The Limits of the Homogeneity Model

Abstract

Until recently, Latinos generally were well integrated geographically and did not live in concentrated Latino neighborhoods. That is changing. Latinos now are more likely than ever before to live in isolated Latino areas. If this trend continues, Latinos soon will surpass African Americans as the most segregated minority group in the United States. For decades, political scientists, sociologists, and historians have tracked the perils of residential segregation in the African American community, but the consequences of segregation for Latinos in the United States are far from clear. Using the Social Capital Benchmark 2000 survey, this article investigates the civic consequences of segregation. The data suggest that living in a segregated area decreases the likelihood that Latinos participate in community-building activities. These findings directly challenge previous research that purports to find benefits from living in racially homogeneous areas.

Keywords

context Latino political participation segregation voting

A hundred years ago, many immigrants settled in inner cities, eventually moving also to suburbs surrounding those cities. These settlement patterns facilitated coalitional behavior among immigrant groups and connections between immigrant organizations and other kinds of organizations, such as parties, unions, civic associations, and business groups. The current dispersion of immigrants to new areas means that immigrant families have little access to social and political capital . . . [and] immigrant groups may have little political presence and virtually no political weight. Geographical isolation exacerbates this situation. (Anderson, 2008, p. 92)

People in the United States are less involved in all aspects of social life today than they were a generation ago (Putnam, 2000). Of great concern to political scientists, the rate of participation in activities that make local and national democratic institutions stable has been declining rapidly (Putnam, 2000; Younis & Levine, 2009; Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Delli Carpini, 2006). At the same time, participation in the civic world is becoming more important. The devolution movement has led federal and state governments to relinquish more of their powers to state and local governments and to the private and nonprofit sectors (Zukin et al., 2006; p. 53). Actions taken on the part of citizens that affect the governance of their community can determine the socioeconomic and social fate of their neighborhood.

Over the past two decades, while civic participation has declined, immigration from Latin America and Asia has skyrocketed (Ramakrishnan & Bloemraad, 2008), causing some political scientists to consider the impact that immigration and changing demographic factors have on the civic life of Americans. Has civic engagement decreased because immigration leads to racial and ethnically diverse neighborhoods that do not foster the interpersonal trust communities require to facilitate civic participation (e.g., Putnam, 2007)? Or, perhaps, are civic opportunities absent in the neighborhoods where these new residents live? How one answers this question determines what and who is to “blame” for low levels of public engagement. In one instance, the increasing diversity of the United States is at fault. If this is the problem, then encouraging segregation of groups into homogenous neighborhoods with like-minded racially and ethnically uniform residents should increase participation in public life. Likewise, limiting immigration should help reestablish a cultural norm of participation (e.g., Huntington, 2005). The second perspective identifies the lack of civic institutions available in segregated minority neighborhoods as the problem and sees reinvestment in civic infrastructure in new communities and/or facilitating neighborhood racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity as the solution.

Recently, scholars have paid a great deal of attention to the role that racial and ethnic diversity plays in promoting civic involvement. Those who pursue this line of inquiry have argued that residential segregation or “homogeneity” (i.e., sharing a neighborhood with people who are all alike) is critical to the “transfer” and development of civic norms and the building of civic institutions (e.g., Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000; Campbell, 2006; Costa & Kahn, 2003; Hero, 2003; Hill & Leighley, 1999; Masuoka, 2006; Putnam, 2007; Sanchez, 2006). This theory posits that communication is more difficult in diverse settings. Putnam (2007; also see Lancee & Dronkers, 2010, 2011) specifically claims that at least in the short term, the ethnic diversity that is a consequence of immigration reduces solidarity and community engagement. In diverse neighborhoods, he argues, people of all ethnic groups tend to “hunker down.” The argument that residential homogeneity facilitates greater levels of civic engagement relies on the supposition that all segregated contexts foster community participation as a social norm. Existing studies focus primarily on White residents by either controlling away the effect of race and/or ethnicity or limiting their analyses to the White population. For example, Putnam (2007) states that “all ethnic groups” in diverse settings participate less, yet his models do not include interaction terms, nor are they separated by race/ethnic group. Instead, the models simply control for race.

I propose that the effect of residential segregation and neighborhood homogeneity may depend on the group in question. Not all groups who live in segregated neighborhoods have access to similar levels of community resources and civic institutions, nor do they all have similar social histories with governing institutions that facilitate intergenerational transfer of participatory norms (e.g., Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, 2003). Thus, segregation, under the right circumstances, can have the opposite effect hypothesized by the authors cited above: instead of facilitating civic engagement, segregation may in fact deter civic engagement for some populations.

This article focuses specifically on the effect of residential and social network segregation on Latino residents. Latinos are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, but the theories and empirical analysis of their voting behavior lags behind population realities. In short, we know very little about Latino political behavior because the Latino population is fairly new. Here I explore the relationship between Latino residential context and civic participation. I argue that residential segregation decreases the chances that Latino citizens will be involved in civic activities. This thesis clearly challenges previous research that has found segregation to benefit the development of participatory norms (see, especially, Barreto, 2007; Campbell, 2006; Putnam, 2007; but also see Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000; Costa & Kahn, 2003; Hero, 2003; Hill & Leighley, 1999). Using the Social Capital Benchmark Survey 2000, I test the relationship between segregation and civic engagement in a wide range of participatory activities and find partial support for my hypothesis. Segregation decreases the chances that Latinos will participate in community-based civic activities. However, the relationship between segregation and policy-oriented civic acts is less consistent. In some instances it is significant and negative and in others the relationship is insignificant. These findings call into question the generalizability of the literature that finds racial and ethnic diversity to have negative consequences for civic engagement. In addition, these findings indicate that if residential segregation persists or increases among the Latino population, it could lead to the long-term demise of majority-Latino neighborhoods.

