle et al., “Ethnicity and Nonelectoral
Participation.”

Conclusion

Epigraph: University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 US 265 (1978).

1. Wendy Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 27–28.
2. Alejandro Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern
Sociology,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 1–24, 17.
3. Ibid.
4. Jane Mansbridge and Katherine Tate, “Race Trumps Gender: Black Opinion
on the Thomas Nomination,” PS: Political Science and Politics 25 (1992): 488–92;
Claudine Gay and Katherine Tate, “Doubly Bound: The Impact of Gender and
Race on the Politics of Black Women,” Political Psychology 19 (1998): 169–84.
5. Rogers Smith argues that political scientists have done a poor job of study-
ing racial hierarchy and inequality as a fundamentally political product. See
Rogers M. Smith, “The Puzzling Place of Race in American Political Science,” PS:
Political Science and Politics 37 (2004): 41–45.
6. Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity, Pol-
itics and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (1991): 1241–
99; Patricia Hill Collins, Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics
of Empowerment, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000).
7. bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 2d ed. (Boston: South End
Press, 2000).
8. Michael Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
9. Cathy J. Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999).
244 Notes to Pages 179 – 180

10. My thanks to Molly Patterson for collecting and analyzing these different
approaches to measuring social identity. None of these works addresses the
empirical problem of measuring the intersection (and effects) of multiple identi-
ties, but all employ significantly better measures of race than what is commonly
employed in political behavior studies, namely, the dummy variable. For a
review of this literature, see Deborrah S. Frable, “Gender, Racial, Ethnic, Sexual,
and Class Identities,” Annual Review of Psychology 48 (1997): 139–62.
11. Steven Greene, “The Social-Psychological Measurement of Partisanship,”
Political Behavior 24 (2002):171–97.
12. Jean Phinney, “Stages of Ethnic Identity in Minority Group Adolescents,”
Journal of Early Adolescence 9 (1989): 34–49.
13. Kathleen A. Ethier and Kay Deaux, “Negotiating Social Identity When
Contexts Change: Maintaining Identification and Responding to Threat,” Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994): 243–51.
14. Riia Luhtanen and J. Crocker. “A Collective Self-Esteem Scale: Self-Evalu-
ation of One’s Social Identity,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18 (1992):
302–18.
15. David Knoke, “Networks of Political Action: Toward Theory Construc-
tion,” Social Forces 68 (1990): 1041–63.
16. Cathy J. Cohen and Michael C. Dawson, “Neighborhood Poverty and
African American Politics,” American Political Science Review 87 (1993): 286–302,
287.
17. Jan E. Leighley, Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilziation of Racial and
Ethnic Minorities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
18. Rodney Hero, Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
19. Rodney E. Hero, “Social Capital and Racial Inequality in America,” Per-
spectives on Politics 1 (2003): 113–22.
20. For a review of political socialization as a field, see Yali Peng, “Intellectual
Fads in Political Science: The Cases of Political Socialization and Community
Power Studies, “ PS: Political Science and Politics 27 (1994): 100–109. Some exam-
ples of political socialization studies are Fred I. Greenstein, Children and Politics
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965); David Easton and Jack Dennis, Chil-
dren in the Political System: The Origins of Political Legitimacy (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1969); M. Kent Jennings and Richard G. Niemi, “The Transmission of Politi-
cal Values from Parent to Child,” American Political Science Review 62 (1968): 169–
84; M. Kent Jennings and Richard G. Niemi, The Political Character of Adolescence:
The Influences of Family and School (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974);
Bruce A. Campbell, “A Theoretical Approach to Peer Influence in Adolescent
Socialization,” American Journal of Political Science 24 (1980): 324–44.
21. For critiques of the socialization literature, see Roberta S. Sigel, “New
 Notes to Pages 180 – 182 245

Directions for Political Socialization Research,” Perspectives on Political Science 24

