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Health care for all? Anti-Latino and anti-immigrant attitudes, health care policy, and the Latino community

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Health care for all? Anti-Latino and anti-immigrant attitudes, health care policy, and the Latino community

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HEALTH CARE FOR ALL? ANTI-LATINO AND ANTI-IMMIGRANT
ATTITUDES, HEALTH CARE POLICY, AND THE LATINO COMMUNITY

by

Jillian Medeiros

____________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)

August 2009

Copyright 2009 Jillian Medeiros
ii
Dedication
I dedicate this to my parents with love
iii
Acknowledgements
When I look back to my time at the University of Southern California, I
realize that I could not have asked for a more supportive environment to do my
graduate studies. I have been fortunate enough to have several people in my life who
have supported my dreams, and made my journey through graduate school very
enjoyable. First, throughout my graduate career, I have been lucky enough to meet
several other graduate students who have not only become colleagues but have
become life-long friends. I would like to thank Nicholas Buccola, Sangay Mishra,
Jinee Lokaneeta, Jamie Simcox, Deniz Kuru, Dan Walters, Jesse Mills, Dave Bridge,
Amy Below, Mariano Bertucci, Jennifer Buzza, Dino Bozonelos, Adrián Félix,
Parker Hevron, and Nicolas de Zamaróczy.
Also, I would like to thank Deana Mottahedin Woodrow, Dimitra
Alexoploulos, Tracy Maratukulam, Matt Natividad, Karissa Ortega Harrill, and Wai
Lau for all of their support and love throughout the years. We have all been friends
for a very long time, and although our lives have changed, our friendship has not. I
want to thank you all for supporting me throughout my graduate school years, and I
hope you all know that your friendship means the world to me.
I have been very fortunate to work with a number of talented professors who
have helped to shape my academic life. I would like to especially thank Jeb Barnes,
Art Auerbach, Jeffrey Sellers, Laurie Brand, George Sanchez, and David Roman. I
would also like to thank professors, at my new home, University of New Mexico,
iv
especially Gabe Sanchez, Robert Valdez, and Mark Peceny for their support and
encouragement.
I would also like to thank my committee members for their invaluable
encouragement, support, and guidance on my dissertation project. Juliet Musso
provided important insight, and encouraged me to find my own voice within my
dissertation project. My other committee members have been my mentors and
advisor since the beginning of my graduate school days at USC. I could not have
asked for more encouraging and wonderful people to work with. I owe a special
thank you to my three mentors: Ricardo Ramirez, Ann Crigler, and Janelle Wong.
Ricardo Ramirez has been an advisor, mentor and role model from the beginning of
my graduate school career. Ricardo has given me invaluable research experience,
and always provided his statistical expertise. Also, Ricardo has been inspirational in
his dedication to Latino politics, to the POIR program, and to mentoring students in
general. I want to thank Ricardo for always pushing me harder, and for always
believing in me. Ann Crigler, has also been a role model, advisor and mentor since
the start of my graduate school career at USC. I want to thank Ann for all of her
advice, her sympathetic ear, and for always involving me in every aspect of
academia to prepare me for the job market. Also, Ann’s dedication to the POIR
program, teaching, researching and mentoring is inspirational as well. I want to
thank Ann for her support, encouragement and for always believing in me as well.
Finally, Janelle Wong served as my main advisor, and I could not have asked for
anyone better. Janelle has been patient with me from the beginning of my graduate
v
school career, and provided me with support and confidence when I thought I did not
belong in graduate school. Janelle has guided me throughout the entire process, and
I do not think I could ever thank her for all of her help. Janelle has read everything I
have done critically, and always provided me with encouraging words. She believed
in my dissertation project from the beginning and encouraged me to move forward
with it. Janelle has dedicated herself fully to being a mentor, teacher, researcher and
to creating a great POIR program. I just feel very fortunate to have been able to
work with Janelle. I am impressed with Janelle not only professionally, but
personally as well. I hope one day I can have half the impact on a student’s life as
Janelle has had on mine.
I would like to thank my family; without them I would not be here. I want to
thank my extended family for their love and support. Also, I want to thank my
grandmas, Ana Bonilla Labrador, and Laura Jane Medeiros for showing me the
importance of family, and for the love only grandmas can provide. I want to thank
my sister Kristine for her love, support, and encouragement. Kristine was always
there to listen, to make me laugh, and to remind me that she believed in me and is
proud of me. More importantly, Kristine is more than a sister to me, she is my best
friend. I want to thank my parents Paul and Patricia Medeiros, who have supported
every crazy endeavor I have done since I was little. My parents taught me from a
young age the importance of education, but also how to enjoy learning. My parents
have always believed in me, and provided me with support, love, and
encouragement. I try to be a better person every day because of my parents. Every
vi
success I have is because of them, and everything that is good in me is because of
them.
Finally, last but not least I want to thank Michael Perez. I met Michael when
I was beginning this project and he gave me insightful comments, and provided his
statistical expertise. Michael also supported me and believed in my ideas. More
importantly Michael has added more happiness, fun adventures, and love to my life,
and for that I thank him.
vii
Table of Contents
Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
List of Tables viii
List of Figures x
Abstract xi
Chapter One: Race and Public Policy: A Continuing Problem in American 1
Politics

Chapter Two: Latinos’ and Non-Latino Whites’ Attitudes Toward Health 29
Care Reform

Chapter Three: The Racialization of Latinos as Undocumented Immigrants 61
Chapter Four: White Attitudes Toward Undocumented Immigration and 93
Support for Government Provided Health Care

Chapter Five: A New Focus: Undocumented Immigrants, Latinos and 132
Health Care

Bibliography 144
Appendices 163
Appendix A: Codes for the 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard 163
Latino Survey. Chapter 2.
Appendix B: 2004 American National Election Study (ANES) Codes. 166
Chapter 3.
Appendix C: Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes Towards 170
Government Spending on Health Insurance (2004 National
Annenberg Election Survey). Chapter 4. [Table 4.5]
Appendix D: Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes of Preference 171
of Government or Private Health Insurance (2004 American
National Election Study). Chapter 4. [Table 4.6]
Appendix E: 2004 American National Election Study (ANES) Codes. 172
Chapter 4.
Appendix F: 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey. Chapter 4. 175
viii
List of Tables
Table 2.1: Cross Tabulations of Cubans and Health Insurance 50
Table 2.2: Cross Tabulations of Central and South Americans and Health 50
Insurance

Table 2.3: Cross Tabulations of Dominicans and Health Insurance 51
Table 2.4: Cross Tabulations of Puerto Ricans and Health Insurance 51
Table 2.5: Cross Tabulations of Mexicans and Health Insurance 51
Table 2.6: Cross Tabulations of Latinos and Non-Latino Whites and Health 53
Insurance

Table 2.7: Government Should Not Provide Health Insurance-Differences 55
Among Latinos

Table 2.8: Government Should Not Provide Health Insurance-Ethnicity 58
Model

Table 3.1: Americans' Views of How Many Latinos are Illegal Immigrants 63
Table 3.2: Cross Tabulations of Whites’ Stereotypes of Hispanics and 83
Whites’ Attitudes Towards Illegal Immigrants

Table 3.3: Cross Tabulations of Whites’ Stereotypes of Asians and Whites’ 83
Attitudes Towards Illegal Immigrants

Table 3.4: Cross Tabulations of Whites’ Stereotypes of Blacks and Whites’ 84
Attitudes Towards Illegal Immigrants

Table 3.5: Ordered Probit Model Whites’ Attitudes Towards Undocumented 89
Immigrants

Table 4.1: Views of Illegal Immigrants 97
Table 4.2: Attitudes Towards Government Health Insurance and Illegal 125
Immigrants, White Sample Only

Table 4.3: Attitudes Towards Government Health Insurance and 126
Government Services, White Sample Only
ix
Table 4.4: Ordered Probit Model of Attitudes Towards Government 129
Supported Health Care

Table 4.5: Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes Towards Government 170
Spending on Health Insurance (2004 National Annenberg Election
Survey)

Table 4.6: Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes of Preference of 171
Government or Private Health Insurance (2004 American National
Election Study)
x
List of Figures
Figure 1.1: Conceptual Model 22
Figure 2.1: Frequencies of Attitudes Towards Health Care-Latinos and 52
Non-Latino Whites

Figure 5.1: Conceptual Model 134
xi
Abstract
The main thesis of this dissertation is that whites’ attitudes toward unpopular
groups, such as undocumented immigrants, affect their support for “universal,”
programs such as government supported health care. More specifically, I argue that
the complex racialization of Latinos and the specific ways in which they are
stereotyped and constructed as illegal immigrants influences whites’ views of
government supported health care. This argument adds to the existing literature on
race, policy, and public opinion in two critical ways. First, traditional literature
largely focuses upon whites attitudes toward blacks. I contend it is critical to go
beyond this black-white dichotomy and examine whites’ attitudes toward other
marginalized groups as well, specifically, Latinos and undocumented immigrants.
Since Latinos are the largest minority group, and undocumented immigrants continue
to be a growing part of American society, I argue it is important to examine white
racial attitudes toward these groups also, in order to completely understand the effect
of white racial attitudes on public policies. Second, I focus on a policy that
Americans view as universal, health care. This contributes to the existing literature
on race, and policy because this literature largely focuses on policies that are linked
to a certain segment of the population, such as welfare policy which is intended for
low-income people. My project shows the continuing important role racial attitudes
play in shaping American attitudes toward public policies.
1
Chapter One
Race and Public Policy: A Continuing Problem in American Politics

The Intersection of Health Care Policy and Immigration Policy
California is not responsible for paying for the medical care of the
undocumented-people who are here illegally, period…We are not the
health maintenance organization for Mexico
1

You might as well post a ‘come one, come all’ sign on our borders if
you’re going to give 12-20 million illegal immigrants access to health
care benefits complements of the American taxpayers
2

It's impossible to understand how we have universal health insurance
in America without first fixing the broken immigration system,…
Because what the health care fight will become is a debate over
whether universal health care covers illegal immigrants
3

The quotes above show how a policy that is associated with universality,
government provided health care, is becoming more about who ‘deserves’ to be
covered and who does not. These statements show that some segments of the
American public believe that health care benefits should not be extended by the U.S.
government. Resistance to health care reform plans that would grant benefits to

1
Tom Chorneau, “Sacramento: Non-citizens key issue in state’s health debate, GOP balks at covering
undocumented workers,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 30, 2006, B1.

2
Kurt Bardella. “Immigration Reform Caucus Blasts Proposal to Make Health Care Programs
Accessible to Illegal Immigrants.” July 31, 2007. Available from :
http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca50_bilbray/schip.html

3
Jennifer Ludden, “Is Immigration Overhaul Vital to U.S. Recovery?” NPR, April 14, 2009.
Available from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103070182.

2
more people seems to be driven by views towards certain unpopular groups, such as
undocumented immigrants,
4
will take advantage of government resources. The
main thesis of this dissertation is that whites’ attitudes toward unpopular groups,
including undocumented immigrants, affect their support for “universal,” not just
“means-tested” policies. Means-tested programs benefit only a segment of the
populations, those who meet specific criteria that determine need. Aid to Families
with Dependent Children is a classic example of a means-tested program. In contrast,
universal programs do not require beneficiaries to show need and are open to most
people in a society. Social security is a classic example of a universal program.
More specifically, I argue that the unique racial position of Latinos
5
and the specific
ways in which they are stereotyped and constructed as undocumented immigrants
exerts an effect on whites’ views of government supported health care. This
argument adds to the existing literature on race and public policy in two important
ways. First, while previous scholarship largely centers on whites’ attitudes toward
African Americans, I examine whites’ attitudes toward Latinos and undocumented
immigrants. I contend that in an increasingly multiracial and multiethnic society, we
must look beyond anti-black affect and stereotypes to understand the association
between whites’ racial attitudes and public policy support. Second, I focus on a

4
Throughout this chapter I will use the terms illegal and undocumented interchangeably. While I
prefer the term undocumented, due to the texts and data that uses the term “illegal” I will use the two
terms interchangeably.

5
In this chapter I will use the pan-ethnic term Latino interchangeably with Hispanic in order to refer
to people from Mexico, Central and South America, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Caribbean, or any other
persons from a Latino or Hispanic background.
3
policy that has been framed as “universal” rather than targeted toward a specific
income or racial group, health care. Examining health care policy represents a sharp
departure from existing scholarship, which tends to examine policies associated in
the American imagination with a certain segment of the population, such as welfare,
which is only available to low-income people. My research highlights the on-going
importance of examining how race and public policy intersect in American politics.

Theoretical Perspectives of Race and Politics
I ground this project in established theories of race and white public opinion.
These theoretical perspectives help us to understand how and why racial prejudice
intervenes in modern politics (Bobo and Tuan, 2006: 26). Prior research has been
dominated by three different theoretical perspectives: symbolic racism, group
position, and race-neutral perspectives. In this project I am not able to directly test
every aspect of the various theoretical perspectives discussed below due to data
limitations, however these three perspectives do offer helpful theoretical frameworks
for understanding the association between attitudes toward unpopular groups and
support for public policies, including a ‘universal’ policy, such as health care.
David Sears and Donald Kinder pioneered the perspective of symbolic
racism. They find that biological racism
6
and Jim Crow racism,
7
both of which

6
The definition of biological racism is as follows: The belief that all members of each race possess
characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or
superior to another race or races (Oxford English Dictionary).
4
dominated during the post-Civil War era have faded away in the United States. They
argue that this type of racism has been thoroughly renounced in the United States.
The authors state that prejudiced attitudes have not gone away but are simply
expressed differently. Kinder and Sears contend that prejudiced attitudes are
expressed through “abstract, moralistic resentment of blacks” (Kinder and Sears,
1981: 414) rather than through notions of innate physical and mental superiority.
Sears and Kinder believe that this resentment of blacks is held primarily because
white Americans believe that “blacks violate such traditional American values as
individualism and self-reliance, the work ethic, obedience and discipline” (Kinder
and Sears, 1981:416). This resentment of blacks is powerful and manifests itself
through whites’ opposition to school busing and other policies thought to benefit
blacks (Sears, Hensler, and Speer, 1979; Kinder and Sears, 1981; Schuman, Steeh
and Bobo, 1985; Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). An
analysis of undocumented immigrants, Latinos, and government supported health
care policy aligns to some extent with the symbolic racism perspective. The long-
standing stereotypes of both undocumented immigrants and Latinos, as “lazy” and
“foreign” (Sanchez, 1997; De Genova, 2002, 2004) could possibly affect the political
thinking and behavior of many whites. These stereotypes of Latinos and
undocumented immigrants could possibly come to the fore in American’s opposition
to government supported health care.

7
Jim Crow racism refers to the institution of segregation and racial discrimination against black
Americans from 1876-1965 (Oxford English Dictionary).
5
The group position perspective argues that racial prejudice stems from
normative ideas about where one’s own group should stand in the social order vis –a-
vis an out –group. This perspective focuses upon the prejudice among members of
the dominant group. The dominant group perspective exhibits four features. The
first is that the dominant group members have a feeling of superiority over the out-
group members. The second is a belief that the subordinate group is intrinsically
different and alien. These feelings of superiority and beliefs that a subordinate
group is alien and different are linked to already established prejudices and
stereotypes about the traits, capabilities and behaviors of the subordinate group
(Bobo and Tuan, 2006). These two features are similar to the above discussion of
symbolic racism in which the dominant group members engage in negative
stereotyping of the out-group members. The third feature of group position theory
entails “a sense of proprietary claim over certain rights, statuses, and resources”
(Bobo and Tuan, 2006: 32). The fourth feature focuses on the dominant group
viewing the subordinate group as a threat. The sense of group position is revealed
when dominant group members are threatened by out-group members encroaching
on what in-group members deem as their rightful privileges. This sense of threat
causes dominant group members to become angry, fearful, and resentful which all
become feelings of prejudice against out-group members (Bobo and Tuan, 2006).
These features apply to this project since undocumented immigrants and Latinos are
increasingly being viewed as threats to Americans’ resources such as jobs, and drains
on social services such as education and health care. Further, according to group
6
position theory, the dominant group, white Americans, might stereotyped both
undocumented immigrants and Latinos. This stereotyping facilitates a feeling of
superiority among dominant group members (white Americans).More specifically in
chapter three I show how white Americans stereotype Latinos as undocumented
immigrants and believe that they take jobs and resources away from Americans.
Note that it is often difficult to find and identify specific attitudinal measures
that allow one to distinguish between the symbolic racism and group position
perspectives. The group position perspective emphasizes a sense of group superiority
and intrinsic difference, while the symbolic racism perspective emphasizes beliefs
that an out-group violates cherished values and norms.
Finally, Sniderman and his colleagues offer a third perspective: the “race and
ethnicity neutral” argument. These authors focus upon how beliefs in a limited role
for government and/or a belief in individual effort and reward affect whites’ attitudes
towards certain policies (Sniderman and Piazza, 1993; Sniderman and Carmines,
1997; Gilens, 1999; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). This perspective argues that whites’
objections to policies such as school busing to address racial desegregation or
affirmative action measures do not stem from racial prejudice but rather from race-
neutral values such as beliefs in individualism and a limited role of government.
According to this point of view, whites might object to affirmative action policies
not because they believe that racial minorities benefit, but because affirmative action
is based upon a criterion that does not reward individual effort. In addition this
policy expands the role of government (Gilens, 1999). In terms of this project, some
7
people claim to oppose government supported health care because they oppose
expanding the role of government in the United States. Can opposition to
government provided health care services be traced to conservative views about the
role of government alone, as Sniderman and his colleagues might predict, or do
group-related attitudes also play an important role?