Residential Segregation and Civic Engagement

Latinos now are more likely than ever before to live in segregated Latino areas. Timberlake and Iceland (2007) find that if the trend toward Latino segregation continues, Latinos will soon surpass African Americans as the most segregated minority group in the United States. Moreover, in 2000, Latinos became “hypersegregated” in several cities in the United States—a categorization applicable in the past only to African Americans (Wilkes & Iceland, 2004).¹

Historical immigrant gateway cities such as New York and Los Angeles always have housed large numbers of immigrants living in ethnic enclaves that facilitated ethnic social capital and group solidarity. However, these areas historically have been fairly transient. Immigrants dispersed as they gained social mobility. The “spatial assimilation” model (Alba, 1990; Alba & Nee, 2003; Bean & Stevens, 2003; Gordon, 1964) describes early waves of immigrant settlement and posits that on arrival in the United States, immigrants cluster into relatively small neighborhoods. These neighborhoods, while often not containing the most desirable residences, facilitated the building of ethnicity-based social capital, access to housing, jobs, and social and material resources, and incorporation into local political machines (Wong, 2006). Geographic concentration receded as immigrants improved their economic status and moved out to the suburbs once they attained higher paying jobs and more education. Eventually, neighborhood clustering all but disappeared as each successive generation gained greater social mobility.

With immigration from Spanish speaking countries becoming the dominant source of new Americans, some scholars have begun to question the traditional immigrant integration model. Under that model, traditional “ethnic enclaves,” while residentially clustered, were by no means cut off from the city at large. Although it will take several generations to assess the true integration of the new immigrant wave, some scholars are positing that instead of following classic patterns of assimilation, Latinos are undergoing “segmented assimilation” (South et al., 2005) or “downward assimilation” (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; Portez & Zhou, 1993). These alternative models portray the children of Latino immigrants as declining from the modest starting position of their parents into a “new rainbow underclass . . . at the bottom of society” (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001, p. 45).

One reason for this may be that while some Latinos may “look” White, the majority has distinguishing characteristics. This sets them apart from the White majority and places them in a markedly racialized category, distinct from the majority of immigrants of the past (Archdeacon, 1983). Second-generation immigrants today also do not have access to the breadth of working-class jobs that facilitated upward mobility among earlier waves of immigrants. As Portes and Rumbaut (2001, p. 58) argue, “Increasing labor market inequality implies that to succeed socially and economically, children of immigrants today must cross, in the span of a few years, the educational gap that took descendants of Europeans several generations to bridge,” and when they cannot, the second generation is left with few opportunities for advancement. Finally, the social isolation experienced in segregated neighborhoods likely has socioeconomic consequences. Segregated neighborhoods have long been associated with poor schools and few economic opportunities (Carr & Kutty, 2008; Massey & Denton, 1993; Massey & Fischer, 2003). This fact has led some scholars to fear that “large barrios . . . may prove more difficult to ‘escape’ than the smaller, more heterogeneous (with respect to nativity) ethnic enclaves of the past” (Timberlake & Iceland, 2007, p. 359).

Segregation in the African American community has been found to be associated with a vast array of social inequalities, from educational and economic opportunities to the loss of personal efficacy and deteriorating mental and physical health (Balfanz & Legters, 2004; Carr & Kutty, 2008; Cutler & Glaeser, 1997; Hartman & Squires, 2010; Jencks & Mayer, 1990; LaVeist et al., 2008; Massey & Denton, 1993; Massey & Fischer, 2006; McKoy & Vincent, 2008; Orfield & Lee, 2005; Popkin et al., 2004; Portes, Fernandez-Kelly, & Haller, 2005, p. 1024; Squires & Kubrin, 2006; Turner, 2008; Wilson, 1997). While a long research tradition recognizes that segregation has pernicious effects on social mobility for the African American community, the potential impact of residential segregation on the Latino population is understudied (but see Goldsmith, 2003, 2009; Pearson-Merkowitz, 2012; Galster and Santiago, 1995).² The limited research in political science focuses primarily on the potential benefits of living in a concentrated Latino area (e.g., Barreto, 2007; Leighley, 2001; Parkin & Zlotnick, 2011). However, concentration is an advantage only in areas that are politically competitive, and then only when there are leaders and resources that can sustain a long-term mobilization strategy—two things that concentrated Latino communities often do not have (DeSipio & de la Garza, 2002, p. 404).

While civic engagement has been declining for all races and ethnicities, Latinos are less likely to participate in civic affairs than Whites or African Americans (Shaw et al., 2000; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1993; Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980), even when they have the level of individual socioeconomic resources that facilitates participation among other groups (Arvizu & Garcia, 1996; DeSipio, 1996; Hero & Campbell, 1996; Uhlaner, Cain, & Kiewiet, 1989). One reason may be that many Latinos live in segregated neighborhoods that do not foster civic engagement. Vibrant civic institutions take time and effort to establish and keep afloat. Although there exist many established Latino communities in the United States, because of the large wave of Latino immigrants over the last several decades, most Latino communities are either new or contain many new residents. Even in well-established Latino communities, new immigrants may not have the shared experience or interests that motivate minority communities to work together (Kaufmann, 2003; Tienda & Mitchell, 2006). Moreover, for several reasons, including, but not limited to, the dispersion of Mexican American populations in the Southwest and the predominantly rural nature of the Latino population prior to the 1950s, Latinos historically have experienced a significantly slower emergence of civic infrastructure (Tienda & Mitchell, 2006). Furthermore, unlike African Americans, Latinos in the United States have also historically enjoyed civic and political opportunities denied to Blacks, so the impetus for developing such infrastructure present in the Black community did not exist for many Latino communities (Tienda & Mitchell, 2006). Until recently, most (although certainly not all) Latino communities did not require the kinds of strong civic associations Black Americans needed to achieve the most basic access to democratic institutions (Pycior, 1997).³ The continued pace of immigration also has hampered the building of Latino civic infrastructure (Gutierrez, 1995). As Tienda and Mitchell (2006, p. 452) note, “Throughout the 20th century, Latino political elites, and particularly Mexican American political elites, have had to overcome the legacies of past neglect while simultaneously dedicating community resources to the incorporation of new immigrants.” In addition, Verba et al. (1993) find that participation in a Protestant church facilitates the development of the skills that promote civic engagement but that Catholic churches tend not to facilitate these skills as much. Although the number of Latino Protestants in the United States is growing, the vast majority of Latinos are of the Catholic faith.⁴ Moreover, recent evidence suggests that Latino immigrant churches sometimes have negative consequences for the political development of their members, regardless of denomination, because these churches facilitate social segregation from the rest of the community (Foley & Hoge, 2007).

