Generations of Immigrants: Paths of Immigrant and Immigrant-Descendant Political Engagement Across Generations

Abstract

The changing demographics of Latino and, to a lesser degree, other immigrant/ethnic communities have encouraged increasing scholarly focus to the question of differential patterns of immigrant incorporation across immigrant generations. This scholarship has been particularly attentive to differences between the first and second generations, in large part because those generations dominate the contemporary “immigrant-stock” population. This scholarship (and the much less quantitative generational scholarship on turn-of-the-twentieth century immigrants) offers important insights into the generational process of immigrant political incorporation. In this paper, I shift the focus a bit and look to an earlier generation, specifically the parents of today’s adult immigrants who spurred the migration of the 1.5 and 2nd generation and, in most cases, accompanied them in their migration. I assess whether parental characteristics shape political participation among adult 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants. Specifically, I assess two dimensions of the potential parental bequest to their children. First, and most straightforwardly, I can look at parental education as a resource for the children of immigrants. Political socialization scholarship would predict that 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants, like the U.S.-born children of “native-stock” Americans, who are the children of more highly educated parents would see higher levels of political engagement. Second, I measure different forms of immigrant status and immigrant status change among the parents of today’s adult 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants. Immigrant status at the time of migration can include migration without a permanent status (either as unauthorized migrants or as migrants with short-term statuses such as student visas or work visas) or entrance as a permanent resident. Immigrant status changes include transitions from temporary status to legal permanent residence and from legal permanent residence to naturalized U.S. citizen.