Racial Attitudes Toward Specific Policies
A second wave of research in this tradition is best exemplified by the work of
Martin Gilens, Ange-Marie Hancock, Tali Mendelberg, and Nicholas Winter. This
scholarship examines whites’ racial attitudes and support for particular public
policies. For example, Gilens (1999) shows that despite conventional wisdom about
the individualistic nature of Americans, they actually do support government
programs for education, for the elderly and for fighting poverty. However, while
Americans express positive attitudes toward these policies, they have negative
attitudes toward welfare policies. He finds that negative attitudes toward blacks
underlie whites’ opposition to welfare. Gilens’ work shows how white Americans’
attitudes toward welfare policy are affected by their racial prejudices and
stereotypes; a majority of white Americans view blacks as lazy and lacking work
ethic and these views play a central role in shaping their beliefs about welfare policy.
Additionally, Hancock (2004) finds that support for welfare is not only affected by
racial attitudes, but by people’s prejudices and stereotypes of African-American
women specifically. Mendelberg (2001) examines how whites’ racial
8
predispositions shape their public opinion on an issue that is not directly related to
race; crime. These authors show that welfare and crime have become deeply
associated with black Americans in the public imagination. Nicholas Winter shows
how Social Security, a policy that is not usually thought about in racial terms, is
actually linked to positive attitudes towards whites. Whites who have positive
feelings about their group and its traits are also the most supportive of Social
Security benefits.
The core argument of these scholars is that public support for certain policies
can be affected by underlying racial attitudes, not just liberal and conservative values
or self-interest. My project does not replicate these studies, but does maintain a
similar focus. In this dissertation I argue that whites’ attitudes toward undocumented
immigrants affect their support for health care reform. In particular, I show that the
specific ways in which Latinos are stereotyped/constructed as undocumented
immigrants has an effect on whites’ views on government supported health care.
Thus, I situate my work in the tradition of examining white racial attitudes and
attendant support for particular public policies.
This project attempts to extend past literature on race and public opinion in
two significant respects: (1) I focus on Latinos (2) I focus on a universal, race-neutral
policy; health care. First, many scholars that examine race, public opinion, and
public policy usually focus on whites’ attitudes toward the African-American
community (Schuman, Steeh and Bobo, 1985; Bobo and Hutchings, 1996; Sears,
Van Laar, Carrillo and Kosterman, 1997; Gilens, 1999; Sears, Sidanius and Bobo,
9
2000; Hancock, 2004).
8
In an effort to go beyond the black-white dichotomy, I
examine Latinos and the specific ways in which they are stereotyped/constructed as
undocumented immigrants. Since 2003, Latinos have become the largest minority
group in the United States. From April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007, the Latino
population increased by 10.2 million to 45.5 million, a growth of 29% (Fry 2008).
As the Latino community continues to grow, it is likely that stereotypes and
prejudices toward this group might become associated with certain public policies.
In order to better understand race in America it is necessary to examine other
minority groups beyond African-Americans. The focus on how Latinos are
stereotyped and how this affects public policy attitudes shows a potential shift in
U.S. race relations, and that white racial attitudes toward other groups beyond
African-Americans can affect public support of important policies in American.
The second way in which my project extends the existing literature is that I
focus on a universal policy, which is seen as race neutral, health care. Many scholars
focus on welfare policy which is a means-tested policy (Gilens, 1999; Hancock,
2004). Again, means-tested programs are defined as cash benefit programs
available to able bodied, working-age adults who fall below a specific income and
meet other criteria for eligibility (Gilens, 1999:13). Therefore, means-tested
programs benefit only a segment of the populations. However, my project, will
discuss how racial attitudes affect the universal policy of health care, which is

8
In an effort to go beyond the black-white dichotomy, Bobo and Tuan 2006, do examine prejudices
and stereotypes of Native Americans and how these underlying racial attitudes affect people’s
perceptions of the affirmation of treaty rights for Chippewa of Wisconsin.
10
intended for all people. Moreover, welfare and crime are polices that many
Americans have come to associate closely with race (Winter, 2008). Thus, while
welfare and crime are policies that are closely connected to race, health care is a
policy that is largely seen as race-neutral. This project will discuss how stereotypes
and prejudices against marginalized groups are beginning to shape American public
opinion toward universal health care reform. Winter (2006, 2008) does examine
how a universal policy, Social Security. However, Winter examines this universal
program in relation to a group that is already aligned with universality, whites.
However, my project examines how racial attitudes toward a minority group, Latinos
affect a universal program, health care policy.
A project on health care and Latinos contributes greatly to the study of race
and public policy. First, health care policy is a policy that is not usually viewed in
terms of race. In contrast to welfare policy, the connection between race and health
care policy is not deeply entrenched. Furthermore, as a policy, health care is a wide-
reaching universal policy that affects all Americans, regardless of race, class or
gender. More importantly, the recent economic crisis has made lack of health care
insurance a pressing problem for more Americans. The news media paints a dismal
picture of the state of the system with heart breaking stories of people trying to
decide between whether to keep their lights on or purchase a critical drug
prescription (Fletcher, 2008). These news stories are not an exaggeration; many
Americans cannot keep pace with the soaring costs of health insurance, and an
increasing number of Americans are living without health care insurance every day.
11
For example, in 2007, 45 million nonelderly people in the United States lacked
health coverage. Since 2000, the number of nonelderly uninsured has grown by 8
million (The Henry J. Kaiser, Family Foundation 2008). A recent Kaiser Health
Tracking Poll found that more than half (53 percent) of Americans say their family
cut back on medical care in the past 12 months due to cost concerns (The Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009a). These statistics show that health care insurance
is a policy that affects a large number of Americans. Past scholars examine how
white racial attitudes structure policies such as welfare that affect only a segment of
the population (Gilens, 1999; Hancock, 2004). However, my project examines how
white racial attitudes affect a universal policy, health care. This project shows how
racial attitudes can prevent passage of more generous health care polices, which can
have a huge impact on a large proportion of the American population.
Furthermore, the focus on Latinos adds greatly to the white racial attitudes
and public policy. Previous literature largely examines white attitudes toward
African-Americans. However, this project goes beyond the black-white dichotomy
and examines how Latinos, as the largest minority group in the U.S., are also
affected by negative racial attitudes. In addition, Latinos will be deeply affected by
health care reform. Latinos are disproportionately uninsured when compared to
other racial/ethnic groups and the percentage of Latinos who lack insurance has
increased from 32.6% in 1999 to 34.1% in 2006 (James, Thomas, Lillie-Blanton and
Garfield, 2007; Denavas-Walt, Proctor, and Smith, 2008). Finally focusing on
Latinos allows one to examine more closely how Latinos are stereotyped as
12
undocumented immigrants. Latinos are stereotyped in this unique way due to their
distinct history with the United States. The perspective on how Latinos are
stereotyped as undocumented immigrants is not a new perspective. However, I
examine how this specific stereotype affects whites’ views on health care reform
policies, and this is a new focus within the existing literature.

Definition of Terms
Throughout this project I use the terms race, stereotypes, racial attitudes, and
racialization. First, racial and ethnic categories and identities constitute social
constructions. Although frequently used to refer to groups (Latinos, African-
Americans, whites, Asians) that share common cultural, national origin, and physical
characteristics, along with many scholars across various disciplines, I view race and
ethnic classifications as subjective creations that are not fixed (Omi and Winant,
1994; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). I use the term stereotype to describe “a preconceived,
oversimplified, and often false idea of the characteristics that typify a certain racial
and/or ethnic group” (Oxford English Dictionary). The term ‘racial attitudes’ refers
to attitudes based on such a preconception. Thus, when I use the terminology, ‘racial
attitudes affect certain policies,’ I am referring to how these false preconceptions of
certain groups affect certain policies. The broad definition that constitutes the basis
for the terms racialization, racialize, racialized is “the application of racist
principles or criteria, to impose a racial interpretation on, or affected or influenced by
racism” (Oxford English Dictionary). More specifically, when I am referring to the
13
‘racialization of a certain group’, I am referring to how certain stereotypes have
become attached to this group in the American public’s mind. When I refer to how
the ‘racialization of a group affects policy,’ I am referring to how certain policies
become attached with the stereotypes or false preconceived notions of certain
racial/ethnic groups. When I discuss the ‘racialization process’ of Latinos, I am
referring to the historical, social, and political process that lead to the stereotypes that
are associated with Latinos. The following section examines how Latinos have been
categorized racially and ethnically in the U.S. and the particular ways in which
Latinos have been racialized in the United States.

Race, Racialization, and Latinos
My main argument in this dissertation is that underlying white attitudes
toward undocumented immigrants affect white attitudes toward health care reform
policy. I also argue that the racialization of Latinos and the specific ways in which
they are stereotyped/constructed as undocumented immigrants has an effect on
whites’ views about government supported health care. In this section I discuss how
this process of racialization has occurred for Latinos in the U.S. First, I examine
how Latinos fit into the racial schema of the United States. Second, I briefly
examine the complex racialization of Latinos in the U.S. and how they are racialized
as undocumented immigrants.
The concept of race has long been at the center of American life. Throughout
the years, certain social, political, and historical processes have defined how people
14
fit into the racial schema of the United States. Several scholars have noted that
groups such as Latinos do not fit neatly into the black-white racial dichotomy of the
United States (Sanchez, 1997; Kim, 1999, 2000). Thus, how does the United States
government define Latinos? The practices by the United States government reflect
their uncertainty over how Latinos fit into the racial schema. This can be seen
through an examination of the shifting definition of Latinos in the U.S. Census. For
example, in the 1950s and 1960s, Latinos were categorized as ‘Persons of Spanish
Mother Tongue.’ In 1970, Latinos were defined as ‘Persons of Both Spanish
Surname and Spanish Mother Tongue.’ In 1980 the census conceived the term
‘Hispanic’ (Hayes-Bautista and Chapa 2002:150; Omi and Winant 1994: 82). The
term Hispanic was defined as “A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central
or South America or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race” (Hayes-
Bautista and Chapa 2002). Moreover, the 2000 census, on question 5 asks if the
respondent is “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” and includes the following options
“Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, or Cuban, as well as ‘other
Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). The term Hispanic is
confusing because, “Epistemologically, this definition is a mixture of a culturally
derived term (‘Hispanic’) operationalized partially by nationality and partially by
culture, and partially not operationalized at all by the extremely open-ended phrase
“other Spanish …origin”(Hayes-Bautista and Chapa 2002: 150). Hence, many
people felt that the term Hispanic did not define them ethnically or racially as it
applied to many different national origins and cultures. This terminology created
15
more confusion as people tried to understand who falls within the category of
Hispanic. For example, the term Hispanic could refer to someone from El Salvador
or someone from Spain which categorizes people with very different histories and
privileges as the same ethnicity. Also, Logan (2002) finds that the lack of specific
groups in the “Other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” write-in category on the Census 2000
resulted in Latinos reporting in general terms instead of specific Hispanic national-
origin groups and this led to lower than expected growth for certain Hispanic groups
such as Dominicans and Salvadorans. The term “Other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino”
causes confusion because people might only self-identify with this category because
they lack choice to identify with their own national origin group. An uneasy fit often
exists between established ethnic categories in the U.S. census and self-identification
among those of Latin American and Spanish-speaking origin.
In the 2000 Census the U.S. federal government defined “Hispanics” as an
ethnicity rather than a race (Hitlin, Brown, Elder 2007). As aforementioned the 2000
census , on question 5 asks if the respondent is “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” and
includes the following options “Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto
Rican, or Cuban, as well as ‘other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” (U.S. Census Bureau
2000). However, this question is additionally followed by a race question 6, “What
is (the respondent’s) race? Mark one or more races.” This allows the options
“White,” “Black, African American, or Negro,” “American Indian or Alaska
Native,” nine selections of “Asian,” and “Some other race” with an option for the
respondent to write in his or her race (Hitlin et al. 2007).
16
The U.S. federal government’s official stance that Latinos constitute an
ethnicity and not a race does not align with how several Latinos self-identify racially.
Scholars note that Latino should be a choice in the census race question, because this
more precisely reflects the lived experience of those who self-identify as Latinos
(Hitlin et al. 2007). The fact that the race question does not reflect how Latinos
identify racially is exemplified by the fact that only about half of Hispanics identified
themselves in the standard racial categories such as white, black, or Asian on their
census form. The other half chose the preset category “other,” and wrote in their
own term, such as “Latino” or “Hispanic” or another similar word (Logan, 2003).
The fact that many Latinos self-identify as “Latino” or “Hispanic” shows that
Latinos are rejecting the normative definition of race based upon phenotypical
differences, and instead they are embracing a socio-cultural definition of race.
Hitlin and co-authors (2007) explain that, “Being phenotypically Latino, in the
American context, often means being on the less-powerful side of this racial divide,
regardless of how ‘white’ an analyst considers your race” (8). Since Latinos are
often posited as the ‘other’ in relation to ‘whites’ in U.S. society, this lead to 42
percent of Latinos to mark “some other race” on the 2000 census rather than to
racially identify as “white”(Tafoya, 2006). Therefore, the U.S. federal government’s
official position that Latinos do not constitute a racial group actually fails to
recognize that Latinos are racialized as differently than white in the United States,
and it also fails to recognize that millions of Latinos actually do self-identify their
racial group as ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic.’ What has been the racialization process that
17
has lead to approximately half of Latinos self-identifying within the standard racial
categories such as white, black, or Asian, and the other half self-identifying as Latino
(Logan 2003)? In the following pages I will discuss the different theoretical
frameworks for racialization, the racialization process of Latinos in the United Sates,
and how Latinos have become racialized as undocumented immigrants in the United
States.
Scholars note the difficult of tracing the position of Latinos in U.S. racial
hierarchies. Claire Jean Kim (1999) discusses four different theoretical frameworks
used to explain how people are racialized. The “different trajectories approach”
(described in Kim 2000: 106) examines racialization as a flexible process that has
occurred differently for various racial and ethnic minority groups (Omi and Winant
1994; Kim 2000). In this model, each group experiences racialization differently and
in accordance to the various ways in which they have been subjected to hegemonic
powers. For example, Kim states that, “Native Americans faced genocide, blacks
were subjected to racial slavery, Mexicans (Latinos)
9
were invaded and colonized,
and Asians faced exclusion” (Kim 1999:105-106). Thus, the racialization process
differs for these groups due to the distinct ways in which they were positioned as the
other. The second approach is the racial hierarchy approach. This approach ranks
different ethnic/racial groups in order of privilege and power with whites on the top
and blacks on the bottom, with the other ethnic/racial groups falling between these

9
I added Latinos because similar to Mexicans most people who self-identify as Latinos have had their
countries of origin been invaded and colonized.
18
two (Kim 1999). The third approach examines how the different trajectories
approach and the racial hierarchy approach can both be used to explain how
racialization occurs to these groups at certain times throughout history (Almaguer
1994). That is, there are certain points in the racialization process that the racial
trajectories approach explains better and certain points in the racialization process
that the racial hierarchy approach explains better; the two approaches are not
mutually exclusive. Finally, Kim (1999; 2000) examines how Asian Americans have
been “racialized relative to and through interaction with Whites and Blacks” (106).
Here Kim recognizes that one group’s racialization also depends upon on how other
minority groups are racialized. She states that Asian Americans have been
“…‘racially triangulated’ vis-a-vis Whites and Blacks in this field of racial
positions…”(Kim 1999: 106). Specifically Kim argues that this triangulation results
in Asians being privileged racially and culturally compared to blacks, but Asians are
posited as foreigners, and blacks as insiders in terms of political and civic
membership (Kim 1999: 107). Asians are not racialized in isolation, but rather
“…relative to and through interactions with Whites and Blacks”(106). In terms of
the racialization of Latinos, I agree with Almaguer that these approaches are not
mutually exclusive and all apply to the racialization of Latinos at different points
throughout history. First, the ‘different trajectories’ approach fits the racialization of
Latinos since many Latinos’ countries of origin have been colonized.
10
Furthermore,

10
Native Americans can also fit the ‘different trajectories’ approach since they experienced
colonization, first by Europeans and then by settlers in the United States.
19
Latinos often move up and down the racial hierarchy schema, sometimes accessing
white privileges, and sometimes occupying the space between white and black.
Moreover, Latinos, like Asians, are racialized relative to whites and blacks because
they are seen as the ‘other.’ While these approaches map out the racialization
process of Latinos, I want to suggest that due to Latinos’ distinct history as natives,
the colonized, and as immigrants, Latinos are uniquely racialized both as ‘insiders’
and also ‘outsiders’ throughout different points of history.
Here, I present a few examples of how historical, political, and social forces
racialized and continue to racialize Latinos as both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders.’ First,
after the Treaty of Guadalupe in 1848, Mexicans
11
in California were sometimes
granted ‘white’ racial status. Their status as white is attributed to two different
factors. First, Spanish colonization of the Southwest granted Mexicans ‘white’ racial
status (Almaguer, 1994). Second, some Mexicans, especially the Californio elite had
“claimed or real European ancestry” (Almaguer, 1994: 54). The other factors that
contributed to Mexicans ‘white’ racial status such as a shared Christian ancestry, a
romance language, and European physical features (Almaguer, 1994: 4). Because
they were considered white, this afforded some, particularly land owners, privileges
such as the right to vote and marry Anglos (Almaguer, 1994: 54-58). However, their
racial position was precarious. Other Mexicans who did not have this class status
were not considered fully white, and they were referred to as ‘greasers’ or the “gente

11
Here I cite Mexicans due to Almaguer’s work on the racialization of Mexicans in California. While
this discussion is specific to Mexicans I argue that the racialization experience of Mexicans is similar
(not exactly the same) to the racialization other Latinos experience as well.
20
sin razon (people without reason).” Eventually, even the Mexican elite in California
after 1848 were simultaneously racialized as insiders (white), but also outsiders
(half-civilized).
12
This racialization became more apparent as the property-owning
Mexican ranchero class had to battle the European-Americans for economic control
of California. The Mexican ranchero class did have citizenship rights because of
their racial status as ‘whites’ owned a lot of land in California. However, the Federal
Land Law of 1851 gave the Board of Land Commissioners the right to validate the
Spanish and Mexican land grants in California. The Land Commission assembled
between January 1852 and March 1855 and heard 813 claims and over three-fourths
of these cases were decided in favor of the claimants. This lead to a substantial
amount of privately held land transferred from the Mexican ranchers to the
ownership of Anglo immigrants. The Mexican elite, while still possessing
citizenship rights (racialized as insiders), were economically disenfranchised when
their land was taken away by Anglo immigrants (racialized as outsiders).
The contemporary Latino population is subject to similar patterns of
racialization. Latinos find themselves positioned in paradoxical ways. Beginning in
the early 1990s, many Republican candidates ran on an anti-immigration platform
that sought to penalize those immigrants who were “undocumented” or “illegal”

12
Even though the Mexican elite in California were racially defined as white, they also were
categorized as “half -civilized” “idle” and “thriftless”(Almaguer 1994: 52).