(1995): 17–23; Shawn W. Rosenberg, “Sociology, Psychology, and the Study of
Political Behavior: The Case of the Research on Political Socialization,” Journal of
Politics 47 (1985): 715–31; and Richard M. Merelman, “The Adolescence of Politi-
cal Socialization,” Sociology of Education 45 (1972): 134–66.
22. Wendy K. Tam Cho, “Naturalization, Socialization, Participation: Immi-
grants and (Non-)Voting,” Journal of Politics 61 (1999): 1140–55.
23. Ibid., 1142.
24. Ibid., 1140.
25. Ibid., 1144.
26. James G. Gimpel, J. Celeste Lay, and Jason E. Schuknecht, Cultivating
Democracy: Civic Environments and Political Socialization in America (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003), 6.
27. Some examples are Eleanor E. Maccoby, Richard E. Matthews, and Anton
S. Morton, “Youth and Political Change,” Public Opinion Quarterly 18 (1954): 23–
39; Jennings and Niemi, “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to
Child”; and M. Kent Jennings, Laura Stoker, and Jake Bowers, “Politics across
Generations: Family Transmission Reexamined,” Working Paper (Institute for
Governmental Studies, Berkeley, Calif., 2001).
28. Results from the first and second waves of the Children of Immigrants
Study (CILS) can be found in Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, eds., Eth-
nicities: Children of Immigrants in America (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001); and Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, eds., Legacies: The Story of the
Immigrant Second Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
29. Two important exceptions to this claim are Leighley, Strength in Numbers?
and Steven Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation and
Democracy in America (New York: Macmillan, 1993).
30. For his most recent formulation, see Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
31. Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper,
1957); and Elmer E. Schattschneider, Party Government (New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1942).
32. Paul Frymer, Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Frymer’s arguments are very simi-
lar to sociological theories of coalitional bias, which posit that dominant groups,
because of social stigma, prefer to build coalitions with some groups rather than
others. For a discussion of how this theory relates specifically to the Latino expe-
rience, see Rodney Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); and Mario Barrera, Race and Class
in the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1979).
246 Notes to Pages 183 – 186

33. See Alan Gerber and Donald P. Green, “The Effects of Canvassing, Tele-
phone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment,” American
Political Science Review 94 (2000): 653–63; and Alan Gerber and Donald P. Green,
“Do Phone Calls Increase Voter Turnout? A Field Experiment,” Public Opinion
Quarterly 65 (2001): 75–85.
34. For findings among Latinos, see Melissa Michelson, “Mobilizing the
Latino Youth Vote,” Working Paper 10 (Center for Information and Research on
Civic Learning and Engagement, Washington, D.C., 2003); and Ricardo Ramírez,
“Getting out the Vote: The Impact of Non-partisan Voter Mobilization Efforts in
Low Turnout Latino Precincts,” Working Paper (Public Policy Institute of Cali-
fornia, San Francisco, 2002). For findings among Asian Americans, see Janelle
Wong, “Getting out the Vote among Asian Americans: A Field Experiment”
(paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Associ-
ation, Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 2003).
35. Bruce G. Link and Jo C. Phelan, “Conceptualizing Stigma,” Annual Review
of Sociology 27 (2001): 363–85.
36. Ibid., 381.
37. Ibid.
38. Rubén G. Rumbaut, “The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem,
and Segmented Assimilation among Children of Immigrants,” International
Migration Review 28 (1994): 748–94, 756. Using a separate data set, Zhou and
Bankston find similar results. Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston III, “Social Capital
and the Adaptation of the Second Generation: The Case of Vietnamese Youth in
New Orleans,” International Migration Review 28 (1994): 821–45.
39. A serenata is a serenade. It is a tradition in Mexico to serenade loved ones
on special occasions, like birthdays or anniversaries. These serenades often take
place in the (very) early morning hours. A number of the respondents mentioned
that it was not possible to do this in other areas because non-Latino neighbors are
likely to call the police. Interestingly, that East Los Angeles is unincorporated Los
Angeles County land and therefore not subject to the strict zoning and other laws
in force in most of southern California is in part why this practice can be main-
tained.
40. This difference, of course, could be less about content and more about the
teacher and his or her teaching styles and abilities. A look at the differential effects
of multicultural curricula could be an interesting direction for future study.
41. Gimpel et al., Cultivating Democracy, 14–16.
42. Richard G. Niemi and Jane Junn, Civic Education: What Makes Students
Learn? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
43. Michael McDevitt, Spiro Kiousis, Xu Wu, Mary Losch, and Travis Ripley,
“The Civic Bonding of School and Family: How Kids Voting Students Enliven the
 Notes to Pages 186 – 188 247

