Questions, and remind you the needed after this session you can go around the corner to the gallery where they will be selling books and marisa will be selling them. A portion of all the proceeds will go to the San Antonio Public Library foundation. Again good morning. This is one of the best days weve had with allies for the festival so far and i think its going to stay that way. Its my honor to be able to come ask understate moderate, to moderate this panel on the book white backlash immigration, race, and american politics. We are a nation of immigrants for whom immigration has always been a contentious issue. We are a multiracial republic of which diversity too often torn by race, slow and accepting the gifts of such diversity. Immigration and race are as woven into our history and politics as are the stars and stripes to our flag. Long before the leading republican candidate for president talked about building an imagined wall between the United States and mexico, the issue of immigration has slowly been building a metaphorical wall within our borders. Dividing those americans resisted immigration and those americans who welcome it. It is a divide that threatens the ability to define our politics. And insightful importance and Ground Breaking book white backlash immigration, race, and american politics published by princeton university. They write, this book is about race just as much as it is about immigration. Immigration is changing at the United States but those chains are frequently noticed and filtered through the lens of race. When White Americans consider integration, the images in their heads are likely to be of latino immigrants. Its our pleasure to one of those writers with us this morning. Marisa abrajano is an associate professor in the department of Political Science at the university of californiasan diego. Shes also a nonresident senior fellow at the brookings institution. A Research Interest on american politics, particularly in areas of latino politics, racial ethnic politics, political participation, voting, and the mass media and campaigned. She is the author of campaigning to the new american electorate, and the coauthor of new faces, new voices and an author of numerous articles. Please welcome to san Antonio Marisa abrajano. [applause] thank you for the very kind introduction and thank you, everyone for coming. Its a pleasure to be here today in your beautiful city, and i just want to briefly talk about the goal of this book as well as what the Main Research question is that this book tries to address. As well as stay become immigration is a central part of the United States that were often thought about at the country of immigrants, which we are, and today more than ever immigration is playing a very salient role in american politics. In the past 40 years, the u. S. Has transformed tremendously demographically. Today those who are foreignborn make up 12 of the population, and with the change also comes racial change in the sense that latinos have now surpassed blacks as the largest racial and ethnic group in the United States, making up 17 of the population. And by 205 2050 demographers prt that whites wilburs majority status. And so this demographic transformation raises both hopes and fears. It raises hopes because immigrants continue to fill a vital economic role, and hence culture and diversity in our multiracial and multiethnic society. But at the same time the same old also engender fear among many individuals in the public. There is often discussions that immigrants are taking jobs away from nativeborn americans, leading to cultural demise or a loss of National Identity as well as the fact that these immigrants have been talked about as overly relying on our welfare system. And to all of these affairs has the potential to lead to a backlash. And essentially been that is the main question that we posed in our book, is how is this transformation affecting u. S. Politics . And we examined whether immigration is affecting core political decisions of White Americans. White Americans Still make up the majority of the public. No important, they make up the majority of the voting public, and so it is especially important to look at how immigration influences their partisanship, their voting behavior as well as their policy position. While we are not the first to look at the way different issues affect these different sorts of illegal behaviors, we are one of the first to look at the central role that immigration can put in these core political decisions. So our theater is pretty straightforward. We first argue that immigration is just something that is too big to miss. Immigration is 25 of the population. Immigration is of course a key issue in politics today. We only have to look at whats been happening in the president ial race to know that in nearly every conversation, in nearly all of the debates immigration has played a central role in all of these conversations. And on top of the fact that immigration is becoming more and more relevant to everyday life, there is a prevalent threat narrative that exists in this country. Thats largely espoused by the media but as well as political elite. This is not so much on the positive side. And whether or not the actual costs and benefits are true, most of the American Public believes in his narrative. 70 think that immigration is a burden to society, these are Public Opinion polls that are taken mostly of White Americans. 62 think they add to the crime problem. 