Urban Coalitions in an Age of Immigration

Although immigrants are still largely underrepresented in American politics, they are beginning to exert significant influence on political parties. Urban political coalitions are emerging across the country, particularly in large multi-ethnic cities. In 2005, the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles successfully fashioned an electoral coalition that surmounted racial, ethnic, and geographic divisions. With an award from Russell Sage, Raphael Sonenshein and Mark Drayse will study emerging ethnic coalitions in Los Angeles by looking at five elections. They will focus on the effects of Proposition 187, which sought to prevent undocumented residents from receiving public services. The measure passed in 1994 but was subsequently overturned by court authority. Sonenshein and Drayse hypothesize that the political fight over Proposition 187 created a framework for the struggle for Latino empowerment in Los Angeles, and laid the groundwork for ethnic coalitions that emerged in the 2001 and 2005 elections.

The project builds on previous RSF-funded research on the 2005 Los Angeles mayoral primaries in which three coalitions were formed; one relied on conservative and moderate white voters, a second on African Americans, and a third on both Latinos and white liberals. In the present project, Sonenshein and Drayse will combine survey and individual-level data to examine the roots of the Los Angeles coalitions that developed in the battle over Proposition 187. They will assess how votes for and against Proposition 187 relate to voting patterns that emerged in the 2001 and 2005 mayoral elections. The investigators will examine voting trends by race, ethnicity, neighborhood, class, and the proximity of ethnic groups in the city. In addition, they will interview 25 political activists from Latino, white, Asian American, and African American communities to better understand how political campaigns framed issues, mobilized voters, and attempted to build coalitions. Together with archival research, the interviews will help clarify how leadership dynamics and institutional structure in Los Angeles interplay with coalition politics. Results of the study will be presented at national and international conferences and in a book manuscript.