Domestic Sphere,” Working Paper (Center for Information and Research on Civic
Learning and Engagement, Washington, D.C., 2003).
44. Ibid., 2.
45. Cynthia Gibson and Peter Levine, eds., The Civic Mission of Schools: A
Report from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE, the Center for Infor-
mation and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (New York: Carnegie Cor-
poration, 2003), 6.
46. Jonathon F. Zaff, Oksana Malanchuk, Erik Michelson, and Jacquelynne
Eccles, “Socializing Youth for Citizenship,” Working Paper (Center for Informa-
tion and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Washington, D.C., 2003), 1.
47. Ibid., 2.
48. Gimpel et al., Cultivating Democracy, chap. 6.
49. See Scott Keeter, Cliff Zukin, Molly Andolina, and Krista Jenkins, “The
Civic and Political Health of the Nation: A Generational Portrait,” Working
Paper (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement,
Washington, D.C., 2002); Mark Hugo López, “Volunteering among Young Peo-
ple,” Fact Sheet (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and
Engagement, Washington, D.C., 2003); and Peter Levine and Mark Hugo López,
“Youth Voter Turnout Has Declined, by Any Measure,” Fact Sheet (Center for
Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Washington,
D.C., 2002).
50. Here I am assuming that there is a consensus among Americans that we
want full inclusion in political participation. U.S. states’ unwillingness to adopt
same-day registration laws, despite proof of its positive effects on turnout, and
our unwillingness to make election day a national holiday suggest that this is not
necessarily the goal of our electoral institutions. Our strong history of political
exclusion of women and people of color also calls this assumption into question.
So it is possible that a first step toward this approach to civic engagement would
need to be the development of a national consensus regarding the need for full
participation.
51. For an overview of Alinsky’s philosophy, see Saul David Alinsky, Rules for
Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1972).
52. Benjamin Márquez, Constructing Identities in Mexican American Political
Organizations: Choosing Issues, Taking Sides (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2003).
53. A more in-depth discussion of the Mothers of East Los Angeles is pre-
sented in chap. 1. See also Mary Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists: Iden-
tity and Resistance in two Los Angeles Communities (Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press, 1998).
54. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy; and Schattschneider, Party Gov-
ernment.
248 Notes to Pages 189 – 191

55. At the congressional level, only forty to fifty seats nationally are consid-
ered competitive during any given election cycle. The number of competitive
races at the state level is not much greater.
56. Frymer, Uneasy Alliances.
57. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, 3d ed. (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
58. Results from the 2003 Current Population Survey show the Gini index of
income inequality rising fairly consistently from 1967 to 2002. See Carmen
DeNavas-Walt, Robert Cleveland, and Bruce H. Webster, Income in the United
States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2003), 25–26.
59. Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Norman H. Nie,
“Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources: Participation in the United States,”
British Journal of Political Science 23 (1993): 453–97, 495. See also Sidney Verba, Kay
Lehman Schlozman, and Henry Brady, introduction to Voice and Equality: Civic
Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1995).
60. My findings are consistent with those of Weigl and Reyes, who, in a com-
parative study of Anglo and Latino attitudes toward politics and public life, find
that Anglos and Latinos relate to civic life differently. They find that, unlike Ang-
los, Latinos need to identify with their primary group first before they can reach
out and address political issues in the society at large. Robert C. Weigl and Jesús
M. Reyes, “Latino and Anglo Political Portraits: Lessons from Intercultural Field
Research,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 25 (2001): 235–59.
61. A few examples of authors who make this contention are Arthur M.
Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society
(New York: Norton, 1992); Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense about
America’s Immigration Disaster (New York: Random House, 1995); Thomas Sowell,
A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (New York: Basic
Books, 2002); Brent A. Nelson, America Balkanized: Immigration’s Challenge to Gov-
ernment (Monterey, Va.: American Immigration Control Foundation, 1994); Nico-
laus Mills, ed., Arguing Immigration: The Debate over the Changing Face of America
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994); Dirk Chase Eldredge, Crowded Land of Lib-
erty: Solving America’s Immigration Crisis (Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Bridge Works
Press, 2001).
62. Iris Marion Young, “Structure, Difference and Hispanic/Latino Claims of
Justice,” in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Pablo De Greiff, eds., Hispanic/Latinos in the
United States: Ethnicity, Race and Rights (New York: Routledge, 2000), 147–65, 149.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., 150.
65. Jane Junn, “Assimilating or Coloring Participation? Gender, Race and
Democratic Political Participation,” in Cathy J. Cohen, Kathleen B. Jones, and
 Notes to Page 191 249

Joan C. Tronto, eds., Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative Reader (New

York: New York University Press, 1997), 387–97, 388.
66. Ibid.
67. George Lipsitz argues that this kind of tacit acceptance and lack of criti-
cism of the status quo is a form of white supremacy. See George Lipsitz, The Pos-
sessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
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Index

African American politics: linked fate and, Blow Outs, 240n10. See also Chicano Move-
10; political behavior and, 17, 101, 103–4, ment; Proposition 187
212n80. See also Cohen, Cathy; Dawson, border crossing, 2
Michael; Tate, Katherine bounded solidarity, social networks and,
agency: agency oriented theoretical perspec- 14 – 15
tive, 3; collective identity and, 8–10; defin- brick making. See Simons Brick Plant
ition of, 2; mobilizing identity and, 6–7; Brimelow, Peter, 66. See also English mono-
political engagement and, 3, 106; structure lingualism; literacy tests
and, 2–3, 12, 14. See also ideology Brown, Wendy, 176
Alatorre, Richard, 50 Burns, Nancy, et al., 102, 137–38
Alien Land Law, 34
Alinsky, Saul, 50, 188 California: anti-immigrant sentiment in, 21,
Allen, James P. (and Eugene Turner), 41 26, 28–30, 34, 39; budget crisis in, 27–28;
American Immigration Control Foundation, 29 citizenship rights in, 38; demographic
Arce, Rene, 31–33. See also tagger shooting changes in, 28, 40–41; segregation in, 41–
Asian American politics, 13, 104. See also 46. See also Californio(s); East Los Angeles;
Wong, Janelle Mexican American War; Montebello
California Civil Rights Initiative, 33. See also
Bankston, Carl L., 8, 11, 16 Proposition 209
Belvedere Park, 48; Chicano Moratorium Californians against Discrimination and
March and, 51, 213n90 Preferences, 33. See also Proposition 209