21
through various pieces of legislation such as Proposition 187.
13
Some saw this as a
thinly veiled attack on Latinos as a whole (Tolbert and Hero 1996; Pantoja and
Segura 2003). Within a decade, as the Republican Party realized Latinos’ potential
voting power the party it began reaching out to Latinos, claiming that Latinos shared
positive values with the Republican Party, including being “family-oriented” and
“hard-working”(Rodriguez 1999; Bustillo 2000; Jacoby 2002; Davila 2008). Thus,
the Republican Party continually has racialized Latinos as outsiders by depicting
them as ‘illegal,’ but also sought to appeal to the group by drawing generalizations
about Latinos as family oriented and socially conservative.
In this dissertation I focus upon how Latinos have been racialized as
outsiders and as ‘illegal immigrants.’ Several scholars ascertain that Latinos have
been racialized as illegal immigrants (Sanchez 1997; De Genova 2002, 2004; Inda
2008). Scholars observe that Latinos racialized as undocumented immigrants is a
complex racialization process, one that is deeply tied to US colonial history and the
expansion of empire (Almaguer 1994; Sanchez 1997). These authors describe how
U.S. immigration laws, certain state propositions and nativism have all contributed to
Latinos being depicted as illegal immigrants in American society (Sanchez 1997; De
Genova 2002, 2004; Inda 2008). In the following section I unfold my story of how I
develop how Latinos have been racialized as undocumented immigrants and how this
unique form of racialization affects health care policy.

13
Proposition 187 was a California ballot initiative in 1994 that sought to ban illegal immigrants from
using social services, health services, and education.

22
Conceptual Model and Hypotheses
The public opinion and race literature help to inform my hypotheses and the
conceptual model below (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Conceptual Model

Race
and
Class
Race
and
class
Elites
Institutions
Media
Lobbyists/
Interest
groups
23
The main boxes (1-4) in the conceptual model in Figure 1.1 represent the
main foci of in the dissertation. The outlying boxes represent other areas of inquiry
that I will not be able to examine in this dissertation due to data limitations. The
model presented in Figure 1.1 suggests that I am focusing on white support for
government supported health care (box 3) as a key component that determines public
support for universal health care more generally (box 4). As shown in the conceptual
model, there are multiple influences on white support for government supported
health care. While I do not examine all of these influences in my dissertation, I will
briefly discuss their importance in influencing white support for an expanded
government role in health care policy. First, race and class tend to influence people’s
perceptions of Latinos and undocumented immigrants. The effects of racial attitudes
is a main focus of the study (box 1). Although I do not concentrate on class to the
same extent as race, I do include income and educational effects in the study.
Studies show that race and class can be conflated (Gilens, 1999). Other factors,
such as the media, play a role in influencing white support for government health
care. Whether it is the media’s role in the agenda-setting process for health care
reform policy (Hacker, 1997) or the media’s role in influencing public opinion
toward health care reform policy (West, Heith, and Goodwin, 1996) scholars find
that the media plays an influential role in the health care policy debates. Another
factor that influences whites’ public opinion toward health care reform is political
institutions. Robert J. Blendon and his co-authors (1994) find that the inefficiency
and un-ethical behavior of major institutions in our society have negatively affected
24
public opinion toward health care reform. Americans feel that the most serious
problems facing the health care system are the waste, inefficiency and greed of
institutions such as insurance companies, hospitals, and institutions relating to the
medical profession (Blendon, Marttila, Benson, Shelter, Connolly and Kiley, 1994).
Also, many scholars find that the statements and actions of political elites can
influence American public opinion on public policy (Page and Shapiro, 1992; Zaller,
1992). More specifically political elites can influence public opinion toward health
care policy. Jeffrey Koch (1998) finds that when Clinton was trying to pass his
universal health care plan, and made positive statements about his plan in the media,
public opinion was more favorable toward government supported insurance. When
political elites who were opponents of Clinton’s plan, became more vocal about what
was flawed with Clinton’s plan, public opinion was less favorable toward
government supported health care (Koch, 1998) Therefore, Koch concludes that
public opinion varies in accordance with the prominence of arguments advanced by
political elites. Other scholars find that high levels of elite disagreement about
health care reform policy causes confusion among the public and results in
ambivalent public opinion toward health care reform policy (Jacobs and Shapiro,
1995). Finally lobbyists/interest groups can influence American’s public opinion
toward health care reform policy. Scholars find that medical and insurance business
companies, such as the American Medical Association can also be powerful players
in the health care reform debates (Navarro 1995; Steinmo and Watts 1995). There
are other forces that influence public opinion toward government supported health
25
care (not examined in the conceptual model), but the media, institutions, elites, and
lobbyists/interest groups all are influence American public opinion toward
government supported health care. However, missing from many of these accounts
are attitudes toward unpopular groups that the public believes will benefit from
government provided health care such as undocumented immigrants (box 2). There
are more components in the contextual model than I am able to examine in the
dissertation, but I will specifically focus on the associations between boxes 1-4. In
box 1 (chapter 3 in the dissertation) I show that the specific ways in which whites
stereotype and construct Latinos as illegal immigrants has an effect on whites’ views
on government supported health care. In box 2 (chapter 4 in this dissertation) I show
that negative attitudes toward undocumented immigrants may lead white Americans
to be less supportive of government provided health insurance. These two findings
inform my outcome (box3): feelings towards unpopular groups such as Latinos and
undocumented immigrants negatively influence white’s support of government
provided health insurance. My conclusion (box 4), is that feelings toward
marginalized groups can weaken public support for universal health care policy. In
the following section, I will discuss the methods used in this dissertation and outline
each of the chapters of this project.
I examine the complex factors behind American public opinion towards
government supported health care. In order to examine these factors I use
quantitative methods in this project. In chapters three and four I use the 2004
American National Election Study data and in chapter two I use the 1999
26
Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University Survey. A
quantitative approach is the best way to examine Americans’ attitudes towards
government supported health care because the survey data allows for large sample
sizes. The analysis of these large samples allows me to make generalizations about
the public opinion of the American population, which I would not be able to do with
smaller sample sizes. These generalizations help us to understand the attitudes of the
larger American population towards government supported health care. Despite the
strengths of quantitative methods to answer the research questions in this project,
there are some limitations of this type of methodology. For example, the causal links
could be strengthened in my models with multiple methods. In particular, an
experimental methodology can strengthen the causal links in the statistical models in
this project. In future research I will run an experiment in order to strengthen these
causal links.
In chapter two, I examine the relationship between Latinos and health care
policy. The Latino community disproportionately lacks health insurance compared to
other racial and ethnic groups. I examine the glaring disparities that Latinos face
when it comes to health care and how different organizations have mobilized to
address these gaps. However, despite their growing political voice very little
scholarship examines Latinos’ attitudes towards health care policy. Existing
literature on Latinos finds that factors that account for intra-group differences such
as acculturation and generation, divide Latinos on their support for certain policies
such as immigration. Thus, I ask the question, do Latinos, as a group support
27
government provided health care? Using the 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser Family
Foundation/Harvard University Survey I find that as a group, Latinos support
government provided health care and that intra-group differences do not divide
Latino support for health care reform policy. Considering the support Latinos show
for government provided health care, I then examine the question, is this finding
unique vis-à-vis other groups? That is, do other groups such as non-Latino whites
fully support health care reform like Latinos do? I find that Latinos are more likely
to support government provided health care than non-Latino whites.
In chapter three, I examine the question, why are whites less supportive of
health care reform policies? Based on the race and public opinion literature I
hypothesize that perhaps racial attitudes affect white’s public opinion toward
government supported health care. I explore the stereotypes that are connected to
Latinos and how Latinos are racialized in the United States. Using the 2004 ANES
data I find that whites only racialize Latinos, and not other racial and ethnic groups
as undocumented immigrants.
In chapter four, drawing on how Latinos are racialized as undocumented
immigrants, I consider the question: how are whites’ attitudes toward government
provided health care influenced by their feelings toward undocumented immigrants?
I examine existing literature and some of the most popular explanations for why
Americans express negative sentiment towards undocumented immigrants. Next, I
look at the literature that analyzes undocumented immigrants and their use of social
policies such as welfare benefits, education, and health care. I find that this literature
28
generally focuses on how immigration policy affects undocumented immigrants’
utilization of these policies, and rarely looks at how people’s public opinion towards
undocumented immigrants affects their attitudes towards these policies. Using the
2004 American National Election Study (ANES) data I find that negative attitudes
towards undocumented immigrants constitute significant predictors of people’s
attitudes towards health care. Therefore, I conclude that attitudes toward unpopular
groups such as undocumented immigrants and Latinos influence white support for
government provided health care.
In the final chapter, I examine how my work contributes to the . Also, I
discuss how attitudes toward marginalized groups such as undocumented immigrants
and Latinos can weaken support for universal health care policies. I discuss the
policy implications that can be derived from the findings of this project. I conclude
with future avenues for research.
It is my hope that this project sheds some light not only on how crucial health
care policy is for Latinos, but for all Americans. Hopefully by gaining some
understanding on the different and complex factors that contribute to American’s
attitudes towards health care, we can move towards a more inclusive health care
policy for all. My focus on marginalized groups can help us better understand the
lack of support for “universal” policies that at first glance seem to have little to do
with any particular group in society. These deeply entrenched, but not always
obvious, feelings about unpopular groups may have profound consequences for
American public policy.
29
Chapter Two
Latinos’ and Non-Latino Whites’ Attitudes Toward Health Care Reform

Health care Reform-An Enduring Policy Concern in the United States
Health care reform is becoming an increasingly important issue in the United
States. In fact, many public opinion polls show that Americans rank health care
reform as one of the top three most important issues in the United States (Carroll
2007; Kaiser Health Tracking Poll 2007; CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll
2009; CBS News/New York Times Poll 2009). Furthermore, the importance of
health care was stressed during the 2008 presidential race with all major candidates
putting out major proposals on health care reform. Moreover, Americans believe
that making Medicare more financially sound should be the Congress’ and
President’s second top priority behind only improving the country’s economy
(Kaiser Health Tracking Poll April 2009). The recent economic crisis only
emphasizes the importance of health care reform as an issue since more Americans
are experiencing difficulty paying for their health care costs. For example, more
than half of Americans (53 percent) have been forced to cut back on health care in
some way because of economic hardship. The top three ways in which Americans
are cutting back on health care costs include relying on home remedies or over the
counter drugs instead of visiting a doctor, cutting dental care, and delaying receiving
health care (Kaiser Health Tracking Poll February 2009).
30
Latinos have a special interest in health care reform because they have the
highest levels of uninsured rates, and the lowest percentage of people with employer
coverage health insurance when compared to White Non-Hispanics, African-
Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders, American Indian/Alaska Native, and multi-racial
persons (James, Thomas, Lillie-Blanton, and Garfield 2007). In fact the number of
Latinos who lack health insurance has steadily risen from 32.6% in 1999 to 34.1% in
2006 (Denavas-Walt, Proctor, and Smith 2008).
Latino electoral participation was estimated to have surged from 5.9 million
in 2000 to at least 7 million in 2004 (Leal, Barreto, Lee and de la Garza 2005). As a
growing proportion of the uninsured, but also a growing force in American politics,
it is critical to examine how Latinos will influence the future debates over health care
reform. While previous studies about Latinos’ policy preferences have found that
intra-group divisions such as acculturation and generation divide the Latino
community in their support for various policies (Branton 2007; DeSipio 2009), little
is known about how Latinos as a group feel about health care reform policy.
I focus on Latinos in this chapter for a critical reason -- despite their pressing
policy needs on health care, little is actually known about Latino attitudes toward
health care reform policy. To what extent do Latinos support health care reform? Is
there variation in support within the Latino community? Finally, how does support
for health care reform among Latinos compare to other groups, such as non-Latino
whites?
31
I find that as a group, Latinos support government provided health care and
that intra-group differences do not divide Latino support for health care reform
policy. Perhaps surprisingly, socio-economic status, generation, and national origin
do not divide Latinos in their over-whelming support for health care reform.
However, compared to Latinos, non-Latino whites are less supportive of government
provided health care, even while controlling for education and income. Thus, class
interests and access to resources alone are not driving non-Latino whites’ lack of
support toward health care reform policy. What other factors might account for this
lack of support? I suggest that racial attitudes might account for non-Latino whites’
lack of support for health care reform policy.

The Health Status of the Latino Community-Disparities and Differences
Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States. From April 1,
2000 to July 1, 2007, the Latino population increased by 10.2 million to 45.5 million,
a growth of 29%. Moreover, by mid-2007 Latinos comprised 15.1% of the total U.S.
population (Fry 2008). Health care coverage continues to be a major concern for this
growing population. Several scholars are examining why Latinos lack health
insurance in such high numbers. One of the main reasons that Latinos lack health
insurance is that their employers do not offer them coverage. Despite the fact that
their employment rate is similar to that of other racial and ethnic groups, Latinos still
lack employer-based insurance. According to the 1997 Current Population Survey,
69% of White workers aged 18-64 have health insurance through their employer,
32
compared to 52% of African American workers and 44% of Latino workers (Carrillo
et al., 2001). Also, others find that Latinos’ access to employer based insurance has
declined in the past decade (Cooper and Schone 1997; Sanchez, Goodin, Rouse, and
Santos 2008). Several factors help to explain why Latinos disproportionately lack
employer based insurance compared to other racial and ethnic groups. For example,
a significant proportion of Latinos lack U.S. citizenship and it is not only more
difficult to receive employment without citizenship, but even more difficult to obtain
employment with medical benefits. Moreover, educational attainment is also a
factor; individuals with more than a college education, are about twice as likely to
have coverage as those with less than a high school education (Carrillo et al. 2001).
Furthermore, Latinos are more likely to work in industries that do not provide
benefits such as the agriculture, service, mining, domestic and construction industries
(Carrillo et al. 2001). Also, Latinos are more likely to work in small firms which are
less likely to give their employers medical benefits. Latino employees who work in
small businesses are half as likely to have employer coverage and twice as likely to
be uninsured as are white workers (Carrillo et al. 2001).
Greenwald, O’Keefe and DiCamillo (2005) narrow their focus and examine
factors that contribute to employed Latinos in California not having health insurance.
In order to examine this puzzle, the authors used a random survey of 1,000 working
Latinos. In their probit analysis they find that the factors that make it more likely
that working Latinos will have health insurance include higher income status,
residing in the U.S. 20 years or longer, and employer provided insurance (Greenwald
33
2005 et al. 525). While it is clear that income and employer provided insurance
(Carrillo et al, 2001; Mayberry, Mili, Ofili 2002; Williams and Collins 2002;
Greenwald et al. 2005) are consistent factors that contribute to Latinos having health
insurance, it is interesting that Greenwald and authors found that the longer Latinos
reside in the U.S., the more likely they are to have health insurance. This finding
suggests that perhaps new immigrant populations might not understand the health
care programs, or do not enroll in the programs because of citizenship status and fear
detection from the INS. Thus, policy-makers should not only out-reach to immigrant
communities so they are not fearful of deportation for enrolling in health insurance
programs, but policy-makers should also make these health insurance programs more
accessible and affordable to new immigrant communities.
Moreover, even studies on managed care systems show that Latinos enroll in
these services at a lower rate when compared to other racial and ethnic groups. A
study of conducted in Florida, Tennessee, and Texas shows that among low-income
groups, only 55% of Hispanics are enrolled in managed care, compared to 72 % of
African-Americans and 63% of whites (Leigh, Lillie-Blanton, Martinez and Collins
1999). Moreover, Latinos lack coverage through Medicaid as well. The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996
caused many Latinos not to enroll with Medicaid, because they did not understand
the process, they did not know they are eligible, and they feared being deported by
the INS for enrolling in the Medicaid program (Carrillo et al. 2001; Hagan, et
al.2003; Kullgren, 2003). The effect of the PRWORA is that many Latinos dropped
34
out or did not enroll in Medicare. For example, in New York City, where a
significant amount of the Medicaid population is Latino, Medicaid enrollment fell by
12 percent (200,000) after the PRWORA (1995-1999) (Carrillo et al. 2001).
Therefore, it is clear that Latinos lack several different forms of health insurance.
Beyond lacking health insurance there are ‘secondary barriers’ to health care
access for Latinos (Carillo et al. 2001). Carillo et al. (2001) refer to these ‘secondary
barriers’ as “barriers to care-… organizational, and structural-which greatly impact
the Latino population’s ability to get health care despite having insurance”(65). The
organizational viewpoint examines how the racial and ethnic composition of the
medical profession does not reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the United
States. For example, Latinos comprised only 2% of all physicians in 1990. The lack
of diversity in the health field affects access and utilization of health care by
minorities because it leads to health policies, procedures, and organizations that are
poorly suited to serve the medical need of racially and ethnically diverse
communities such as Latinos (Carillo et al. 2001).
The structural viewpoint examines the importance of speaking the patients’
native language or providing interpreter services (Carillo et al. 2001). Several
studies find that there is a significant association between Latinos who have limited
English proficiency and their utilization of health services (Derose and Baker 2000;
Weinack and Kraus 2000; Fiscell, Franks, Doescher, and Saver 2002). The language
barrier is associated with Spanish-speakers making fewer physician visits, being less
likely to make follow-up appointments, and being less likely than their English-
35
speaking counterparts to understand their diagnosis (Carillo et al. 2001; Derose and
Baker 2000). Therefore, language barriers and the lack of interpreter services only
further compromises the patient care of the Spanish speaking Latino community.
These barriers in health care access also affect the health utilization by the
Latino community. Latinos have lower levels of health care utilization across
several different health sectors. Latinos are less likely to receive prenatal care,
mammograms, Papanicolaou tests, and blood cholesterol checks when compared to
whites (National Center for Health Statistics 2000). The barriers in health care and
the low levels of health utilization have negatively impacted the health status of the
Latino community. For example, Latinos experience higher mortality rates from
diabetes, homicide, chronic liver disease and HIV infection when compared to the
total population and whites (Carter-Pokras and Zambrana 2001). Moreover, Latinas
experience alarmingly high rates of cervical cancer, with incidence rates that are
double those of white women (Ramirez and Suarez 2001). The disparity in health
care access the Latino community faces clearly affects their health status negatively,
but could serve as a catalyst toward their involvement in the debate over health care
reform.