59 think that immigrants take away jobs from nativeborn americans. And, finally, along with a prevalent threat narrative, the two Political Parties have distinct positions on immigration. Republicans have a much more restricted position on immigration, whereas the democrats that are agnostic on immigration portend to support a more inclusive or progressive form on Immigration Reform and policymaking. So in summary we make the following argument in the book, that whites said the u. S. As changing both racially and ethnically. Many believed that immigration is driving negative changes, and that the Republican Party offers stronger opposition to immigration. And so for me this is a very powerful motivation to defect to the Republican Party. Now, of course, we have seen this partisanship before in our past. We only need to go back to the 1960s to see how whites essentially defected from, defected to the Republican Party in support of civil rights in the 1960s it would also seem immigration backlash in different points of history, depending on the wave of immigrants coming in here and also if we look to studies that have been conducted in europe, we have seen largescale support amongst the public for the right wing antiimmigrant parties. So this backlash that we are documenting is not novel or new, but really just part of a longer thread of our history, specifically in the United States, on the way that immigration can shift these core political decisions. And so the way that we test our theory is we analyze large number of survey data that look at Public Opinion, a look at voting behavior, voting preferences. And that pattern that we uncover offer generous support for this theory. So the more negative views of undocumented immigrants is associate with higher percentages of individual self identify as republican, as well as more support for republican candidates. On the other hand, if youre positive use of undocumented immigrants, then that is associate with stronger support for the Democratic Party as well as a stronger affiliation for your democratic partisanship. Whats notable is that these relationships between how you think about immigrants or your attitude towards immigrant under partisanship into voting behavior holds true even when we account for other factors that we know are important to explaining who you vote for and what party you belong to, such as your demographics, your religious affiliation, your political ideology, et cetera. The book also goes into other analyses will look at it in depth of content analysis to provide evidence that, in fact, the media does and is biased in their coverage of immigration, largely through a negative lens as opposed to a positive less in the way that the talk about immigration. We also find that the size of immigration affects the kind of policy states and act so that states with larger look at the populations enact more punitive policies, but action when the latino population is large enough that policy starts to shift to the left. So the overall pattern that our Research Covers is that White Americans who have negative views of immigration are more likely to attend by as republican, vote republican and support punitive policies that have negative effects on immigrants, such as criminal justice policies as well as education and health care. And so the implications of our research, we think, is that immigration, it makes a case that immigration is now at the core of u. S. Politics. To which no longer the periphery issue that sort of is just important issue every couple of years, but it plays a much more central role in that. And what we are witnessing today is a growing white backlash, and despite some of the commentary and rhetoric after the 2008 election and we moved into a postracial era with the election of president barack obama, that is far from the reality. Race is more for today than ever before. Which is quite obvious again if we just look at how the conversations in the debate is going over the president ial race. And i want to leave one thought as i concluded, is there a response to this backlash . How can respond or have others responded to this backlash . Particularly those are being attacked or feel like theyre being at the center of this backlash from which is the immigrant population here in the United States. Well, if we look back in history, there is potential there for a positive outcome. Going back to what then governor pete wilson of california in 1994, when he passed and supported restrictive measures limiting social Service Benefits for undocumented immigrants, one that actually did was get mobilized latinos in california to naturalize. Amongst those who were eligible to register to vote and turn out to vote, okay . So we are already stunned to see some of those same movements happen with this president ial election, but many of those who feel as if trump is attacking them, personally, that that is motivating many latinos throughout the nation to either become citizens, to register in higher numbers as well as mobilizing to vote. I can come if we look back in history and see these instances where groups are being targeted by political elites, one of the positive benefits is that it can increase the rates of turnout and political participation amongst the group who still is far from being, is still far from achieving their full political potential. So i will into their and pass it back to cary. Thank you much. I just have a couple of questions and then i will open up to the audience, but one of the things that you write in the book is that despite all the animosity that immigration has historically created in the United States, it has never led to the demise of a Major Political party. So what does that say about the ability of the Republican Party, speaking about that, to be able to adapt . So yeah, i mean, sorted to say that when we are making this argument, this book, so not everyone in the Republican Party as this position on immigration to that certainly is not the case. And i think thats one of the beauties of our political system is despite the differences and the polarization among the two parties come at the end of the day we still reserve the institutional structures of our political system, despite of his disagreement. For democracy, of course, its important a disagreement and i think that facilitates it, this system tremendously. But as for the future of the Republican Party, one thing to think about is this strategy that theyve been employing thus far specifically towards immigrants, its a very successful shortterm strategy, as we can see in the president ial come in the primaries. Thinking about the longterm implications for it, it really has more of a potentially negative outcome in the sense that if republicans want to foster and engender support among young folks, those who just turned 18, those are registering to vote for the first time, those were eligible to vote for the first time, especially if youre of immigrant origin, having this kind of rhetoric is not your best prospect for getting their loyalty and