Racial Diversity and White Political Views:
How Latino Context Transforms White Political Orientations
Zoltan Hajnal, University of California, San Diego
Marisa Abrajano, University of California, San Diego
Abstract
Immigration is profoundly changing the racial makeup of America. In this article, we seek to
understand if and how increasing racial diversity in the form of larger Latino and Asian
American populations structures the politics of individual white Americans. We show that local
Latino context has broad effects on the policy positions and political ideology of white
Americans. Using large and geographically diverse samples from the 2000 and 2004 National
Annenberg Election Studies, we find that, all else equal, whites in zip codes with larger Latino
populations are more conservative on a range of policy issues linked to immigrants and more apt
to identify as conservative. This rightward shift suggests that racial diversity associated with
immigration is re-shaping American politics.
Zoltan Hajnal and Marisa Abrajano can be reached at the Department of Political Science,
UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0521. Please direct all correspondence to Zoltan Hajnal
zhajnal@ucsd.edu. (858)822-5015. Marisa Abrajano is at (858)534-7201 mabrajano@ucsd.edu
The authors wish to thank Nicholas Warner for his exemplary research assistance and James
Gimpel, Rodney Hero, and David Leal for their thoughtful comments.
Immigration has transformed the racial demographics of America. Asian Americas are
the fastest growing racial group and Latinos have surpassed African Americans as the largest
minority. White Americans have declined from 89 percent of the population in 1960 to 66
percent today. And the future is likely to bring even more change. The Census projects that by
sometime in the middle of this century, white America’s majority status will be in jeopardy.
The impact of immigration is evident not just in demographic numbers. Immigration has
stirred a wide array of fears related to economic losses and a cultural demise (Huntington 2005,
Borjas 2001). In the political arena, immigration has infused debates over welfare, crime, and
partisan politics. Proposition 187 in California and the welfare reform act of 1996 are only two
of the most prominent examples. The debate is, of course, not all one-sided. Many highlight the
economic benefits and the social contributions of the immigrant population (Bean and Stevens
2005, Portes and Rumbaut 2006).
Others point to the near complete assimilation of immigrants
and their children into the American way of life (Alba and Nee 2005). Regardless of which side
of the debate one is on, there seems little doubt that America’s changing demographics are
influencing the politics of this nation.
In this article, we investigate the extent of this influence on the political orientations of
individual white Americans. One of the most inescapable features of immigration today is its
uneven nature. Some Americans live in areas where there is almost no perceptible evidence of
immigration and others live in neighborhoods, cities, and states that have been dramatically
reshaped. We take advantage of this geographic variation to assess the impact of larger Latino
and Asian American populations on individual attitudes about a range of political issues related
to immigration.
We are, by no means, the first to examine racial or immigrant context. We are, however,
among the first to examine the broader political implications of these contexts. The vast array of
1
scholarship on immigrant and racial context has been narrowly focused on how context affects
attitudes about, behavior towards, and policy on the minority group itself (but see Johnson 2001,
Hero 1998, Alesina et al 1999). That research has at times shown that larger minority or
immigrant populations are associated with more negative attitudes about minorities and the
immigrant population, violence against these groups, and heightened opposition to expanded
immigration (eg Ha 2009, Hood and Morris 1998, Stein et al 2000, Green et al 1998).
We believe, however, that the effects of minority context could be much broader. There
are two reasons for this belief. First, given that immigration has permeated debates about a wide
range of policy questions, there is reason to suspect that it could have more far-reaching
implications for policy views. The fact that the Democratic and Republican parties have, at least
at times, taken sharply divergent tacks on immigration also suggest that there may also be a
strong partisan component to the effects of immigration. Second, such broad ranging contextual
effects are far from unprecedented in American political history. An array of white political
activity including candidate choice, policy views, and violence has, in the past, been linked to the
size of the local black community (Black and Black 1973,Fosset and Kiecolt 1989, Corzine et al
1983). Given that Latinos have replaced blacks as the largest ethnic/racial minority population, it
is at least plausible that Latinos and other immigrant groups have become more central in the
political thinking of white America.
We also hope to advance upon existing studies by dealing with selection bias problems
in a novel and hopefully instructive way, by distinguishing between the effects of Latinos and
Asian Americans – two groups that have very different socioeconomic standing and quite
distinct stereotypes in American society, by relying on newer data that can capture the growing
significance of immigration in America, and by employing a unique data set that offers greater
2
geographic variation and thus a potentially more telling look at how wide-ranging the effects of
immigration have reached.
How Context Might Work
Theoretically, how might white Americans react to living in contexts with large minority or
immigrant populations? The literature offers three competing theories about the impact of
context: 1) a racial threat perspective, 2) a racial contact theory, and 3) an individualistic
account. Probably the most prominent view is that proximity tends to increase the threat posed
by out-groups. As developed by Key (1949) and Blalock (1967), this racial group threat
perspective maintains that proximity enhances real (or perceived) competition over jobs, homes,
political offices, and other scarce resources. Individuals in contexts with larger minority
populations should, therefore, express greater racial animosity and be especially supportive of a
host of policies aimed at maintaining the in-group’s political and economic privilege.
A second view contends that racial animosity is more often the result of inaccurate
perceptions about the minority out-group than it is about real competition over resources. From
this racial contact view, personal interaction with minority out-groups exposes majority group
members to new, more accurate information about minority group members that should
disconfirm negative stereotypes and allow for the development of more favorable views (Allport
1954, Jackman and Crane 1986, Kinder and Mendelberg 1995). Understanding and approval
should, thus, increase with the size of the local minority population.1
Finally, a third possibility is that context has no independent effect on majority-minority
relations. Either because racial views are predicated on a rigid type of prejudice that is
impervious to change or because other individual characteristics like education or economic
1
It is important to note, that in the analysis that follows, we do not directly test the contact hypotheses. Our
measures of racial are probably correlated with contact but only weakly
3
status are the primary factors shaping racial views, geographic context is largely irrelevant for
understanding inter-group conflict and cooperation. If true, racial views should be unrelated to
geographic context once we control for individual characteristics.
Past Patterns, Current Studies
Existing research provides an array of evidence relating to the impact of context on white
Americans. A wide range of studies has demonstrated a strong relationship between black
context and white political behavior during different periods in American politics.
Proximity to blacks has been linked to greater racial antagonism in a variety of forms
including more negative views of blacks themselves (Dixon 2006, Taylor 1998, Quillian 1996
but see Oliver and Wong 2003, Kinder and Mendelberg 1995) violence against blacks including
riots and lynching (Corzine et al 1983), support for racist candidates (Black and Black 1973 but
see Voss 1996), and greater opposition to policies designed to aid blacks (Giles and Evans 1986,
Fosset and Kiecolt 1989, Key 1949).2 Notably, the confirmed effects of black context are even
broader. Larger black populations have also been linked to more conservative views on a range
of implicitly racial policies (Hero and Preuhs 2006, Fellowes and Rowe 2004), to diminished
public goods (Hero 1998, Alesina et al 1999) and to large scale defection from the Democratic
Party (Huckfeldt and Kohfeld 1989). While several more recent studies have found that the
effects of black context are contingent on socioeconomic status (Oliver and Mendelberg 2000,
Branton and Jones 2005), there seems little doubt that black racial context has often been a
important force shaping white political choices and actions.
A number of studies that have shifted the focus to immigrant context have also found that
more immigrants can represent a threat and drive a white backlash. In particular, larger local
2
These findings say little about the potential of certain forms of inter-racial contact. Studies that measure actual
contact tend to find that inter-racial contact can reduce racial enmity (Pettigrew 1997, Dixon and Rosenbaum 2004).
4
immigrant populations have been associated with more hostile views toward the immigrant
population, violence against immigrants, and heightened opposition to expanded immigration
(Ha 2010, Campbell et al 2006, Stein et al 2000). Similarly, a range of comparative research has
found that larger immigrant populations at the national level are associated with more negative
views of immigrants and more support for restrictionist immigration policy (Quillian 1995,
McLaren 2003, Dustman and Preston 2001).
