Can Protests Make Latinos “American”? Identity, Immigration Politics, and the 2006 Marches

This article takes advantage of a quasi-experiment in the 2006 Latino National Survey (LNS) to examine the effects of exogenous events on identity. Roughly halfway through the survey’s data collection, millions of Latinos mobilized to protest HR 4437, an immigration bill advancing in the U.S. Congress. This event provides the opportunity to examine differences in self-identification among comparable populations. I divide the LNS into a control group interviewed prior to these demonstrations and a treatment group interviewed after. My analysis shows respondents in the latter group were more likely to identify as American, with effects concentrated among Spanish speakers, and particularly Mexicans and Dominicans. I find no difference in identification as Latino or with one’s ancestral subgroup. These findings run contrary to the expectations of much existing literature, which assumes an increased sense of group threat results in heightened pan-ethnic sentiment across the Latino population.