Party Affiliation for the future. I think the republicans are playing a strategic again, which right now is paying off well, but for a longterm prospect perhaps not the wisest and most you cite as an example of the conservative party in canada about what, what did they do to change their electoral fortunes . Well, what they did was to adopt i believe policies, correct . That were more inclusive. But such thus far we havent seen happening amongst the Republican Party. And cary and i talked about this earlier that the was a lot of conversation by after the 2012 as the election that now is the time for republicans to really, you know, they have the opportunity now to change the conversation, to change the framing of how they want to shape the party. But we havent seen much evidence to that. In fact, we have seen quite the contrary. Thats the decisions theyve made but thats not to say that thats something the that cante changed in the future. Do we have any questions from the audience . Yes, in doing the research did find any significant statistical difference between those who oppose illegal immigration and those just immigration in general . Thats a wonderful question. Thats often a concern, right, that we talk about to break of intensive immigration, talking to undocumented immigration talk about legal immigration. In all of our analyses even with a look at questions that are asked about legal immigration, the relationship stays the same. And this is a research that weve done the other political scientists and scholars have found that when you ask the rep in public about immigration, what they think about is undocumented immigration. They dont think about legal immigration. And again part of that is because in the media, that is so much with the framing is about, that implicitly when we are asked to think about immigration, we associate immigration with illegality and also associate with latinos, and lots of psychologists have uncovered this implicit relationship that weve made between immigration, citizenship, and the racial or ethnic Group Associate with that. Thank you. My concern or maybe my question is, you know, all immigrant populations have gone through a process before they are all culture writer and assimilated. The kids have been coming into this area for many, many years, especially with our proximity to mexico. Do you see a hopedfor assimilation for latinos, just like the irish and the italians and so forth . Absolutely. I can, the book doesnt look, we dont look specific at assimilation of patterns, and there have been actual researchers whove looked at that question. And certainly there is strong evidence about assimilation at similar rates as previous immigrants. The one big difference i would say compared to the earlier counterparts of largely european immigrants is the nonwhite racial status that latinos have. And so that makes the process of assimilation and enculturation markedly different from our earlier european immigrants after two, one or two generations could assimilate into White America. Latinos, asians them immigrants, thats not something that is easily possible. Actually had a question about the perceived identity of legumes but its my understanding that many latinos actually have weightier spanish engender their lineage, since spain is a european country, what are they not afforded a multiracial or potentially even, you know, a partially white racial identity . Messages the marker that sets in as nonwhite status in terms of how White America sees them . Why did not acknowledge that spain and spanish is a european . I mean, the my reason for that or entity that would be that its largely how latinos immigrants were welcomed into the United States, and they were not welcomed as part of being part of the white anglosaxon majority. Win the latinos and majority of mexicanamericans came to the United States, they were treated as secondclass citizens and so they were never afforded the same kind of White Privilege that european immigrants had. And so that from the very beginning of how to receive them because immigration policies that we have in the United States, ken, automatically put them in a category far below those from white european backgrounds. And wrestling enough and intelligent themselves identify racially as white or actually any racial category they want because latinos are considered an ethnic group in the United States, i think the perception of the public largely because of historical circumstances has never viewed him as white, but always as a nonwhite status. So in some ways you immigrant status a little bit a proxy measure for minority, racial or ethnic minority gets i just wondered in your survey data, do you break it, say, for example, how africanamericans view immigrants and what their feelings are on the subject as well . Thats a great question because this book it just focuses primarily on the attitudes of White Americans, but in some other research that ive done i have looked at that question. Looking at how Immigration Attitudes very but ethnic or racial group, and you find for a certain period up until the 1980s there was some tension in the way black attitudes shaped, we thought about immigration, mostly as that of immigrants as a sort of competition but that view has evolved and changed significantly over the past 30 years so that blacks are much more like latinos and other immigrant groups in having a less restrictive and more inclusive policy position towards immigration. The percentage of foreignborn immigrants in the country now . 