White Nativist Immigration Sociopolitical Discourses, Ethnic Identity and Sense of National Belonging of Hispanic Children of Immigrants: Implications for Policy and Clinical Social Work Practice

Contemporary white nativist sociopolitical discourses in national immigration debates question the capacity of immigrant children and parents-- particularly Hispanic immigrants-- to incorporate themselves into the United States’ mainstream life without constituting a threat. These discourses attribute the development of a national sense of belonging versus disengagement and possible radicalization, to individual proclivities, including adherence to a foreign ethnic identity, thereby obscuring societal and political forces that interact with individual values.

Through a secondary, longitudinal data analysis of the ethnic identity evolution of American born children of Mexican immigrant parents in the United States (CILS), between 1991 and 2003, a timeframe overlapping with increasing Nativist immigration reform policies, this study will illustrate: 1) that over time, an increasingly White Nativist sociopolitical context, negatively affected the ethnic identity formation and assimilation process of children; 2) the indirect effect of sociopolitical White Nativism on the children’s national sense of belonging; 3) the need to consider the transactional effect between assimilation efforts and the host country’s immigration public policy development; and 4) the importance of a social justice approach to clinical social work practice.

Method: The secondary data analysis of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, CILS, only considered: American born children, who had lived in the United States no less than five years; had one or two immigrant Mexican parents; and, were in 8^th or 9^th grade in one of the 49 schools that participated in the CILS.  

Indices used: 1) Explicit, Ethnic Identity Importance; 2) Experience of Prejudice; 3) Perceived Sociopolitical White Nativism; and, 4) National Belonging.

Hypotheses & Statistical Tests:

1. The ethnic identity of the children will change over time to a hyphenated-American or pan-ethnic identity, and will be increasingly important. Cross tabulations; Chi-Square and Fisher’s Exact test. Symmetry tests for paired response data.
2. Over time, more children will report experiences of prejudice and higher levels of perceived sociopolitical White Nativism. Cross tabulations; Chi-square and Fisher’s exact test. Symmetry test for paired response data; Paired t-test for White Nativism between 1991 and 1995 (or any 2 years); Wilcoxon signed-rank test
3. There is a positive association between experiences of prejudice and ethnic identity. Cross tabulations; Chi-Square and Fisher’s Exact test.
4. Perceived sociopolitical White Nativism and experiences of prejudice will be positively associated with the hyphenated –American or pan-ethnic self-identifications and their increasing level of importance. Multinomial logistic regressions.
5. There will be a negative association between ethnic identification, and its importance, and the national sense of belonging of the children. Ordinal logistic (Stata command = “ologit”) and logistic regressions.

Results: The hyphenated-American and pan-ethnic identities were the two most predominant identity choices over time (hypothesis 1). The importance of ethnic identifications between 1995 and 2001 reflected statistically significant differences.

Reported experienced prejudice and perceived sociopolitical White Nativism increased between 1991 and 2001 (hypotheses 2 and 3). A positive association was found between ethnic identity, experienced prejudice, and perceived sociopolitical White Nativism (hypotheses 3 and 4).

A statistically negative association was found between ethnic identity and patriotism—national belonging (hypothesis 5).