Although the bulk of the research points to an immigrant backlash, there are at least a few
studies that reach very different conclusions about immigrant context. Some researchers have
found that immigrant context has few significant implications (Dixon 2006, Taylor 1998, Burns
and Gimpel 2000). And still others have revealed a positive relationship between immigrant
context and white views – especially when that context is primarily composed of Asian
Americans (Ha 2010, Hood and Morris 1998, 2000, Fox 2004). Finally, several more recent
studies have suggested that the impact of ethnic or immigrant context is contingent on either the
socioeconomic status of the neighborhood, the skill level of the immigrants, or the national
political debate (Hopkins 2010, Scheve and Slaughter 2001, Oliver and Mendelberg 2000,
Branton and Jones 2005).
One read of these mixed findings is that immigrant context has a real but limited and
contingent impact on white political behavior. There are, however, reasons to hesitate before
concluding that immigrant context is not a central feature in the minds of white Americans.
Understanding a New Racial Threat and its Political Implications
Perhaps, the most important reason to re-assess the role of race in shaping white views is that the
world is changing. Latinos have recently replaced African Americans as the largest minority
group. Asian Americans are now the fastest growing racial and ethnic group. By contrast, the
5
number of African Americans living in this country is close to stagnant. One core result of these
demographic changes is that immigration, in general, and Latinos and Asian Americans, in
particular, may be becoming more central in the minds of white Americans. The growing reach
of immigration suggests that existing studies may be too narrow. Almost every study that has
focused on the contextual impact of immigrants has limited its purview to minority specific
outcomes (but see Hopkins 2009, Hero and Preuhs 2007, Hero 1998). They study how context
affects attitudes toward immigrants (Scheve and Slaughter 2001, Fox 2006), how context affects
violence toward minorities (Green et al 1998), or how context affects racial policy and
immigration policy (Hood and Morris 1998, 2000, Stein et al 2000, Burns and Gimpel 2000,
Branton and Jones 2005). Although these studies are extremely informative, we maintain that
their focus is too limited and we suggest that the effects of immigrant context could reach more
broadly into a range of policy debates that are central to the politics of the nation.
Why Context Could Affect Policy Views
If immigrants are becoming more central in the thinking of white Americans and if
immigrants can and do pose a threat as many previous studies suggest, then there is reason to
believe that minority context could have broader political implications. The first is that
immigrant based groups and especially Latinos are visibly gaining political power. It would be
difficult for most white Americans to have missed the growth of the Latino vote (up 64%
between 2000 and 2008), dramatic increases in the number of Latino elected officials (from
almost none to over 5000 nationwide), and regular references to the sleeping Latino giant. All of
this clearly politicizes the Latino population and increases the potential that they are seen as a
threat.
Second, debates about core policy concerns are increasingly being infused with
references to illegal immigrants and the broader Latino population. Take health care, for
6
example. After much of the recent debate on health care reform focused on whether or not the
Democratic reform package would cover undocumented immigrants, a recent PEW poll found
that 66% of those opposed to the plan reported that they were opposed because the plan might
cover illegal immigrants. Welfare reform since the 1990s has similarly been permeated with
discussions of Latinos and illegal immigrants. California’s Prop 187 which sought to restrict
public services to illegal immigrants is only the most prominent example. The fact that just
under 70 percent of whites view Latinos as particularly prone to be on welfare suggests that the
connection between Latinos and welfare is now firmly in place (Bobo 2001). Latinos and crime
is another readily apparent script throughout the nation. The story on crime is analogous. Given
that crime, terrorism, and illegal immigration account for fully 66 percent of network news
coverage of Latinos, it should not be surprising to find that white Americans often hold
stereotypes of Latinos as being particularly violent (Bobo 2001).
Third, evidence of race impacting core policy views would not be new. Research has
already shown that non-racial policy can be racially coded. In particular, there is evidence that
individual policy preferences on welfare, education, crime, and a host of other core issue arenas
have, at least at some points in the past, been shaped by attitudes toward blacks (Gilens 1999,
Kinder and Sanders 1996).
Given the increasingly central role played by immigration and Latinos, it is crucial that
we expand the scope of our research. We need to consider the effects of racial context not just
on how we think about minorities themselves but on how we think about the broader array of
policies that are at different times at least implicitly linked to immigration. Only through a
broader study can we begin to understand the extent of immigration’s impact on American
politics.
Latinos vs Asian Americans
7
Another concern is that most existing studies of immigrant context lump all immigrants together.
We argue that Latinos and Asian Americans should be examined separately because the two
groups are likely to be viewed very differently by white Americans. Asian Americans and
Latinos tend to have noticeably different socioeconomic standing and the two groups tend to be
subject to very different stereotyping. In terms of economic status, there is a fairly clear racial
hierarchy. Asian Americans and whites are, on average, well off while Latinos and African
Americans are, on average, significantly worse off. The median household income of Asian
Americans, for example, was almost $60,000 in 2005, roughly $10,000 more than the figure for
whites. At the opposite end of the spectrum, median black and Latino households only earned
about $30,000. Also, stereotypes of Latinos, Asian Americans, and African Americans differ
dramatically (Lee 2000). Whereas large numbers of white Americans tend to view Latinos as
less intelligent, more prone to welfare, and not especially hard working, the bulk of white
Americans tend to view Asian Americans in roughly the opposite fashion (Bobo 2001). These
distinct stereotypes are also consistent with survey findings on inter-group attitudes. In a poll
asking whites how well they generally get along with other racial groups, 92 percent say they get
along with Asians, while only 67 percent felt the same way about Latinos (NCCJ 2005). Exactly
what these two patterns imply in terms of a threat to the white community is not clear
Selection Bias
Finally, most studies of contextual effects have been impacted by concerns about
selection. We know, for example, that whites with more negative views of racial and ethnic
minorities have in the past migrated in large numbers away from neighborhoods and cities where
black population growth was dramatic (Clark 1992, Massey and Hajnal 1995). If relocation
decisions are driven partly by attitudinal factors, then simple, uncorrected estimates of the
connection between context and attitudes will be biased. In our analysis, we employ an
8
instrumental variables procedure that may help us to get around the selection problem. As we
will explain below, we use exogenous state level demographics to instrument for neighborhood
level demographics that are the likely to be affected by endogenous selection effects.
Data
To assess the effects of context on white views we turn to the 2000 and 2004 National
Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES).
The NAES is an ideal tool because it has a large sample
(over 50,000 respondents per survey) and extensive geographic variation (respondents from over
14,000 different zip codes). In addition, the surveys contain questions on a range of policy
issues, basic ideology, and measures of party identification. Since the NAES identifies the zip
code of each respondent, contextual data can be merged into the sample. Data on local
demographics, including immigrant population size broken down by country of origin come
from the 2000 U.S. Census of Population and Housing. In subsequent analyses we present
results from the 2000 NAES – largely because it has a wider array of policy questions – but
analysis of the 2004 NAES leads to a nearly identical set of conclusions.
Our analysis consists of a series a regression models that simultaneously incorporate
immigrant context, individual characteristics, and economic context to try to explain the
individual political orientations of white Americans. We focus only on policy areas that have
been clearly and regularly linked to immigrants and the issue of immigration. Specifically, we
examine views on immigration (How serious of a problem is immigration into the United
States?), poverty (How serious of a problem is poverty?), inequality (Should the federal
government try to reduce income differences between rich and poor Americans?), four different
health-care related questions,3 four different questions on criminal justice,4 and one question on
3
The questions on health care policy are: 1) Do you favor or oppose using government funds to make sure that
every child in the US is covered by health insurance? 2) How serious of a problem is having Americans without
health insurance? 3) Should the federal government spend more or less money on health care for the poor? 4)
9
education policy.5 To determine if racial context has influenced more fundamental political
identities, we also incorporate ideology. Liberal-conservative ideology is measured with a
standard self-identified question (Generally speaking, do you consider your political views very
conservative…very liberal?).
To measure context, we use zip code demographics provided by the US Census. There are a
number of different ways to measure immigrant context. The most obvious is to simply record
the percent foreign born of the area. But as we have already mentioned, there is reason to
suspect that white Americans will react differently to the two main immigrant populations from
Asia and Latin America. Thus, another logical set of alternatives might be percent foreign born
Asian and percent foreign born Latin American. But here there is a real question as to whether
white Americans distinguish between the foreign born and the native born of these two groups or
whether they tend to lump all Latinos and all Asian Americans together. Patterns in racial hate
crimes and patterns in past discriminatory actions by the government also suggest that foreign
nativity can be irrelevant to white actions (Kim 1999, Almageur 1994). Systematic analysis of
racial stereotypes also indicates that at least for Asian Americans, one of the main stereotypes of
the group is as ‘perpetual foreigners’ unable or unwilling to assimilate (Lee 2000, Wu 2003).