Finally, the likelihood that an individual will engage in civic activity is largely predicted by parental behavior (Verba et al., 2003). Thus, if an individual’s parents were raised in another country whose traditions and civic infrastructure were drastically different, or if they were raised in an environment with little civic infrastructure, there is little likelihood of civic norms being “passed on.” Latinos in segregated neighborhoods collectively simply may be less likely as a group to participate due to their group-based resource disadvantages, even if individuals among them hold the socioeconomic keys to participation (Campbell, 2006; Verba et al., 2003). In more integrated neighborhoods, Latinos may benefit from established civic infrastructure as well as the information possessed by diverse social networks (e.g., Aguilera & Massey, 2003; Granovetter, 1983), thus increasing the rate at which they are likely to participate in civic affairs because they can benefit from the existing resources of the community.

To summarize, I argue that Latinos living in segregated Latino neighborhoods are less likely to be civically engaged because (a) their neighborhoods lack as many vibrant civic institutions as other neighborhoods and (b) Latinos as a group are “unequal at the starting line” (Verba et al., 2003)—that is, they do not have the experience with American democratic institutions or the high educational status that bequeaths civic skills to each successive generation.

Counter Arguments: “Homogeneity” and Civic Norms

The thesis of this article contradicts an idea that has gained a large number of scholarly adherents: that residential “homogeneity” (i.e., sharing a neighborhood with people who are all alike), is critical to the “transfer” and development of civic norms (e.g., Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000; Campbell, 2006; Costa & Kahn, 2003; Hero, 2003; Hill & Leighley, 1999; Lancee & Dronkers, 2010; Masuoka, 2006; Putnam, 2007; Sanchez, 2006). This theory posits that communication is more difficult in diverse settings. Research controlling for race or specifically looking at White behavior has found that residents living in ethnically homogeneous communities appear to have higher levels of social trust and social capital, both of which increase the amount of communication that occurs between individuals. This in turn fosters the transfer of social and civic norms across members of the community, from one generation to the next. In short, these scholars argue that racial segregation is better because it increases (a) communication, (b) trust, and (c) social capital. In other words, residential homogeneity facilitates a transfer of the civic norms the population holds at time 1 (t1) to community members at time 2 (t2).

However, most of the research to date has relied on data sets that contain only Whites, or else the researchers have controlled for race instead of considering how each racial group might be affected by its residential context differently, based on historical relationships with the government and its cultural norms. The argument that residential racial/ethnic homogeneity (i.e., segregation) facilitates greater levels of civic engagement relies on the supposition that all segregated contexts foster community participation as a social norm. Residential and network homogeneity certainly do promote the transfer of cultural norms—such as religious traditions and proper etiquette—as well as in-group affinity. However, residential segregation should not be expected to affect all racial and economic groups identically.

While it is logical to assume that some homogenous communities will hold participatory norms at t1 and will pass those norms along to residents at t2, we cannot assume that this model applies to all racial, ethnic, or economic groups equally well. While at t1 Latinos have cultural norms such as religious beliefs and practices and social etiquette, they do not necessarily have the civic norms that increase participation. Instead, at t1, Latino Americans often are immigrants with little information about or experience with democracy and U.S. civic institutions, and are frequently seen as outsiders or even invaders by the governing majority. Furthermore, if they move into impoverished neighborhoods, they may develop low efficacy, become disenfranchised, lack trust in government and democratic systems, and posses a heightened awareness of being “outsiders” to the larger community.

The question, then, is from where should participatory norms originate for Latino communities? The idea that they should magically bubble up from within is contrary to the way in which socialization processes operate. Certainly, some Latino communities and individuals possess strong civic norms and hold civic engagement as a priority, just as some White and African American communities exhibit low rates of civic engagement and do not facilitate civic norms. However, as a group, Latinos are less likely to participate due to their history as immigrants and their low socioeconomic status as a group. Thus, without either exposure to groups that participate at high levels or access to mobilizing institutions, the connection between residential homogeneity and civic participation is not as clearly positive as it is with some other groups in the United States. As Wendy Tam Cho (1999, p. 1140) has notably argued, “Socioeconomic status variables merely provide the skills necessary for political activity in a suitable political context. Socialization is how these skills will be manifested.”

Recent studies of Latino participation show that Latinos often report little political discussion and/or interest among their peers (Garcia-Bedolla, 2005; Gimpel, Lay, & Schuknecht, 2003; Hardy-Fanta, 1993; Lopez, 2003). Access to diverse social networks may increase the rate at which individuals gain information (Aguilera, 2002; Aguilera & Massey, 2003; Granovetter, 1983) about community democratic institutions and therefore should increase the rate at which Latinos participate in civic affairs.⁵

Of course, it is possible that Latinos could follow the path laid by African Americans in which residential isolation has led to the formation of a strong group identity and shared feelings of linked fate. Theoretically, though, the idea that Latino isolation should work in a similar fashion to African American isolation overlooks the importance of historical context and experience. The unique history of African Americans in their fight for political equality is simply not shared by the majority of Latinos or other racially distinct ethnic groups (Sears & Savalei, 2006). Latinos also have traditionally lacked a sense of panethnic identity, despite the fact that their commonalities are highlighted by continued discrimination against Latinos in the United States (Kaufmann, 2003). Latinos constitute a vast array of subnationalities, cultures, economic classes, and immigration waves. The best comparison group, therefore, may be Asian Americans, who have been found to be negatively affected by residential concentration (Tam Cho, Gimpel, & Dyck, 2006).⁶

To summarize, I argue that residential segregation can dampen civic engagement among Latino residents because Latino segregated neighborhoods often do not have access to the civic institutions that would cultivate civic activity and are hampered by group-based resource inequalities. Formally stated, the segregated neighborhoods hypothesis posits the following prediction:

Hypothesis 1: Latinos in segregated neighborhoods will be less likely to be engaged in civic activities.

