Thread by @Noahpinion

1/OK, next up in my "immigration and diversity" reading series is "White Backlash", by Abrajano and Hajnal:
amazon.com/White-Backlash…

2/I was hoping for a more comprehensive book covering the entire history of the white backlash to Hispanic immigration since the 80s, but this is not that.

Instead, it's basically a poli sci study arguing that Latino immigration has made some white people vote Republican.

3/Now, "backlash to Latino immigration has made some white people vote Republican" is not exactly news - it's pretty much what everyone already believes.

BUT, the book still has some interesting and surprising results, some of which changed my mind about things!

4/First, I was astonished at the small magnitude of most of the effects the authors find!

For example, among whites, a 2 standard deviation increase in negative view of Latinos predicts a 9-10% greater chance of voting Republican.

That's a tiny effect!

5/The authors also do a lot of state-level correlations.

A 2 standard deviation increase in the Latino population % in a state predicts a 7% likelihood of whites viewing immigration as a serious problem.

Another tiny effect!

6/Voting = the same story. I think I saw one regression in the whole book that finds a large-looking effect (congressional races in 2000).

7/Also interestingly, when the authors look at the local level (zip codes), they find that Latino population percentage doesn't have any significant effects!

In other words, the white backlash they find is only visible at the state and federal level, not local!

8/This is a very different result from what @RyanDEnos finds with regards to white-black relations. amazon.com/Space-between-…

Enos found that neighborhood proximity to black voters made whites vote more Republican. Abrajano and Hajnal fail to find a similar effect for Latinos...

9/Additionally, Abrajano and Hajnal find that the rate of change of the state-level Hispanic population doesn't strongly predict Republican voting, conservative issue stances, or any of the other "white backlash" outcome variables. Though they do find small effects in some cases.

10/That latter result contradicts my prior that growth in the Latino population from a small base would freak out white people. So this book is making me change my mind a bit on that...

11/Also, all the "backlash" effects the authors find toward Latinos are reversed for Asians - living in a state with more Asians correlates with whites voting more Democratic, feeling more positively toward immigrants, supporting more liberal social policies, etc.

12/Finally, they also mention that they find similar effects for blacks as for whites - i.e., living in states with lots of Latinos correlates with black people voting Republican, feeling more negatively toward immigrants, etc. But they don't go into detail on these results.

13/Overall, my main takeaway from this book is that the white backlash toward Latinos is relatively small in size.

The results suggest that it's just a small subset of whites who are backlashing against Latinos, while everyone else just kind of shrugs.

14/The lack of neighborhood effects makes me suspect that the white backlash against Latinos is being stirred up by politicians and/or the media.

The authors suggest it's the media. They comb through NYT stories and find that most stories about Latinos are negative in tone.

15/In sum, this book suggests that elites (media, politicians) are trying to scare white people about scary scary Latinos, and that a small % of whites are reacting to this by actually getting scared, making them vote Republican.

Sounds about right.

(end)

On my shelf: three books specifically about Latino immigration and/or the Latino experience in America!

The reading quest continues...