https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5262-5879
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ABSTRACT
Post-1965 immigration has led to a new configuration of racial/ethnic diversity in the United States. Subsequently, White Americans have demonstrated more positive attitudes toward certain racial/ethnic groups relative to others. I examine attitudes of Whites who feel more or less warmly toward Asians, Hispanics, and Muslims in order to understand these relative attitudes. For Whites who view Asians more warmly than Hispanics, the strongest predictor is coolness toward undocumented immigrants, followed by warmth toward rich people vs. poor people, and concerns about immigrants taking jobs. Lower rates of undocumented immigration and higher average class backgrounds among Asians may bolster stereotypes of this group as a “model minority” relative to Hispanics. However, Muslims, who have a relatively high educational background and socioeconomic image, do not appear to derive any related benefit in reception. The strongest opposition to Muslims is among Whites with rigid “moral standards”, highlighting the relevance of Islamophobic stereotypes.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Maria Abascal, the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality’s Multidisciplinary Seminar Series, the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Social Policy Quantitative Reading Group, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback on this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This is not to say that Asians do not suffer from discrimination (Chou and Feagin Citation2008). Additionally, the “model minority” stereotype can be harmful to Asians (Lee and Zhou Citation2015) and can ultimately serve to uphold White supremacy (Kim Citation1999).
2 The understanding of these groups as “immigrant-origin” will be addressed below.
3 For the current study, “Whites” refers to non-Hispanic and non-Muslim Whites. I focus on non-Muslim Whites primarily to avoid including those of Middle Eastern or North African descent who chose the White racial category because the ANES does not offer a more appropriate option (Maghbouleh, Schachter, and Flores Citation2022). Regardless, including them barely changes the results.
4 Anti-Blackness may be a relevant framework in explaining attitudes toward Africans (Asante, Sekimoto, and Brown Citation2016), though the current study does not focus on this due to a lack of relevant variables in the ANES.
5 The status of Muslims as a “racial/ethnic” group will be discussed below.
6 These studies will be referenced as necessary below.
7 According to Pew Research Center (Citation2012), based on data collected during the period of the current study, most Asian-Americans identified as Christian (42%), followed by unaffiliated (26%), with 4% identifying as Muslim (Pew Research Center Citation2012).
8 I exclude cases where responses are missing or “don’t know” unless otherwise noted. This excludes less than 9% of Whites who answered the feeling thermometer outcomes.
9 More will be said about this below.
10 This is how it is treated in the current study, rather than simply as an ordinal measure.
11 More will be said about this in the limitations section.
12 I top code this variable at 97.
13 The goal here is to help assess which variables specifically predict a more positive or negative feeling toward one group over another for a given outcome.
14 Place of birth for the respondent is not available.
15 The “other” category includes those who do not know their religious preference.
16 Though, the vast majority of all these socioeconomic groups feel more warmly toward the poor compared to the rich.
17 There is also no doubt that Latinos have been greatly impacted by these post-9/11 policies in the area of mass deportation, for instance (Massey and Pren Citation2012), while not ignoring the impact of immigration enforcement on Asians, Afro-Caribbeans, and others (Cartright Citation2006; Yellow Horse and Vargas Citation2021).