Research Design

To test for segregation effects in Latino civic engagement, I draw on the Social Capital Benchmark Survey, 2000 (SCBS). The Saguaro Seminar of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University compiled this data set in 2000. It includes a national survey of 3,000 people and an additional 42,000 respondents in 42 “communities” inside the United States. The data set includes over 2,000 Latinos. The restricted data includes geographic codes enabling the researcher to link the individual respondents to the characteristics of their neighborhood as provided by the U.S. Census. The individual respondent data for this study have been matched with segregation data on the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in which each person resides. This level of context was chosen because sociologists have identified it as the best and most accurate way to measure segregated housing patterns (e.g., Iceland, Weinberg, & Steinmetz, 2002). Although MSAs are large and encompass much more than an individual’s neighborhood per se, they allow for analysis of the housing patterns of racial groups (see Steinmetz & Iceland, 2003).⁷

Iceland et al. (2002), in conjunction with the U.S. Census, calculated racial segregation measures for Latinos in 2000 using 19 isolation/segregation measures found in the housing literature. Each of these measures fit into one of five main categories: evenness, exposure, concentration, centralization, or clustering. For the purposes of this article, I use the isolation index of exposure because “exposure measures the degree of potential contact, or possibility of interaction, between minority and majority group members” (Massey & Denton, 1993, p. 287).⁸

In addition, I include a variable measuring the level of diversity in the respondent’s friendship network. Residential segregation, in and of itself, does not measure the actual day-to-day interpersonal experience of the individual. A person could live in a neighborhood that is 100% one race/ethnicity but spend no time with his or her neighbors, instead choosing to spend time in another neighborhood with friends met through work, school, or hobbies. This theoretical proposition identifies two problems with segregated neighborhoods: (a) a lack of civic infrastructure and (b) group-based resource disadvantages in the form of socioeconomic status and experience with U.S. democratic institutions. Social networks that include non-Latinos could help individuals overcome the group-based resource disadvantages by giving them information that is scarce in segregated Latino social networks. Therefore, the friendship diversity variable should be an additional test of the theory. To be sure, these two variables are not altogether unrelated. The largest predictor of homophily is space (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001, p. 429). Living in an integrated setting is likely to increase meaningful interaction between people of different backgrounds (Marsden, 1987, pp. 128-129). And indeed, segregation has been found to greatly decrease Latino social network diversity (Pearson-Merkowitz, 2012).⁹ For this analysis, I employ a variable that measures whether or not the individual responded that they have any friends that are not Latino. This measure combines several questions asking them individually if they have any friends that are White, Black, or Asian.¹⁰

Dependent Variables

Civic engagement is an omnibus arena. It can take many forms, including, but not limited to, individual volunteerism, organizational activity, and electoral participation. Indeed, authors have measured “civic engagement” as everything from informal social activity and card playing to voting or volunteering for a political candidate. Political scientists largely have defined it as an array of efforts to directly address a pressing issue by working with a community to solve problems or by interacting with democratic institutions (Son & Lin, 2008, p. 331). Zukin et al. (2006, p. 51) define two specific areas of engagement that measure two conceptually different activities within the civic arena. The first, participation aimed at gaining a public good, normally occurs with nongovernmental organizations. As they note, the most obvious example of this is working in one’s community. The second is politically oriented activity. Such activities are aimed at affecting government policy or the election of government officials.

I employ measures of civic engagement that capture both of these two realms by using a series of dichotomous variables that measure involvement in a wide array of civic governance activities.¹¹ The dependent variables are broken into two groups: community involvement and policy involvement. The community involvement measures are meant to capture activity that is intended to help govern or improve a community. These variables include membership in a neighborhood group, working on a community project, working to fix a neighborhood problem, being an officer in a club or other organization, and membership in an ethnic or civil rights group.

Policy involvement is intended to capture activity that is motivated by changing government policy or political representation. Included in this category are membership in a political group, attendance at a political meeting or rally, participation in a march or protest, signing a petition, registering to vote, and voting. All of the dependent variables are dichotomous variables where 0 is nonactivity and 1 is having participated in the activity. I also include a dependent variable where 1 equals having participated in any activity within the category and 0 was having participated in no activities.¹² Models also were run on two additive indexes of these variables, one for community activities and one for policy activities (not shown). These were produced by generating a row mean for the total activity in each category. The results of the models were consistent regardless of the measurement decision.

Control Variables

The SCBS allows us to control for a multitude of individual characteristics. In each of the models, I include controls for education, income, gender (female), church attendance, language use (Spanish vs. English), number of work hours per week, age (logged), southern residence, marital status, having children in the home, and country of origin/ancestry. Unfortunately, the SCBS 2000 does not include any variable indicating whether Latino respondents are immigrants, only whether they are citizens. For this reason, the analysis is limited to people who responded that they are citizens. For nationality/ancestry, the SCBS has indicators for Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, and “other.” The “other” category serves as the comparison group for all models. Appendix A includes detailed information about the coding, range, mean, and standard deviation of all of the variables.¹³ In each of the models, I include robust, clustered (for the MSA) standard errors.¹⁴

Models and Results

Table 1 lists the results for the community engagement models. Although some of the findings of control variables are interesting, I focus exclusively on the independent variables of interest to this study—residential segregation and the diversity of friendship networks. The results strongly support the hypothesis that segregated neighborhoods have a negative relationship with being engaged in community activities; however, support for the relationship between diverse social networks and community activity is more limited. Table 1 shows that across all of the dependent variables, residential segregation has a negative and large effect on community-oriented civic engagement. The more segregated the neighborhood, the less likely the respondent is to have participated in community-building activities. Moreover, the size of the coefficient for residential segregation is larger than almost any other coefficient in each model.

Table 1.