Latinos and the Debate over Health Care Reform
Since Latinos experience disparities in health care, several organizations are
forming to ameliorate the health care problems of the Latino community. These
organizations (national, state-level and grassroots) focus on similar policy
36
recommendations that broadly address the health concerns of the Latino community.
These policy recommendations tend to fall under four broad categories. The first
category deals with modifying governmental and institutional policies at the local
state and federal level (Valdez, Giachello, Rodriguez-Trias, Gomez, and De la Rocha
1993). A policy recommendation under this umbrella is to eliminate or minimize
categorical and other eligibility restrictions for Medicaid coverage, especially for
women and children (Valdez et al. 1993; National Alliance for Hispanic Health).
As aforementioned there are several barriers to Latinos’ enrollment in Medicaid and
removing these restrictions would improve access for the Latino community
(Carrillo et al. 2001; Hagan, et al. 2003; Kullgren, 2003). Also, these organizations
recommend developing cooperative agreements between federal, state and local
organizations that improve and target health services for the Latino community.
They also propose the building of health care facilities in communities with large
Latino populations (Valdez et al. 1993). Within this first category, these
organizations recommend including Latinos in decision-making positions both in the
government and in the health care profession (Valdez et al. 1993; National Alliance
for Hispanic Health).
The second category of policy proposals includes calls for culturally
competent providers (Carrillo et al. 2001; Valdez et al. 1993; Latino Coalition for a
Healthy California; The National Latino Behavioral Association). The cultural
competency policy recommendation includes training and scholarships for Latinos
who want to go into the medical field, and implementing cultural competency into
37
professional curriculums (Valdez et al. 1993). Also falling under the ‘cultural
competency’ umbrella is encouraging bi-lingual training for medical professionals
(Latino Coalition for a Healthy California; National Alliance for Hispanic Health).
The purpose of cultural competence training is to provide health care workers with
the knowledge to give medical care to socially diverse populations (Carrillo et al.
2001).
The third category advocates for the guarantee of primary care and health
services (Valdez et al. 1993). Supporters recommend instituting reimbursement
policies that reward primary and preventative care. Also, they recommend adequate
funding and staff for public health initiatives in Latino communities (Valdez et al.
1993). The final category advocates for enhancing services in the Latino community
broadly. This includes having more comprehensive health plans beyond primary
care, such as health plans that include mental health, substance abuse, and long-term
care. Also, health plans should include community outreach, and health care
education services for Latino communities (Valdez et al. 1992; The National Latino
Behavioral Health Association; National Alliance for Hispanic Health).
Given that health care disparities exist for Latinos and that organizations are
developing policy agendas surrounding Latino health care, it is necessary to assess
Latino public opinion about health care as a political issue. Surprisingly little work
has been done on Latino’s attitudes towards health care within the discipline of
political science. Thus, the next section will explore gaps within the political science
literature in regards to Latinos’ public opinion towards health care.
38
Latinos and Political Voice
The 2000 United States Census revealed that Latinos are the fastest growing
minority group in the U.S. The Latino community grew from 58 percent during the
1990s-from 22.4 million to 35.3 million. Also, in the year 2000, Hispanics
comprised 12.5 % of the U.S. population and became the largest ethnic/racial group
in the U.S (Suro and Singer 2002). The growth of the U.S. Latino population has
also lead to their increasing influence in American politics, most noticeably through
their growth in the electorate. For example, reports estimate that in the 2008
presidential election the Latino electorate grew to 12.1 million voters. This was an
increase of 2.8 million since 2006, or a 30.5% increase (Gonzalez and Ochoa 2008).
Also, Latinos are increasingly being represented in the elite sphere of U.S. politics.
For example, Latino elected officials have increased by 37% from 3,734 in 1996 to
5,129 in 2007 (NALEO 2009).
The increasing influence of Latinos within U.S. politics has lead scholars to
examining their political behavior. Several scholars examine the factors that
determine Latino naturalization, mobilization and partisanship (Cain, Kiewiet &
Uhlaner 1991; de la Garza, Menchaca, & DeSipio, 1994; DeSipio, 1996; Uhlaner &
Garcia 1998; Wong, 2000; Pantoja, Ramirez, Segura 2001; Alvarez & Garcia-
Bedolla 2003; Pantoja & Segura 2003; Ramirez 2005; de la Garza & Cortina 2007;
Nuño 2007). Since, Latinos are a growing community within the United States it is
not surprising that political scientists have focused on their growing political power
in the electoral realm. This growing political power has given Latinos a more
39
important and louder voice in debates over domestic policies. The Latino
community generally has different policy needs and this leads to them having
different policy preferences when compared to other racial and ethnic communities,
especially whites. Previous scholarship has shown that Latinos have specific policy
preferences different from the majority white population in the United States.
Latinos have a unique policy agenda when it comes to issues such as immigration,
education, healthcare, labor regulation, language issues and affirmative action
(Hajnal and Baldassare 2001; Uhlaner 1996; and Garcia 1997). The Latino
population exhibits more conservative perspectives on certain policy issues such as
abortion, capital punishment, and certain foreign policies. Latinos are viewed as
having more liberal viewpoints than their white counterparts on social policies such
as crime control, drug prevention, public education, health care, child care services,
and environmental protection (DeSipio 1996). Also, the Latino community is
willing to pay more taxes because they see the government as the “proper vehicle to
solve …national and local problems…”(DeSipio, 1996, 52). While DeSipio (1996)
notes that “…Latino populations had public policy agendas that placed them solidly
within the mainstream of U.S. politics” (50), other authors have noted that while
Latino policy preference may at first glance appear to be consistent with mainstream
policy preferences, the Latino community often has different needs
14
than the general

14
Several factors can lead to Latinos having different needs than other groups in the U.S. These
factors can be: immigration status, cultural differences, language, structural barriers due to them being
in a minority group, access to education, etc. The factors are numerous but the more significant point
40
U.S. population that begets special nuanced forms of policies (Martinez-Ebers,
Fraga, Lopez, and Vega 2000). Martinez-Ebers and others (2000) examined the
policy areas of, education, and criminal justice, in order to gain a greater knowledge
of the policy interests and needs of the Latino community. They find that in terms of
education, Latinos have the highest high school drop -out rate compared to African-
Americans and whites and attend public schools that are increasingly racially,
ethnically and economically segregated. Latino students are subject to institutional
racism or cultural biases in schools and Latino students lack fluency in English. The
frustration of the Latino community not getting their policy preferences met in terms
of education is stated in the following quote by NALEO director of communications
Erica Bernal,
…We visited eight communities, talked to over 600 Latinos, ranging in age,
socioeconomic status. We didn’t hear one person who thought that ‘No Child
Left Behind’[President Bush’s major policy initiative aimed at education
reform] was working…Latino voters are saying, ‘50 percent of our kids are
not graduating, our schools are overcrowded, our teachers are underpaid,
they’re not credentialed properly, so who’s going to give me something that’s
going to fix my child’s education and make sure that they’re successful?’ So,
there’s a particular perspective that the Latino communities are facing. Even
though education is thrown around, Latinos are not hearing any substantive
policy that’s going to ensure their children’s success (Wong 2005)

Based on these findings one might conclude that Latinos have special policy
concerns in terms of education and hence require different policy outputs. While
broad educational policies such as “No Child Left Behind” might be designed for
general education reform, the above discussion shows that meeting the policy needs

is to recognize that Latinos are a minority group with specific needs that beget different policy
options.
41
of the Latino community may require a different approach or distinct emphasis than
required by the general U.S. public.
In regards to the criminal justice system, the Latino population exhibits
unique needs that may lead to distinctive policy opinions. For example, Latinos are
less likely to report when they are victims of crimes because of fear of deportation,
the police and language barriers (Martinez-Ebers et. al 2000). Furthermore, statistics
compiled by Donna Coker (2003) show that there are racial disparities between
Latinos and whites in regards to capital punishment. In a 2000 survey from the
Department of Justice she finds that for crimes for which the death penalty was a
potential penalty that the defendant was Hispanic in twenty-nine percent of the cases
and white in only twenty percent of the cases. Also, there exists a racial disparity in
plea bargaining. For death penalty prosecution cases that resulted in a plea bargain
that spared defendants from the death penalty prosecution, only twenty-eight percent
of Latino defendants entered into plea agreements compared with forty-eight percent
of white defendants. These disparities in capital punishment rates show that in terms
of crime policy Latinos have different policy needs in comparison to whites. It is
clear from these statistics that the Latino population will have more concerns focused
on seeking justice within the capital punishment system compared to the white
population.
Moreover, due to some of the members of the Latino community being
immigrants themselves, Latinos have very complicated policy concerns with regards
to immigration policy. Overall, Latinos tend to be more liberal than whites in
42
regards to immigration policy. For example, statistics from the 2006 Gallup Poll
show that when respondents were asked if they think immigration is a good thing or
a bad thing for this country today, sixty-eight percent of Non-Hispanic whites
claimed immigration “is a good thing”, while twenty-seven percent indicated “it is a
bad thing.” However seventy-six percent of Hispanics responded that immigration
“is a good thing” and only eighteen percent claimed it was “a bad thing.”
15
These
statistics show that Hispanics clearly have different policy interests regarding
immigration issues when compared to Non-Hispanic whites.
However, when scholars look closely at the intra-group differences of the
Latino community they find complex results because these attitudes can vacillate due
to numerous factors. For example, scholars find that Latinos’ attitudes towards
immigration policy differ according to national origin. Scholars find that people of
Mexican national origin tend to have more liberal attitudes towards immigration
policy when compared to other Latino national origin groups (Branton 2007;
DeSipio 2009). For example, Branton (2007) finds that Cuban Americans and Puerto
Ricans are more likely to support decreased immigration levels when compared to
Mexican-Americans. Also, Mexican Americans are less likely to feel that
undocumented immigrants hurt the economy, while Puerto Ricans and Cuban
Americans are more likely to feel that undocumented immigrants are hurt the
economy. Additionally, DeSipio (2009) also finds that Mexican-Americans are

15
For further information please see: “Gallup’s Pulse of Democracy, Immigration.” Available from:
http://www.gallupoll.com.
43
more liberal towards immigration policies compared to other Latino national origin
groups. He determines that Mexican-Americans are more likely to support
legalization and terminal guest worker programs, and less likely to support a closed
border solution compared to other Latinos (non-Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban
Americans). Therefore, several authors show that Latinos’ attitudes towards
immigration policy differ according to national origin.
Furthermore, several authors find that acculturation (defined broadly in this
work as generational status and English language competence) is an important factor
in determining Latinos’ preferences towards immigration policy. For example,
Branton (2007) finds that Latinos, who are more acculturated, are more likely to
support decreased levels of immigration. Also she finds that Latinos, who are more
acculturated, are more likely to feel that undocumented immigrants hurt the
economy. DeSipio (2009) also examines the role of generation upon Latinos’
attitudes towards immigration policies using the 2008 Latino National Survey. He
finds each subsequent generation of Latinos is less likely to support legalization for
undocumented immigrants. Moreover, DeSipio finds that each subsequent
generation is more likely to favor closing the border. Thus scholars find that the
more acculturated Latinos become, the less supportive they are of liberal
immigration policies. Due to the distinct backgrounds of Latinos (acculturation,
national origin group) it is clear that Latinos have differing policy preferences when
it comes to the issue of immigration.
44
Latinos clearly have specific policy needs when it comes to health care
reform policy. Considering the significant health issues of the Latino community
one would presume that scholars have examined Latinos’ attitudes towards health
care policy. However, compared to other policy issues such as immigration, health
care policy in relation to Latinos has largely been ignored by scholars. Recently,
with the increasing importance of health care, scholars are beginning to turn their
attention to examining Latino attitudes towards health care policy. Sanchez and
Morin (2007) used a national level Pew Hispanic Center data from 2004 and found
that more than fifty percent of Latinos stated that health care related issues were
important to their vote choice in the 2004 Presidential election. Also, they found that
58% of Latinos supported universal health care, even if they had to pay more taxes
or higher insurance premiums (Sanchez and Morin 2007).
Other studies have focused on Latinos attitudes towards health care policy in
particular states. For example, Sanchez and his co-authors (2008) use data from
New Mexico in order to examine if Latinos differ from non-Latino whites in their
attitudes towards health care policy. They find that Latinos are less likely to identify
health care as an important state issue, and Latinos are more likely than non-Latino
whites to feel that affordable health care programs are important. Also, Pachon,
Barreto, and Marquez (2004) find that Latinos in California have policy preferences
that are different than other people in California. They find that for most people in
California their policy preference for health care reform centers around HMO
reform. However, for Latinos their policy preference for health care reform centers
45
on access to affordable health care. The state-specific studies show that Latinos due
to their specific policy needs (such as lacking health insurance) do have different
policy preferences in regards to health care than the general population.
My study will add to the growing literature on Latino attitudes towards health
care policy in significant ways. Previous studies analyzed national level data but
examined only Latino attitudes towards health care reform policy (Sanchez and
Morin 2007), or have analyzed state level data and compared Latinos to the general
population (Pachon et al., 2004; Sanchez et al., 2008). This study is one of the only
to compare the attitudes of Latinos regarding health care policy to non-Latino whites
on a national level. Also, this analysis will examine if Latinos’ attitudes towards
health care differs according to Latino national origin group. The extant literature on
policies such as immigration suggests that intra-group differences within the Latino
community can drive distinct policy preferences within the Latino community. This
analysis seeks to answer the following questions: Do intra-group differences within
the Latino community drive distinct policy differences among Latinos in regards to
health care reform? Do Latinos have different attitudes regarding health care policy
than non-Latino whites?

Data
In this analysis I use the 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser Family
Foundation/Harvard University National Survey. The survey was conducted by
telephone between June 30 and August 30, 1999. The survey was a study of
46
nationally representative sample of 4,614 adults, 18 years and older, including 2,417
Latinos and 2,197 non-Latinos. The non-Latino sample is comprised of 1,802 non-
Latino whites and 285 non-Latino black adults. The survey included 818 Mexicans,
318 Puerto Ricans, 312 Cubans and 593 Central or South Americans. Latino adults
were interviewed in their choice of English or Spanish. The final results were
weighted to the national Latino population so that the nationalities reflect the
proportions of the U.S. While this data is a little old, it is one of the only data sets
with health care questions, and it contains nationally representative samples of
Latinos, non-Latino whites, and large numbers of Latino national origin groups that
are weighted.

Models and Variable Construction
Models and Dependent Variables
For this analysis I constructed two models. The dependent variable for both
models is based upon the following question: Do you think the government should
provide health insurance for Americans without insurance, or is this something the
government should not do? This variable was dichotomized, in the following
manner: 1= Government should not do this; 0=Government should provide
insurance.
16
Model 1 focuses upon the Latino community in order to determine if
differences among Latinos such as nationality or acculturation are significant

16
All variables in the analysis are coded in such a manner that the larger values represent the more
conservative point of view
47
predictors of Latinos’ attitudes towards the government providing health insurance
for people who do not have it (see Table 2.7). Model 2 examines Latinos and non-
Latino whites’ attitudes towards government providing health insurance for people
who do not have it (see Table 2.8).

Independent Variables
Based upon previous work on ethnicity and health (Sanchez et al. 2008) I
theorized independent variables for the models 1 and 2 presented below. Both
models contain the category of variables, Attitudes towards government, examines
whether people’s partisanship preferences
17
(Partisanship) and whether they favor a
smaller federal government with fewer services or a more expansive government
with more services (Favor Small Government). Past scholarship indicates that
Latinos prefer a larger government with more services, and they generally lean
towards the Democrat Party (DeSipio 1996). However, it is not known whether
these liberal views of government will have any impact on their attitudes towards
government intervention in the health care system; the Attitudes towards government
variables will test this relationship.
Also, both models contain the category of variables, Socio-Economic Status
(SES) and Demographic variables. This category includes variables such as
education, and income which have been proven important in studies examining

17
I examined the models with a political ideology variable as well. There were no substantive
differences between the models with political ideology and partisanship. Thus, here I used the
partisanship variable.
48
ethnicity and health care policy (Greenwald 2005 et al.; Sanchez et al. 2008). I also
included other important control variables such as marital status, gender,
employment status, and age.
Model 1
Since Model 1 examines Latino attitudes, some of the independent variables
are different than model 2. First, in Model 1, I include the category National Origin.
This category examines the different national origin groups within the Latino
community. Previous literature has found that policy preferences within the Latino
community differ according to their national origin (Branton 2007; DeSipio 1996,
2009). Thus, while one’s national origin affects one’s preference for certain policies
such as immigration, we do not know if national origin will have an effect upon
Latinos’ attitudes towards health care policy. I include Cubans, Central/South
Americans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans in the analysis with Mexicans as the
excluded category.
The Acculturation variables measure whether Latinos’ different levels of U.S.
acculturation has an effect upon health care policy. Studies on other policies such as
immigration show that the more acculturated Latinos become, the more conservative
they become on immigration policies (Branton 2007; DeSipio 2009). Perhaps
acculturation variables will have the same effect upon health care policies as well.
The variables in this category examine whether the respondents are U.S. born,
second, or third generation. Also there is a variable in this category that assesses if
the respondent speaks mostly English at home (English at home).
49
Model 2
This model examines attitudes toward government providing health insurance
for people who do not have it among Latinos and non-Latino whites. The only
category in addition to Attitudes towards government, and the Socio-Economic Status
(SES) and Demographic categories is the Race/Ethnic Group category. This
category includes the main independent variable: Latino. The Latino variable is
coded as follows: 1=yes, Latino or Hispanic, if answered yes to: “Are you, yourself
of Hispanic or Latin origin or descent such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban or
some other Latin background? 0=Non-Latino white, if the respondent answered
“No” to: “Are you, yourself of Hispanic or Latin origin or descent such as Mexican,
Puerto Rican, Cuban or some other Latin background? And “white” to “Do you
consider yourself to be white, black, or African-American, Asian-American, or some
other race?” Detailed instructions of the coding of the dependent and independent
variables can be found in Appendix A.
18

Results
I first conducted cross-tabulations of the different national origins within the
Latino community and the dependent variable. Tables 2.1-2.5 display that different
national origin groups within the Latino community highly support (80% or higher)
government providing health insurance to those without it. Despite the high levels of

18
I tested the multi-collinearity among the independent variables and everything was at an acceptable
threshold.
50
support within the Latino community, there are some subtle differences among the
national origin groups. For example, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans display the lowest
levels of support (85.2% and 85% respectively) for government providing health
care to those who do not have it. However, Dominicans demonstrate the highest
level support (90.7%) for government providing health care to people who do not
have it. These cross-tabulations show that Latinos as a group do support the
government providing health insurance for those who do not have it.