Thus, it is possible that regardless of nativity, all Asian Americans and Latinos who look
‘different’ will be lumped together in the eyes of white Americans. For this reason, we focus on
percent Latino and percent Asian American as our primary measures of context. As such our
analysis should be considered first and foremost as a test of racial context rather than immigrant
Should the federal government spend more or less money on health care for the elderly? And 5) Should the federal
government spend more or less money for health care to cover the uninsured?
4
The questions on criminal justice are: 1) Do you favor or oppose the death penalty? 2) How serious a problem is
the number of criminals who are not punished enough? 3) Do you personally favor or oppose requiring a license for
a person to buy a handgun? 4) Should the federal government do more to restrict gun purchases?
5
The question is: should the federal government provide more financial assistance to public elementary and
secondary schools?
10
context. Since it is not clear in advance what the best measure of context is, we repeat our
analysis with each of these different measures to try to determine which best explains white
views. The results of these tests are described below.
Given that the Annenberg survey identifies the zip code, county, city, metropolitan area, and
state of each respondent, we could have chosen to measure context at a number of different
levels. However, since we seek to assess the effects of living near a large minority population,
we believe that the smallest available unit – a zip code – is most appropriate. In larger
geographic units such as counties or cities, residential segregation may mean that there is little
correlation between diversity at the city or metropolitan level and the personal environment of a
respondent who lives in that city or metropolitan area. Since zip codes are relatively small, there
is more likely to be a correspondence between the demographics of the zip code and the
experiences of any given respondent in that zip code. Although zip codes are our best available
option, we readily admit that they represent an imperfect measure of local context in that they are
not always drawn around well-defined neighborhoods in which individuals from the
neighborhood regularly interact.6
Finally, to ensure that the relationships we see between context and white views are not
spurious, we include several measures of individual characteristics and several different
measures of neighborhood context that have also been tied to political views. In terms of
individual demographic characteristics, we control for education (the last grade of school
completed sorted into nine categories), household income (divided into nine categories), gender,
age in years, whether the respondent is unemployed or not, and whether anyone in the household
is a union member or not, and whether or not there are any children in the household Also, since
6
It is also not clear how aware individual whites are about the racial makeup of their neighborhoods (Wong 2007).
The “noise” in our contextual measure should, however, only serve to reduce significance levels.
11
policy views are often driven by political ideology and party identification, we include both
measures in our model. Party identification is measured with a standard self-identified question
(Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an
Independent or something else?).
To help ensure that other features of the local neighborhood are not driving white attitudes,
we include controls for the socioeconomic status of the zip code. Specifically, we incorporate
median household income and percent college educated in the respondent’s zip code. Since
Branton and Jones (2005), Fetzer (2000), and others have highlighted the impact that economic
downturns can play in shaping white views, we also incorporated a measure of local
unemployment in our analysis. To help discount the role of whites selecting into and out of
neighborhoods with more or fewer minorities, we controlled for mobility by adding a variable
that measures the number of years the respondent has lived in their current address. Also, to
ensure that our analysis is not picking up regional effects, we include dummy variables for
region. As additional controls, we distinguish between respondents who live in urban areas,
suburban areas, and rural areas. Our sample is restricted to those respondents who self-identify
as both white and non-Hispanic.
Dealing with Selection Bias
As we have already noted, one concern with much of the existing literature is selection.
Individuals with a particular set of political views may select into or out of different types of
neighborhoods. The most likely possibility is that white Americans with more negative views of
minorities will leave neighborhoods and cities that have disproportionately large numbers of
minorities. Indeed, there is clear evidence of wide scale white flight from neighborhoods and
12
cities with large black populations (Clark 1992, Massey and Hajnal 1995).7 And if past patterns
are being repeated today, we may be seeing similar movement away from predominantly Latino
or Asian American locales. If this kind of selection is occurring then any simple correlation
between immigrant context and white views would likely understate the role of racial threat and
might even produce a spurious positive relationship between immigrant context and white views.
Indeed, post-estimation diagnostics (Hausman and Durban-Watson) of our two-stage least
squares estimation procedure reveals substantial endogeneity between each respondent’s zip
code demographics (percent Latino and percent Asian American) and their policy views. As
such, the issue of endogeneity is a concern that must be accounted for in our analysis.
Most studies recognize this problem but few are able to deal with it effectively.
Fortunately, we can use larger geographic units to help model away the endogeneity of
neighborhood selection. All of our respondents live not only in neighborhoods but also in states.
The states where individuals reside in no small part shape the diversity of the neighborhood they
live in. It is hard, if not impossible, to live in a primarily black neighborhood in Idaho or
Wyoming or several other states. At the other end of the spectrum, it is often hard to find an allwhite neighborhood in cities in California or Texas. In fact, for the Annenberg respondents, the
three state racial contexts that we examine - percent Hispanic, percent Asian American, and
percent African American - are correlated between .43 and .59 with the same variables at the zip
code level.
The other key factor with state context is that movement and selection across states is
much less common than movement and selection across neighborhoods. Just as we know that
one’s neighborhood choice can be significantly impacted by one’s racial views (Bobo and
7
It is also quite possible that minorities choose not to move into areas where they expect to face high levels of racial
intolerance.
13
Zubrinsky 1996, Clark 1992, Oliver and Wong 2003), we also have fairly strong evidence
indicating that choice of state is largely unrelated to racial views. The first piece of evidence is
that very few people move across states. According to the Census about one half of one percent
of all Americans move across state borders in any given five-year period (Census Bureau 2003).
If few people move from state to state, there cannot be a significant amount of selection
occurring at the state level. Second, studies of inter-state migration – unlike studies of
neighborhoods or municipalities – have not found that race plays a significant role in migration
decisions (Greenwood 2000). Mobility across states is relatively costly and is thus driven almost
exclusively by employment and family (Gimpel 1999). Concerns about the race and ethnicity of
one’s neighbors, may be enough to move one out of the neighborhood or even to next
municipality but they are seldom strong enough to move one out of the state.
As such, state context represents a relatively exogenous context that can predict local
context and serve as an instrument to deal with selection at the local level (see Dustmann and
Preston 2001 for a more formal test of this proposition). We take advantage of this set of state
level instruments and in all subsequent regressions we use a two-stage least squares estimation
procedure with percent Latino, percent Asian American, percent African American at the state
level as instruments for percent Latino, percent Asian American, percent African American at
the zip code level. While this instrument is far from perfect, it should substantially reduce
concerns about selection affecting our results. We report the results from the first-stage
estimation process in supplementary documentation.
Context and White Policy Views
Is living near large minority populations associated with distinct political views? And
more specifically are white Americans reacting to significant numbers of Latinos and Asian
Americans in their local neighborhoods with a racial backlash and a shift to the right politically?
14
Our first answers to these questions emerge in Table 1. The table displays the second stage
estimates of the two-stage least squares regression that models individual white views on
immigration.8 [TABLE 1 HERE]
Immigration
We start with views on immigration in column one because it is the policy area that can
be most logically tied to immigrant context. If Latino and Asian American context matters
anywhere, it should be here. The estimates indicate that local context is, in fact, a significant
factor shaping views on immigration. In a pattern that we will see repeated, white Americans
who live in neighborhoods with larger Latino populations have more conservative views and are,
in this case, significantly more likely to view immigration as a serious problem. The magnitude
of the effect, as Figure One shows, is substantial. All else equal, an individual white American
living in a zip code that is comprised almost totally of Latinos is predicted to be one half full
category more conservative on a four category immigration scale than a white American living
with no Latinos in the area. In other words, living in a Latino context as opposed to a white
context might mean moving from viewing immigration as a ‘not too serious’ problem to a seeing
it as a ‘serious’ problem. This pattern comports well with a racial threat view of the world.