Effect of Residential and Social Network Segregation on Community-Oriented Civic Activity

	Member of a neighborhood group	Community project	Fix a neighborhood problem	Officer in a Club	Member of an ethnic group	Community activity composite
Segregation	−1.11** (.34)	−.71** (.31)	−.79** (.38)	−.95** (.39)	−1.01** (.46)	−.83** (.31)
Friendship diversity	.74** (.34)	.25 (.27)	.44 (.30)	.56* (.30)	1.21** (.50)	.49** (.21)
Income	.06 (.04)	.14** (.03)	.06 (.05)	.10** (.05)	−.07 (.06)	.14** (.04)
Education	.12** (.05)	.27** (.05)	.05 (.06)	.28** (.07)	.34** (.05)	.24** (.04)
Female	−.09 (.17)	.11 (.11)	−.16 (.17)	−.21 (.16)	−.10 (.16)	−.11 (.09)
Church attendance	−.65** (.13)	−.70** (.10)	−.24 (.19)	−.87** (.18)	−.65** (.23)	−.74** (.08)
Speak English	.35 (.23)	.46** (.18)	.40** (.22)	−.30 (.27)	.33 (.37)	.34* (.18)
Work time	.01** (.00)	.005** (.002)	.005 (.004)	−.001 (.005)	.01** (.004)	.006* (.002)
Age (logged)	.50** (.18)	−.04 (.17)	.18 (.25)	.61* (.32)	−.18 (.29)	.02 (.13)
South	.14 (.20)	.12 (.16)	.20 (.24)	.12 (.27)	−.31 (.26)	.09 (.17)
Married	.24 (.16)	−.23* (.12)	−.14 (.21)	−.15 (.22)	−.24 (.23)	−.14 (.16)
Kids	.03 (.05)	.06 (.05)	.13** (.05)	.07 (.07)	.04 (.06)	.07* (.04)
Mexican	.07 (.17)	.04 (.06)	−.14 (.2)	.09 (.20)	.04 (.23)	−.02 (.15)
Puerto Rican	−.20 (.22)	−.18 (.17)	−.22 (.23)	.25 (.26)	−.15 (.32)	−.27* (.16)
Cuban	−.002 (.51)	.44 (.33)	−.64 (.58)	−.18 (.59)	−.12 (.54)	1.04** (.53)
Constant	−4.42** (.72)	−2.08** (.80)	−2.09** (.89)	−4.83** (1.21)	−3.39** (1.18)	−1.23* (.61)
N	1,218	1,214	635	1,217	1,217	1,218
Prob> chi²	0.00	.00	.00	.00	.00	.00
Pseudo R²	.08	.11	.04	.1	.1	.12

Note: Cells are logistic regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. Models are restricted to Latino citizens.

p < .1. **p < .05.

Looking at the effect of diverse social networks, similar results appear, although less consistently. Social network diversity, when controlling for neighborhood diversity, is statistically significant in three out of the five models—being a member of a community group, being an officer in a club, and being part of an ethnic or civil rights group. The results of Table 1 suggest that residential segregation and social network segregation both present barriers to community-oriented civic engagement for Latino citizens, but the effect is much more substantial for residential segregation than for social network segregation.

Because logistic regression coefficients can be difficult to interpret, Figure 1 presents the changes in the predicted probability of participating in each activity for the statistically significant variables in Table 1. The predicted changes represent the change in the likelihood of participating in a civic activity when moving from the minimum to the maximum observed value. Not only does segregation have a statistically significant and large impact on the probability of civic engagement for each dependent variable, its effect is often as large as or larger than the effect of the other statistically significant variables included in the analysis. Looking specifically at the graph for the community activity index, we see that the chances of participation decrease by 19 percentage points as a result of moving from the least to the most segregated MSA. The effect of social network diversity is less consistent. In the models in which social network diversity is significant, it has a fairly substantial effect. However, it is not significant in every model.

Figure 1.

Changes in predicted probability for participating in community activities

Figure 2.

Changes in predicted probability for participating in political activities

Table 2 presents the effects of segregation on policy-oriented civic engagement. The effect of residential segregation reaches statistical significance in only one model—participating in a political meeting or rally. In all other models, residential segregation is insignificant. Since these data were collected long before the passage of anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona and Alabama and the increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric nationwide that led to a considerable amount of protest activity by members of the Latino community, this finding should be considered by future research.

Table 2.

Effect of Residential and Social Network Segregation on Policy-Oriented Civic Activity

	Vote	Registered	Rally	Petition	March	Political group	Political activity composite
	Coefficient	Coefficient	Coefficient	Coefficient	Coefficient	Coefficient	Coefficient
Segregation	.32 (.34)	.36 (.29)	−1.13** (.40)	.18 (.36)	.05 (.67)	−.54 (.62)	.23 (.28)
Friendship diversity	.48** (.23)	.39 (.25)	.56* (.32)	.73** (.24)	.79 (.51)	.73 (.50)	.54** (.21)
Income	.08* (.04)	.11** (.04)	.06 (.06)	.08** (.04)	.02 (.05)	−.02 (.05)	.12** (.03)
Education	.37** (.06)	.22** (.07)	.18** (.04)	.20** (.05)	.15** (.07)	.32** (.08)	.30** (.05)
Female	.27 (.17)	.22 (.14)	−.35** (.16)	.40** (.16)	−.15 (.19)	−.43** (.17)	.05 (.12)
Church attendance	−.35** (.12)	−.40** (.16)	−.39** (.18)	−.45** (.13)	−.58** (.27)	−1.02** (.26)	−.78** (.12)
Speak English	1.06** (.24)	.57** (.20)	.29 (.30)	.59** (.21)	.13 (.34)	.76** (.41)	.32* (.16)
Work time	−.002 (.004)	−.005 (.003)	.002 (.004)	−.004 (.003)	−.002 (.006)	−.0005 (.005)	−.001 (.003)
Age	2.40** (.20)	1.43** (.19)	.33 (.27)	−.03 (.23)	−.76** (.29)	−.02 (.39)	−.005 (.19)
South	−.24 (.16)	−.05 (.18)	−.22 (.23)	−.93** (.24)	−.86** (.44)	−.51 (.32)	−.61** (.12)
Married	.04 (.18)	−.26 (.19)	−.21 (.19)	−.12 (.13)	−.06 (.21)	.11 (.23)	−.23 (.14)
Kids	−.05 (.06)	−.04 (.05)	.04 (.04)	−.01 (.04)	.11** (.05)	−.02 (.08)	.005 (.03)
Mexican	.05 (.14)	.07 (.17)	−.11 (.15)	.07 (.15)	−.05 (.24)	−.13 (.27)	−.12 (.13)
Puerto Rican	−.05 (.15)	−.004 (.16)	−.04 (.24)	−.16 (.15)	−.16 (.29)	.09 (.29)	−.02 (.18)
Cuban	.88* (.44)	.01 (.55)	.21 (.47)	−.14 (.44)	−.08 (.70)	−.79 (.82)	.17 (.39)
Constant	−10.84** (.97)	−5.26** (.84)	−3.33** (1.13)	−2.43** (.94)	−.56 (.99)	−3.74** (1.48)	−1.47** (.80)
N	1,109	1,210	1,217	1,209	1,217	1,217	1,218
Prob> chi²	.00	.00	.00	.00	.00	.00	.00
Pseudo R²	.22	.11	.06	.09	.05	.11	.12

