Dissecting Diversity, Vote by Vote
By Nicole St.Pierre
In the 2003 primary election, immigrants will make up roughly 13 percent of the voting-age population. Because these voters are concentrated in key states of the Electoral College, including California, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Florida, political strategists and candidates are racing to understand what influences their political participation.
The study of diversity in politics is hardly new to USC College’s political science department, where professors look to the diversity of Los Angeles and their individual heritages to ask—and ultimately answer—some important questions on the subject.
“If one is to understand the shape of American politics in the future, people will need to understand the process by which new immigrants become voters, as well as how to increase the interest and voter turnout of uninterested and unregistered Black voters,” says professor Michael Preston. “American democracy will only profit from the increased engagement of immigrants.”
Preston taught USC’s first course about African-American politics when he joined the faculty in 1986. Since then, his area of expertise has expanded beyond issues of Black and White to include Latinos’ involvement in politics. He is currently working on an edited book titled “After Bradley: Black and Latino Politics in Los Angeles,” which dissects the political changes that have shaped Los Angeles since the early 1980s.
“We are studying whether Black and Latino political empowerment has increased, decreased or stayed the same. It is clear that the growth of the Latino population and increased voter turnout makes them major players. One of the key questions will be whether we are likely to see more cooperation between these groups rather than conflict in the future,” says Preston.
Assistant professor Ricardo Ramirez, who joins the College this semester from Stanford University, first began examining diversity in politics in the early 1990s, when both the size of the Latino electorate and the number of Latino elected officials ballooned.
Today, he researches how Latinos’ presence in the population, the electorate and among elected officials is impacting party control and competition at national and state levels. He is currently working on a book titled “Continuity and Change: Latinos in American Politics Since 1990.”
Understanding that Latinos are not a monolithic group, Ramirez identifies the intragroup differences that are evident among Latinos, and gauges how these differences interact with state-specific social and political contexts to impact the future of the national political landscape. “One clear example is the fact that recent Latino naturalized citizens in California appear to be more engaged in the electoral system than their counterparts in Texas or Florida,” he says.
When it comes to analyzing the political attitudes and practices of Asian Americans, assistant professor Janelle Wong is the College’s expert. This Asian American who has a Ph.D. from Yale University is part of a team of researchers currently completing the first multiethnic, multicity, multilingual study of Asian-American political participation in the United States.
Her latest book, “Diversity and Community: Asian American Political Attitudes and Behavior,” with co-authors Pei-Te Lien and Margaret Conway, is scheduled for release in January 2004. One of her key findings is that Asian Americans as a group are more liberal than conservative in their political orientation. They also tend to have a lower voter turnout than other immigrant groups. However, once registered to vote, Asian Americans vote at rates that are comparable to their White and African-American counterparts.
Preston, Ramirez and Wong all believe that the College’s Pacific Rim location creates an ideal environment in which to study diversity in politics. “For one study, I was able to focus specifically on Chinese and Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles,” says Wong. “There aren’t many places in the world I could have done that. This is an invaluable research site.”
photo credit: Nicole St.Pierre |