271
272 index

Californio(s): citizenship and, 38; definition lizing identity; political mobilization;

of, 36; Democratic Party and, 39, 40; demo- stigma
graphic change and, 40–41; 1856 election Collins, Patricia Hill, 7
and, 39; elective office and, 39, 40–41; elec- Community Political Organization (CPO), 49
toral participation and, 40–41; Know- community problems, 154–60. See also non-
Nothing Party and, 39; land claims and, electoral participation
37–38; legal system and, 37; in Montebello, Community Service Organization (CSO),
53–54; political system and, 38; segrega- 49 – 50
tion of, 41–44; social status of, 39–40. See community work: definition of, 139;
also Mexican Americans gender and, 146 – 47. See also non-
Calvo, María Antonia, 17 electoral participation
Camarillo, Albert, 36 Conley, Dalton, 156
Carmargo, Heriberto, 31. See also Proposition Conroy, Mickey, 29, 33
187 contextual capital, 12–18; definition of, 12;
Chávez, César, 50 East Los Angeles, 26; measures of, 17;
Chicano Moratorium, 51 Montebello, 26, 53, 55–59; political effects
Chicano Movement, 51, 113, 212–13n90, of, 12; political institutions as, 13; social
240n10 networks as, 13–16
Chicano Studies, group attachment and, 11, Corbin, Juliet, 20
185 Coronel, Antonio, 39
Chinese Exclusion Act, 34 Cortez, Eddie, 31. See also Proposition 187
Cho, Wendy Tam, 180–81 counternarrative, group attachment and, 11,
Cinco de Mayo, 48 185, 208n48
Citizen Participation Study, 18 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 7
Citizen’s Committee on Immigration Policy, 29 Crocker, Jennifer, 62, 179
civic education, 186–88. See also political
engagement; political socialization Dahl, Robert, 182
Coffey, Ruth, 30. See also Proposition 187 Dawson, Michael, 10, 100, 103–4, 177–78,
Cohen, Cathy, 83, 103–4, 178, 179–80 179 – 80. See also African American politics;
collective identity: definition of, 7, 206n30; linked fate
electoral participation and, 104, 123–35, Deaux, Kay, 179
175; immigrant adaptation and, 4–5, 8, de la Guerra, Pablo, 38
11–12, 16; intersection of race, gender, demobilizing identity, 12
and class, 7, 52, 100–103, 126, 146–48; DeSipio, Louis, 17, 118
intragroup conflict and, 89–94; language Deverell, William, 35, 36, 41, 43, 56, 57–58
and, 61–64, 76–82; Latino self-identification discrimination: intracommunity relations
and, 78–79; linked fate and, 9–10; measure- and, 93; perceptions of, 85–88. See also
ment of, 17, 176–79; multicultural curric- stereotypes; stigma
ula and, 185; negative consequences of, Domínguez, Manuel, 38, 40
11–12; nonelectoral participation and, 139; Downs, Anthony, 182
organizations and, 188; perceptions of
stereotypes and, 82–94; political engage- East Los Angeles: demographics of, 19, 213–
ment and, 8–10, 16–18, 22–25, 175–76, 14n96; gerrymandering in, 47–48, 52; his-
248n60; relational aspects and, 3–4, 7; tory of, 46–52; political influence and, 47–
segregation and, 45–46, 48–49, 173; social 48; political organizing in, 48–52; segrega-
context and, 3–6, 103–4, 128–29, 143, 175; tion and, 43–44, 48; social networks in, 67.
Spanish-language media and, 124; stigma See also Garza case; mutualistas
and, 4–6, 8–9, 24, 104. See also group attach- East Los Angeles Community Union
ment; group worthiness; linked fate; mobi- (TELACU), 51
 index 273

