Contact: Tom Ryan Humanities and Social Sciences Writer
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Researchers have spent decades studying the political opinions and behavior of whites and African-Americans. But far less is known about political attitudes of Latinos, say two University of Illinois at Chicago political scientists who have conducted some of the first surveys designed to find out how Chicago Latinos think about politics and act on their beliefs.
"Latinos are concentrated in certain areas, and when national surveys are done they just don't get called," says assistant professor Melissa Michelson. "Unless you target Latino neighborhoods, you don't get enough respondents."
Michelson and her UIC colleague, assistant professor Amalia Pallares, targeted Chicago's Pilsen, Little Village and Logan Square neighborhoods, home to many of the city's Latinos, for a bilingual exit poll of 562 voters and a bilingual telephone survey of 867 people to explore differences in people's political attitudes and voting behavior.
"The most exciting thing we found was confirmation of our theory that Chicago Latinos are not monolithic in their opinions," Pallares says. "Whether someone is native-born or recently naturalized makes a big difference in terms of their political attitudes." Among the differences the researchers found were greater concerns with crime among Mexican-Americans who were born in this country and a higher level of concern with racism and discrimination among recently naturalized Mexican-Americans.
The UIC researchers also found high levels of what political scientists term "external political efficacy" among Chicago Latinos. "People with high external political efficacy feel the government is responsive to them when they vote or write their congressman," Michelson says. "For Chicago Latinos, this may be due to a feeling of local political power."
Michelson and Pallares plan to continue their research with in-depth interviews of Chicago Latinos, to find out what motivates them to get involved politically and to explore differences in political opinions within the Latino community, such as between Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans.
"We will also continue to investigate the effects of welfare reform, immigration and naturalization issues and feelings of racism and discrimination, and how they are linked together and linked to political behavior," Michelson says.
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