Table 2.1: Cross Tabulations of Cubans and Health Insurance

Non-Cubans Cubans
Government should provide health insurance 85.40% 87.80%
Government should not provide health insurance 14.60% 12.20%
N=2417
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey

Table 2.2: Cross Tabulations of Central and South Americans and Health Insurance

Non-
Central/South
American
Central/South
American
Government should provide health insurance 85.00% 89.10%
Government should not provide health insurance 15.00% 10.90%
N=2417
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey
51
Table 2.3: Cross Tabulations of Dominicans and Health Insurance

 
Non-
Dominicans 
Dominicans 
Government should provide health insurance 85.50% 90.70% 
Government should not provide health insurance 14.40% 9.30% 
N=2417
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey

Table 2.4: Cross Tabulations of Puerto Ricans and Health Insurance

 
Non-Puerto
Ricans 
Puerto
Ricans 
Government should provide health insurance 86.00% 85.20% 
Government should not provide health insurance 14.20% 14.78% 
N=2417
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey

Table 2.5: Cross Tabulations of Mexicans and Health Insurance

 
Non-
Mexicans 
Mexicans 
Government should provide health insurance 86.10% 85.00% 
Government should not provide health insurance 13.90% 15.00% 
N=2417
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey

I also conducted descriptive statistics of ethnicity and health care policy. The
frequencies in Figure 2.1 clearly show that Latinos favor the government providing
health insurance for people who do not have it, in greater numbers than non-Latino
52
whites. The cross-tabulation in Table 2.6 also clearly shows that Latinos favor the
government providing health insurance for people without it, compared to non-
Latino whites. Table 2.6 shows that 66.5% of non-Latino whites think that the
government should provide insurance to people without it, compared to 85.7% of
Latinos who think that the government should provide insurance to people without it.
The cross-tabulations in Table 2.6 clearly display that Latinos are more in favor
expanding the role of government when it comes to health care policy when
compared to non-Latino whites. The descriptive statistics clearly show that Latinos
are more in favor of government regulation of health care policy, especially when
compared to non-Latino whites. However, below I will discuss if these relationships
actually sustain in a multivariate context.

Figure 2.1: Frequencies of Attitudes Towards Health Care-Latinos and Non-Latino
Whites

53
Table 2.6: Cross Tabulations of Latinos and Non-Latino Whites and Health
Insurance

 
Non-Latino
Whites
Latinos
Government should provide health insurance 66.5% 85.7%
Government should not provide health insurance 33.5% 14.3%
N=4219
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey

I constructed logit models that more clearly delineates the relationship
between the independent and dependent variables (Tables 4.7-4.8). In order to make
interpretation easier I report the change in probability statistics (MinMax). In
order to compute this value I used the prchange command in the SPost add-on
module for STATA (Long & Freese, 2005). In Table 2.7, I report the findings for
the model that examines the intra-group differences of the Latinos community
(model 1). The findings show that conservative attitudes towards government are
significant predictors of attitudes towards health care policy. The findings show that
Latinos who are more likely to identify with the Republican Party are 5% more
likely to feel that the government should not provide health care to Americans
without it. Similarly Latinos who favor a smaller government with fewer services
are 9.2% more likely to feel that the government should not provide health care to
Americans without it. Thus, these findings display that similar to whites, Latinos
can possess conservative attitudes towards government and this can affect their
political opinions of health care policy. Moreover, demographic variables such as
54
being married, income, gender, being employed and one’s age are all significant
predictors of Latino’s attitudes towards health care policy.
The results from Table 2.7 surprisingly show that factors that account for
Latino intra-group differences such as acculturation variables are not significant
predictors for Latinos when it comes to health care policy. Past studies show that
variables that measure generation status or English proficiency affect Latinos
political opinions towards certain public policies such as immigration (Branton 2007;
DeSipio 2009). However, the results in model 1 show that unlike immigration
policies, variables associated with levels of acculturation do not affect Latinos’
attitudes regarding health care policy. The finding that measures of acculturation do
not have an effect on Latinos attitudes towards health care policy is important; this
means that generational and acculturation differences do not divide the Latino
community or impact their attitudes when it comes to health care policy.
Furthermore, there is very little variation among the national origin groups as
well. The Cuban and Central/South American groups do reach modest significance
levels; however, it is important to keep in mind that the coefficients associated with
these national and regional groups show only the extent to which each differs from
the comparison group, Mexicans. Previous scholarship shows that national original
does matter when it comes to certain policies such as immigration policy. Scholars
find that Mexican-Americans are more liberal in their views regarding immigration
policy in comparison to Puerto Ricans and Cubans. However, the findings in tables
(4.1-4.5 and 4.7) show that Latinos of all national origin groups are in favor
55
government support for providing health care insurance to people who do not have it.
This is an important finding since it shows that national origin groups within the
Latino community are not deeply divided on the issue of health care. Thus, the
findings in Table 2.7 suggest that health care is a policy that all Latinos may coalesce
around and perhaps Latinos can be an important coalition in the debate for health
care reform.

Model 1
Table 2.7: Government Should Not Provide Health Insurance-Differences Among
Latinos

Explanatory Variables Coefficients Standard Error Min  Max
National Origin
Cubans -0.392* 0.223 -0.038
Central/South Americans -0.418** 0.199 -0.041
Dominican -0.268 0.374 -0.027
Puerto Ricans -0.038 0.196 -0.004
Acculturation
U.S. born 0.151 0.234 0.017
Second Generation 0.032 0.249 0.004
Third Generation 0.147 0.239 0.017
English at Home -0.152 0.165 -0.016
Attitudes Towards Government
Partisanship 0.219*** 0.088 0.050
Favor Small Government 0.753*** 0.136 0.092
SES/Demographics
Married 0.262** 0.136 0.029
Education 0.035 0.043 0.023
Income 0.145*** 0.040 0.106
Male 0.359*** 0.133 0.039
Employed -0.374** 0.157 -0.044
Age -0.450*** 0.096 -0.122
Constant -1.989*** 0.252
* p < .10; ** p < .05; *** p < .01
N = 2184; Log Likelihood = -838.05328; LR chi2(16) = 133.11; Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey
56
Model 1 shows that Latinos as a group support government providing health
insurance for those who do not have it. Is this finding unique vis-à-vis other groups?
That is, do other groups such as non-Latino whites support health care reform to the
same extent as Latinos? In model 2 (Table 2.8) I compare Latinos’ and non-Latino
whites’ support for government provided health insurance. First the results from
model 2 (Table 2.8) show that conservative attitudes towards government are
significant predictors of respondents’ being more likely to feel that the government
should not provide health insurance for people who do not have it. For example,
respondents who are more likely to identify as Republican are 11.8% more likely to
feel that the government should not provide health insurance for people who do not
have it. Also, people who favor small government are 15.1% more likely to feel that
the government should not provide health insurance for people who do not have it.
These findings are not surprising, conservative notions of government consistently
predict conservative attitudes towards health care policy.
Furthermore, having a higher income and being male makes one more likely
to feel that government should not provide health insurance for people who do not
have it. Also, being employed and being older makes one less likely to feel that
government should not provide health insurance for people who do not have it.
While it may seem surprising at first glance that the employment variable is
negatively related to the dependent variable, it is not that strange since 1999
escalating costs have been causing employers to cut health care benefits to their
employees (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research/Educational
57
Trust 2008). Thus it is possible that people who are employed still lack insurance
and might be more supportive of government provided health insurance for those
who do not have it.
Finally, Latino ethnicity is a significant predictor of attitudes towards health
care policy. The results in Model 2 (Table 2.8) show that Latinos are 10.6% less
likely than non-Latino whites to feel that the government should not provide health
insurance for people who do not have it. This finding is important; even while
controlling for factors such as income and conservative attitudes towards
government, Latinos still feel it is important that the government provide health
insurance for people who lack it. Therefore socio-economic status and attitudes
towards government alone do not explain why these two groups might feel
differently towards health care policy. Furthermore, class is normally a driver of
Latino attitudes. However, we must look beyond class since even after controlling
from education and income, Latinos look different than whites when it comes to
health care policy. This analysis shows that even while controlling for factors such
as class and attitudes toward government, whites are less supportive of health care
reform when compared to Latinos. In the following section I analyze the importance
of these findings and also examine further why whites are less supportive of health
care reform policies.
58
Model 2
Table 2.8: Government Should Not Provide Health Insurance-Ethnicity Model

Explanatory Variables Coefficients Standard Errors Min  Max
Race/Ethnic Group
Latino -0.656*** 0.093 -0.106
Attitudes Towards Government
Partisanship 0.367*** 0.056 0.118
Favor Small Government 0.941*** 0.093 0.151
SES/Demographics
Married 0.100 0.09 0.016
Education 0.001 0.028 0.001
Income 0.076*** 0.026 0.073
Male 0.309*** 0.086 0.048
Employed -0.264*** 0.103 -0.043
Age -0.089* 0.055 -0.041
Constant -1.900*** 0.206
* p < .10; ** p < .05; *** p < .01
N = 3790; Log Likelihood = -1803.6104; LR chi2(9) = 444.65; Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Source: 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino Survey

Discussion/Conclusions
The results from the statistics display that Latinos and non-Latino whites
differ in their attitudes towards health care policy. Latinos support government
intervention in health care policy in greater percentages than non-Latino whites
(Table 2.6). Moreover, the results from model 1 (Table 2.7) suggest that groups
within the Latino community regardless of generation status, or national origin status
desire a larger government to provide health care to those who need it. This finding
59
shows that Latinos are not deeply divided in their support for the government
providing health insurance for those who do not have it.
Also, Latinos are less likely than non-Latino whites to feel that the
government should not give insurance to people without it, even while controlling
for other factors such as income (Table 2.8). Thus, while some might argue that
Latinos support government intervention in health care because of class issues, such
as not being able to afford health care, this analysis refutes this claim. This clearly
shows that Latinos are more willing to have government play an active role in
increasing health care coverage to the uninsured.
Overall the finding that Latinos are more liberal towards health care policies
that pertain to increased coverage for people without it is critical to the study of
health care policy and race and ethnicity. Health care is becoming an increasingly
important issue in American politics. Furthermore, health care policy is especially
important to Latinos since the number of Latinos without insurance continues to
increase (Denavas-Walt, Proctor, and Smith 2008). Health care is a key issue for
Latinos, with a majority of Latinos supporting expanding coverage and access to
health care even if it raised taxes (Latino Policy Coalition 2006). Also, Latinos state
that health care issues were important in their vote choice for President in 2004
(Sanchez& Morin 2007). Furthermore, Latinos have been increasing their political
power, both with growth in the electorate (Gonzalez and Ochoa 2008) and with
growth in the elite sphere with growing numbers of Latino elected officials (NALEO
2009). Thus, with the growing importance of health care policy to the Latino
60
community, and their growing political power, it is possible that Latinos will push
for more liberal health care policies; policies that focus upon government
intervention to expand health care coverage. The findings in tables 4.7 and 4.8
suggest that Latinos can coalesce around this issue, and if so, they may provide a
very powerful voice in the U.S. health care reform debate.
Finally, the findings in Table 2.8 suggest that whites are less supportive of
health care reform. In model 2 even while controlling for factors such as income,
education, and attitudes toward the role of government in society, whites are less
supportive than Latinos of more liberal health care reforms. Therefore, factors such
as class, socio-economic status, and a desire to have a small role for government do
not account for white’s lack of support for health care reform policy. In the following
chapters I suggest that attitudes towards unpopular groups who are perceived by
whites’ to benefit from expanded health care coverage may be contributing to their
resistance to government provided health care benefits and health care reform more
generally.
61
Chapter Three
The Racialization of Latinos as Undocumented Immigrants

Introduction
In the previous chapter, I showed that whites are less likely than Latinos to
support the government providing health care for those who do not have it. This gap
in support cannot be explained by differences in resources alone. I argue that
previous literature on race, public opinion and public policy has not yet examined the
association between whites’ negative feelings toward health care reform policy and
attitudes toward Latinos and undocumented immigrants. Extant literature examines
how African-Americans are racialized as lazy and undeserving recipients of certain
government benefits such as welfare (Gilens, 1999; Hancock, 2004). Latinos are the
largest minority group of the United States (Fry, 2008), but little is known about how
Latinos are racialized by the American public. In this chapter I argue that Latinos
are subjected to a unique form of racialization in the United States; they are
racialized as undocumented immigrants. More importantly, through quantitative
analysis I show that other racial and ethnic groups are not racialized as
undocumented immigrants. In this chapter I first examine the racialization process
of Latinos in the United States. Second, I examine how Latinos specifically are
stereotyped as illegal immigrants. Next, I present a statistical analysis of and brief
discussion of the stereotyping of Latinos as illegal immigrants. I conclude by
explaining how the racialization and the specific ways in which they are
62
stereotyped/constructed as illegal immigrants has an effect on whites’ views on
government supported health care, and discuss this contribution in the context of the
race and public policy literature. Stereotypes of Latinos as undocumented
immigrants negatively impacts public opinion towards government supported health
care challenges previous conceptions of how race impacts public policy in American
society. I contend that this study has important implications for the literature on
white racial attitudes and public policy, in particular.

Race and the Racialization Process: Where do Latinos Fit In?
How are Latinos stereotyped and or racialized in the United States? My
analysis below suggests that although only 40 percent of Latinos are foreign born
(Pew Hispanic Center 2006), the public tends to stereotype Latinos as “illegal
immigrants.” This stereotype is illustrated by a recent survey that shows that close to
60% of Americans believe that most Latinos arrived as illegal immigrants (see table
3.1). Other racial and ethnic minority groups are not subjected to this unique form
racialization (Sanchez 1997; De Genova 2002; 2004).
63
Table 3.1: Americans' Views of How Many Latinos are Illegal Immigrants
In the last 10 years, do you think most of the Latinos who emigrated to the United
States were legal or illegal immigrants?

Legal Illegal Don't Know
Total 32% 57% 10%
White 35% 55% 10%
Black 31% 64% 6%
Source: The Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University Survey Project 1995-
2000

How exactly did this stereotyping of Latinos as ‘illegal immigrants’ develop
in the United States? This particular social construction is deeply rooted in
historical, social, and political. The United States government as of the 2000 census
does not define Latino/Hispanic as a race, but rather as an ethnicity (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2000). The standard racial categories on the U.S. census do not capture the
ways in which Latinos racially self-identify. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, 42
percent of Latinos marked ‘some other race’ on the 2000 census and self-identified
as ‘Latino’ (Tafoya, 2006; Hitlin et al., 2007). Scholars note that Latinos do not fit
neatly into the racial schema of the United States since Latinos are neither black nor
whites (Sanchez, 1997; Kim, 1999, 2000). In terms of the ordering of the racial
hierarchy of privilege and power in the United States, with whites on top and blacks
on the bottom, Latinos typically are viewed as falling between these two groups
(Kim 1999).
64
The popular assumption that Latinos occupy an intermediate position within
the racial schema of the U.S. has lead to a unique form of racialization. Latinos are
racialized as outsiders and insiders. That is, when Latinos are positioned more
toward the white end of the spectrum, they are racialized as insiders, accessing
whites’ power and privilege. However, when Latinos are positioned more toward
the black end of the spectrum, Latinos are racialized more as outsiders. These
unique forms of racialization of Latinos have occurred throughout history. For
example, in 1848 Mexicans in California were given some power and privilege
because they were granted white racial status. However, they were also racialized as
outsiders, enduring racial slurs, and becoming economically disenfranchised when
they were displaced from their land by Anglo immigrants (Almaguer, 1994). This
type of racialization of Latinos still exists in the present-day. The Republican Party
has stereotyped Latinos as illegal immigrants with various pieces such as Proposition
187 which many viewed as an attack on the Latino community (racialized as
outsiders) (Tolbert and Hero, 1996; Pantoja and Segura, 2003). However, six years
later Republicans commended Latinos for their values of family, and hard-work
(racialized as insiders) (Rodriguez, 1999; Bustillo, 2000; Jacoby, 2002; Davila,
2008).
In this chapter I focus specifically on how Latinos are racialized primarily as
outsiders, as undocumented immigrants. While extant literature primarily focuses on
how whites racialize black Americans (Gilens 1999; Hancock, 2004), I am arguing
that in order to understand our increasingly multi-racial society, we must understand
65
how different groups such as Latinos are racialized as well. In the following section,
I examine literature that explains the complex racialization process of Latinos as
undocumented immigrants. This unique racialization process stems from
colonization, expansion of empire, and current U.S. immigration policies (Sanchez
1997; De Genova 2002, 2004; Inda 2008).

The Racialization of Latinos
19
as Illegal Immigrants
Despite the fact that Latinos have been the target of both appeal and rejection
by the U.S. state, the most striking trope associated with the Latino experience in the
United States is their characterization as “immigrants” and particularly “illegal
immigrants.”
20

Of course, along with colonization, immigration has been fundamental to the
experience of Latinos in the United States. The Immigration Act of 1917 banned
immigration from all of Asia and simultaneously encouraged more migration from
Mexico (Hing 1993; Kim 1994; Chang 1999; De Genova 2004). The complete
exclusion of Asians caused a depletion of labor migrants, which led to the U.S.

19
In this section I examine the racialization of Latinos as illegal immigrants. However, due to the
lack of work on this topic, authors I analyze such as De Genova, specifically examine the racialization
of Mexicans as illegal immigrants. I realize each group under the pan-ethnic term Latino has different
racialization experiences, however, I do argue that all Latinos are similarly stereotyped as illegal
immigrants. De Genova himself says while he concentrates on how Mexicans are stereotyped as
illegal immigrants he does believe that illegality is ascribed to other undocumented migrations,
“especially those from Latin America and [the] Caribbean” (De Genova 2004: 166).