As we expected, Asian American context does not have the same effect. Whites who live
in areas with high concentrations of Asian Americans are no more or less likely to view
immigration as a serious problem. These divergent effects for Latinos and Asian Americans
mirror the divergent views that white Americans have of these two pan-ethnic groups. The
estimates presented in column one also begins to inform us about the role of African American
8
We use robust errors and cluster by zip code to account for the non-independence of observations within the same
zip code.
15
context in American politics. The results, as one would expect, indicate that whites living with
larger concentrations of African Americans are no more or less concerned about immigration.
Our results on attitudes towards immigration policy essentially reaffirm the existing work
of previous scholars (eg Brader et al 2008). In the remaining estimates presented in Table 1,
Figure 1 and in subsequent analyses, we examine policy areas that scholars of racial context have
largely ignored. We start with the policy questions that we believe are most closely and most
logically linked with concerns about immigrants and racial minorities and then slowly shift to
away to less immigration focused but more core political decisions.
Health Care and Social Welfare
The results in the remaining columns of Table 1 indicate that the impact of minority
context does, in fact, extend beyond the confines of immigration policy. The table reveals the
effect of context on two policy areas often tied to the immigration debate – social welfare policy
and issues related to health care. In each case, subsets of the American population have
expressed concern that immigrants are a fiscal burden on public resources (Tichenor 2002). And
in each of these two policy areas, attempts have been made to limit the resources expended on
immigrants (eg Proposition 187). The results suggest that Latino context is affecting these policy
debates. In both policy areas, white Americans who live in proximity to large numbers of
Latinos tend to have more conservative views. All else equal, whites living in zip codes with
larger Latino populations are less likely to support the federal government’s efforts to reduce
income inequality, less likely to seek increased spending on health care for the poor, less likely
to want to do more to cover the uninsured, and almost significantly less likely to view poverty as
a serious problem. Moreover, Figure One indicates that these effects are substantial. Latino
context has a similar impact for two other questions in the Annenberg survey that address health
care. Whites living in areas with larger Latino populations are significantly less apt to want to
16
spend on Medicare and significantly less eager to expand resources to ensure that all children are
covered by health care.
The implications from these findings is that Latino context now appears to be shaping
core policy views across the American public. And it is doing so in a way that mirrors the
negative reactions that have often faced the African American community in the past (Gilens
2001, Kinder and Sanders 1994). In contexts where Latinos are prominent (and perhaps
threatening), whites tend to support a reduction in services and expenditures that would benefit
the bottom rungs of society.
Across the two policy areas of welfare and health, we see again that Asian American
context has a different and largely negligible relationship with white views. In three of the four
cases, proximity to Asian Americans is unrelated to white policy preferences. The only
exception is with respect to white attitudes towards poverty. And in this case, Asian American
context is associated with more liberal rather than more conservative views. One reading of the
divergent contextual effects for Latinos and Asian Americans is that the two pan-ethnic groups
do, in fact, represent very different threats and possibilities to members of the white community.
The other interesting conclusion that emerges from the results presented in Table 1
concerns the relevance of black context. In only one case do the effects of black context even
approach statistical significance. In this particular situation, there is a hint that whites living in
areas with large black populations are more opposed to expanding services to the needy. But for
the other three policy questions, black context seems irrelevant.
Criminal Justice
The estimates from Table 2 further the same themes by illustrating a range of links
between context and criminal justice policy. Once again, we see the importance of Latino
context and the backlash that a large Latino population seems to engender. Whites who live with
17
higher concentrations of Latinos are significantly more likely to approve of the death penalty.
As before, we also see a very different effect for Asian American context. Proximity to Asian
Americans is either unrelated to white views or is associated with greater leniency on the part of
white respondents. The contrast between the punitive nature of the response to Latino context
and the forgiving nature of the response to Asian American context suggests that white
perceptions vary widely about how threatening or deserving the two pan-ethnic groups are
(Brader et al 2008). Echoing past research, whites faced with a large local black population are
also apt to want to punish criminals more harshly – although the effect is not robust across the
two questions (Gilliam and Iyengar 2000).
Education
The results for educational policy are similar. On the one question in the 2000 NAES on
school spending, higher concentrations of Latinos are associated with more conservative white
views, higher numbers of Asian Americans have no observable effect, and more blacks once
again means less liberal views.
Ideology
An important test of how far Latino context is re-shaping white views is to determine if
proximity to Latinos changes how Americans identify politically. Are the right-ward shifts that
we see on health, welfare, criminal justice, trade, and education policy accompanied by a broader
shift to the right on the core liberal-conservative ideology scale that underlies much of the
politics of this nation? In the last column of Table Two, we attempt to answer this question. The
results are striking. Minority context does play a role in the core political identities of white
Americans. The effects mirror the patterns we have already seen. Larger Latino populations
push white Americans to the right politically and the effects are substantial. In terms of selfdescribed ideology, whites living in zip codes with no Latinos are, all else equal, predicted to
18
place themselves almost one full category to the left of whites living in zip codes that are largely
Latino. On the five point ideology scale, that could signal a shift from ‘very liberal’ to ‘liberal or
from ‘liberal to ‘moderate. See also Figure One.
Proximity to Asian Americans in this final case has a significant effect and the direction
is a liberalizing one. Whites in zip codes with greater concentrations of Asian Americans are
substantially more likely to identify as liberal than whites residing in areas with few Asian
Americans. Finally, our analysis of ideology suggests that black context plays no direct role in
shaping white perceptions of where they fit politically. Whites who live in zip codes with larger
black populations are no more or less likely to identify as conservative.
Results from 2004
There is additional evidence in the 2004 NAES that context is altering core beliefs and
partisan attitudes. The 2004 NAES includes views on different groups in American society and
approval of the Bush presidency. In both cases, Latino context plays a significant role.
Proximity to large Latino populations is associated with less favorable views of labor unions and
more favorable views of corporations. More Latinos also means stronger approval of the Bush
administration. The results suggest again that a growing Latino population is pushing white
Americans to the right. The results for Asian American context on these two sets of questions
mirror our earlier findings. Whites living in zip codes with larger Asian American populations
are no more or less likely to favor unions or corporations but are less apt to favor the Bush
Administration. Similarly, black context had no significant impact on white views of unions but
proximity to a larger black population was linked to more positive views of Bush and
corporations. [analysis in supplementary documentation].
All told, these results point to the centrality of the Latino population in the minds and
political calculations of white Americans. When many whites think about core policy questions
19
and their own ideological identity, their views appear to be at least partly driven by their local
Latino context. Where Latinos are numerous, concerns and fears appear to lead to more
conservative or punitive views. Where Latinos are yet to arrive in large numbers, the absence of
these concerns and fears appears to engender a more liberal or lenient political viewpoint. The
fact that a large Latino population can lead to fear and resentment is far from novel (eg Brader et
al 2008). The fact that a large Latino population helps to shape white public opinion on core
areas of American politics is both novel and potentially alarming.
Asian American context clearly plays a different and less central role. In most cases,
white views are unrelated to proximity to Asian Americans. Either due to the different
stereotypes that whites have of each group, differences in the socioeconomic attainment of each
group, or differences in the extent to which politicians and the media focus on each group, few
white Americans seem threatened enough by large Asian American populations to shift their
political views in any noticeable way. Indeed, to the extent that Asian American context
matters, it has a liberalizing influence. Although likely surprising to most readers, the
intermittent liberalizing effect of the Asian American population on white views is not entirely
new and has been echoed in past research. In a number of existing studies, there is some
indication that reactions to the Asian American population are more positive. Hood and Morris
(2000, 1998), Hero and Preuhs (2006), and Tolbert et al (1999) in different ways all find that
proximity to larger Asian Americans communities breeds more positive views about Asian
Americans or policies related to Asian Americans.
Our findings also suggest that black context plays an uneven role. When proximity to
African Americans did matter, the effect was clear. Whites were less generous and more
punitive. But in most of the areas we examine, living near blacks had no obvious implications for
white policy opinions. These mixed results should not, however, lead to the conclusion that the
20
black-white divide is irrelevant in politics today or indeed is less central than immigrant context
in any of the policy arenas we examine. It is entirely possible that views of African Americans
have become so deeply entrenched in the minds of white Americans that perceptions of blacks
affect white views regardless of whether individual whites live near to or far from large
concentrations of blacks. We know, for example, that across all contexts perceptions of the
black community influence white views on crime, welfare, and other policies (Gilens 2001,
Kinder and Sanders 1994). And concerns about policies designed to help the African American
community have, at times, arguably been the core factor driving white partisan choices
(Carmines and Stimson 1989 but see Abramowitz and Saunders 1998). We believe that our
results warrant making relatively strong claims about the increasingly relevance of Latino
contexts in the political calculus of white Americans but they do not merit dismissing the
centrality of a black-white divide.
