White Backlash

Immigration, Race, and American Politics

Marisa A. Abrajano, Zoltan Hajnal

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781400866489
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

White Backlash provides an authoritative assessment of how immigration is reshaping the politics of the nation. Using an array of data and analysis, Marisa Abrajano and Zoltan Hajnal show that fears about immigration fundamentally influence white Americans' core political identities, policy preferences, and electoral choices, and that these concerns are at the heart of a large-scale defection of whites from the Democratic to the Republican Party.Abrajano and Hajnal demonstrate that this political backlash has disquieting implications for the future of race relations in America. White Americans' concerns about Latinos and immigration have led to support for policies that are less generous and more punitive and that conflict with the preferences of much of the immigrant population. America's growing racial and ethnic diversity is leading to a greater racial divide in politics. As whites move to the right of the political spectrum, racial and ethnic minorities generally support the left. Racial divisions in partisanship and voting, as the authors indicate, now outweigh divisions by class, age, gender, and other demographic measures. White Backlash raises critical questions and concerns about how political beliefs and future elections will change the fate of America's immigrants and minorities, and their relationship with the rest of the nation.

PART I

Theory

Chapter 1

A Theory of Immigration Backlash Politics

The United States has a checkered history with race. At times racial discrimination has been a core element of the country’s social and institutional fabric. The ownership of millions of African American slaves represents just the darkest stain on the nation’s historical record. There are certainly many others. The annexation of the US west from Mexico, maltreatment of tens of thousands of Chinese laborers in the late nineteenth century, internment of thousands of Japanese during World War II, and strict color lines enforced and encoded in the Jim Crow south all demonstrate the ability of Americans to accept as well as actively engage in grossly unequal practices. Too many times in the past, the United States has displayed a woeful indifference to the rights and interests of those it views as different or somehow less deserving.¹

At the same time, the US public seems firmly committed to the ideals of equality for all.² From the founders onward, Americans have expressed strong support for the inalienable rights of human beings. When questioned, the vast majority of Americans clearly and emphatically advocate for basic, universal human rights.³ It therefore is not surprising that the United States has at times been at the forefront of movements to expand the definition and practice of equal rights.

Although these two traditions—one of racial hierarchy and another of inalienable rights—have obviously collided throughout US history, most would agree that the balance of power has slowly though inexorably shifted over time toward greater equality.⁴ The path toward more expansive human rights has been anything but even, and there have been notable periods of regression, yet across the long arc of the nation’s history, the United States has moved toward greater adherence to universal rights in both rhetoric and practice.⁵

For many, the current wave of immigration represents an opportunity to move even further on the path toward equality.⁶ From this perspective, the arrival in large numbers of a motivated, energetic, and racially diverse population should serve to demonstrate the folly of racial ascription as well as institutional inequality. And at least at first glance, there are compelling signs of immigration’s positive impact on the country in general and race relations in particular. With increased immigration has come rapidly rising rates of interracial marriage along with newer, more complex, and much less rigid racial categories.⁷ From the relative simplicity and rigidity of the “one-drop” rule that governed the black-white divide for much of US history, we have progressed to an era where the census records mixed racial identities and the fastest-growing group, Latinos, can choose to identify with more than one racial group.

Paralleling all this is an impressive record of assimilation for present-day immigrants. Despite some immigrants, especially those from Latin America, starting on a weaker economic and educational footing than previous waves, today’s immigrants have by and large been able to make substantial intergenerational strides on almost every conceivable measure of economic and social incorporation.⁸ By the third generation in the United States, newcomers have come close to matching or even exceeding the average American on English-language ability, educational attainment, patriotism, and other core US values.⁹ The rapid incorporation of these diverse newcomers is a strong sign of an increasingly open society and may even be an indication that the nation has reached a point where racial considerations are largely immaterial. Many have begun to ask if we are, in fact, approaching a postracial society.¹⁰