20
The term immigration and migration will be used interchangeably. Both of these terms will refer to
a person who migrates between/or to countries. Thus, neither of these terms reflects permanence
within one place due to the unstable situations (due to a variety factors such as immigration policies,
familial ties, etc.) migrants usually live in.
66
increasing the number migrants from Mexico. The years from 1910-1930 saw a
dramatic increase in Mexican migrants, as one-tenth of Mexico’s total population
relocated to the U.S., due to the U.S. demands for labor (De Genova 2004).
While the Immigration Act of 1924 maintained the white racial hegemony of
the United States by reserving 85% of the allotments for immigrants from
northwestern European origins, the U.S. did not restrict the number of Mexican
migrants (Reimers, 1992; De Genova 2004). However, the U.S. Border Patrol was
formed in 1924 and “…quickly assumed its distinctive role as a special police force
for the repression of Mexican workers in the US.”(De Genova 2004: 163). While
there were not numeric restrictions on Mexican migration until 1965, the Border
patrol enforced certain other elements of the immigration law. The Border Patrol
effectively policed Mexican migrants by not allowing them entry for various
‘violations’ such as: failure to pay an immigrant head tax, a visa fee, if they seemed
illiterate, and if they did not have pre-arranged employment. Also, Mexican workers
could be deported if they could not confirm they had legitimate work visas or if they
were found to avoid other inspections; or if they engaged in acts that could be
considered as ‘anarchist’ or seditionist’(De Genova 2004: 163-164). Furthermore,
beyond the fact that the Border Patrol could find almost any reason to deport
Mexican migrants, during the Great Depression this racism was blatant with the
deportation of at least 415,000 Mexicans, regardless of citizenship or legal status
(Hoffman 1974; Balderrama and Rodriguez 1995; De Genova 2002, 2004).
67
However, during World War II, the need for labor again caused the United
States to import even more labor from Mexico. It was during this time period that
the U.S. started the Bracero Program to regulate labor from Mexico according to the
demand of U.S. labor. While the Bracero Program expanded legal Mexican
migration through contracted labor, it was also coupled with an increase in
undocumented labor as employers’ persuaded braceros to overstay the time limit of
their contracts. Furthermore, in 1954, in order to evade the Mexican governments’
request for a fixed minimum wage to braceros, the U.S. Congress developed an open
border strategy and even had the Border Patrol recruit undocumented persons from
Mexico to fulfill the labor demands of the United States. However, once again,
nativist demands lead to mass deportations of Mexican migrants that had been
recruited by the U.S. for labor. “Operation Wetback” led to the deportation of 2.9
million Mexican migrants from 1954-1955 (De Genova 2002, 2004).
To better understand how the racialization of Latinos affects public policy,
we can focus on the ways in which the Latino community has not only been shaped
by U.S. immigration policy, but also how the community has been tied to illegal
immigration in the American imaginary. Authors such as De Genova state that there
has been little work examining how the American public tends to stereotype Latinos
as ‘illegal.’
21
He states, “Though Mexican migrants are very commonly the implied
if not overt focus of mass-mediated, journalistic, as well as scholarly discussions of

21
Mae Ngai (2004) also shows how U.S. immigration policies yielded the “illegal immigrant.” For
her study Ngai examines how Filipinos, Mexicans, Japanese and Chinese all are stereotyped as illegal
aliens in the United States.
68
‘illegal aliens’, the genesis for their condition of ‘illegality’; is seldom examined”
(De Genova 2002: 433). De Genova explains that immigration law towards Mexico
has been a “revolving door” one that allowed and disallowed immigration from
Mexico depending upon the specific economic needs of the United States. De
Genova’s analysis shows how the immigration policies of the United States of the
20
th
century have resulted in the importation and subsequent deportation of
Mexicans, resulting in their status always wavering between legal and illegal. De
Genova states,
Originally by means of qualitative restrictions-such as work visa and literacy
requirements and contract labor prohibitions, or in the case of the Bracero
program, the requirements of labor contracts and the prohibition against
overstaying those contracts-“illegality” has long served as a constitutive
dimension of the specific racialized inscription of “Mexicans,” in general, in
the United States (De Genova, 2004)

De Genova goes on to explain how after 1965, the U.S. began to implement
quantitative restrictions on immigration from Mexico and these restrictions, lead
further to the categorization of Mexicans as illegal. De Genova explains
Mexican migration to the United States is distinguished by a seeming
paradox that is seldom examined: while no other country has supplied nearly
as many migrants to the US as has Mexico since 1965, virtually all major
changes in US immigration law during this period have created ever more
severe restrictions on the conditions of “legal” migration from Mexico.
Indeed,…this paradox presents itself in a double sense: on the one hand,
apparently liberalizing immigration laws have in fact concealed significantly
restrictive features, especially for Mexicans; on the other hand, …restrictive
immigration laws …intended to deter migration have …been instrumental in
sustaining Mexican migration, but only by significantly restructuring its legal
status as undocumented (160-161)

69
De Genova explains how specific immigration policies after 1965 placed
especially severe limits upon migrants from Mexico
22
despite the fact that Mexican
migrants have supplied a lot of labor for the United States throughout the years. The
population of the Mexican population has grown by 10 million people from 1990-
2000 and about 36% of Mexican-Americans in 2000 were foreign-born with about
half of the foreign-born population being recent immigrants (Logan, 2001; Logan,
2002). The fact that migrants from Mexico not only reside in the United States in
large numbers, but also Mexico provides the U.S. with a lot of labor workers, it is
strange that the U.S. in the last forty years has placed especially harsh limitations
upon migration from Mexico in particular. The Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 which
amended the Immigration and Nationalities Act of 1952, actually sought to liberalize
previous restrictive immigration policies by opening up immigration from China, and
to abrogate the national-origin quota for European countries (De Genova, 2004).
However, for countries in the Western Hemisphere the immigration laws under this
1965 act actually became more restrictive. For example, the U.S. government in
1965 only allowed ‘spots’ for 120,000 ‘legal’ migrants for the Western Hemisphere.
This small allotment of people from the Western Hemisphere was unusual
considering that policies such as the Bracero Program lead to hundreds of thousands
of Mexicans migrating to the U.S. annually. Comparatively, the “legal” allotment

22
De Genova further explains that before 1965 the U.S. did not place quantitative restrictions on
“legal” migration from Mexico. The federal government never had a law with quantitative
restrictions on any of the countries in the Western Hemisphere (this is excluding colonies), which had
very important conclusions for many Latinos (however, Puerto Ricans always had differing
circumstances than other Latinos). For further information see De Genova (2004), page 167.
70
for the migration from the Easter Hemisphere was higher at 170,000 (De Genova,
2004).
23
Hence, in the years previous to 1965, the U.S. had a “revolving door”
policy with Mexico that entailed the U.S. using migrants from Mexico for their labor
needs, thus encouraging massive importation of people from Mexico. However, the
1965 numerical quota for migrants from the Western Hemisphere to migrate legally
was much smaller than the numbers of Mexican migrants that had come to the
United States in the past.
The situation became worse for undocumented people from Mexico when the
INS began to escalate in terms of force. The INS not only categorized ‘deportable
aliens’ into two groupings, Mexicans and All Others, but also reported that in 1973
that Mexican migrants constituted 99% of all arrested “deported aliens” who entered
the U.S. covertly (De Genova, 2002; 2004). Therefore, throughout the years with the
United States’ government with their vacillating immigration policy towards
Mexican migrants, coupled with stringent quantitative and qualitative restrictions,
and harsh enforcement agencies has lead to Mexican migrants status constantly being
viewed as “illegal” by the general U.S. public. De Genova explains, “These
persistent (U.S.) enforcement practices, and the statistics they produce, have made an
extraordinary contribution to the pervasive fallacy that Mexicans account for
virtually all ‘illegal aliens’” (De Genova, 2004: 171).

23
De Genova also explains that immigration legislation for family reunification was more lenient
upon people from the Eastern Hemisphere as opposed to people from the Western Hemisphere. For
more information see De Genova 2004: 170-171.
71
George Sanchez (1997) also underscores the ways in which immigration has
shaped the Latino community in the U.S. when he writes, “It is the constant
depiction of Latinos as ‘new- comers, and ‘foreigners’ that provides insight into the
particular form of racialization which surrounds this group in American society”
(1018). Sanchez finds that the characterization of Latinos as illegal immigrants in
particular have evoked nativist sentiment, particularly in relation to public policies
such as welfare, education and health care services. Sanchez notes that nativists
stereotype immigrants as “non-working loafers” who come here to drain public
resources (1020-1021). He argues that nativists often do not believe research that
shows that immigrants are less likely to use public resources. For example, Harold
Ezell a proponent of California proposition 187 refused to believe research showing
that immigrants’ tend to use government-sponsored medical programs in very low
numbers, saying “He’s obviously never been to any of the emergency rooms in
Orange County to see who’s using them-it’s non-English speaking young people
with babies”(1021). Sanchez argues it is this stereotype of Latinos as “newcomers”
or “foreigners” that come to the United States to “drain” the U.S. of public resources
that leads to legislation that bans education, welfare and health benefits to
immigrants.
The process of the racialization of Mexicans and Latinos through
immigration laws and policies is not always apparent to the general public; however,
the U.S.-Mexico border provides the visual for the racialization process to take place.
For example, Jonathan Xavier Inda (2008) examines how governmental institutions,
72
agents, and the general population can exile the undocumented Mexican immigrant
in order to protect the current social body. Inda states:
For one, the general logic of border control is a biopolitical
24
one. Certain
bodies-immigrant bodies-have been discursively constructed as dangerous to
the body politic and must therefore be eliminated or excluded. The same
discourses trace many of the ills that plague the United States to the
permeability of the U.S.-Mexico border, which purportedly allows illegal
immigrants to overrun the United States, endanger the welfare and security of
the nation, and threaten the existence of the basic social, cultural, and
political institutions of the body politic. If the nation is to survive and
prosper, the logic goes, its borders must be controlled. This is precisely what
the Border Patrol has attempted to do, through regulatory strategies such as
Operation Gatekeeper, and insofar as it aims to control the border in order to
ensure the welfare of the social body,…. In the case at hand, the Border
Patrol, as a state institution, plays a role in cultivating the life of the
population by controlling borders…This allows the state to exclude those
foreign bodies deemed dangerous to the welfare of the population and to
preserve the nation’s resources for those members seen as properly belonging
to the body politic. In short, the entrance of illegal bodies into the body
politic is managed and regulated for the greater good of all. It is in defense of
the population that borders are controlled (148-149).

Inda finds that the border control is a biopolitical function in which the United States
excludes Mexican undocumented immigrants for the welfare of the nation.
However, Indra does not mention how this juxtaposition actually racializes the
undocumented immigrant. The border and its enforcement institutions (Border
Patrol) suggest that people on the other side are dangerous and need to be kept out.

24
Inda explains the complexities of the term bioploitical. He states that biopolitics is the concern of
the government is to “…produce a healthy and productive citizenry, to protect and enhance the well-
being of particular bodies in order to foster the welfare of the composite body of the population. As a
result ‘biological existence’ has come to be ‘reflected in political existence’” (137). Biopolitics is
also the type of government that controls populations through biopower. Inda explains biopower as a
“source of power whose main concern is the welfare of the population, the improvement of its
condition, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health, etc. The focus of bipower is the control of the
species body and its reproduction.”(pg. 134-135). Inda explains that the danger of biopower is that it
can legitimize the survival of one population while effectively terminating another population. For
more information see Inda 2008.
73
Consequently, the border serves as a physical entity that racializes undocumented
Mexicans as “foreign bodies” and as “dangerous to the welfare of the population.”
Furthermore, De Genova explains that the U.S.-Mexico border, with the U.S.
enforcement practices (Border Patrol; Operation Gatekeeper), and unauthorized
border crossings “…has served to continuously re-stage the U.S-Mexico border …as
the theatre of an enforcement ‘crisis’ and thus constantly re-renders ‘Mexican’ as the
distinctive national name for migrant ‘illegality’” (2004: 171). De Genova accounts
for how the border can essentially become a stage; one in which the public views an
escalating militarization along the border to prevent crossings by Mexican migrants.
The practices of the Border Patrol and activity along the border further solidifies in
the American’s minds that Mexican migrants engage in illegal activity that requires
enforcement. Furthermore these enforcement activities racialize Mexican migrants
as “invasive violators of the law, incorrigible ‘foreigners’ subverting the integrity of
the nation” (De Genova 2004: 161). De Genova shows how the border can play a
role in the racialization process of Mexican migrants. While the enforcement
practices along the border serve to posit Mexican migrants as “violators of the law”
and as jeopardizing the “integrity of the nation” the physical border itself provides a
spatial locality which serves to posit everyone on the Mexican side as “foreigners”
and everyone on the U.S. side as “Americans.” Finally, De Genova explicates how
border enforcement were established and operated on the premise that migration
from Mexico was not only “disposable (deportable)” but also their labor and
‘usefulness’ to the Unites States is transitory (2004: 179). Hence, De Genova shows
74
how the border and the militarization that surrounds it presupposes two factors; that
Mexican migrants only serve the function of temporary labor, and hence are
deportable and also that they are undocumented and again are seen as dispensable.
Either way, the Mexican migrant is racialized as someone who is only here
temporarily, someone who does not belong and someone who is easily expendable.
Overall, De Genova shows how the border functions in the process of racializing the
Mexican migrant as the “other” in many different manners.
De Genova and Inda provide extremely detailed analysis about the
construction of Mexican migrants as illegal immigrants. However, my project
distinguishes itself from these works in several different ways. First, De Genova and
Inda focus their attention on how Mexican migrants are racialized as illegal
immigrants. However, De Genova himself states that while he devotes his attention
to Mexican migrants, he does feel that illegality is ascribed to other undocumented
migrations, “especially those from Latin America and [the] Caribbean” (De Genova
2004: 166). In this analysis I expand De Genova’s analysis to examine how all
Latinos, not just Mexican migrants are racialized as illegal immigrants.
Moreover, the analysis of De Genova
25
and Inda and examine factors such as
immigration law and border enforcement and how these factors racialize Mexican
migrants as undocumented. While these authors’ works are critical to examining the
legal processes through which groups become racialized, my work departs from this

25
De Genova does briefly examine the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act and
how this act restricted benefits to undocumented people. For further information see De Genova
2004: 176-177.
75
in a significant way. My project intends not only to show how Latinos are racialized
as undocumented immigrants, but also how this racialization negatively affects
people’s perceptions of government supported health care insurance. Here, I
examine the importance of critically looking at the racialization of Latinos and how
this affects certain public policies, specifically health care reform.
Finally, De Genova and Inda examine in a qualitative manner how the
racialization of Latinos takes place. This project examines in a quantitative context
how Latinos are racialized as undocumented immigrants. The advantage of
exploring this process in a quantitative context is that different racial and ethnic
groups can be included in the analysis in order to systematically examine the extent
to which they are racialized as undocumented immigrants as well. In the following
section, I examine how attitudes towards Latinos, as well as blacks and Asians, are
linked to feelings about undocumented immigrants.

Data and Methods
This analysis uses the American National Election Study (ANES), 2004: Pre-
and Post-Election Survey data. This survey was a national multistage area
probability sample, conducted by telephone between September 7, 2004 and
December 20, 2004. The data contain1,212 respondents that were U.S. citizens,
eighteen years or older, in the 48 coterminous states. I chose the 2004 American
National Election Study in order to make this analysis consistent and comparable to
the analysis in the previous chapter. Furthermore the 2004 American National
76
Election Study contains important variables to my model such as stereotypes towards
Latinos, and variables that measure people’s attitudes toward Latinos and
undocumented immigrants. This analysis focuses upon white racial attitudes for two
reasons. First, the white population comprises the majority racial/ethnic group in the
United States and the majority voting group, hence examining white racial attitudes
captures the majority public opinion towards in the United States. Second, the
American National Election Study is conducted in English and does not contain a
large sample of racial minority and ethnic groups, thus my analysis is limited to
respondents who self-identify as white.

Variable Construction
The dependent variable--attitudes towards undocumented immigrants-- is
categorical and takes on three values: warm, neutral and cold.
26
Since the
dependent variable is ordered, and is not continuous, ordered probit is the most
appropriate model. When applicable, all variables are coded such that higher values
are associated with the more conservative ideological position.
27
Based upon
quantitative work on race, ethnicity and policy (Winter 2006; Gilens 1999), I placed
variables into three different categories: 1) Attitudes towards Latinos-assesses

26
I constructed a three-point dependent variable and a five-point dependent variable. The 2 models
with these dependent variables yielded identical results(with the exception in the five-point model the
Employed variable was significant at the .10 level). I used the three- point scale in order to be
consistent with the illegal immigration attitudes variable from Chapter 2

27
For a detailed list of coding for the variables in the model please see Appendix B.
77
respondents attitudes towards Latinos and stereotypes of Latinos 2) Attitudes
towards other racial/ethnic groups-analyzes respondent’s attitudes towards and
stereotypes of blacks and Asians 3) control variables-account for demographic
differences. The simplified
28
version of the ordered probit model below allows me
to analyze the relationship between attitudes towards illegal immigrants and Latinos:
ATTITUDES TOWARDS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS =
β
1
ATTITUDES TOWARDS LATINOS
+ β
2
ATTITUDES TOWARDS OTHER RACIAL/ETHNIC GROUPS
+ β
3
DEMOGRAPHICS & CONTROL VARIABLES
+ ε
Extant literature demonstrates in qualitative terms how attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants are often associated with attitudes towards Latinos (De
Genova 2002; 2004). The model above was designed to assess the extent to which
people’s attitudes towards undocumented immigrants are associated with their
attitudes towards Latinos.
The first independent variable is a stereotype measure based upon the extent
to which respondents claim that “Latinos are lazy.” The survey question asks
respondents whether they think Latinos are hard-working or lazy, and is coded on a
scale with lower numbers representing that people feel that Latinos are hard-working
and higher numbers reflecting that people feel Latinos are lazy. Previous literature

28
This is a simplified version of the model because it only contains the categories of the independent
variables and not each single independent variable that is in the model.
78
has shown how negative stereotypes generate a particular form of racialization
(Hancock, 2004). For example, Hancock shows how stereotypes of African-
American women as unmarried, single, poor mothers lead to the construction of the
welfare queen. Similarly I expect that stereotypes of Latinos as lazy will lead to
Latinos being constructed as illegal immigrants. I expect the variable measuring lazy
stereotypes to be positively related to the dependent variable, attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants.
The second independent variable measures “attitudes towards Hispanic
immigrants taking jobs away.” This survey question asks respondents if they think
Hispanic immigrants have taken jobs away from people already here.
29
This variable
is coded as: extremely likely, very likely, somewhat likely, and not at all likely.
Since previous literature finds that certain Latino groups, such as undocumented
Mexican immigrants, have become predominately associated with the term illegal
immigrant (De Genova, 2002; 2004), it will be interesting to test this relationship in
quantitative terms. The “attitudes towards Hispanic immigrants taking jobs away”
variable attempts to test the relationship between people’s attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants and their attitudes towards Hispanic immigrants. I would
expect this variable to be positively related to the dependent variable.