Robustness Checks
To help ensure that the results in Tables 1 and 2 measure underlying relationships
between context and white political views, we performed a serious of additional tests. First, we
repeated as much of the analysis as possible on the 2004 NAES. The 2004 survey has fewer
policy questions but does have the same large sample and wide geographic sampling and
includes questions on the same set of individual characteristics that we incorporated into the
regression models in all of the tables in this paper. Thus, for at least a few of the policy areas as
well as for the liberal-conservative ideology question we can replicate our earlier tests. This
replication corroborates the results from the 2000 survey. In 2004, as in 2000, proximity to large
concentrations of Latinos is associated with significant shifts to the political right. Whites living
near large numbers of Latinos were once again more conservative on social welfare and health
care policy and they tended to be more likely to self-identify as conservative. The effects of
21
Asian American context were as we see here either insignificant or led in some cases to more
left-leaning policy choices. Black context once again had an uneven but at least partially
conservative impact [analysis in supplementary appendix].9
Second, we repeated the analysis using a Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM). We started
with the two-stage least squares regressions for two reasons. First, because of the selection
concerns that we have outlined, running an HLM model that employs simple uncorrected
measures of local context is problematic. Second, existing studies indicate that clustering
standard errors can provide a better and more straightforward estimate of contextual effects than
can multi-level modeling (Primo et al 2007).
Nevertheless, since an HLM model does take into
account the different levels of units and minimizes the correlation in error terms among
respondents in the same geographic unit, it provides a chance to assess the robustness of our
results under different methodological constraints.10 Fortunately, the results of this HLM
analysis generally mirror the findings that we present here.
One other potential issue is multicollinearity between the key contextual variables.
Fortunately, at the zip code level, the proportions of residents who are Latino, Asian American,
and African American are only minimally correlated with each other (r<. 13). Nevertheless, to
help ensure that correlation between different contexts was not affecting our results, we repeated
the analysis while including only one of the three racial contexts and dropped the other two.
This did nothing to alter the basic conclusions that we present.
Finally, we also performed a series of tests in which we added a range of different
individual characteristics into our model. Specifically, we accounted for one’s religious
denomination (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim), a measure for whether the respondent was
9
Black context also played roughly the same role in 2004 as in 2000.
HLM, for example, enables us to simultaneously control for state and local context – a test that helps ensure that
the contextual effects detailed in Tables 1-2 are not solely due to state level effects.
10
22
born again or not, another for households with a member in the armed forces, and a variable that
gauged occupational status. These additional controls did little to affect the results.
Selection Revisited
Our use of state level context in a two-stage least-squares model may not allay all
concerns about selection. To help discount these concerns, we performed a series of additional
tests. First, we sought to verify our explanation by examining Latino contextual effects in areas
where we should not find them - on views of groups that are orthogonal to discussions of Latinos
and Latino immigration. Accordingly, we found no significant ties between Latino context and
attitudes towards feminist groups, gay and lesbian groups, and Muslims. This suggests that we
are not seeing effects for Latino context merely because Latinos move into areas where whites
are especially intolerant or conservative. Instead, Latino context tends only to be associated with
white views on those issues where the policy debate often centers on immigrants or Latinos.
One might also wonder much these results are driven by a particular state. To ensure that
one state did not account for the pattern of results, we repeated the analysis dropping each large
state one-by-one. Basic conclusions about the impact of Latino, Asian American, and African
American context remained the same whether states like California, Texas, or New York are
included or dropped.
But perhaps the best defense of our results is that the general patterns we present here do
not fit the typical selection story. If the selection of whites were driving the results (e.g. large
numbers of whites with more negative views of Latinos leave areas with high concentrations of
Latinos) then we would expect a positive link between Latino context and white views rather
than the negative one that we find.
A different possibility is that Latinos and Asian Americans are selecting into distinct
kinds of neighborhoods. Latinos, due to their low socioeconomic status, could be forced to
23
choose poorer and less well educated locales – the kinds of neighborhoods that are typically
more racially intolerant (Schuman et al 1997). By contrast, Asian Americans, because of their
greater economic resources, could move into more desirable neighborhoods that contain
residents with higher levels of income and education and thus greater levels of racial tolerance.
There are, however, two problems with this account. First, the zip codes that Latinos and Asian
Americans move into are not all that different on these measures. In our data set, Latinos live in
zip codes that have on average a 10.9 percent white poverty rate. Asian Americans live in zip
codes that have on average an 8.3 percent white poverty rate. Similarly, the average Latino lives
in a zip code where the proportion of whites with less than a high-school education averages 5.3
percent. The comparable figure for the average Asian American respondent is 3.3 percent.
Second, our analysis controls for individual socioeconomic status, individual political
orientation, and the overall socioeconomic well-being of each zip code. This makes it difficult
to explain away the contextual effects due to the kind of selection story we have just presented.
The conservative Latino contextual effects cannot simply be the result of less well off Latinos
moving into less well-off neighborhoods where whites might tend to be conservative and
unwelcoming. Since we control for the education, ideology, and party identification of each
individual white respondent and the overall socioeconomic status of the zip code (including the
median income, the average education level, and the overall poverty rate), the only way selection
could account for the results is if Latinos move into neighborhoods with individuals whose
policy views are more conservative than their party, ideology, and individual and neighborhood
socioeconomic status would suggest– a possibility but a remote one.
Is it Race or Foreignness?
Up to this point, we have focused on two ‘racial’ measures of context – percent Latino
and percent Asian American. We have separated out the two groups because we suspect that
24
white Americans view the two pan-ethnic groups very differently. We have also combined
foreign born and native born members of each group because we suspect that white Americans
tend not to distinguish between the native and foreign born of each pan-ethnic group when
reacting to the local population. But we could be wrong on both accounts. To determine if white
Americans most strongly react to race or foreignness, we repeated our analysis with a serious of
different measures of context including percent foreign born overall, percent foreign born Latino
and percent foreign born Asian American.
The overall percent foreign born results are the most telling. The reason for these null
findings is likely quite simple. We believe that because white Americans tend to react to
immigrants from Latin America by shifting to the right politically and to immigrants from Asia
either not at all or by shifting to the left politically, the two effects tend to offset each other and
to reduce the significance of any findings. Thus, if we want to uncover how immigrant context
is shaping white views, we need to separate out these two divergent effects [Results in
Supplementary Documentation].
The results for percent foreign born Latin American and percent foreign born Asian
American are more complicated. When we substituted these two contextual measures into our
model, they tended to work in the same manner as the percent Latino and percent Asian
American measures. This is because the two sets of measures are very highly correlated.
Percent foreign born Asian is correlated at .84 with percent Asian American at the zip code level.
The correlation for percent Latino and percent foreign born Latin American is .89. Thus, from
an empirical standpoint, very little exists that distinguishes these two measures. If we do,
however, include all four measures of context in the same model, the two racial measures
25
perform slightly better than the two foreign born measures.11 From this meager evidence it
appears that whites are reacting more to the larger pan-ethnic group and less to the foreign born
members of each group. At least at first glance, it appears to be more about race than about
foreignness. This is, however, a finding that requires more extended analysis in the future.12
Finally, we also looked to see if the socioeconomic standing of the local Latino
population affected white reactions. It is possible that white reactions are shaped by social
distance and that white Americans are reacting to the relatively low status of Latinos rather than
to any racial differences. To address this possibility, we asked if white Americans react more
punitively when the local Latino population is worse off socioeconomically? Specifically, we reran the analyses adding measures for the local Latino poverty rate and an interaction between the
Latino poverty rate and Latino population size. With only one exception, the economic standing
of the local Latino population did not interact with the size of the Latino population to affect
white reactions. White Americans tended to be more regressive when they lived in close
proximity to large Latino populations whether or not the Latino population was largely poor or
not [Analysis in Supplementary Documentation].13As far as we could tell, white Americans
appear to be not all that discerning in their reactions to the Latino population.14
Partisanship and the Contingent Effects of Minority Context
The analysis to this point has assumed that all white Americans react to minority context
in the same way. There is, however, reason to expect something less than a uniform reaction
across the white population. Given the divergent stances of the Democratic and Republican
11
Given the high correlations amongst these variables, this specification generates a significant amount of
collinearity, thus making firm conclusions problematic.