In this chapter, we argue that far from the country moving away from the use of race/ethnicity as a dividing line, immigration is actually leading to greater divisions and tensions—at least in the political sphere. As the immigrant population has grown, more and more Americans have become aware of the demographic, economic, and cultural changes taking place. For many that awareness has spurred real anxiety. The fear is driven in part by the size of the immigrant population itself, but more substantially by an immigrant threat narrative perpetuated by the media and politicians alike. As the number of immigrants coming to this country has grown over the past half century, so too has attention to this narrative. Images of immigrants clandestinely crossing the US-Mexico border, committing crimes, and accessing public services heighten anxiety among those who may already be concerned about the nation’s direction. Once aroused, that anxiety seeks a political home. When the two major parties chart divergent courses on the question of immigration, with one often bemoaning the social, cultural, and economic costs associated with immigrants, and the other frequently acknowledging the benefits that immigration can provide, the political choice for Americans becomes sharp. For those who fear the changes wrought by immigration, the Republican Party provides a natural home.

The end result, we contend, is a rightward shift for a large segment of white America. As anxiety about immigration has grown, white partisanship and politics have become increasingly affected by this issue, with more and more white Americans espousing a less generous, more indignant politics that seeks to punish immigrants who violate US norms, and strives to cut off services and other public goods that could benefit them. In what follows, we outline our theory of immigration politics and detail how immigration could be reshaping the politics of white America.

Why Immigration Matters in US Politics

Immigration is undoubtedly one of the most important forces shaping the nation today. But what role does it play in the political life of this nation? Few clear answers to this question have emerged. We know much about the actions and allegiances of immigrants themselves.¹¹ The forty million foreign-born residents of the United States have undoubtedly become important actors in electoral contests across the nation.¹² The immigrant voice in US politics is no longer a hope. It is very much a reality. Nevertheless, that immigrant vote still represents a small fraction of the nation’s active electorate. Foreign-born residents still represent fewer than 5 percent of the voters in this country.¹³ If immigration is going to have a deeper impact on the politics of the nation, it will be with the larger, native-born population.

And what of the broader US public? Is the existence of large-scale immigration changing it in any notable way? Is the nation’s dramatic demographic transformation accompanied by an equally consequential political transformation for those already here? Or put more pointedly, is it impacting the core political decisions of individual Americans, and affecting the winners and losers in US democracy?

On these latter kinds of questions, we have remarkably few answers. As we will see, political scientists and other observers of US politics have done a great deal to try to assess how we feel about immigrants and immigration.¹⁴ They have in various ways explored the determinants of immigration attitudes.¹⁵ But somewhat surprisingly, we have done much less to look systematically at the consequences of our attitudes about immigration. Do our feelings about immigration ultimately influence how we feel about policies, parties, and candidates? Does immigration affect who we are politically?

A Theory of Immigration Politics

We contend that it does. In the following pages, we offer a theory that explains how large-scale immigration can result in core political shifts in the white population. We highlight several different aspects of immigration that we think make it a ripe candidate for generating real change in white policy views, partisanship, and vote choice. The key features of immigration are its scope (few Americans can ignore it), the widespread presence of an immigrant threat narrative that generates anxiety, the infusion of immigration into diverse policy debates ranging from welfare to health, and the growing divide between Republican and Democratic elites on the issue. Immigration stirs anxiety, and the Republican Party offers a home to that unease. We then contrast this theory of immigration politics with alternate accounts that predict little to no political backlash against immigration.

Remarkable Demographic Change

The first feature of immigration that sets it apart from most other issues is its magnitude. Americans are limited political animals in many ways. They tend not to follow the minute details of the day’s political debates. And they frequently show little interest in the candidates and campaigns waged for their benefit. Their knowledge of basic political facts is often sorely inadequate.¹⁶ But immigration is no ephemeral phenomenon. Unlike many of the other political developments that US politicians debate, immigration is massive, local, and long term. We believe that one of the reasons immigration is so central in the politics of individual white Americans is its almost-overwhelming magnitude. Every year for over five decades, upward of a million immigrants have ar...