29
The 2004 American National Election Survey does not have comparable questions on attitudes
towards other racial/ethnic immigrant groups. Therefore I could not include a comparable variable for
how people feel towards immigrants of other groups as potential economic threats (taking jobs away
from people already in the U.S.).
79
The third independent variable examines respondents’ attitudes towards
Hispanics: warm, neutral, and cold. Extant literature finds that Latinos are often
negatively racialized as undocumented immigrants (De Genova, 2002; 2004).
Perhaps people’s negative feelings towards undocumented immigrants are related to
negative feelings towards Latinos; this variable attempts to test this relationship.
Overall, the first set of independent variables, Latino variables, attempts to examine
if whites’ stereotypes of Latinos lead to them being racialized as undocumented
immigrants.
The second set of independent variables, examines attitudes towards other
racial and ethnic groups. It is possible that attitudes towards other racial and ethnic
groups, not just Latinos, affect people’s attitudes towards undocumented immigrants.
Furthermore, immigrants from Asian countries to the United States are the second
largest immigrant group behind immigrants from North America (Monger and
Rytina 2009).
30
Therefore, it is plausible that due to the large number of Asian
immigrants alone that the American population could be negatively linking Asians
with undocumented immigrants. Similarly black immigrants are also growing in
numbers especially in places such as New York City. For example, by 1990 in New
York City black immigrants comprised 23% of the city’s 1.8 million non-Hispanic
blacks (Waters 1999). This increase in black immigrants, especially in areas such as

30
This estimate is based upon immigrants who are legal permanent resident recipients, and whom are
defined by immigration law as a person who has been granted lawful permanent residence in the
United States. These estimates are based upon persons who became Legal Permanent Residents in the
United States in 2008. For more information see Monger and Rytina 2008.
80
New York where their population is highly concentrated may cause people to
negatively associate their attitudes towards Blacks with their attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants. Hence, overall the second set of independent variables
serves as a control of the model, testing whether Latinos are the only racial/ethnic
group associated with attitudes towards undocumented immigrants or, perhaps other
racial and ethnic groups are associated with attitudes towards undocumented
immigrants as well. The first two variables examine if people stereotype blacks and
Asians as lazy. Again, lower numbers representing that people feel that these
racial/ethnic groups are hard-working and higher numbers reflecting that people feel
these racial/ethnic groups are lazy. Perhaps people feel that stereotypes of Asians
and blacks are also associated with attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, and
these first two variables test this relationship. The other two variables in the second
set of independent variables are attitudes towards blacks and Asians. It is possible
that people’s attitudes towards blacks and Asians are affecting their attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants as well. The inclusion of the variables that measure
people’s stereotypes and attitudes toward Asians and blacks allows me to test the
extent to which it is feelings specific to Latinos, versus racial minorities more
generally, that fuels negative attitudes towards Latinos. There are two potential
problems with this model. First, while I introduce several measures that allow me to
investigate stereotypes related to race and ethnicity, I have not included measures
associated with class-based stereotyping of Latinos. It is quite possible that people’s
feelings toward Latinos are connected to their assumptions about Latinos as poor
81
people. Previous work by Gilens (1999) shows that part of people’s stereotypes
toward blacks is connected to their feelings about the class position of blacks; whites
feel that blacks are part of the ‘undeserving poor’ and should not receive welfare
benefits. Therefore, it is possible that class and race interact to produce unique
results and in future research I will have to account for this possible dynamic.
Another possible problem with the model is that the relationship could be
endogenous – feelings about undocumented immigrants could be fueling feelings
about Latinos. In the future it might be necessary to construct a more sophisticated
model in order to assess this relationship further.
The final set of independent variables, control variables consists of important
demographic variables of the model. The political ideology
31
variable measures
respondent’s orientations towards the government. Perhaps people who possess
more conservative political ideologies might have more negative feelings towards
illegal immigrants. The political ideology variable tests this relationship. The
variable political ideology ranges from liberal, moderate, and conservative.
The other control variables are typical demographic variables such as income,
education, and age. The gender variable is coded as one for male and zero for
female. The employed variable is coded as one if someone is working now and zero
for otherwise. The married variable is coded as one if the respondent is married and

31
When I ran the model with a party identification variable, the model yielded no substantial
differences than the model presented here (with the exception that the After High School variable is
significant at the .10 level). Since the 2 models yielded no substantive differences I choose political
ideology since it measures people’s conservatism, and I am testing whether people’s conservative
attitudes affect their attitudes towards illegal immigrants.
82
coded zero for any other relationship status. Finally generation is accounted for,
coded as one if the respondent’s parents were born in the United States and zero if
they were born elsewhere.
32

Results of the Model
I first conducted cross-tabulations of variables in the model. I examined the
cross-tabulations of the variable measuring whether respondents believe blacks,
Asians, and Hispanics are “lazy.” These variables were cross-tabulated with the
dependent variable of the model: attitudes towards illegal immigrants (Tables 3.2-
3.4). The results clearly show that at the bivariate level there is not a statistically
significant relationship between the lazy stereotype associated with Asians and
blacks and people’s feelings towards undocumented immigrants. However, the
results in table 3.2 suggest that there is a significant relationship between people’s
stereotypes of Hispanics and their attitudes towards undocumented immigrants. The
cross-tabulations illustrate that while white people do not associate their feelings
towards blacks and Asians with their assessment of undocumented immigrants,
people do associate their feelings towards Hispanics with their beliefs about
undocumented immigrants. There evidently is a link in the mind of the public
between Hispanics and undocumented immigrants. However, does this relationship
sustain in the multivariate context? I constructed an ordered probit model that more

32
The generation variable was coded this way because the survey question was structured this way;
there was no question that addressed if the respondents themselves were foreign born.
83
precisely delineates the relationship between the independent and dependent
variables.

Table 3.2: Cross Tabulations of Whites’ Stereotypes of Hispanics and Whites’
Attitudes Towards Illegal Immigrants

Hispanic Stereotype-Lazy 
Not Lazy Lazy 
Illegal Immigration Thermometer  
Warm 29.15% 16.87% 
Cold 70.85% 83.13% 
N=752; Pearson Chi-Square=16.157***; ***Pr =.000

Table 3.3: Cross Tabulations of Whites’ Stereotypes of Asians and Whites’
Attitudes Towards Illegal Immigrants

Asian Stereotype-Lazy 
Not Lazy Lazy 
Illegal Immigration Thermometer  
Warm 23.74% 19.66% 
Cold 76.26% 80.34% 
N=748; Pearson Chi-Square=1.535; Pr=.215
84
Table 3.4: Cross Tabulations of Whites’ Stereotypes of Blacks and Whites’
Attitudes Towards Illegal Immigrants

Black Stereotype-Lazy 
Not Lazy Lazy 
Illegal Immigration Thermometer  
Warm 26.60% 20.95% 
Cold 73.40% 79.05% 
N=756; Pearson Chi-Square=2.593; Pr=.107

I use ordered probit estimations to examine how people generally associate
Hispanics with undocumented immigrants. I report the unstandardized coefficients,
the standard errors, and the average change in probability across the categories of the
dependent variable. I report the average change for the model to facilitate ease of
interpretation when compared to a logit model. For a dichotomous logit, the effect is
the change in probability of the dependent variable from the lowest to the highest
level of a predictor. However, since the dependent variable is categorical and not
dichotomous, it makes more sense to report the average change in probability across
the categories of the dependent variable.
33
In order to compute these values I use the
prchange command in the SPost add-on module for STATA (Long 2005).
Overall, the results in Table 3.5 show that it is whites’ negative attitudes
towards Hispanics in particular that are associated with negative feelings towards
undocumented immigrants. Note that attitudes towards other racial and ethnic

33
Since the prchange command reports average changes as absolute values, the signs correspond to
the same direction as the ordered logit coefficient.
85
groups, such as blacks and Asians, are not associated with feelings about
undocumented immigrants. The finding for the first independent variable, measuring
the degree to which respondents stereotype Hispanics as lazy demonstrates that there
is a statistically significant association between feeling that Hispanics are lazy and
negative feelings towards undocumented immigrants. Respondents who feel that
Hispanics are lazy are, on average, 26% more likely to feel negatively towards
undocumented immigrants. This result confirms that there is an association between
white people’s negative feelings towards Hispanics and their negative feelings
towards undocumented immigrants.
The second independent variable examines if people feel that Hispanic
immigrants are taking jobs away from people already living in the United States.
This variable shows that there is a highly significant relationship between people
who believe that Hispanic immigrants are taking jobs away from people already
living in the United States and negative attitudes towards undocumented immigrants.
Respondents who feel that Hispanic immigrants are taking jobs away from people
are on average 18.6% more likely to possess negative attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants. This finding demonstrates that people associate their
negative feelings of Hispanic immigrants with those of undocumented immigrants.
The third independent variable, attitudes towards Hispanics also is
significantly related to the dependent variable. Respondents who feel negatively
towards Hispanics are on average 10.8% more likely to hold negative feelings
towards undocumented immigrants. This finding explicitly demonstrates that people
86
are connecting their attitudes toward Hispanics with their attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants. Overall, the findings for the first group of variables,
Attitudes towards Latinos, show that white people’s negative feelings towards
Latinos are connected to their negative feelings towards undocumented immigrants,
even while controlling for factors that measure general racial animosity, such as
people’s attitudes towards other racial and ethnic groups. This is an important
finding; whites’ view Latinos as undocumented immigrants, and other racial/ethnic
groups are not subjected to this unique form of racialization.
The second group of independent variables, white attitudes towards other
racial and ethnic groups shows interesting findings regarding the racialization of
undocumented immigrants. First, there is a significant but inverse relationship
between the lazy stereotype for Asians and undocumented immigrants. This is
probably due to the fact that the 94% of the respondents’ answers are clustered in the
hard-working end of the scale of this variable.
34
Therefore, we can conclude that
white people do not view Asians as lazy. This corroborates past research which
states that Asians are racialized as the model minority (Kim 2000). While people
think negatively of undocumented immigrants, they are thinking in a positive manner
about Asians (they are hard-working). This is the complete opposite of what I found
for Latinos; people associate their negative stereotypes of Latinos (they are lazy)
with their negative attitudes of undocumented immigrants. Thus, this finding only

34
Models taking out other independent variables such as the “Attitudes towards Asians” variable that
might be influencing the “stereotype-lazy-Asian” variable did not change the sign of the coefficient’ it
was consistently negative across models.
87
corroborates my hypothesis that the public associates their negative attitudes of
Latinos with their negative attitudes of undocumented immigrants.
The second group of independent variables does show that attitudes towards
blacks are significantly related to attitudes towards undocumented immigrants.
Respondents who feel negatively towards blacks are on average 9.7% more likely to
feel negatively towards undocumented immigrants. This suggests that some of what
drives anti-illegal immigrant attitudes is generalized hostility toward racial minority
groups, including Latinos, but also black Americans. While attention should be paid
to the relationship between negative white attitudes towards blacks and negative
attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, it is noteworthy that attitudes towards
Latinos had a slightly larger impact on the dependent variable than attitudes towards
blacks. Furthermore, all of the variables measuring attitudes towards Latinos are
significantly related to attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, while only the
variable measuring attitudes towards blacks (and not the variable that measures
whether whites view blacks as “lazy”) is significantly related to attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants. Furthermore, with multiple measures of race, there is to
be expected a certain amount of noise within the model. For example, in his study of
the racialization of welfare policy Gilens (1991) finds that stereotypes of Hispanics
as lazy do show some relationship with people preferring to decrease welfare
spending in the United States. (69-72). Even though his study explains the
racialization of welfare with African-Americans, it is clear that racialization can
occur among multiple groups; though usually a weaker association such as was the
88
case with Gilens work and also is the case here in this model. Furthermore, Winter
(2006) finds that with multiple measures of race, white people who feel warmly
about blacks are associated with positive feelings about Social Security spending.
35

This finding contradicts his hypothesis that Social Security is racialized in a positive
manner towards whites. However, Winter notes that this finding is not surprising
since several variables in his model measure different variants of race. Winter still
concludes since feelings towards whites are consistent and are more strongly related
to Social Security spending, that Social Security is racialized in a positive manner
towards whites. In my model, similar to Gilens and Winter’s work, the variable
“attitudes towards blacks” is also related to the dependent variable. However, my
model does show that not only are all of the Latino variables significantly related to
the dependent variable, but they are also more strongly related to the dependent
variable when compared to attitudes towards blacks. Hence, this model makes it
apparent that negative attitudes towards Latinos are associated more strongly with
negative attitudes towards undocumented immigrants than other racial and ethnic
groups.
The final set of independent variables, demographic variables, reveals that
only the political ideology variable is significantly related to attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants. Respondents who possess a conservative political
ideology are on average 17% more likely to have negative attitudes towards

35
Winter examines the years 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 2000. He finds only in 1992, and
2000 that warm feelings towards blacks are associated with positive feelings towards Social Security.
89
undocumented immigrants. This finding is intuitive since in general people with
conservative political ideologies tend to have more negative views of immigrants and
immigration in general when compared to people who self-identify as liberal or
moderate (Jones 2008).

Table 3.5: Ordered Probit Model Whites’ Attitudes Towards Undocumented
Immigrants

Coefficients
Standard
Error
Average
Change
Attitudes Towards Latinos
Stereotype-Lazy 0.244*** 0.048 0.261
Attitudes towards Hispanic immigrants taking jobs
away 0.326*** 0.051 0.186
Attitudes towards Hispanics 0.286*** 0.107 0.108
Attitudes Towards Racial/Ethnic Groups
Stereotype-Lazy-Blacks -0.010 0.046 0.012
Stereotype-Lazy-Asians -0.140*** 0.047 0.162
Attitudes towards Blacks 0.256** 0.111 0.097
Attitudes towards Asians 0.110 0.110 0.043
Control Variables
Political Ideology 0.172*** 0.045 0.068
Income 0.012 0.051 0.007
Less Than High School -0.004 0.192 0.001
High School 0.035 0.115 0.007
After High School 0.152 0.108 0.030
Male 0.069 0.086 0.014
Age -0.041 0.052 0.025
Employed -0.060 0.101 0.012
Married 0.018 0.091 0.003
Parents Born in the U.S. -0.010 0.132 0.002
cut 1 1.323 0.342
cut 2 1.800 0.343
cut 3 2.164 0.345
* p < .10; ** p < .05 *** p < .01.
N=840; Log Likelihood=-922.84989; LR chi2(17)=149.33; Prob>chi2=0.0000
Source: National Election Study 2004
Note: Dependent Variable is 3 point variable-Illegal Immigration thermometer. The 3 point scale of this variable
and the 5-point scaled yielded identical results. I used the 3 point scale in order to be consistent with the illegal
immigration thermometer from Chapter 2
90
Analysis/Conclusions
Overall, the results of the model show that negative feelings towards Latinos
are related to negative feelings towards undocumented immigrants. This relationship
holds even while controlling for attitudes and stereotypes towards other racial and
ethnic groups. Furthermore, all of the variables that measure stereotypes and
attitudes with regards to Latinos are significant in the model and specifically show
that negative attitudes towards Latinos are associated with negative attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants. This differs from the other racial and ethnic groups,
where Asians are seen in a positive manner (not lazy) and where only the variable
that measures white attitudes towards blacks is significant. Moreover, the variable
that measures whites’ attitudes towards Hispanics has a greater impact on the
dependent variable than the variable that measures whites’ attitudes towards blacks
does.
These findings are important; clearly negative attitudes towards Latinos are
associated with negative attitudes towards undocumented immigrants. In this
chapter I argue that with an increasingly diverse society it is important to look
beyond white American’s attitudes toward blacks. Currently Latinos are the largest
minority group in the United States (Fry, 2008), and it is critical to examine how this
large minority group is being racialized in American society. Examining the
racialization of Latinos as undocumented immigrants adds a new focus to the race,
public opinion and policy literature. Extant literature on this subject centers
primarily on whites’ attitudes toward blacks (Sears, Hensler, and Speer, 1979;
91
Kinder and Sears, 1981; Schuman, Steeh and Bobo, 1985; Gilens, 1999; Sears,
Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000; Hancock, 2004; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). These authors
often examine how white’s stereotype of blacks stem from white’s feeling that
blacks violate the cherished values of the United States; especially the stereotype that
blacks are not hard-working but that they are lazy (Kinder and Sears, 1981;
Schuman, Steeh and Bobo, 1985; Gilens, 1999; Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000;
Hancock, 2004; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). The findings from this chapter show that
whites’ also stereotype Latinos in negative ways; whites possess negative attitudes
toward Latinos, view Latinos as lazy, and view Latinos as an economic threat (taking
jobs away). Moreover, these stereotypes are attached to a complex way in which
Latinos are racialized (and not other racial and ethnic groups); as undocumented
immigrants. Negative attitudes towards Latinos are strongly associated with
negative evaluations of illegal immigrants.
Ten years of scholarship examines how the racialization of blacks and the
specific ways in which they are stereotyped has an effect on whites’ views on
welfare policy (Gilens 1999; Hancock 2004). For example, Gilens shows how the
stereotype that blacks lack work ethic has a negative effect on whites’ attitudes
toward welfare policy (213-214). Hancock shows how specific stereotypes of
African-American females, as single mothers who are poor, also have a negative
effect on whites’ attitudes toward welfare policy (6-9). In the next chapter I show
how the racialization of Latinos and the specific ways in which they are
stereotyped/constructed as illegal immigrants has an effect on whites’ views on
92
government supported health care. The finding that Latinos are stereotyped in a
particular way, as illegal immigrants, helps us to better understand how this negative
racialization has an effect on policies, and contributes to our knowledge of how race
and policy function in American democracy.
93
Chapter Four
White Attitudes Toward Undocumented Immigration and Support for
Government Provided Health Care