12
We also considered separating out the foreign born population by national origin group but variation in the size of
most national origin groups at the zip code level was too limited to assess empirically.
13
We also found no obvious patterns relating to the social distance between local whites and local Latinos. White
reactions were not exaggerated in areas where the gap between white and Latino income (or education) was higher.
14
Work by Hood and Morris (1998) suggests that responses to illegal immigrants will be more severe.
Unfortunately, data on the legal status of immigrants by zipcode is not available.
26
parties on the issue of immigration, given that Republican candidates have more than
occasionally portrayed immigrants as illegal and dangerous (e.g. former governor Pete Wilson),
and given that racial prejudice and stereotyping both tend to be more pronounced among
Republicans than they are among Democrats, white Republicans might react more viscerally to
large immigrant or Latino populations (Kinder and Sanders 1996, Carmines and Stimson 1989,
Chavez 2008, Hajnal 2006). Democrats, by contrast, might be more receptive to the Latino
community and less threatened by proximity to large numbers of Latinos.
To test this possibility, we added a series of interaction terms between Republican
identification and minority context to the models in Tables 1 and 2. The results are displayed in
Table 3 and in the Supplementary Documentation.15 There is some evidence –albeit highly
inconsistent -that reactions to the Latino context are more pronounced amongst Republicans.
Only one of the five interactions are significant, but in this case, Republicans appear to shift even
more severely to the right in contexts with large Latino populations than do other whites. In
particular, white Republicans are especially apt to favor stiffer criminal punishment when living
in close proximity to large Latino populations. The fact that most of the interactions with Latino
context are insignificant does, however, give us pause. [TABLE THREE HERE]
There is more consistent and stronger evidence that white reactions to Asian American
communities are contingent on partisanship. All but one of the interactions is significant and all
of the coefficients point in the same direction. The significant interactions between Republicans
and Asian American context suggest that white Republicans are more prone than other whites to
shift to the right when faced with a large Asian American population. This is true on social
welfare policy, health care, and crime.16
15
16
This all suggests that white Republicans may be less
Given a similar pattern of results and limited space, we moved three of the regressions to the Online Appendix.
The results in the Supplementary Documentation displays the results for education spending.
27
discerning about the minority population than white Democrats and nonpartisans. For white
Republicans, it appears that both Latinos and Asian Americans may represent a threat that does
not warrant increased governmental assistance.
Although we view these interactions with partisanship as telling, we also believe that this
is far from the last word on variations in white reactions to minority context. There are any
number of factors that could influence who responds negatively to minority context. Scheve and
Slaughter (2001), for example, have predicted that the consequences of immigrant context will
be more severe when natives and immigrants have similar skills levels and are in direct
economic competition.
Others might point to the interaction of minority context and local
partisan or local media context. Still others contend that the national framing of immigration is
a critical mediator (Hopkins 2010). Our tests are merely an initial foray into this line of inquiry.
It is clear that more work needs to be done before the full contours of white reactions are known.
Discussion
The patterns illustrated in this paper suggest that the nation’s increasingly diverse population
is having a profound impact on the politics of white America. This may not be particularly
surprising to many observers. What is novel here is the focus on Latinos rather than blacks and
the broad nature of the reaction to minority context. It is not simply that larger concentrations of
Latinos do or do not cause fear and concern. It is that larger concentrations of Latinos appear to
be leading to a fundamental shift in the political orientation of many members of the white
population. On several of the major policy debates that we face and on the core liberalconservative ideological line that delineates much of our politics, Latino context is a key
contributor. The degree to which white Americans live in areas with large numbers of Latinos
seems to shape who they are politically. Importantly, politics, or at least partisanship, also
28
shapes whites reactions to minority context. In particular, there is some indication that
Republicans react more sharply to Asian American context than do Democrats.
Our findings also suggest that reactions to all immigrant-based groups are far from
uniform. Whites residing in close proximity to Latinos hold distinct opinions from whites living
in close proximity to Asian Americans. Residing in areas with high numbers of Latinos is
associated with a consistent move to the right politically. Whites residing in zip codes with high
concentrations of Latinos are more concerned about immigration, more conservative on social
welfare policy, health care and educational issues, more punitive on criminal justice questions,
and more likely to see themselves as conservative. By contrast, living in close proximity to
Asian Americans often has little to no impact on white attitudes. And in the few cases where
Asian American context is significant, it is associated with a shift to the left.
Just why white Americans react so differently to these two pan-ethnic groups is less clear.
As with most contextual analysis, the results we have presented here are somewhat of a black
box. We can demonstrate that different sets of demographic numbers translate into distinct sets
of views but we have not shown how that translation works.17 Does a larger Latino population,
as we have sometimes implied, generate a greater sense of threat among local white residents?
And if so, are whites afraid of Latinos taking jobs and lowering wages, are they concerned about
Latinos using up precious public resources, or do they simply not like the Latino community?
Likewise, why is proximity to a larger Asian American not associated with more conservative
views? Is it that white stereotypes of Asian Americans are more empathetic, is it that Asian
Americans tend be better educated and have higher incomes and thus tend to represent less of a
threat to public resources, or is it that politicians and the media on Latinos more?
17
Unfortunately, the survey we use does not include questions on racial threat, stereotypes, or ethnocentrism.
29
And how does proximity actually ‘work’ to change individual white views? Are whites
responding to personal interactions with Latinos, to local immigrant political activism, to local
white political campaigns, to portrayals of immigrants in local media outlets, or to something
else altogether? We are doubtful that individual interactions play a big role – in large part
because studies that actually test for the effects of personal interactions find that they generally
have a positive effect on white views of minorities (Dixon and Rosenbaum 2004). But the other
explanations seem more plausible. We know, for example, that media portrayals of Latinos are
more negative in areas with higher concentrations of Latinos (Branton et al 2009).
Future research will also have to consider other aspects of this reaction. We have
demonstrated the broad political consequences of minority context at one point in time. Others
will have to determine if and how reactions vary over time? Are white reactions, for example,
more heated when national politics focuses on immigration (Hopkins 2010) or when the nation
faces severe economic stress (Fetzer 2000, Branton and Jones 2005)? Do whites respond more
severely in cases of rapid expansion of the local Latino population than when that population is
relatively stagnant (Hopkins 2010)? In short, how dynamic is this reaction?
While there is certainly more work to be done, we provide an important contribution by
demonstrating that Latino context helps shape the political calculus of white Americans. In
American history, when race mattered, it was often driven by a black-white dynamic. That may
no longer true today. Along with dramatic growth in the immigrant population, major changes in
the racial makeup of the nation and the increasing visibility of Latinos in the economic, social,
cultural, and political spheres of this nation have brought forth a real change in the racial
dynamics of our politics. Blacks still matter but when we talk about the role of race in American
politics, we have to talk about the fears and concerns that a growing Latino population provokes.
30
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abramowitz, Alan I., and Kyle L Saunders. 1998. "Ideological Realignment in the U.S.
Electorate." Journal of Politics 60 (3):634-52.
Alba, Richard, and Victor Nee. 2005. Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and
Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Alesina, Alberto, R. Baqir and William Easterly. 1999. “Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions.”
Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(4):1243–84.
Allport, G. W. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.
Bean, Frank D., and Gillian Stevens. 2003. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of
Diversity. New York: Russell Sage.
Black, Earl, and Merle Black. 1973. "The Wallace Vote in Alabama: A Multiple Regression
Analysis." Journal of Politics 35:730-6.
Blalock, Hubert M. 1967. Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations. New York: Wiley.
Bobo, Lawrence D. 2001. "Racial Attitudes and Relations at the Close of the Twentieth
Century." In America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, ed. N. Smelser,
W. J. Wilson and F. Mitchell. Washington DC: National Academy Press.
Borjas, George J. 2001. Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Branton, Regina, and Bradford S. Jones. 2005. "Re-Examining Racial Attitudes: The Conditional
Relationship Between Diversity and Socio-Economic Environment." American Journal
of Political Science 49 (2):359-72.
