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Els de Graauw Chapter 12 Nonprofit Organizations: Agents of Immigrant Political Incorporation in Urban America Throughout American history, the religious, charitable, and educational organizations that constitute the category of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations have been important providers of services to the poor and other disadvantaged populations in American society. Three developments in the four decades since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 help explain why these organizations have become more prominent as providers of various socioeconomic services to immigrants in particular. First, after the act renewed large-scale immigration to the United States, there was an increased need and demand for newcomer services. With political machines largely vanished, local party organizations not interested in reaching out to the new immigrants en masse, and labor unions divided on the immigration issue, nonprofit organizations catering to newcomers proliferated after 1965 (Berry with Arons 2003; Cordero-Guzmán 2001, 2005; Wong 2006). Second, as part of the Great Society programs of the mid-1960s and the federal government’s Community Development Block Grant program enacted in 1974, the federal government contracted with nonprofit organizations to provide services to extinguish poverty and foster community development in poor urban areas where many immigrants resided. Third, the push for privatization of the American welfare state since the late 1970s meant that the government contracted more of its services to nonprofit organizations, which grew more dependent on government grants and contracts (Grønbjerg 1993, 2001; Marwell 2004; Salamon 1999; Smith and Lipsky 1993). Privatization further fueled the growth of the nonprofit sector by making nonprofit organizations the key vehicles for the provision of social services to the poor and other disadvantaged groups, including immigrants (Marwell 2004; Silverman 2005). Given nonprofits’ increased importance as providers of educational, legal, linguistic, health, employment, and other social services to immigrants in recent decades, I ask in this chapter what role 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations play in structuring the political incorporation of immigrants in contemporary urban America. What role do nonprofit organizations play in mobilizing individual immigrants to civic and political action and what role do they play as political advocates for immigrants’ group interests? I rely on an expansive understanding of immigrant political incorporation that includes the mobilization of immigrants’ individual participation in electoral and nonelectoral politics as well as group empowerment through the representation of immigrants’ collective interests vis- à-vis government institutions and actors (Jones-Correa 2005). On the whole, the current literature on nonprofit organizations has a bleak or negative view of nonprofits ’ political activism and suggests that nonprofits have a limited presence and little influence in local politics due to their tax-exempt status and government restrictions that limit these organizations’ political activities (Berry with Arons 2003; Chaves, Stephens, and Galaskiewicz 2004). However, if yesteryear’s ward politics—where effective organization of political power was inextricably linked to the provision of much-needed services to vulnerable populations—are indicative of the political significance of immigrant-serving organizations, then nonprofits may play an increasingly influential role in the local politics of immigrant political incorporation. I argue that 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations catering to immigrants— which I refer to as immigrant nonprofit organizations—are important political actors that are heavy lifters of immigrants’ incorporation at the local level. Nonprofits not only facilitate the political participation of individual immigrants, as documented in the literatures on social capital and civic engagement, but also function as independent actors in local politics advancing the collective interests of the immigrant community. Immigrant nonprofits develop immigrants’ political skills and resources, foster immigrants’ political interest, and mobilize immigrants ’ civic and political participation. As advocates for and representatives of the larger immigrant community, immigrant nonprofits articulate immigrants’ needs with government officials, shape the local political agenda with regards to immigrant issues, and engage in advocacy on immigrants’ behalf with the local legislative branch as well as the local bureaucracy and the local judiciary. Immigrant nonprofits perform these various political functions within the bounds created by government regulations on tax-exempt entities. They participate in various aspects of local political life often under the guise that they are educating immigrants and local government officials alike. At the same time, government officials frequently invite nonprofits’ political activism, and participation in the local political process is also part of many organizations’ mission to serve the immigrant population. Although some immigrant nonprofits are active in national and transnational political issues, most of the organizations focus more exclusively on local and state issues. In particular, immigrant nonprofits serve as...

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