Either, Kathleen, 179 Garza case, 47–48

electoral participation: area differences and, gender. See collective identity; community
127–29; Californios and, 39–40; collective work; electoral participation; intersection-
identity and, 16–17, 23, 102, 104, 127–28, ality; nonelectoral participation; political
134–35, 146–47, 176–79; East Los Angeles, mobilization; political protest; political
134; first generation and, 123–26; genera- trust; power
tional differences and, 124, 127, 129–30; Gerber, Alan, 182–83
gender and, 22, 102–3, 108–9, 110, 113, gerrymandering: in Los Angeles, 40–41; in
124–26, 144, 170; intragroup conflict and, East Los Angeles, 48, 50
94–99; marginal groups and, 190; Monte- GI Bill, Mexican American politics and,
bello, 134; naturalization and, 119–23; 49 – 50
political mobilization and, 127–28, 133–35; Gilliam, Frank, et al, 84
political socialization and, 107; registration Gimpel, James, 181, 185–86, 187
rules and, 239n77; representation and, 23; Gordon, Milton, 78
second generation and, 127; social context Greaser law, 37
and, 103–4, 110–11, 113–15, 128–29, 179– Green, Donald, 182–83
80; social networks and, 15, 135; socioeco- Greene, Steven, 179
nomic status and, 11, 101–2; studies of, Griswold del Castillo, Richard, 43, 45
101–3; third-plus generation and, 127–28 grounded theory, 20. See also Corbin, Juliet;
El Monte Boys, 53–54 Strauss, Anselm
English monolingualism, 65. See also group attachment: fostering, 183–85; elec-
language toral participation and, 125, 127–29, 131–
Erickson, Ryan, 32. See also Proposition 187; 35; nonelectoral participation and, 141,
tagger shooting 143, 146–50; political efficacy and, 162–70;
Espiritu, Yen, 3 political engagement and, 3, 175–76, 183,
ethnic enclave. See immigrant adaptation 190, 248n60; stigma and, 152. See also col-
Ezell, Harold, 30. See also Proposition 187 lective identity; group worthiness; linked
fate; mobilizing identity
Federation for American Immigration group worthiness: electoral participation
Reform (FAIR), 29 and, 135, 162–68; political engagement
Ferguson, Gil (State Assemblyman), 29 and, 3, 9–10, 12, 25, 135, 141, 166, 174, 183.
first generation: attitudes toward naturaliza- See also agency; collective identity; group
tion and, 119–23; community solutions attachment; linked fate; mobilizing iden-
and, 161–64; electoral participation and, tity; stigma
123–26; language and, 67–77; nonelectoral Gurin, Patricia, 148
participation and, 161–64; perceptions of Gutiérrez, David G., 40–41, 45, 72
community problems and, 156–57, 159;
perceptions of discrimination and, 68–70, hacendados, 37–38, 45
85–88; perceptions of stereotypes and, 84; Hardy-Fanta, Carol, 17, 23, 105, 126, 141,
political interest and, 107–10; racial identi- 148
fication and, 79 Henderson, Gary, 32. See also Proposition
Fogelson, Robert M., 42 187; tagger shooting
Four Winds Student Movement, 32. See also Hero, Rodney, 180
Proposition 187; tagger shooting Hillo, David, 31–33. See also Proposition 187;
Frymer, Paul, 182, 189 tagger shooting
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette, 144
gangs, community problems as, 159–60 hooks, bell, 177
Garcetti, Gil, 32. See also Proposition 187; tag- Howard, Judith, 4
ger shooting Hritzuk, Natasha, 15
274 index

Huckfeldt, Robert, 15 U.S. immigration policy and, 37, 65–66.