Branton, Regina and Johanna Dunaway. 2009. “Spatial Proximity to the U.S.-Mexico Border and
Newspaper Coverage of Immigration Issues” Political Research Quarterly 62(2): 289302.
Burns, Peter, and James G. Gimpel. 2000. "Economic Insecurity, Prejudicial Stereotypes, and
Public Opinion on Immigration Policy." Political Science Quarterly 115:201-25.
Carmines, Edward G., and James A. Stimson. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the
Transformation of American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Clark, W.A.V. 1992. "Residential Preferences and Residential Choices in a Multiethnic
Context." Demography 29 (3):451-66.
Corzine, Jay, James Creech, and Lin Corzine. 1983. "Black Concentration and Lynchings in the
South: Testing Blalock's Power-Threat Hypothesis." Social Forces 61:774-96.
Dustmann, C., and I. Preston. 2001. "Attitudes to ethnic minorities, ethnic context, and location
decisions." Economic Journal 111:353-73.
Fellowes, Matthew C. and Gretchen Rowe. 2004. "Politics and the New American Welfare
States." American Journal of Political Science 48 (2 (April)):362-73.
Fetzer, J. 2000. Public Attitudes Toward Immigration in the United States, France, and
Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fossett, Mark A., and K. Jill Kiecolt. 1989. "The Relative Size of Minority Populations and
White Racial Attitudes." Social Science Quarterly 70 (4):820-35.
Fox, Cybelle. 2004. "The Changing Color of Welfare? How White's Attitudes toward Latinos
Influence Support for Welfare." American Journal of Sociology 110 (3):580-625.
Gilens, Martin. 2001. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of
Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Giles, Michael W., and Arthur Evans. 1986. "The Power Approach to Intergroup Hostility."
Journal of Conflict Resolution 30:469-86.
31
Gilliam, Frank D. and Shanto Iyengar. 2000. “Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television
News on the Viewing Public” American Journal of Political Science 44(3):560-573.
Gimpel, James. 1999. Separate Destinations: Migration, Immigration and the Politics of Place.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Green, Donald P., Dara Z. Strolovitch, and Janelle S. Wong. 1998. "Defended Neighborhoods,
Integration, and Racially Motivated Crime." American Journal of Sociology 104 (2):372403.
Ha, S. E. (2010). The Consequences of Multiracial Contexts on Public Attitudes Toward
Immigration. Political Research Quarterly, 63(1), 29-42.
Hero, Rodney E. and Robert R. Preuhs. 2006. "From Civil Rights to Multiculturalism and
Welfare for Immigrants: An Egalitarian Tradition Across American States?" Du Bois
Review 3 (2):317-40.
Hero, Rodney. 1998. Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Hood III, M. V. and Irwin L. Morris. 2000. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Racial/Ethnic
Context and the Anglo Vote on Proposition 187.” Social Science Quarterly 81 (1):194206.
Hood III, M.V. and Irwin L. Morris. 1998. “Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor...But Make Sure
They Have a Green Card: The Effects of Documented and Undocumented Migrant
Context on Anglo Opinion Toward Immigration.” Political Behavior 20 (1):1-15.
Hopkins, D. J. (2009). The Diversity Discount: When Increasing Ethnic and Racial Diversity
Prevents Tax Increases. The Journal of Politics, 71(1), 160-177.
Hopkins, D. J. (2010). Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke
Local Opposition. American Political Science Review.
Huckfeldt, Robert, and Carol Weitzel Kohfeld. 1989. Race and the Decline of Class in American
Politics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Huntington, Samuel. 2005. Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity. New
York: Simon and Schuster.
Jackman, Mary R., and Marie Crane. 1986. “`Some of my best friends are black...’: Interracial
Friendship and Whites' Racial Attitudes.” Public Opinion Quarterly 50:459-86.
Johnson, Martin. 2001. "The Impact of Social Diversity and Racial Attitudes on Social Welfare
Policy." State Politics and Policy Quarterly 1 (1):27-47.
Key, V. O. 1984. Southern Politics in State and Nation. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee
Press.
Kim, Claire Jean. 2003. Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Kinder, Donald R and Tali Mendelberg. 1995. "Cracks in American Apartheid: The Political
Impact of Prejudice among Desegregated Whites." Journal of Politics 57 (2):402-24.
Kinder, Donald R. and Lynn Sanders. 1996. Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic
Ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Klinkner, Philip A. and Rogers M. Smith. 1999. The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of
Racial Equality in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kousser, J. Morgan. 1999. Colorblind injustice: minority voting rights and the undoing of the
Second Reconstruction. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Massey, Douglas, and Zoltan Hajnal. 1995. "The Changing Geographic Structure of Black-White
Segregation in the United States." Social Science Quarterly 76 (3):527-42.
32
McLaren, Lauren M. 2003. "Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in Europe: Contact, Threat Perception,
and Preferences for the Exclusion of Migrants." Social Forces 81 (3):909-36.
Oliver, J. Eric and Tali Mendelberg. 2000. "Reconsidering the Environmental Determinants of
White Racial Attitudes." American Journal of Political Science 44 (3 (July)):574-87.
Oliver, J. Eric and Janelle Wong. 2003. "Intergroup Prejudice in Multiethnic Settings." American
Journal of Political Science 47 (4):567-82.
Parker, Frank R. 1990. Black Votes Count: Political Empowerment in Mississippi after 1965.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
PEW. 2006. "America's Immigration Quandry." Washington: PEW Hispanic Center.
Portes, Alejandro, and Ruban G. Rumbaut. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Quillian, Lincoln. 1995. "Prejudice As a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population
Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe." American
Sociological Review 60 (4):586-611.
Scheve, K.F. and JM.J. Slaughter. 2001. "Labor Market Competition and Individual Preferences
over Immigration Policy." Review of Economics and Statistics 83 (1):133-45.
Stein, Robert M., Stephanie Shirley Post, and Allison L. Rinden. 2000. "Reconciling Context and
Contact Effects on Racial Attitudes." Political Research Quarterly 53 (2 (June)):285-303.
Taylor, Marylee C. 1998. "How White Attitudes Vary With The Racial Composition of Local
Populations: Numbers Count." American Sociological Review 63 (August):512-35.
Tichenor, Daniel J. 2002. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tolbert, Caroline and Rodney Hero. 2001. “Dealing with Diversity: Racial/Ethnic Context and
Social Policy Change” Political Research Quarterly 54(3): 571-604.
