Legacies of Conflict and Immigrants’ Political Attitudes

• In Event: The Politics of Migration in Latin America

Abstract

Immigrants’ political views often are understood in the context of the countries to which they move. In the United States, most immigrants are assumed to support the Democratic Party, given their vulnerability to deportation (if undocumented), greater reliance on government services, and alienation from white nationalist positions. Yet immigrants vary widely in the political attitudes. LatinX voters drive home this point: while Salvadorans and Mexicans have tended to support the Democratic Party, Cubans and Venezuelans tend to support the Republican Party. This project explores how legacies of conflict in immigrants’ home countries create distinct patterns of political incorporation in the United States and Mexico. To what extent do immigrants form political views based on their understanding of ideological divisions in their birth countries? When do their political affiliations shift? And to what extent does contact with other immigrant groups, with similar or different political histories, shape political identifications? I draw on qualitative interviews with Central American migrants crossing the border and settling in Mexico, as well as in Miami, New York, and Boston, as well as survey data to understand how immigrants import and change their political ideologies based on conflicts in the countries of origin.

Author

• Alisha Caroline Holland, Harvard University