Note: Cells are logistic regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. Models are restricted to Latino citizens.

p < .1. **p < .05.

Social network diversity also has an inconsistent effect on policy-oriented participation. Having a non-Latino friend increases the likelihood of having voted, signed a petition, or attended a rally or political meeting, but the direct effect on attending a march, registering to vote, or participating in a political group just misses statistical significance. Thus at best the effect of social network diversity on political participation is inconsistent. However, in all models the coefficients are in the right direction, and were we to apply a one-tailed test, they would be statistically significant. Thus the confidence in the effect of social network diversity on policy-oriented participation is lower than for the other variables in the model, but the results suggest that a relationship between the two variables exists.

Because the effects of segregation and social network diversity are not as consistent for the policy-oriented activities, I present only a visual representation of the changes in predicted probability for the models in which residential segregation or social network diversity was significant. Again, the figure presents a first difference score for moving from the minimum to the maximum observed value for each independent variable. Importantly, the changes in predicted probabilities show that relative to the other variables included in the model, in the instance in which segregation is statistically significant (attending a rally), the effect is quite large. A minimum to maximum change in segregation results in a decrease of 13 percentage points in the likelihood of attending a rally. This is about three times larger than the change in the predicted probability for any other variable in the model except education. Similarly, in the three models in which social network diversity is significant, the effect of having at least one non-Latino friend results in an increase of 12 percentage points in the likelihood of having voted, an increase of six percentage points in the likelihood of having attended a rally, and an increase of 13 percentage points in the likelihood of having signed a petition. On the composite measure of policy-oriented activity, having at least one friend that is not Latino resulted in a 13 percentage-point increase in the likelihood of participating in at least one political activity.

These models give partial support for the hypothesis that segregation decreases engagement among Latino citizens. However, the models indicate that the effects of segregation on community and political engagement are not the same. Why might residential segregation have consistently negative effects on community-oriented activities but not on politically oriented activities? Several factors may explain this finding.

Concentration comes with some political benefits. Political parties and candidates have a distinct interest in “turning out” neighborhoods to vote for them in elections when the minority group holds a large share of the vote. Thus, when a minority community is large, parties and candidates may be motivated to mobilize them (Leighley, 2001), and neighborhood sorting can increase the ability of campaigns to undertake group-based targeting strategies.

Segregation also could highlight the existence of “linked fate” on the part of coethnics, motivating them to engage in policy-related activity that benefits the community (Dawson, 1994; Sanchez, 2006; Stokes, 2003). Particularly for the Latino community, which often binds together over immigration policy, political activities in particular may promote a sense of linked fate that draws them to protest, rally, and vote for the good of their group as well as themselves. Stricter immigration policies, particularly those aimed at finding and deporting undocumented immigrants, can have a negative impact on the Latino community as a whole—thus, the more concentrated the Latino community, the more one may feel linked to the fate of coethnics.

Moreover, when coethnic candidates are on the ballot (e.g., Barreto, 2007), when the minority group is under attack by the majority group (e.g., Pantoja, Ramirez, & Segura, 2001), or when the group’s votes are needed to win an election (e.g., Leighley, 2001), residential concentration may increase Latino participation in these electoral activities. Of course, when these factors do not exist, the effect of segregation may be negative, as political elites do not have much motivation to spend resources mobilizing neighborhoods full of people who either have a long history of nonvoting or who may be legally barred from doing so. Thus the insignificant relationship between segregation and voting may be due to the fact that while segregation decreases community engagement, it also provides the psychological and political stimuli that increase engagement in policy-oriented activities. Consequently, any direct effect of segregation on political participation may be largely wiped out by the competing drawbacks and benefits of segregation for policy-oriented activities. However, the fact that the relationship between segregation and policy-oriented activities is insignificant, not positive, indicates that minority concentration does not uniformly increase political participation; therefore, it is highly likely that there are competing factors that militate both for and against political action by Latinos in segregated neighborhoods.

The Indirect Effects of Segregation on Policy-Oriented Activity

While the SCBS does not allow a test of the likely positive intermediaries between segregation and political participation such as those listed above, we can test to what degree segregation affects political participation indirectly via segregation’s effect on civic engagement. Civic activities cultivate the discussion of community-relevant issues and help people connect those issues to political decisions and government policies. Perhaps more importantly, civic institutions are where individuals learn the skills necessary to participate in political affairs. From the perspective of the best known political science theories, community organizations can be the foundation of political engagement. As Verba et al. (1993, p. 369) note,

. . . while undertaking activities having no demonstratable political content, people develop organization and communication skills that can be transferred to politics. Not only are these institutions the training ground for civic skills but they also function as a site for political recruitment and nurture political engagement. . . .they are the backbone of civil society—lying between the personal world of the family and the public world of politics . . .

