Forging Political Identities and Becoming Citizens: The Political Preferences and Engagement of South American Immigrants in the United States and Spain

Abstract

Research in the United States has emphasized the importance of anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic hostility to galvanize shared identities and a sense of linked fate that is electorally mobilized around the pan-ethnic Latino identity. With survey data on the electoral behavior of South American immigrants in the United States and Spain spanning a decade (2006-2018), this article gauges how critical hostility is for electoral mobilization. The findings suggest that—despite very different institutional settings, hostility levels, elite strategies, and political mobilization patterns—South American immigrants are forging remarkably similar patterns of political preferences and engagement across both sides of the Atlantic. The overtime and comparative perspective calls into question that hostility is the main driving force behind Latino electoral participation and block voting in the United States and prompts greater attention to the socioeconomic status of Latinos and mobilization by political parties.

Combined Effects of Cultural-Linguistic Proximity and Naturalization on Political Integration of First-Generation Immigrants

“…This more favourable environment for their integration (also in the political sphere) can be seen in different domains. For instance, although levels of hostility towards immigrants are generally lower in Spain than in other European countries (Heath and Richards 2019), surveys measuring attitudes towards immigrants consistently find that Latin Americans attract the most positive attitudes, more positive than those towards other Western European nationalities (Lasala-Blanco et al, 2021). This more favourable context of reception works in addition to the greater resources enjoyed by Latin-American migrants from having Spanish as their first language.…”