“Getting out the Vote” in Los Angeles: The Mobilization of Undocumented Migrants in Electoral Politics

Abstract

This chapter illuminates a paradox in the contemporary political mobilization of new Americans. On the one hand, as in the past, organizations such as labor unions are taking an increasingly active role in the successful mobilization of foreign-born residents in formal :ampaign politics (see, e.g., Wong, 2001). As a result, many immigrants are becoming “active citizens” and making their voices heard in electoral politics. Immigrant participation in electoral politics is not i new phenomenon, per se: political parties and (more infamously) Dolitical machines are well known to have employed various tactics to get immigrants to the ballot box in, for instance, Chicago, New York, ind Boston during the last “great wave” of immigration (Allswang, 1986; Erie, 1988; Sterne, 2001). While some claim that the era of machine politics and union political mobilization is over and that the contemporary “dearth of mobilization in immigrant ethnic communities has been well documented” (DeSipio, 2001: 90), this chapter demonstrates that a number of progressive labor unions are again coming to terms with both the growing immigrant workforce and the need to organize these new workers.