Children of immigrants and politics

The NYT has an interesting article about the political activism of the children of Mexican immigrants in NYC. However, the content of the article reflects more hope than fact. Activists are trying to get young people—especially of voting age—to become more engaged politically. Yet research on the children of immigrants generally points the opposite direction, since they are caught between two worlds, and feel intense (and conflicting) pressures from both, which does not lend itself to political activism.

The basic question remains. We witnessed huge rallies during the immigration debate over the past several years, but how much will that translate into political power? At least in the short term, I am skeptical, but the longer term could be very different. I’m not sure about the 2008 election.

h/t ImmigrationProf Blog