Hurtado, Aída, 148 See also collective identity; intracommunity
conflict; stigma
identity, definition of, 4. See also collective Latino National Political Survey (LNPS), 17–
identity; mobilizing identity 18, 21, 118, 173
ideology: definition of, 6; Latinos and, 8. See Latino(s), definition of, 3
also agency; Dawson, Michael; mobilizing Lay, Celeste, 181, 185–86
identity League of United Latin American Citizens
immigrant adaptation, 2; ethnic enclaves (LULAC), 49
and, 67; social networks and, 67; socio- Leal, David, 109
economic status and, 11–12, 160; U.S. legitimating myths, 63. See also stigma
immigration policy and, 66–67, 205n9. Leighley, Jan, 101, 104, 155–56, 180
See also internal migration Link, Bruce G., 184
Immigration and Naturalization Services linked fate: definition of, 10, 207n41; measure-
(INS), 30, 31, 44, 118–19. See also U.S. Citi- ment of, 177–178; political engagement
zenship and Immigration Service and, 10, 101. See also African American poli-
internal migration, 1 tics; Dawson, Michael; Tate, Katherine
intersectionality, 100, 103, 176–77; definition literacy tests, U.S. immigration policy and,
of, 7; electoral participation and, 126, 135; 65 – 66
measurement of, 176–79; nonelectoral par- Locke, John, 190
ticipation and, 145–48 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 65–66. See also English
intracommunity conflict: immigrant and monolingualism; literacy tests
native born, 70–73, 80–82, 90–92; lan- López, Henry, 50
guage and, 89–94; political effects of, 94– Los Angeles, violence in: in nineteenth cen-
99. See also language; stereotypes; stigma tury, 36; in twentieth century, 32–33, 44.
See also tagger shooting
job availability, as community problem, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, 47
159 – 60 Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), de-
Johnson, J. Neely, 39. See also Know-Nothing portation campaigns and, 43–44, 51, 222n112
Party Luhtanen, Riia, 179
Junn, Jane, 186, 191
manifest destiny, Mexican American War
Keeter, Scott, 111 and, 35
Kids Voting program, 186 Markman, Jon, 18–19
Knoke, David, 15, 116. See also social networks Márquez, Benjamin, 188
Know-Nothing Party, 39 Marschall, Melissa, 15, 104, 128, 154
Masters, William, II, 31–33. See also Proposi-
Lacey, Robert, 30. See also Proposition 187 tion 187; tagger shooting
Lake, Ronald, 15 Matute-Bianchi, María Eugenia, 8
language: American national identity and, McCarthy, Kevin, 160
64–66; collective identity and, 61–64, 72– McDevitt, Michael, et al., 186
73, 76–82; discrimination and, 68–70; first McLellan, Dennis, 18
generation and, 67–77; intracommunity Menchaca, Martha, 14, 72, 88, 171
conflict and, 70–73, 80–82, 90–92; Latino Mexican American Political Association
studies and, 61; parent/child relations and, (MAPA), 50 – 51
74–76; Proposition 227, 33–34; racial iden- Mexican Americans: deportation of, 43–44;
tification and, 78–79; second generation Los Angeles Police Department and, 43–
and, 74–76, 79; social networks and, 67; 44; political organizing of, 46–52; racial
stigma and, 22, 62–64, 66, 73, 75, 82–83; identification and, 45–46; residential seg-
 index 275

regation and, 40–43, 45–46. See also Cali- 1.5 generation, definition of, 211n76, 235–
fornio(s); Chicano Movement 36n40
Mexican American War, 35, 53
Michelson, Melissa, 104 Pantoja, Adrian D., 113
mobilizing identity: definition of, 6; electoral Pardo, Mary, 52
participation and, 103, 127, 129, 135; non- Park, David, 15
electoral participation and, 148–49. See also Peng, Timothy, 148
agency; collective identity; identity Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foun-
Molina, Gloria, 48, 140 dation, 161
Montebello: community organizations in, 59; Phelan, Jo C., 184
demographics of, 19, 58, 213–14n96; his- Phinney, Jean, 179
tory of, 52–59; middle-class identity in, Pico, Pío, 40
148; Pioneer Day celebration, 53; residen- Pitt, Leonard, 36–37
tial segregation in, 55–57; social networks political behavior, studies of, 5, 16–18, 19, 21,
in, 67; violence in, 53. See also El Monte 101 – 5, 176–80. See also electoral participa-
Boys; Simons Brick Plant tion; nonelectoral participation; political
Mothers of East Los Angeles, 25; history of, engagement; political mobilization
51–52; mobilization and, 188, 241n18 political efficacy: collective identity and, 9,
multicultural history, group attachment and, 123–24, 129, 133, 143, 174; definition of,
11, 185 208n50, 240n7; East Los Angeles, 166–68;
Muñoz, Irma, 31. See also Proposition 187 electoral participation and, 101, 114, 123–
mutualistas (mutual aid societies), 48–49 24, 132–33; Montebello, 153–54, 166–70;
nonelectoral participation and, 138–39,
National Election Survey (NES)/Michigan, 179 149–54; psychological capital and, 12;
National Survey of Latinos, 161 social context and, 9, 123–24, 129, 133,
Native Americans, 37, 221n76 143, 174; stigma and, 8–10, 148. See also
naturalization: attitudes towards, 119–23; political interest; political trust
collective identity and, 125; gender and, political engagement, 1 – 2, 175; collective
119, 121–22; rates of, 118. See also immi- identity and, 3 – 12, 16 – 17, 23, 102, 104,
grant adaptation 127 – 28, 134 – 35, 143, 145 – 48, 166 – 67, 170,
Nelson, Alan, 30. See also Proposition 187 176 – 79; definition of, 203n1; social con-
Niemi, Richard, 186 text and, 12 – 18, 103 – 4, 110 – 11, 113 – 15,
nonelectoral participation: collective identity 128 – 29, 135, 143, 145 – 48, 166 – 67, 170,
and, 23, 143, 145–46, 148, 166 – 67, 170; 179 – 80; social networks and, 15 – 16, 186.
community work as, 145–54; context, See also collective identity; electoral par-
identity, and, 143, 166–67, 170; definition ticipation; nonelectoral participation;
of, 137; gender and, 23, 139, 141–46, 170, political behavior
174; minority groups and, 137–38; protest political information: electoral participation
as, 139–45; social context and, 23, 138– and, 129–31, 133; Montebello, 153. See also
39, 143, 145–46, 148, 166–67, 170; socio- political engagement; political mobiliza-
economic status and, 145. See also collective tion; social networks
identity; contextual capital; mobilizing political interest: first generation and, 107–10;
identity; political behavior; political gender and, 106–10, 113–15; native born
efficacy; political engagement; political and, 106–7, 110–13, 115–17; social context
mobilization; psychological capital; social and, 113–14; social networks and, 105, 115–
capital; social context; social networks 17. See also electoral participation; nonelec-
toral participation; political efficacy; politi-
Ochoa, Gilda, 72 cal engagement; political mobilization;
Olson, Mancur, 6 social networks
276 index

