Patriotism and language loyalties

Comparing Latino and Anglo attitudes toward English-Only legislation

Bibliographic Data

ID2145960
AuthorsSarah Allen Gershon (0000-0002-3283-3029), Adrian D Pantoja
Year2011
Volume34
Issue9
Pages1522-1542
Publication date2011-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2010.535549
OpenAlexW2086453864
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited20

This study examines the role patriotism plays in structuring Anglo and Latino attitudes towards making English the official language of the United States. We rely on pooled data from the 1997 and 1998 Los Angeles County Social Survey and use logistic regression to examine the impact of patriotism and other determinants on support for English-Only policies. The results indicate that Latinos and Anglos hold distinctly different views on English-Only policies, with significant numbers of Anglos supporting these policies, and Latinos largely opposing them. Patriotism, as well as other socio-demographic variables, differentially structure Latino and Anglos attitudes towards linguistic policies. Specifically, patriotism significantly increases Anglo support for English-Only policies, but exerts little impact on Latino attitudes in this regard. Keywords: Linguistic policyLatinosAnglospatriotism Notes 1. The Los Angeles County Social Survey is a county-wide list-assisted random-digit-dial telephone survey of adults in households conducted by Computer Assisted Te lephone Interviewing unit at the Institute for Social Research at UCLA. The ethnic and racial breakdown of the sample closely resembles US Census estimates for Los Angeles County. 2. Over 65 per cent of the Latinos in this sample trace their ancestry to Mexico. While we believe that the results presented here are generalizable, it is possible that Latinos of other ancestries may differ in their attitudes towards English-Only policies. However, as the bulk of Latinos - both in the US and in Los Angeles - are of Mexican descent, the results presented here still speak to general trends within the Latino community, particularly in southern California. 3. Some previous research has demonstrated that members of different groups voice support for various types of patriotism (constructive, symbolic, uncritical, or 'blind' patriotism) (Huddy and Khatib 2007). The LACSS is limited to the questions employed here, which have been used before and are well-accepted (Citrin, Wong and Duff 2001; Citrin et al. 2007). 4. A notable exception to this literature is the work of Huddy and Sears (1995), which suggests that, for Anglos, living in heavily Latino areas caused increased opposition for bilingual education programmes. 5. Scholars have often found years living in the United States to be a powerful determinant of immigrants' attitudes and behaviours. Since our Latino model includes both US and foreign-born Latinos, it is not possible to include a measure which would apply only to immigrants (such as years in the United States). To ensure that our results hold for immigrants, controlling for years in residence, a separate logistic regression was estimated for Latino immigrants only (n = 354). Years spent in the United States was not a significant predictor of Latino immigrants' support or opposition to English-Only legislation, and the inclusion of this variable did not substantively alter the results presented here

Legislation · Patriotism · Political science · Sociology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Gender Studies · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy

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