"Explaining Americans' Attitudes toward Asian and Latino Immigration in the United States".

This paper seeks to explain the determinants of Americans' attitudes towards the immigration of Asians and Latinos to the United States. It will specifically focus on examining the role that the economy, employment rate, symbolic politics, demographics, views towards border security and free trade, and affinity with and feelings towards Asians and Hispanics influence Americans' attitudes towards Latino and Asian immigration. Due to the vast number of Latinos and Asian immigrants arriving to the U.S. every day, the demographics of this country are changing. As a result, many Americans are noticing substantial changes in the demographics, language, and culture of the United States. The effect of Hispanic and Asian immigration can be viewed positively or negatively, depending on one's perspective. Examples of the conflict over increasing immigration are portrayed in the recent creation of strict immigration policies that reduce the number of services provided to undocumented immigrants (e.g., Proposition 187) and policies that limit the number of immigrants coming to this country through stronger patrols of the U.S.-Mexico border. Thus, it is no surprise that many Americans are noticing changes in the U.S. to increasing immigration and are responding to those changes. Consequently, it is significant to learn more specifically what determines Americans attitudes towards Latino and Asian immigration.Very little research has been conducted on Americans' attitudes towards Latino and Asian immigration. The research that has been conducted has focused on examining the role that education, income, age, economy, symbolic politics and levels of contact with Asians and Hispanics affect Anglos' attitudes towards immigration (Hood and Morris, 1997). Nevertheless, our research will use more current data and focus on these factors as well as more specific issues such as feelings towards Hispanics, Asians, free trade, border security, and aid to immigrants. Including these issues provides a more precise and comprehensive evaluation of the determinants of Americans' attitudes towards Latino and Asian immigration. Furthermore, we intend to merge data on the ethnic and linguistic attributes of county and state contexts to explain variance in Americans' attitudes towards Latino and Asian immigration based on the immigrant population of certain regions. In this paper, we use data provided by the 2004 American National Election Study. We hypothesize that the economy, employment rate, symbolic politics, demographics, views towards border security and free trade, affinity with and feelings towards Asians and Hispanics play a significant role in determining whether Americans think that Hispanics and Asian immigrants should increase, decrease or remain the same. We also hypothesize that Americans' attitudes towards Hispanic immigration differ from Asian immigration, especially based on the population of Latinos and Asians residing in Americans' immediate contexts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]