political mobilization: collective identity and, attitudes toward, 94 – 99; violence and,
188; electoral participation and, 133–35; 31 – 32. See also tagger shooting; Wilson,
gender and, 136, 143–46; group attach- Pete
ment and, 129, 146–47; immigrant commu- Proposition 209, 33, 115; area voting on, 98;
nities and, 188–89; political parties and, protests of, 140; race and voting on, 33,
182, 189; Proposition 187 and, 127–28, 144; 219n46
social context and, 12–18, 103–4, 134–35, Proposition 227, 33–34, 134; area voting on,
140, 143, 182–83, 189; stigma and, 182. See 98
also collective identity; mobilizing identity; psychological capital, 6–12; collective iden-
social context; social networks tity as, 7–8; definition of, 6; political en-
political participation. See electoral partici- gagement and, 16; political efficacy and,
pation; nonelectoral participation; political 12. See also agency; collective identity;
behavior; political engagement; political mobilizing identity
mobilization Putnam, Robert, 12–13, 17. See also social
political parties, political mobilization and, capital
182, 189. See also political mobilization
political protest, gender and, 140–42. See also racial group, definition of, 3–4. See also col-
nonelectoral participation lective identity; group attachment
political resources, 6; gender and, 102; social racial identity. See collective identity; group
movements and, 6. See also contextual capi- attachment; group worthiness; racial
tal; electoral participation; nonelectoral group, definition of
participation; political behavior; psycho- Ramírez, Ricardo, 134
logical capital; socioeconomic status restrictive covenants: East Los Angeles, 48;
political socialization: community and, 11; Los Angeles, 43; Montebello, 56, 57
electoral participation and, 19, 106–7; fam- Rosenstone, Steven, 17
ily and, 10, 181, 186; immigrant adaptation Ross, Fred, 50. See also Community Service
and, 2; political mobilization and, 182–83; Organization (CSO)
schools and, 11, 186–88; social networks Roybal, Edward, 50
and, 116–17, 181–82; studies of, 10–11, Ruiz, Vicki, 1
180 – 81 Rumbaut, Rubén, 8, 118
political trust: gender and, 131–32, 144; nativ-
ity and, 107. See also political efficacy; polit- Salazar, Rubén, 51, 224n149
ical interest sample, 20–21, 213n96, 214–15n97, 215n100
politics of difference, 190–91. See also Young, Sanders, Jimy, 24
Iris Santa Ana, Otto, 34, 93
Portes, Alejandro, 118, 176 Save Our State, 29–30. See also Proposition
power: electoral participation and, 106, 113, 187
132; gender and, 144; language and, 83, Schattschneider, E. E., 182
91–93; Latinos and, 4–5; nonelectoral par- Schlesinger, Arthur, 64–65
ticipation and, 138–39; political context Schuknecht, Jason, 181, 185–86
and, 21; stigma and, 4–5, 24, 107. See also second generation, 16; community solutions
stigma and, 164–67; definition of, 211n76; electoral
Prince, Ron S., 30. See also Proposition 187 participation and, 127–29; language and,
Proposition 187, 18, 29 – 30, 115; anti- 74–76; nonelectoral participation and, 140;
immigrant effects of, 82 – 83; images perceptions of community problems and,
of Latinos and, 30, 93; political mobi- 157–59; perceptions of discrimination and,
lization and, 127 – 28; politics behind, 85–88; perceptions of stereotypes and, 84–
27 – 31; proponents of, 30 – 31; protests 86; racial identification and, 79
of, 18, 113, 139 – 42, 144, 146; respondents’ segregation: Californios and, 41–43; collec-
 index 277