12 . Thats over all in the country to give you just look at the latino population in the u. S. , 40 are within the latino population are foreignborn. The federal unemployment data came out yesterday showing 1834 age group block, 17 unemployment. Latinos around 12. White around seven. Do you think backlash has much to do with the current unemployment among young adults . So this, we dont, the date it doesnt allow us at least for our analysis to break down immigrants by the age group, so i cant speak to that question directly, but i imagine theres potentially some other research that might be able to shed some light on that. You touched a bit on the similarities or the similarities between the current immigration issue and immigration issue of europeans, back in 1800. Did you go into much more depth on that in the book and that quite frankly if one looks back at the history of irish german antiimmigration in the mid1800s, specifically the into welcome a great move made about it, but gangs of new york about the riots during the civil war. And theres some rather interesting to note is i think between what is going on with going on now and im not sure the assimilation was no estimate as you might have implied. But did you look at that at all in terms of similarities between immigration and the date 1800 currently . So our book doesnt go back specifically to compare these two different periods of time. We do have a brief discussion over at, but there have been other works that have done a much more in depth investigation of that. The one thing i would say to that period of history that youre referencing is that it is very much the case that when irish emigrants first into the United States, they were on par with africanamerican slaves and how what the racial hierarchy structure was, right . So they were considered on one of the lowest rungs within the racial hierarchy. But the one difference that sets apart irishamerican immigrants from latino immigrants and asianamericans today is again, eyewitnesses is a nonwhite status of her most recent immigrants. After several generations, you know, the animosity and the assimilation that irish emigrants, that lend themselves to them was possible. For latinos and asians, thats not the same kind of pattern of assimilation that they follow. So theres this wonderful book by a sociologist called how the irish became white, because this book actually traces that process of how the irish were once one of the most hated, discriminate groups in the United States. And today they essentially are just part of we think as White America. We have not seen that sort of process happening for our nonwhite immigrants. [inaudible] political aspects of the irish integration of tammany and some other Political Institutions in the east. The Latino Community is working on it perhaps, has not gotten quite to that point times are different to one of the question, tons of questions, but most importantly, did you do any research on, for lack of a better word, intra ethnicity obligation and attitudes towards immigration specifically . Went up in new mexico up in new mexico i recall the first time i went to a Student Convention up in new mexico, met this gorgeous blueeyed blonde haired woman named nancy lopez. And i said, is your father, must be hispanic. She said no, both of my parents are spanish. There is a distinct difference in attitude between the traditionally spanish population of new mexico and the mexican. I often take issue with effective because mexicans immigrants. They were here long before anglos were. Of course, i am a cardcarrying member of the choctaw nations life issues with all of you. [laughter] the other problem politically right now, specifically interesting is that here you have marco rubio and ted cruz, two canadians, ted cruz is canadian, or to cubans, and i know dean involved in politics there is a grand convergence of opinion in attitudes between the rest of the Latino Community and the cuban community, given what the policy for cubans of clothing stop at the border for others. Did you look at that at all . And so even that term a so even that term a team now is kind of just what the u. S. Government made out, but it encompasses individuals and so many countries in so many different that round that it is almost what the even need to be latino . Generational status matters tremendously in predicting what they think about immigration, how they feel about education policy is in whole host of issues, country of origin are one of the two strongest areas and explaining their attitude. Certainly theres a huge amount of heterogeneity within the latino population, largely due to the two fact there is as well as how loud they came in the United States lawyer. So that, for example, if you are third or fourth, you tend to be less supportive, kind of inclusive immigration policy. Your views tend to be much closer to White Americans than for the foreignborn latinos who are very different positions on immigration because as we can imagine, the immigrant experience is much closer from them. After three or four generations, those attitudes towards immigration starts to mirror the general public, which is the point you raise. One other point about cuban says we have to remember history and how they came to the united state and what their perception was that they came here. The first wave of the golden exile as cuban migration to the United States for those who have vastly different resources typical of economic immigrants. They were the professionals that left after the revolution. They have lots of Resources Available to them in terms of income, the kinds of benefits the u. S. Gave them are unprecedented. To think about where cubanamericans are today politically especially in why they are so different or mexicanamericans are puerto rican, we cant forget about how they came to the u. S. And the immigration policies and Government Policies that help them, which virtually no other immigrant has ever received to this day. That is something thats really important in thinking about variations among the Latino Community. A few more questions being hi, i have a question about what you just said. A very correlation between the hardship of legal immigration, like nowadays nearly impossible legally. Its really, really hard, really expensive. More this system is hard. More immigration is seen. Is it a correlation between those two . So the correlation between how difficult immigration is. So again, i think while we would expect that to be the case, for the most part, at least in this Public Opinion polls, there isnt really much distinction that is made when immigration is discussed in the manner you talk about with a question on immigration is asked in a different way because for the majority of americans, when they think about immigration, they are automatically queued for the first thought that comes to the head is to think about undocumented immigration. Even given that reality that is very costly or virtually impossible for many