Immigrant Incorporation and Political Participation in the United States

Abstract

This article examines several factors related to immigrant incorporation that have been ignored in previous studies of voting participation. We add various immigrant-related variables to a model that controls for individual resources, social incorporation, institutional barriers and contexts of political mobilization. We find little support for straight-line assimilationist theories of immigrant adaptation. We also find that coming from a repressive regime has no significant effect on voting and that living in areas with Spanish-language ballots does not increase the likelihood of voting among first generation Latinos. Our results also suggest that anti-immigrant legislation has a positive effect on participation among first and second generation immigrants. Overall, the immigrant-related variables introduced in our analysis add significantly to the existing theoretical knowledge on voting participation in the United States.