The New Americans? Immigration, Protest, and the Politics of Latino Identity by Heather Silber (review)

The New Americans? offers a unique take on the formation of Latino identity in the United States by highlighting the conditions that encourage attachments to the nation. While ethnic and racial identities tend to be the most salient when it comes to political concerns among Latinos, there are certain policy issues, such as immigration, in which a Latino’s identity as American can become more relevant. To this end, the book capitalizes on a particular moment in recent history, the immigrant protests of spring 2006, when millions of Latinos across the United States marched in protest against an immigration reform bill that largely targeted Latino immigrants. One interesting feature of this protest movement and focal point of the book was that midway through, movement leaders changed the protest frame from one that mobilized Latinos based on their shared ethnic identity to one that instead emphasized their inclusion as Americans.

The core empirical contribution of the book is Silber Mohamed’s test comparing Latino attitudes in surveys conducted before the protest to those conducted after the protests to see if Latinos developed a stronger American identity in response to this protest frame. Her analysis of survey data shows that while there was no difference in the levels of panethnic (identification as Latino) or national origin (for example, Mexican or Salvadoran) group identity attachments between these two groups, those Latinos who were interviewed after the protests were more likely to both identify as American and believe it was important to blend into society compared to Latinos interviewed before the protests. Silber Mohamed is unable to declare a causal relationship between the protests and identity formation, given the data limitations, but the analysis offers some evidence that Latinos can be influenced by protest messages even without actively participating in that protest.

Conceptually, Silber Mohamed makes the critical point that identity is not only conceived by the individual’s perceptions but is also informed by the surrounding context, such as the definitions that public policies choose to enforce and the responses to those policies made by the public. It is a much-needed extension to the study of Latino identity that helps us better understand why individuals choose to strongly identify with the groups that they do.

This book is also a welcome addition to the field because, in contrast to most of the current work on Latino identity which tends to focus on the creation of either panethnic or national origin identities, Silber Mohamed seeks to explain how Latinos adopt their identities as Americans. What readers will appreciate about this book is that Silber Mohamed sees an identity as American as one that is not in conflict with a strong panethnic or national origin identity. Rather, the author argues that one must study how an American identity can be developed vis-à-vis an ethnic identity. This book offers a nuanced take on how to understand group identity and can also be a useful reference to those studying social movements and public policy.