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Mexican American Identity: Regional Differentiation in New Mexico
Casandra Salgado
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Existing research inadequately addresses the variation in Mexican Americans' patterns of ethnic identification. Drawing on 78 interviews, I address this question by exploring how conceptions of ancestry and nationality shape ethnic identification among New Mexico's long-standing Mexican American population, Nuevomexicanos. I find that Nuevomexicanos emphasized their ties to Spanish heritage within the history of New Mexico to explain their ethnicity and to construct their identity in opposition to Mexican immigrants. Although Nuevomexicanos varied in their claims to Mexican ancestry, they generally prioritized their roots in the original Spanish settlement of New Mexico to emphasize distinctions in ancestry, nationality, and regionality from Mexican immigrants. Moreover, despite Nuevomexicanos' persistent claims to Spanish ancestry, they did not perceive themselves as racially White. Instead, Spanish ancestry was integral to Nuevomexicano identity because it enabled them to highlight their regional ties to New Mexico and long-time American identities. Thus, I argue that Nuevomexicanos' enduring claims to Spanish ancestry represent a defensive strategy to enact dissociation from stigmatized Mexican immigrants. Overall, these findings show that Mexican Americans' dissociation strategies are contingent on how they define themselves as members of an ethnic and national community. These findings also indicate that "Mexican American" as an identity term is a loosely maintained membership category among "Mexican Americans" because of their intragroup heterogeneity.
Deterring Illegal Entry: Migrant Sanctions and Recidivism in Border Apprehensions
Samuel Bazzi et al.
NBER Working Paper, September 2018
Abstract:
In this paper, we use administrative records from the U.S. Border Patrol to examine how penalizing illegal border crossing affects recidivism in the apprehension of undocumented migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Over 2008 to 2012, the Border Patrol rolled out a Consequence Delivery System, which increased the fraction of apprehended border crossers subject to administrative or criminal sanctions from 15% to 85% percent. By matching fingerprints across apprehension records, we detect if a migrant apprehended by the Border Patrol is subject to penalties and if he is re-apprehended at a later date. Exploiting day-to-day variation in the capacity of the Border Patrol to levy sanctions during the rollout phase, we estimate strong effects of penalties on the likelihood that an apprehended migrant re-attempts illegal entry and is recaptured. Exposure to (milder) administrative penalties reduces the 3-month and 18-month re-apprehension rates for male Mexican nationals by 6.6 and 4.6 percentage points, off of baseline rates of 22.6% and 24.2%; exposure to the full set of penalties reduces these re-apprehension rates by 8.1 and 6.1 percentage points. The estimated magnitudes imply that the rollout of the CDS can account for 28 to 44 percent of the reduction in re-apprehension rates over 2008 to 2012. Further results suggest that our estimated impacts of sanctions on recidivism in apprehensions may understate the impact of sanctions on recidivism in attempted illegal entry.
From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation During the Great Migration
Vasiliki Fouka, Soumyajit Mazumder & Marco Tabellini
Harvard Working Paper, August 2018
Abstract:
How does the appearance of a new out-group affect the economic, social, and cultural integration of previous outsiders? We study this question in the context of the first Great Migration (1915-1930), when 1.5 million African Americans moved from the US South to urban centers in the North, where 30 million Europeans had arrived since 1850. We test the hypothesis that black inflows led to the establishment of a binary black-white racial classification, and facilitated the incorporation of - previously racially ambiguous - European immigrants into the white majority. We exploit variation induced by the interaction between 1900 settlements of southern-born blacks in northern cities and state-level outmigration from the US South after 1910. Black arrivals increased both the effort exerted by immigrants to assimilate and their eventual Americanization. These average effects mask substantial heterogeneity: while initially less integrated groups (i.e. Southern and Eastern Europeans) exerted more assimilation effort, assimilation success was larger for those that were culturally closer to native whites (i.e. Western and Northern Europeans). These patterns are consistent with a framework in which perceptions of racial threat among native whites lower the barriers to the assimilation of white immigrants.
