Dr. Loan Le (IGGI) and Phi Su (PhD Candidate, UCLA) complete their manuscript on partisan incorporation across immigrant cohorts. This is the second in a series of projects investigating the “immigrant cohort hypothesis.” A draft of the manuscript has been submitted to a journal for review and an update will be posted once it is published.


Abstract: Party identification has long been considered a key marker of political incorporation. Yet, there remains substantial room in extant scholarship for a compelling portrait of how and when members of immigrant groups decide to affiliate with either of the two dominant political parties in the United States, versus maintaining their status as non-partisans. Using the case of Vietnamese Americans and multivariate regression analyses of the 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS), this paper advances the “immigrant cohort hypothesis.” Findings from our cohort analysis highlight that an important moment for political imprinting processes takes place among immigrant groups at the times of exit and reception. We conclude that quantitative studies as well as qualitative studies of political integration should formally incorporate the historical contexts inhering to each group’s arrival.

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