Segregation, immigration, and latino participation in ethnic politics

This article examines the way in which racial/ethnic context influences Latino support for ethnic political causes. Welch et al.argue that feelings of solidarity within the African American community intensify as the size of the African American population in an individual's residential environment increases. We extend this hypothesis to Latinos, while also considering how other scholars have hypothesized different structural patterns of residence among Latinos to influence their political behavior. We also consider how higher levels of in-group heterogeneity within the Latino community might complicate this relationship. These hypotheses are tested using data from the 1999 Harvard/ Kaiser/Washington Post National Survey of Latinos.We find that higher levels of segregation between Anglos and Latinos dampen the positive relationship between Latino group size and participation in ethnic political causes.