Vanished Classmates: The Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement on Student Enrollment
Thomas Dee & Mark Murphy
NBER Working Paper, September 2018
Abstract:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the federal law-enforcement agency with primary responsibility for enforcing immigration laws within the U.S. However, for over a decade, ICE has formed partnerships that also allow local police to enforce immigration law (i.e., identifying and arresting undocumented residents). Prior studies, using survey data with self-reported immigrant and citizenship status, provide mixed evidence on the demographic impact of these controversial partnerships. This study presents new evidence based on the public-school enrollment of Hispanic students. We find that local ICE partnerships reduce the number of Hispanic students by nearly 10 percent within 2 years. We estimate that the local ICE partnerships enacted before 2012 displaced over 300,000 Hispanic students. These effects appear to be concentrated among elementary-school students. We find no corresponding effects on the enrollment of non-Hispanic students. We also find no evidence that ICE partnerships reduced pupil-teacher ratios or the percent of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
Age at Arrival and Assimilation During the Age of Mass Migration
Rohan Alexander & Zachary Ward
Journal of Economic History, September 2018, Pages 904-937
Abstract:
We estimate the effect of age at arrival for immigrant outcomes with a new dataset of arrivals linked to the 1940 U.S. Census. Using within-family variation, we find that arriving at an older age, or having more childhood exposure to the European environment, led to a more negative wage gap relative to the native born. Infant arrivals had a positive wage gap relative to natives, in contrast to a negative gap for teenage arrivals. Therefore, a key determinant of immigrant outcomes during the Age of Mass Migration was the country of residence during critical periods of childhood development.
Migration, acculturation, and the maintenance of between-group cultural variation
Alex Mesoudi
PLoS ONE, October 2018
Abstract:
How do migration and acculturation (i.e. psychological or behavioral change resulting from migration) affect within- and between-group cultural variation? Here I address this question by drawing analogies between genetic and cultural evolution. Population genetic models show that migration rapidly breaks down between-group genetic structure. In cultural evolution, however, migrants or their descendants can acculturate to local behaviors via social learning processes such as conformity, potentially preventing migration from eliminating between-group cultural variation. An analysis of the empirical literature on migration suggests that acculturation is common, with second and subsequent migrant generations shifting, sometimes substantially, towards the cultural values of the adopted society. Yet there is little understanding of the individual-level dynamics that underlie these population-level shifts. To explore this formally, I present models quantifying the effect of migration and acculturation on between-group cultural variation, for both neutral and costly cooperative traits. In the models, between-group cultural variation, measured using F statistics, is eliminated by migration and maintained by conformist acculturation. The extent of acculturation is determined by the strength of conformist bias and the number of demonstrators from whom individuals learn. Acculturation is countered by assortation, the tendency for individuals to preferentially interact with culturally-similar others. Unlike neutral traits, cooperative traits can additionally be maintained by payoff-biased social learning, but only in the presence of strong sanctioning mechanisms (e.g. institutions). Overall, the models show that surprisingly little conformist acculturation is required to maintain realistic amounts of between-group cultural diversity. While these models provide insight into the potential dynamics of acculturation and migration in cultural evolution, they also highlight the need for more empirical research into the individual-level learning biases that underlie migrant acculturation.
Does Legal Status Matter for Educational Choices? Evidence from Immigrant Teenagers
Zachary Liscow & William Gui Woolston
American Law and Economics Review, Fall 2018, Pages 318-381
Abstract:
Of the estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, 1.1 million are children. Due to differential treatment in the labor market, teenage undocumented immigrants face low returns to schooling. To measure the effect of legal status on the educational choices of Hispanic teenagers, we compare siblings who differ in their legal status due to their birth country. We find that teenagers who were born in Mexico are 2.7 percentage points more likely to be out of school than their U.S.- born siblings. Alternative explanations, such as differences in prenatal or childhood environment, appear largely unable to explain this result, suggesting that legal status has a significant impact on schooling decisions. After accounting for these alternative explanations to the extent possible and using proxies for legal status in the U.S. Census, our results suggest that being undocumented roughly doubles high school students' dropout rate relative to their U.S.-born siblings, with substantial wage decreases implied by back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Targeted Foreign Aid and International Migration: Is Development-Promotion an Effective Immigration Policy?
Jonas Gamso & Farhod Yuldashev
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Faced with the failure of traditional immigration controls, policymakers in the United States and Western Europe increasingly look to foreign aid to reduce migrant inflows. Some analysts expect assistance to improve living standards in source countries, thereby deterring residents from moving abroad. While this idea makes intuitive sense, research on aid and migration shows mixed results: some scholarly work supports aid-based migration policies, but other analyses suggest that aid actually enables migration by providing individuals with resources that facilitate movement across borders. We suggest that this tension in the literature reflects a failure to distinguish between different types of foreign aid. Drawing on recent work demonstrating the heterogeneous effects of various aid projects, we posit that governance aid should deter emigration by enhancing government capacity and alleviating political push factors; in contrast, economic and social aid should enable migration by increasing individuals' means and capabilities to move. We test our hypotheses on a panel of 101 developing countries spanning twenty-five years (1985-2010). We find that governance aid does reduce emigration rates from developing countries, while other types of aid appear not to affect migration.