33
Table One. Context and Views on Immigration, Poverty, and Health Care1
Social Welfare Policy
Immigration a Poverty a
Serious
Serious
Reduce
Problem
Problem
Inequality
NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT
.58 (.25)*
-.20 (.13)
-.34 (.14)*
Percent Latino2
2
-.35 (.78)
.93 (.41)*
.58 (.43)
Percent Asian American
2
.29 (.32)
-.10 (.17)
-.06 (.18)
Percent African American
.08 (.10)
-.00 (.06)
-.06 (.06)
Median Income
-.61 (.14)**
-.13 (.07)
-.15 (.07)**
Percent College Educated
-1.6 (.76)*
.42 (.39)
.32 (.42)
Percent Unemployed
POLITICAL ORIENTATION
.04 (.01)** -.08 (.01)** -.07 (.01)**
Party Identification (hi=Rep)
.06 (.01)** -.12 (.01)** -.09 (.01)**
Ideology (hi=Conservative)
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
-.09 (.00)** -.01 (.00)** -.02 (.00)**
Education
-.01 (.01)
-.02 (.00)** -.03 (.00)**
Income
-.04 (.08)
.06 (.04)
-.06 (.04)
Unemployed
.00 (.01)
-.01 (.00)*
.01 (.00)**
Age
.10 (.02)**
.27 (.01)**
.06 (.01)**
Gender (1=female)
.02 (.03)
.04 (.01)**
.01 (.01)
Union Member
-.02 (.02)
.04 (.01)**
.06 (.01)**
Have Children
CONTROLS
.02 (.00)**
-.03 (00)** -.02 (.00)**
Years in home
-.12 (.04)**
-.04 (.02)
.02 (.02)
Urban
-.06 (.03)*
.02 (.02)
.02 (.02)
Suburban
-.03 (.05)
-.03 (.03)
.01 (.03)
West
-.11 (.04)*
-.04 (.02)*
.01 (.02)
Midwest
-.10 (.04)*
.05 (.02)*
.08 (.02)**
Northeast
2.95 (.07)** 1.62 (.04)** .81 (.04)**
Constant
7640
18599
7523
N
.09
.10
.12
R Squared
Health Care Policy
More for
Medicaid
Help Cover
Uninsured
-.71 (.21)**
.83 (.60)
-.51 (.26)
-.01 (.01)
.15 (.10)
1.2 (.62)
-.49 (.14)**
.60 (.43)
-.08 (.18)
-.06 (.07)
.10 (.07)
.45 (.40)
-.12 (.01)**
-.13 (.01)**
-.14 (.01)**
-.16 (.01)**
-.01 (.00)**
-.02 (.00)**
.03 (.06)
-.00 (.01)
-.01 (.02)
-.01 (.02)
-.02 (.02)
-.01 (.00)**
-.02 (.00)**
.03 (.06)
-.01 (.01)
.09 (.01)**
.02 (.01)
.04 (.01)**
-.01 (.04)
.06 (.03)*
.04 (.02)
-.01 (.04)
-.08 (.03)**
-.01 (.03)
.62 (.06)
7644
.08
-.09 (.05)
.02 (.02)
.01 (.02)
-.00 (.03)
-.03 (.02)
.07 (.02)**
.59 (.04)**
18314
.11
1
Two-stage least squares regression. 2 Endogenous variables-instruments are percent Latino, percent Asian
American, and percent African American at the state level. **P<.01 *P<.05
34
Table Two. Context and Criminal Justice and Education Policy and Basic Ideology1
Criminal Justice
Punish
Increase
LiberalFavor Death
Criminals
Education
Conservative
Penalty
More
Spending
Ideology
NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT
.29 (.11)**
.08 (.14)
-.42 (.21)*
.47 (.16)**
Percent Latino2
2
-1.16 (.34)** -1.16 (.45)*
.86 (.66)
-3.51 (.56)**
Percent Asian American
.01 (.09)
.53 (.17)**
-.60 (.28)*
.03 (.21)
Percent African American2
.01 (.00)**
.02 (.00)**
-.02 (.00)**
.04 (.01)**
Median Income
-.18 (.06)**
-.56 (.07)**
-.08 (.11)
-.39 (.08)**
Percent College Educated
-.33
(.34)
-.99
(.41)*
1.4
(.63)*
-.55 (.51)
Percent Unemployed
POLITICAL ORIENTATION
.06 (.01)**
.07 (.01)**
-.10 (.01)**
---Party Identification (hi=Rep)
.05 (.01)**
.11 (.01)**
-.16 (.01)**
---Ideology (hi=Conservative)
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
-.02 (.00)**
-.07 (.00)**
-.00 (.00)
-.03 (.00)**
Education
.00 (.01)
-.01 (.00)**
-.02 (.00)
.04 (.00)**
Income
-.00 (.04)
.02 (.04)
-.04 (.06)
-.13 (.05)**
Unemployed
-.00 (.00)
-.00 (.00)
-.07 (.02)**
.01 (.00)**
Age
-.06 (.01)**
.15 (.01)**
.11 (.02)**
-.14 (.01)**
Gender (1=female)
-.01
(.01)
.03
(.01)*
.04
(.02)
-.12 (.02)**
Union Member
.01 (.01)
.05 (.01)**
.13 (.02)**
.02 (.01)
Have Children
CONTROLS
-.01 (.00)**
-.01 (.01)
-.05 (.01)**
.06 (.01)**
Years in Home
-.07 (.02)**
-.05 (.02)*
.05 (.04)
-.17 (.02)**
Urban
-.02 (.01)
.01 (.02)
.03 (.03)
-.10 (.02)**
Suburban
-.02 (.02)
-.03 (.03)
-.11 (.04)*
-.07 (.03)*
West
-.06 (.02)**
-.09 (.02)**
-.13 (.03)**
-.09 (.02)**
Midwest
-.04 (.02)*
-.02 (.02)
-.06 (.04)
-.23 (.03)**
Northeast
1.62 (.03)** 2.76 (.04)**
.62 (.06)
3.29 (.04)**
Constant
8089
18419
7667
22709
N
.07
.10
.10
.04
R Squared
1
Two-stage least squares regression. 2 Endogenous variables-instruments are percent Latino, percent Asian
American, and percent African American at the state level. **P<.01 *P<.05
35
Table Three. Context, Partisanship and White Policy Views
Immigration
Poverty a
a Serious
Serious
Problem
Problem
PARTISANSHIP * CONTEXT
-.41 (.37)
-.03 (.24)
Republican*%Latino1
1
5.1 (1.1)**
1.7 (.69)*
Republican*% Asian
.44 (.39)
-.02 (.25)
Republican*% Black1
NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT
.82 (.32)**
.29 (.22)
Percent Latino2
2
-2.7 (1.1)*
-2.3 (.74)**
Percent Asian American
.19 (.35)
.15 (.23)
Percent African American2
.02 (.02)
.01 (.01)
Median Income
-.71 (.18)**
.21 (.11)
Percent College Educated
-.03 (.11)
-.29 (.37)
Percent Unemployed
POLITICAL ORIENTATION
-.03 (.06)
.22 (.04)**
Republican
.07 (.03)*
.08 (.02)**
Independent
.07 (.02)**
.17 (.01)**
Ideology (hi=Conservative)
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
-.11 (.01)**
.02 (.00)**
Education
-.01 (.01)
.04 (.00)**
Income
-.03 (.11)
-.09 (.07)
Unemployed
-.00 (.01)
.00 (.00)
Age
.12 (.03)**
-.44 (.02)**
Gender (1=female)
.04 (.03)
-.07 (.02)**
Union Member
-.01 (.03)
-.05 (.02)
Have Children
CONTROLS
.01 (.00)**
.04 (.00)**
Years in home
-.08 (.05)
.05 (.03)
Urban
-.03 (.04)
.04 (.03)
Suburban
-.02 (.06)
.04 (.04)
West
-.15 (.04)**
.07 (.03)*
Midwest
-.13 (.04)**
-.08 (.03)**
Northeast
7636
18599
N
.05
.05
R Squared
Help Cover
Uninsured
Punish
Criminals
More
Increase
School
Spending
-.01 (.27)
-2.4 (.76)**
.26 (.28)
.50 (.25)*
2.6 (.73)**
.23 (.24)
.06 (.43)
.89 (1.2)
.87 (.44)
-.64 (.25)**
2.2 (.84)**
-.30 (.28)
-.00 (.01)
-.09 (.13)
.21 (.42)
-.16 (.22)
-2.8 (.76)**
.63 (.23)**
.04 (.01)**
-.82 (.11)**
-.31 (.37)
-.52 (.35)
1.6 (1.3)
-1.1 (.43)*
-.01 (.00)**
-.05 (.19)
.73 (.65)
-.49 (.04)**
-.25 (.03)**
-.28 (.01)**
.08 (.03)*
.10 (.02)**
.16 (.01)**
-.47 (.06)**
-.22 (.04)**
-.28 (.02)**
-.02 (.00)**
-.04 (.01)**
.07 (.09)
.01 (.01)
.17 (.02)**
.02 (.03)
.06 (.02)**
-.10 (.00)**
-.01 (.00)**
.04 (.07)
-.00 (.00)
.23 (.02)**
.06 (.02)**
.07 (.02)**
.00 (.01)
-.03 (.01)**
-.10 (.11)
-.01 (.00)**
.19 (.03)**
.08 (.04)*
.24 (.03)**
-.02 (.00)**
.04 (.04)
-.01 (.03)
-.02 (.04)
-.06 (.03)*
.14 (.03)**
18314
.07
-.00 (.01)
-.01 (.03)
.03 (.03)
-.07 (.04)
-.17 (.03)**
-.06 (.03)*
18409
.06
-.01 (.00)**
.05 (.06)
.04 (.04)
-.16 (.06)*
-.18 (.04)**
-.07 (.05)
7667
.07
1
Endogenous variables-instruments are percent Latino, percent Asian American, and percent African American at
the state level. **P<.01 *P<.05
36
Figure 1: The Impact of Latino Context on White Policy Attitudes
37