In short, civic activity, while not political per se, should increase political participation because it enhances access to political information and resources. And indeed, if a measure of community engagement is included in the models predicting policy engagement, the coefficient is large and statistically significant (not shown), indicating that there is likely a significant indirect effect of segregation on policy-oriented activity via its negative effect on nonpolitical civic activities. When an additive index of community engagement is included in the models in Table 2, the coefficient is statistically significant in every model: an increase of one standard deviation centered around the mean increases the probability of participating in the political event by a low of 22 percentage points for registering to vote to a high of 45 percentage points for taking part in a march.¹⁵

Clearly, while segregation may have some indirect positive effects on policy activity through the psychological and political factors listed above, it may have an indirect negative effect on policy activity through community activity. To test this hypothesis, a structural equation model (SEM) was performed to examine the indirect effect of segregation on political participation via civic engagement using the software program Mplus© (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2007). SEMs can allow for the specification of multilevel regression models (Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2010) with categorical variables (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2007) that provide accurate statistical tests for mediation. In this analysis, a random intercept multilevel meditational model was performed to test for the mediating effects of community activity on political activity.¹⁶ The dependent variable is a dichotomous variable that indicates whether the person responded that they participated in any political activities (voting, rallying, protesting, etc.), and the mediating variable, community engagement, is a dichotomous variable indicating whether the respondent participated in any community activities (see Appendix A for measurement). All other variables are the same as those presented in Tables 1 and 2, and all control variables performed as expected.

The results from the structural equation model are depicted in Figure 3. The results from the SEM reveal that living in a more segregated environment (a one unit increase in segregation) produces a significant direct effect on community engagement (consistent with Table 1) and a significant indirect effect on the amount of policy-oriented participation via its impact on community activity. The path analysis reveals that, because segregation decreases community activity, it indirectly decreases political participation. Thus, while no direct effect of segregation on political participation was found, the indirect effect and total effect provide additional support for the hypotheses.

Figure 3.

Path analysis of segregation, community activity, and political activity

The analysis in this article focuses exclusively on civic behavior. However, an interrelated attitudinal concept that is critical to the connection between diversity and civic engagement is social trust. As discussed above, Putnam and others suggest that neighborhood “homogeneity” increases the level of trust between community members and therefore boosts civic engagement because communication is easier. If this theory is correct, segregation should enhance trust in neighbors. However, if the theory I propose is correct, social trust should be either negatively affected or unaffected by segregation. As a further robustness test, a model was run with the dependent variable measuring how much trust respondents have in their neighbors. The results of this model support my hypothesis. The more segregated the environment, the less likely respondents are to trust their neighbors. The results of this analysis are included in Appendix B.

The connection between neighborhood homogeneity and social trust is at the core of the literature that posits a negative relationship between diversity and civic activity. Why engage in activities with people you feel uncomfortable with? Thus this finding suggests that the relationship may be contingent on majority group status—where newcomers are unwelcome, diversity may breed distrust. But in minority neighborhoods that face other societal issues unrelated to ethnicity and race, such as poverty, crime, and lower educational levels, neighborhood segregation may lead to less trust. This connection needs more in-depth research to parse the exact connection.

Discussion

According to the U.S. Census, Latinos are now the largest minority group in the nation. However, only about 5% of congressional legislators are Latino and, despite recent increases, Latinos also are drastically underrepresented in state and local government (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials [NALEO], 2007). This representational lag is likely due to the low voter turnout of Latino citizens (Hajnal & Trounstine, 2005, p. 531). The Pew Research Center found that fewer than 50% of eligible Latino citizens reported voting in 2008, compared with just more than 65% of the African American population and more than 67% of non-Hispanic Whites (Lopez & Taylor, 2009).¹⁷ The gap between Latinos and African Americans and Whites is even greater with regard to nonvoting civic acts. Latinos are more likely to report engaging in no civic activities (community or policy oriented) than either African Americans or non-Hispanic Whites (Calvo & Rosenstone, 1989; Garcia, 1997; Garcia, Falcon, & de la Garza, 1996; Leighley & Vedlitz, 1999; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995; Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980; Wrinkle, Stewart, Polinard, Meier, & Arvizu, 1996). Indeed, in election after election, Latinos are seen as a “sleeping giant” that could determine the future of American politics if they participated in numbers equivalent to their share of the population.

Kevin Johnson (2008, p. 1259) refers to Latinos and immigrants in the United States as a “handicapped, not ‘sleeping,’ giant” because Latinos and immigrants are the subject of disenfranchising voter initiatives. My argument is similar: the Latino population is “sleeping” because its members likely are being handicapped by the geographic and social context in which they live. Thus “awakening” full Latino political power may be contingent on improving the civic opportunities in majority-Latino neighborhoods.

The analysis in this article suggests that the total impact of segregation justifies a pessimistic view of the future vitality of Latino public engagement. Not only do Latinos, on average, have lower socioeconomic status than White Americans, but the findings also indicate that Latino citizens are adversely affected by segregated living conditions. The statistical analysis presented is based on data from 8 years ago. Since that time, segregation has been on the rise (Timberlake & Iceland, 2007) and the poverty level within Latino communities has increased due to higher unemployment resulting from the downturn in the economy (Torrens, 2008). Indeed, recent studies show that Hispanics have been hurt most by the recent economic crisis (Taylor, Fry, & Kochhar, 2011). Together, these trends indicate that over the next few years at least, Latinos are likely to participate even less in civic activities.

Unfortunately, nonengagement at the community level has immediate substantive implications. When residents refrain from working to better their communities, one of two potential negative consequences can result. First, their voices and preferences can simply be drowned out by more active members of the larger community. If preferences and nonparticipation are randomly distributed, in that those who do and do not participate have the same preferences, then nonparticipation is not a problem. But when nonparticipation is concentrated in one community, such as the Latino community, and participation is concentrated in another, such as a White community, the limited resources available from nonprofits and local governments are likely to be directed to the loudest and most active constituents. Second, as Wilson (1996) notes, communities lacking strong civic institutions and civic participation can suffer from social disorder and disaffected individuals. These circumstances can lead communities into a downward spiral where, over time, they continue to decline as a product of the community members’ (and the political elites’) disengagement.

