Generational Status and Political Participation Among Asian Americans

Abstract One way to understand the trajectories and outcomes of immigrant political incorporation is to examine changes in political participation across immigrant generations. Yet, patterns of political participation other than voting among Asian Americans across immigrant generations, particularly beyond the second generation, remain understudied. In addition, little empirical research has examined the mechanisms that generate the differences in the extent of political participation across immigrant generations. This study investigates whether, and to what extent, observed patterns of political participation across length of residence among first-generation immigrants and across successive immigrant generations can be accounted for by indicators of social integration, particularly engagement in political discussion with family and friends and involvement in civic organizations in the community, net of marriage patterns and other sociodemographic characteristics. Using data from the 2008 National Asian American Survey, the analysis focuses on the six largest Asian American groups: Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. An overall political participation index is constructed by counting five dichotomous indicators of nonvoting political activity—campaigning, making political donations, contacting government officials, working with others to solve a community problem, and protesting—in the last twelve months. Descriptive results show that political participation increases with length of residence among first-generation immigrants and across immigrant generations, but tapers off in the third generation. Multivariate analyses indicate that these generational differences in the number of political activities are largely explained by variation in social integration, with the exception of recent immigrants with fewer than ten years of residence. Overall, the findings highlight social integration as a key mechanism of political incorporation among Asian immigrants and their descendants.