countries to get a visa to come to the u. S. Legally, that doesnt enter in their calculation in their overall opinions. The short answer is to matter how you phrase the immigration question, the American Public is generally opposed to more immigration. Most of the time they either opposed or they just want to keep immigration levels up the status quo. Hi. I was wondering i dont know if you came over this premier data, but why do you think there is more shame attached to this antiimmigrant sentiment among white . It would seem if people were to have the same attitude in a coming issue of an entire party against africanamericans, there would be tremendous shame because of where we are in american history, postal the right, postcivil rights era now in the black lives matter and that is an issue we are still dealing with an that is an issue where i think people feel a lot of shame when they see discrimination or they see Police Brutality still happening. But the fact that the main republican candidates have been able to take up this mantle of antiimmigrant sentiment seen as sort of acceptable, why do you think that is that it is seen as kind of an acceptable political issue to take up . That is a great and very tough question and something i think about all the time. Im not sure if i have a good answer to it. I guess as someone who studied politics, i think about it from the fact that the populations they are targeting some of these are the most vulnerable and politically voiceless, one of the most politically voiceless and audible groups in our society, meaning that we talk about undocumented immigrant, they dont have citizenship in the United States. They cant exercise the right to vote. Even if they saw this sentiment thrown out against them, politically they cannot kind of pushback against that. I think obviously candidates know that. Said they think it wouldve an easy target because im not going to get any political backlash from targeting them. Not to say that of course amongst the latinos who are registered to vote, the other candidates are thinking about is latino turnout is extremely low compared to turn out to and africanamericans. Latinos are at about 50 compared to africanamericans in 2012 president ial closer to 90 so theres this huge disparity in who participate in politics. Candidates are not ignorant of that and they know even if i tapped a certain group, the repercussions im going to get are going to be far less than from a group that has a lot more influence in politics. Im just here talking about the one the most obvious way through voting, but of course if you look at Campaign Contributions or other forms of political influence, they are equally as low. Tijuana commack. , too . I. Shall leave that to the economists who study immigration policy. I do think personally there has to be immigration, some kind of comprehension Immigration Reform. Everybody agrees on that. There has to be a way for us to integrate the immigrants already here in this country regardless of their legal status. I know that is one of the parties pushing for that more than the others. As a practical matter, that is at least in my good what we should be doing. In terms of the research and the cost and calculation, theres funding of research to look at that as well and essentially at the federal level, the federal mac costs and benefits are good even themselves out. This is why that is often considered to be a compelling solution. The book is white backlash immigration, race, and american politics by marisa abrajano. Please give a round of applause to train six. [applause] go around the corner to the gallery and by this and many other great books and marisa will find this for you. Thank you very much. You did a great job. [applause] what weve done is weve optimize Digital Economy for the accumulation of capital instead of optimizing it for the velocity of money. The velocity of money is much more consonant with the distributed architecture of the internet itself and would lead to a whole lot or happiness than what weve got. You know, theres all these Great Developers who are willing to start one industry or another. And as soon as they got a idea down, they ran to the equivalent of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and surrender to another operating system as if it isnt even there. They assume that Venture Capital and ipo and acquisition, stock market, that is just as preexisting condition of nature. That is the real system that we have to somehow succumb to. Look at something when i saw them these are friends of mine. We all have friends now who are billionaires which is strange in itself. I saw the founders of twitter on the cover of the wall street journal today they had their ipo and under each of their visas with a number of alien dollars at each of them were worth. Im thinking here i go to different people who were worth over 5 billion each. I found myself feeling sorry for them because i realize these are the guys disrupting visa and mastercard paypal originally anyway. They disrupt to journalism with twitter and now here they were surrendering what they had done and surrendering all that disruption to the biggest, baddest industry on the blog. When they let you ring the bell at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and clap for you, its not because youve done something disruptive. [laughter] its because you confirmed the primacy of Corporate Capital to the whole scheme and youve enslaved yourself and your company now to pivoting towards the 100 xray faster next return and away from whatever it is. Now we are here with twitter. One of my favorite apps, by the way, 140 character app that makes 500 million a quarter and that is considered an abject failure that wall street. That is a failure and the company has to become a video advertising and where it goes twitter. So what i want to do is figure out what could they have done and what could we do to have a Development Path that leads to something other than just magnified this imperative, which is driving us up anyway. We have a very special program for you this evening. Not one, but three very fine authors, all journalists all season and intrepid war reporters. They have written memoirs and are here to discuss their experiences in afghanistan,