Of course, the long-term consequences of segregation on Latino civic participation cannot yet be known. The detrimental effects of segregation for African Americans were not felt overnight. It took generations for segregation to reap its full harvest. For African Americans, segregation limited access to quality schools and economic opportunities and locked people into spatially constrained poverty (Carr & Kutty, 2008; Massey & Denton, 1993). The full impact of segregated living conditions on Latinos likewise will take generations to unfold. Because this study simply gives us a snapshot of the current state of civic engagement in segregated Latino communities, further research will be needed on how segregation affects Latino communities over time.

The future of Hispanic segregation also is uncertain. Latinos in the United States are not subject to the Jim Crow laws and housing covenants that historically hampered African American integration. However, like African Americans, Latinos have fewer economic resources and lower access to capital that facilitates moving to more integrated and middle-class neighborhoods. If this is any indication, the future trajectory of both economic and ethnic segregation in America likely is bleak.

New analysis of the 2010 Census indicates that in some locations, particularly new Latino destinations, Latinos appear marginally less segregated than they were in 2000 and the average White person now lives in a marginally more diverse neighborhood. This is primarily because any new immigration to these destinations produces greater diversity. In other places, segregation of the Latino population has increased—sometimes quite drastically (Frey, 2010). Logan argues that while in the most diverse cities people are living in increasingly “global neighborhoods,” this progress has been counterbalanced by the fact that even in these urban centers, about half of Black residents and 40% of Hispanics still live in all-minority neighborhoods (Logan & Zhang, 2011, p. 1). Furthermore, the level of income segregation among African American and Hispanic families grew rapidly between 2000 and 2010, much more so than for Whites. So while ethnic segregation in some areas may be decreasing, in almost all areas Latinos are becoming concentrated into more economically challenged and resource poor neighborhoods. As Reardon and Bischoff (2011, pp. 22-23) note, income segregation among African Americans and Hispanics has significant consequences because “the isolation of the rich may lead to lower public and private investments in resources, services, and amenities,” which results in greater disadvantages for residents of low income and, especially, minority neighborhoods. Future research should focus on updating this analysis to account for the increasing rate of both ethnic and economic segregation in the United States.

Beyond the substantive implications of this study, there are also academic implications. Scholarly treatment of the effects of “homogeneity” on civic activities has been devoted largely to Whites or African Americans or has controlled away the effects of race and ethnicity. The findings of this article challenge this previous research, which asserts that segregation enhances the development of participatory norms. This article contradicts the notion that one model can appropriately account for the way context affects different racial and ethnic groups. In addition, it adds to the literature on the effect of segregation on civic and political participation among different minority groups (see, especially, Alex-Assensoh & Assensoh, 2001; Bledsoe et al., 1995; Gay, 2004; Tam Cho et al., 2006). Latinos do not have the same political and social history in the United States as other groups; thus the models developed to explain the political behavior of other racial and ethnic groups may be informative but ultimately inappropriate for the study of Latino political behavior. I show evidence in support of a theory of the effects of segregation on Latino political behavior that I hope will spur future research on the impact of residential concentration specifically on the fastest-growing population in the United States.

The findings of this article also suggest other avenues for future research. The results of the models presented here provide evidence for the existence of a negative indirect relationship between segregation and political participation. However, there are many reasons to believe that segregation can facilitate participation (Barreto, 2007; Leighley, 2001; Parkin & Zlotnick, 2011). Future research should try to tease out the extent to which these positive benefits may compensate for the negative consequences of segregation on political participation via civic engagement.

Some findings of this article may be challenged in the present political climate. In particular, the analysis presented here indicates that Latinos living in segregated neighborhoods are less likely to participate in ethnic or civil rights organizations and less likely to participate in a rally. Since the SCBS was collected, Latinos in the United States have rallied, protested, and organized at unprecedented levels because of legislation that could have severe negative repercussions for the immigrant community and Latinos in general. Anti-immigrant laws in Arizona, Alabama, and South Carolina have greatly increased the chances that undocumented immigrants, and those associated with them, will face criminal penalties. Similar legislation has been proposed in many other states. At the same time, national political rhetoric has shifted as well. The new argument supported by many Republicans and some Democrats is that if public policies can make conditions in the United States so unwelcoming to undocumented immigrants, they will “self deport” (Preston 2012). Thus it is possible that Latino communities simply needed a concrete threat to motivate them to participate in such activities. The recent rhetoric about undocumented immigrants and related legislation that poses particular threats to the Latino community has provided such a stimulus. The future will indicate whether Latino mobilization is a lasting phenomenon or a short-term event, tied to specific political and policy developments.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix B

Effect of Residential Segregation on Trust

	Trust
Segregation	−.67** (.35)
Friendship diversity	.41** (.17)
Income	.16** (.03)
Education	.09** (.03)
Female	.04 (.10)
Church attendance	−.34** (.09)
Speak English	.69** (.17)
Work time	−.001 (.003)
Age	.87** (.14)
Married	.25** (.12)
Kids	−.05 (.03)
Mexican	.12 (.15)
Puerto Rican	−.64** (.16)
Cuban	−.03 (.29)
N	1,191
Prob> chi²	.00
Pseudo R²	.07

Note: Cells are ordered logit coefficients with standard errors in parentheses.

Variable ranges from 0 to 3 where 0 = neighbors cannot be trusted at all, 1 = neighbors can be trusted a little, 2 = neighbors can be trusted some, and 3 = neighbors can be trusted a lot. The model was also duplicated using another trust question measuring the extent to which “others” can be trusted. The results were substantively equivalent.

p < .1. **p < .05.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank James Gimpel, Karen Kaufmann, Irwin Morris, Erik Christiansen, David Merkowitz, John Mctague, the editors at American Politics Research, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and support.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Bio

Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz is an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island where she teaches courses on American politics, policy making, urban problems, and state and local government. Her research focuses on the effects of the information environment on political behavior and public policy. Her published work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Politics, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, The American Journal of Political Science, and Political Research Quarterly.

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