tive identity and, 43–46, 170–73; commu- socioeconomic status: collective identity
nity activity and, 171–73; discrimination and, 11; community work and, 145; elec-
and, 88; East Los Angeles and, 47–48; toral participation and, 5 – 6, 19, 101 – 2;
Montebello and, 55–57; positive results measures of, 155 – 56; nonelectoral partici-
of, 45–46, 48–49, 173; social networks pation and, 139; political efficacy and, 133,
and, 14, 67 208n50
Segura, Gary, 113 Sonora Town, 42
selective dissociation, 89, 94 Spanish-language media: during the nine-
Simons Brick Plant: Americanization and, teenth century, 46; political mobilization
58; history of, 54 – 55, 57; labor relations and, 124. See also collective identity; lan-
in, 55 – 56; significance of, 57 – 59. See also guage; political mobilization
Montebello Spencer, Glenn, 31. See also Proposition
16th of September, 11, 48 187
Skerry, Peter, 24 stereotypes: discrimination and, 93–94; media
Sleepy Lagoon, 44 and, 92–93; perceptions of, 85–88. See also
Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, 44 discrimination; stigma
social capital: human capital and, 207n36; stigma: collective identity and, 4–6, 8–9, 24,
immigrant adaptation and, 7–8; increas- 104; counternarratives and, 11, 208n48; def-
ing, 188–89; marginal groups and, 13; inition of, 4–5, 62; discrimination and, 68–
measures of, 12–13; political engagement 70; group attachment and, 152; immigrant
and, 12–13; racial homogeneity and, 180. adaptation and, 5; intracommunity conflict
See also contextual capital; psychological and, 22, 70–73, 89–93; language and, 22,
capital; Putnam, Robert; social context; 62–64, 66–77, 82–83, 104, 184–85; linked
social networks fate and, 178; measurement of, 178–79;
social context: electoral participation and, nonelectoral participation and, 152–53,
103–4, 110–11, 113 – 15, 128 – 29, 179 – 80; 166, 170; political efficacy and, 8–10, 138,
measurement of, 17; nonelectoral partici- 148; political mobilization and, 182, 189;
pation and, 138–39; political engagement political socialization and, 11; power and,
and, 12–18, 103–4, 110 – 11, 113 – 15, 128 – 4–5, 24, 107; psychological effects of, 62–
29, 135, 143, 145–48, 166 – 67, 170, 179 – 80; 63, 70–73; reducing, 183–85; social net-
political interest and, 113–14; political works and, 14–15. See also collective iden-
mobilization and, 12–18, 103–4, 134–35, tity; power
140, 143, 182–83, 189. See also contextual Stop Immigration Now, 30. See also Proposi-
capital; political mobilization; social capi- tion 187
tal; social networks Strauss, Anselm, 20
social group. See racial group, definition of Sunday laws, 37
social identity, definition of, 207n34. See also
collective identity tagger shooting, 31–33
social networks: collective memory and, 16; Tate, Katherine, 101. See also African Ameri-
contextual capital and, 13–16; electoral par- can politics
ticipation and, 15, 135; gender and, 125–26; third-plus generation, 16; community solu-
immigrant adaptation and, 66–67; natural- tions and, 167–70; definition of, 211n76;
ization and, 125–26; political engagement electoral participation and, 129–33; lan-
and, 13–14; political interest/discussion guage and, 89–91; nonelectoral participa-
and, 105, 111–12, 115–17; political social- tion and, 167–70; perceptions of commu-
ization and, 116–17, 181–82; racial compo- nity problems and, 158–59; perceptions of
sition of, 14–15, 173. See also contextual discrimination and, 85–88; perceptions of
capital; political mobilization; social capi- stereotypes and, 84–86; racial identifica-
tal; social context tion and, 79
278 index

Torres, Rodolfo, 92 Voice of Citizens Together, 31. See also Propo-

Trent, James, 19 sition 187
voting. See electoral participation
United Neighborhood Organization, 51
Unz, Ron, 33–34. See also Proposition 209 whiteness, legal definition of (in nineteenth-
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, century California), 38
118–19, 237n58. See also Immigration and Wilson, Pete, 27–28, 29, 30, 120, 237–38n64
Naturalization Service (INS) Wolfinger, Ray, 17
U.S.-Mexico Border Project of the American Wong, Janelle, 104. See also Asian American
Friends Service Committee, 31. See also politics
Proposition 187 Wrinkle, Robert, et al, 137, 141

Valle, Victor, 92 Young, Iris, 3, 190–91

Vásquez, Tiburcio, 53–54
Vedlitz, Arnold, 101, 155–56 Zaff, Jonathon F., et al, 187
Verba, Sidney, et al., 18, 101, 138 Zentella, Ana Celia, 64
Vernez, Georges, 150 Zhou, Min, 8, 11, 16
Vigil, Diego, 103 Zoot Suit Riots, 44