Hispanic Immigrant Identity: Political Allegiance vs. Cultural Preference (The New Americans)

When the news media broadcasts pictures of Hispanic immigrants waving the flags of their countries of origin, Americans ask: Are the immigrants affirming a political allegiance or expressing a cultural preference? Monsivais addresses this question by first developing minimum criteria of being "American" by examining historical and current literature and Supreme Court decisions; conducting a secondary analysis of "The National Latino Immigrant Survey" as reported in New Americans by Choice (Pachon and DeSipio, 1994); and reporting the results of focus group interviews conducted with legal Hispanic immigrants. The findings demonstrate that overall they are expressing ethnic/racial or cultural concepts and not political preferences. The author, a bicultural Mexican-American, describes the results of his research on Hispanic immigrants' identification with their countries of origin. He examines criteria for being "American," drawing on relevant historical and current literature and Supreme Court decisions, then analyzes data from the National Latino Immigrant Survey (NLIS) to look at the relationship between the developed criteria and the NLIS respondents' national self-identification. The author's focus group interviews with legal Hispanic immigrants also shed light on the issue. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Table of Contents......Page 8 Introduction......Page 14 What is an American?......Page 26 Logistic Analysis of the Allegiance Variable......Page 94 Talking to the People: The Focus Groups......Page 116 Conclusions......Page 142 Footnotes......Page 150 Bibliography......Page 160 E......Page 170 M......Page 171 T......Page 172 Y......Page 173