Punitiveness and Perceptions of Criminality: An Examination of Attitudes Toward Immigrant Offenders
Michael Costelloe, Madeline Stenger & Christine Arazan
Race and Justice, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the effect of the residency status (undocumented immigrant, refugee, or U.S. citizen) and the country of origin-ethnicity of an offender on perceptions of criminality and on the level of punitiveness expressed by a random sample of college seniors attending a southwestern university. A factorial survey design was administered asking respondents to apply a punishment (incarceration or no incarceration) and to rate the level of criminality of a hypothetical offender. Results showed that while there were no differences in perceptions of the degree of criminality across the various offenders, there was significant variation in the severity of punishments meted out by the respondent based on offender country of origin-ethnicity. Moreover, an interaction effect was discovered, whereby the effect of residency status on punitiveness was dependent on the country of origin-ethnicity of the offender. It appears, then, that punitiveness is not uniformly directed toward all immigrants but is reserved for ethnic "others."
California DREAM: The Impact of Financial Aid for Undocumented Community College Students
Federick Ngo & Samantha Astudillo
Educational Researcher, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ineligibility for state financial aid has traditionally limited undocumented students' access to higher education. Since 2013, the California Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (CA-DREAM) has made state-supported aid available to undocumented college students with demonstrated financial need. We use a difference-in-difference strategy and administrative data to examine the impact of the policy on undocumented community college students' enrollment behaviors and postsecondary outcomes. The availability of CA-DREAM aid for these students, in the form of enrollment fee waivers, drew in undocumented Hispanic male students, students with lower average incoming high school GPAs, and those who increased their 11th to 12th grade achievement. Receiving DREAM aid significantly increased the average number of units attempted and completed and, in some cases, improved persistence and attainment outcomes. Undocumented students receiving aid achieved at similar levels as U.S. citizen peers receiving aid and better than their undocumented peers not receiving aid.
Immigration and environment in the U.S.: A spatial study of air quality
Guizhen Ma & Erin Trouth Hofmann
Social Science Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Environmental consequences are frequently cited as a justification for restricting immigration to the United States, but there is little empirical research on the environmental consequences of immigration to support such arguments. The research that does exist shows immigration to be less environmentally harmful than native population growth, but is hampered by small samples and fails to account for spatial autocorrelation of air quality. We use the air quality domain of the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Quality Index (EQI) to examine the association between immigrant and native populations and local air quality across all counties in the continental U.S. We employ spatial models to account for spatial autocorrelation of air quality across the counties, controlling for indicators of economic development and location characteristics. We find that native population is strongly associated with worse air quality, while foreign-born population is associated with better air quality. However, this association varies by immigrant country of origin, with East Asian immigrants in particular associated with worse air quality, and by immigrants' year of entry, with some immigration cohorts positively associated with air quality, and others negatively. These findings highlight the importance of population characteristics in understanding population-environment linkages.
Migration and depression: A cross-national comparison of Mexicans in sending communities and Durham, NC
Edith Gutierrez-Vazquez, Chenoa Flippen & Emilio Parrado
Social Science & Medicine, December 2018, Pages 1-10
Rationale: Latino immigrants have been shown to average better health and longevity than native whites, in spite of their relative socioeconomic disadvantage. However, mental health outcomes stand in stark contrast to this epidemiological "paradox," as factors such as depression are significantly higher for Latino immigrants than other groups.
Objective: We explore the link between migration and depressive feelings using a binational random survey of Mexicans in Durham, NC and sending communities in Mexico.
Method: Explanations for the link between migration and depression, such as acculturative stress, lack of social support, and powerlessness and isolation, are analyzed by comparing results for protective vs. risk factors between residents of Mexico and Durham, and among immigrants themselves. Besides, selection hypothesis is explored using propensity matching scores.
Results: Results show little support for selection as an important source of migrant depression, and instead provide strong evidence that migration itself, and the disruption of social networks that it entails, is primarily responsible for the association. Family separation, in particular, is the strongest predictor of depressive feelings and accounts for a sizeable portion of the heightened depression among migrants.
The Effect of Communism on People's Attitudes Toward Immigration
Matthew Carl
Federal Reserve Working Paper, September 2018
Abstract:
Does living in a communist regime make a person more concerned about immigration? This paper argues conceptually and demonstrates empirically that people's attitudes toward immigration are affected by their country's politico-economic legacy. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment arising from the historic division of Germany into East and West, I show that former East Germans, because of their exposure to communism, are notably more likely to be very concerned about immigration than former West Germans. Opposite of what existing literature finds, higher educational attainment in East Germany actually increases concerns. Further, I find that the effect of living in East Germany is driven by former East Germans who were born during, and not before, the communist rule and that differences in attitudes persist even after Germany's reunification. People's trust in strangers and contact with foreigners represent two salient channels through which communism affects people's preferences toward immigration.