Introduction
The main thesis of this dissertation is that whites’ attitudes toward unpopular
groups, including undocumented immigrants, affect their support for universal
programs such as government provided health care. More specifically, I argue that
the specific ways in which Latinos are stereotyped and constructed as undocumented
immigrants exerts an effect on whites’ views of government supported health care.
This argument adds to the existing literature on race and public policy in two
important ways. First, while previous scholarship largely focuses upon whites’
attitudes toward blacks in Americans society (Sears, Hensler, and Speer, 1979;
Kinder and Sears, 1981; Schuman, Steeh and Bobo, 1985; Gilens, 1999; Sears,
Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000; Hancock, 2004; Bobo and Tuan, 2006), I examine whites’
attitudes toward Latinos and undocumented immigrants. In this chapter I focus on
whites’ attitudes toward undocumented immigrants. I contend that undocumented
immigrants are an important population to examine because they are an increasingly
large portion of American society and their presence elicits strong feelings among
the American population (Hoefer, Rytina and Baker 2008). It is well documented
that as a whole the American public tends to harbor negative attitudes toward illegal
immigrants (Gallup’s Pulse of Democracy 2009). However, there is very little work
94
that examines American’s negative feelings toward undocumented immigrants and
policies beyond those associated with immigration.
Thus, my second contribution is examining negative public opinion toward
undocumented immigrants and a universal policy that is seldom associated with race
in the United States, health care. In this chapter I examine public sentiment toward
immigration, and existing hypotheses for why these negative feelings toward
undocumented immigrants exist. I then examine how undocumented immigrants are
usually studied in relation to policies that are related to immigration. Next, I
examine the literature on undocumented immigrants and health care. This literature
focuses on the extent to which undocumented immigrants utilize health care services.
This scholarship actually shows that undocumented immigrants under-utilize health
care in the U.S. Finally, I conduct a statistical analysis and show that even when
taking into account factors such as attitudes toward government, and socio-economic
variables,whites’ negative attitudes toward undocumented immigrants are associated
with less enthusiasm for government supported health care. This finding is critical to
the future of health care reform in the United States. If negative attitudes towards
immigrants are associated with a reluctance to provide more wide-ranging health
care services for the nation as a whole, policy-makers must revisit their assumptions
about resistance toward government proposals to provide universal health care.
Further, scholars must rethink their assumptions about the effect of anti-immigrant
attitudes on public policy support, especially support for those policies that, on the
surface, seem to have very little to do with immigration.
95
Immigration
The United States has experienced a striking shift in immigration patterns
during the past twenty years (Hood and Morris, 1998; Bean, Telles & Lowell, 1987;
Bean and Sullivan, 1985; Massey 1981; Reimers, 1981). In the past, immigrants to
the U.S. came from Western Europe, but in recent years, immigration patterns have
changed dramatically, with a majority of immigrants coming from Mexico, Central
and South America, and Asia. Earlier waves of European immigrants, especially
those from Southern and Eastern Europe initially faced public hostility upon arrival.
Similarly, this new wave of immigration elicits negative reactions from the public
and political elites. Contemporary negative attitudes focus especially upon
undocumented
36
immigrants, with people viewing undocumented immigrants as a
burden upon U.S. society (Bean et al. 1987; Morris, 1985). For example, data from a
Gallup Poll conducted from June 5
th-
July 6
th
2008 show that sixty-three percent of
the respondents believe that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers too much by using
government services like public education and medical services (Gallup’s Pulse of
Democracy 2009). Further, just thirty-one percent of respondents feel that illegal
immigrants in the long run become productive citizens and pay their fair share of
taxes (table 4.1). However, the breakdown according to race and ethnicity in table
4.1 clearly shows that non-Hispanic whites in particular exhibit very negative views

36
In this analysis I use the terms undocumented immigrants and illegal immigrants interchangeably.
These terms refer to all foreign-born non-citizens who are not legal residents. Unauthorized residents
refer to foreign-born persons who entered the United States without inspection or were admitted on a
temporary basis and stayed in the United States past the date they were required to leave (Hoefer,
Rytina and Baker 2008).
96
of illegal immigrants. Seventy-one of non-Hispanic whites feel that illegal
immigrants cost taxpayers too much (sixty-two percent of blacks and thirty percent
of Hispanics feel that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers too much).
California provides an important case since a majority of the undocumented
population within the United States resides in California (Myers 2007; Passel 1986).
As of January 2007, twenty-four percent of the nation’s undocumented immigrants
lived in California. California remained the leading state of residence for the
undocumented population, with Texas at a distant second, only having fourteen
percent of the total undocumented population (Hoefer, Rytina and Baker 2008).
Since California represents the “vanguard of demographic changes in America”
(Myers 2007:4), it is interesting to examine the attitudes of Californians towards
undocumented immigrants. Similar to the rest of the United States, Californians also
possess negative sentiments towards the undocumented population. For example, in
the Statewide Survey of California conducted by the Public Policy Institute of
California in March of 2007, a majority of Californians opposed providing health
care coverage for illegal immigrants in California, and a majority also opposed
allowing illegal immigrants to obtain a California driver’s license (Fifty-three
percent and fifty-four percent respectively).
97
Table 4.1: Views of Illegal Immigrants
Which comes closer to your point of view - illegal immigrants in the long run
become productive citizens and pay their fair share of taxes, (or) illegal immigrants
cost the taxpayers too much by using government services like public education and
medical services? (For July 5th-July 6th, 2008)

Pay fair share of
taxes
Cost taxpayers too
much
Neither/both/no
opinion
Total 31% 63% 6%
Non-hispanic
whites
25% 71% 5%
African-Americans 29% 62% 10%
Latinos 65% 30% 5%
Source: Gallup’s Pulse of Democracy 2009: Immigration

Negative public sentiment towards undocumented immigrants is sometimes
channeled into support for anti-illegal immigrant policies and propositions aimed at
deterring undocumented immigrants at the state and national level. During the
1990s, a series of propositions that many viewed as anti-immigrant in nature were
placed on the ballot in California. Proposition 227 was placed on the California
ballot in 1998 and approved by sixty-one percent of voters. This measure requires
all public schools to instruct their students in English. This proposition also provides
for an intensive short term immersion program for children that are not fluent in
English. While Proposition 227 was not as blatantly anti-immigrant as Proposition
187 (see below), Proposition 227 still targeted immigrants since many children from
immigrant families are not fluent in English. California Proposition 187, also known
98
as the Save Our State initiative, passed in 1994
37
. Proposition 187 prohibited illegal
immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education. In the late
1990s, lawmakers in Congress introduced legislation to target undocumented
immigration at the federal level. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996 increased border enforcement and made the laws of
deportation more stringent. Also, in 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) restricted the access of welfare benefits
to undocumented people coming to the United States after August 22, 1996. These
propositions and policies suggest at times the public’s negative attitudes toward
illegal immigrants have translated into policies that specifically target undocumented
people. Not only is it critical to understand the origins of these attitudes, it is also
important to understand whether negative attitudes toward illegal immigrants
influence immigration policy alone, or if they have an impact beyond those policies.
Extant literature deals with the former issue by investigating the determinants of
anti-illegal immigrant sentiment. This research tests several different hypotheses
which are discussed below. My project takes on the second issue, arguing that
negative attitudes toward illegal immigrants have implications for public policy
support far beyond those policies associated directly with immigration reform and
control.

37
Although Proposition 187 passed with a 58.8% majority it was later overturned by a federal court.
99
Negative Sentiment Toward Undocumented Immigrants
First, as mentioned, the demographics of immigrants have shifted over the
years. The size of the immigrant population and the ethnic and racial composition
has changed over time. These changes in immigration patterns have developed for to
three reasons (Bean et al. 1987; Massey 1981). First in 1965 there was the passage
of amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. The amendments eliminated
many of the stipulations of the national-origins quota system in place before 1965,
and raised the number of immigrants who could enter the country from 158, 000 to
270,000. Furthermore, other immigrants not included in the 270,000 limitation were
allowed to enter the country as a result of an increase in the different categories of
immigrants allowed in the U.S. The second major change was that more political
refugees were allowed to enter the U.S. especially from Cuba and Indochina. Third,
the flow of undocumented immigrants increased to the U.S. as labor patterns shifted
globally and labor traveled to more economically advanced countries (Bean et al.
1987; Keely & Elwell, 1981). Subsequently, these changes increased the size and
diversity of the immigrant population within the U.S.
The new amendments in the Immigration and Nationality Act lead to an
increase in number of immigrants in the years following the changes. For example,
prior to the amendments the highest number of immigrants to the U.S. from 1951-
1960 was 326, 867.
38
However, from 1965-1975, the number of immigrants peaked

38
These figures refer to people who have been allowed lawful permanent residence in the United
States. The Office of Immigration Statistics refers to theses immigrants as legal permanent residents
100
at 454,448 in 1968 and ten years after that the number of immigrants reached
601,442 (United States Department of Homeland Security 2006). The level of
immigrants in 1978 at 601,442 was the highest since 1924 (Bean et al. 1987; United
States Department of Homeland Security 2006). Current statistics show that
immigration levels continue to increase, with the number of immigrants coming
close to a million in 2004 (United States Department of Homeland Security 2006).
Furthermore, undocumented immigration continues to increase. The Department of
Homeland Security estimates that the population of undocumented immigrants
steadily increased from January 2000 to January 2007.
39
The size of the
undocumented population increased from 8.5 million in January 2000 to 11.8 million
in January 2007 (Hoefer, Rytina and Baker 2008). Thus, the steady increase of both
immigrants, including undocumented immigrants may provoke nativist reactions by
people born within the United States.
40

Further complicating public opinion towards undocumented immigrants is
that people continually over-estimate the number of undocumented immigrants that

(LPRs) or green card recipients (2004 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Office of Immigration
Statistics, January 2004).

39
The department of homeland security obtains the estimates of the undocumented population by
subtracting the total-foreign born population living in the United States minus the legally resident
population living in the United States. For more information on the calculation of these estimates see
Hoefer, Rytina and Baker 2008).

40
See Myers (2007) account for a more complex take on the relationship between immigration rates
and attitudes. Myers finds that people in California are evenly divided in their attitudes towards
immigrants. When asked if immigrants are a benefit or a burden people in California are evenly
divided. However, while some people in California have negative attitudes about immigrants, Myers
suggests that we should invest in our residents and have a more optimistic view about immigration.
Myers finds that as the aging boomers will retire, that immigrants will provide the necessary labor,
and social service money to sustain this aging population.
101
actually reside within the U.S. permanently (Espenshade, 1995; Bean et al. 1987;
Passel, 1986). There is a continual flow of undocumented immigrants, but most are
here temporarily. However, this might lead to assumptions that the number of
permanent undocumented immigrants is larger than it actually is. Further,
erroneously drawing distinctions between the different types of undocumented
immigrants has lead to the census reporting inaccurately the actual number of
undocumented immigrants living within the U.S. For example, some undocumented
immigrants come into the U.S. seeking permanent residence; such immigrants have
been categorized as ‘settlers.’ Other immigrants who have entered the United States,
planning to stay only temporarily have been called ‘sojourners’ (Bean et al. 1987;
Passel, 1986 ; Sullivan, 1986). Since it is difficult to distinguish the intentions of
people coming to the United States, there has been over-reporting in the Census
estimates of the number of settlers (Bean et al. 1987). This over-reporting actually
inflates the number of undocumented immigrants permanently residing within the
United States. While some estimates state that 10 million undocumented people
were residing in the United States, more careful analysis indicates that the number of
undocumented settlers and long-term soujourners who were counted in the 1980
census was closer to 2.1 million (Espenshade,1995; Bos, 1984; Kelly, 1982). This
becomes problematic when native-born people living in the U.S. assume that the
number of undocumented immigrants permanently settling in the U.S. is larger than
it actually is, because people may begin to feel that their country is being flooded by
a foreign, unauthorized population.
102
Moreover, the ethnic and racial composition of undocumented immigrants
has shifted over the years. In the past undocumented immigration populations came
from Western Europe. As the immigrant stream has moved from there to Latin
America and Asia, the ethnic composition has changed as well, with more
undocumented peoples coming from Asia and Latin America. Scholars note that
immigrants from Latin America and Asia are more visible and do not “blend” in as
much a previous European immigrants, hence making the increase in immigration
more visible. (Masuoka 2009; Myers 2007; Bean et al. 1987). Taeku Lee (2005)
describes how differently Latinos and Asians are viewed in the United States:
On the dimension of national ideology, however, both Asians and Latinos are
cast as “perpetual foreigners” of unassimilable cultures and suspect loyalties.
This bright line of national belonging not only separates immigrant-based
ethnic like Asians, Latinos…from whites and African Americans, but has
also served a crucial role in nation-building projects and the making of
America (560)

Lee clearly explains how immigrants from Latin America and Asia are easily
separated from whites and African-Americans, and are easily posited as the “other”
or as “foreigners” in the United States. Therefore, Lee shows how not only do these
“new” immigrants do not blend into the established population because of
phenotypic differences, but in terms of conceptions about the national creed,
immigrants from Latin American and Asia do not belong because they are seen as
foreigners. Furthermore, other scholars find that as people over-estimate the number
of ethnic and racial minorities within the United States, that their attitudes towards
immigration become more negative (Alba, Rumbaut, Marotz 2005).
103
Moreover, people view undocumented immigrants negatively because they
violate the law entering the country illegally (Myers 2007; DeGenova 2004; Bean et
al. 1987). De Genova states that illegal immigrants are seen as, “…invasive
violators of the law, incorrigible ‘foreigners’ subverting the integrity of the
nation”(161). Myers explains,
Yet the process of illegal immigration may, in the eyes of some citizens, be
considered more threatening to the soul of the nation. …Indeed, the very use
of the commonly used expression ‘illegal immigration’ emphasizes that
violation of legality, even though undocumented immigrants violate no state
or local police ordinances. They are termed ‘illegal’ because their entry into
the United States is unauthorized by the federal government”(75-76)

Therefore, undocumented immigrants are seen in negative terms especially when
compared to documented immigrants because they disobey the laws of the United
States. While coming into the United States undocumented is merely a
misdemeanor, the same violation as driving without a valid driver’s license, people
within the United States view undocumented people more harshly for several
reasons. First, as the above quotes imply, people dislike that undocumented
immigrants undermine the security of the nation-state. National defense of the
nation is a top political issue and when people traverse our borders we feel less
secure. Secondly, Bean et al (1987) states,
And for many observers, the fact that undocumented immigration is illegal
has itself constituted a sufficient basis for concern, if for no other reason than
it appears to make a mockery of those who wait for years (And often in vain)
for legal permanent-residence visas (674).

As Bean and his co-authors observe, negative sentiments arise because
undocumented immigrants fail to go through the proper processes to come into this
104
country. Immigrants who come into the country legally are looked upon much more
favorably since they obtain the necessary documentation to stay in the United States.
Furthermore, Hood and Morris (1998) also explore the people’s attitudes
towards immigrants and undocumented immigrants. They focus on documented and
undocumented contexts on Anglo public opinion towards immigraton policy. They
test two different schools of thought within the field. First, the contact hypothesis,
which proposes that greater contact with a certain group or individual will result in a
more positive response towards this individual or group. The other school of thought
is realistic group conflict theory. This theory finds that contact among people who
are competing for scarce resources such as economic, social or cultural resources,
leads to increased conflict among people. They test these two schools of thought
with an ordered probit model that measures if increased contact with documented
immigrants or undocumented immigrants affects people’s opinion towards
immigration policy. They include two variables to measure context within their
model; documented context which represents the percentage of foreign-born persons
residing in each of the counties surveyed in the 1992 NES, and undocumented
context which represents the proportion of a state’s population comprised of
undocumented residents. They find that as the documented immigration population
increases in a particular area, Anglos become more favorable to increasing the levels
of legal immigration. However, as the size of the undocumented immigration
population increases, then Anglos become less favorable to increasing the levels of
immigration. Therefore their results point to both schools of thought. The
105
relationship between an increased number of documented immigrants and Anglos
being favorable towards more liberal immigration policies supports the contact
hypothesis. However, the relationship between the increase in the size of the
undocumented population and Anglos being less liberal on immigration policies
points to the group conflict theory. They explain that undocumented immigrants
might not have as much contact with others as compared to documented immigrants.
This is due to undocumented people lacking a driver’s license, valid work permits,
social security numbers and their fear of being deported. Thus, undocumented
immigrants probably have little opportunity to engage in social relationships with
natives, unlike the documented population (Hood and Morris 1998). While the
causation of the negative sentiment surrounding undocumented immigrants
differs(violators of the law, undermine security of nation state, threaten economic,
cultural, social resources, have less contact with natives), scholars above all come to
the same conclusion; undocumented immigrants are seen more negatively by the
public than documented immigrants. However, none of these scholars decipher
whether negative public opinion toward undocumented immigrants actually affects
policies beyond those having to do directly with immigration. I intend to fill this gap
by examining if public opinion towards undocumented immigrants directly affects
people’s feelings towards health care reform.

106
Undocumented Immigrants and Social Policies Related to Immigration
While it is clear that many exhibit negative attitudes towards undocumented
immigrants, the existing literature fails to examine how these attitudes affect social
policies. When scholars do write about social policies in relation to undocumented
immigrants they focus on how immigration policy at the state or national level
affects their use of social services, how much undocumented immigrants use social
services and whether natives or undocumented people use welfare benefits more.
Therefore, scholars examine undocumented immigrants in the context of
immigration policy, and do not examine how negative sentiment toward
undocumented immigrants affects people’s attitudes toward universal policies. For
example, Flores (1984) evaluates how immigration policy at the state level affects
undocumented immigrants. Flores discusses Section 21.031 of the Texas Education
Code which attempted to deny undocumented immigrant children access to public
education. The Texas Education Code (1975) prevented undocumented children to
enroll in publicly funded schools in the state of Texas. If they did attend they were
required to pay a fee of $1,000 per child /per year tuition fee. While a 1978 district
court ruling found that the Texas Education Code was unconstitutional because it
violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, the exclusionary
law still had ramifications. Flores finds that “schools for the undocumented” were
developed due to the Texas Education Code. The undocumented children who
attended these schools were from families that either were unable to pay the $1,000
fee or they did not want to enroll their children in public schools because they feared
107
deportation. This literature shows how immigration laws at the state level can affect
the undocumented community.
Furthermore, some scholars examine how undocumented immigrants are
affected by immigration policy at the national level. For example several scholars
have noted the sharp declines in the receipt of welfare benefits among noncitizens
than among citizens due to the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) (Van Hook and Stamper
Balistreri, 2006; Fix and Passel, 1999, 2002; Zimmermann and Fix, 1998). Fix and
Passel (1999, 2002) argue that the sharp decline in immigrants using welfare benefits
resulted from immigrant’s confusion about how changes in the law affected them, or
fears that they would be deported. Van Hook and Stamper Balistreri (2006) examine
how the PRWORA made non-citizens ineligible for federally funded food assistance
and reduced Food Stamp allotments. Specifically they examine how the denial of
food assistance to noncitizens might cause increased food insecurity among non-
citizens and their children. They define food insecurity as “the limited or uncertain
availability of food in a household—a condition resulting from household resource
constraints”(229). They use the longitudinal files of the Survey of Program
Dynamics (SPD). This data allows them to examine the amount of food stamps
received for a cohort of children from 1993-2000. They find that children of non-
citizens are subjected to the highest levels of food insecurity soon after the passage
of PRWORA. Furthermore, children of non-citizens failed to recover as much as the
other groups between 1998 and 2001, especially if their parents still had not
108
completed the naturalization process (Van Hook and Stamper Balistreri, 2006).
While losing benefits and being fearful of deportation provides a limited explanation
of the decline in undocumented people using welfare benefits others find that labor
conditions partially explain for this decline as well (Lofstrom and Bean, 2002).
Lofstrom and Bean (2002) state that undocumented immigrants are subjected more
to the volatility of the labor market (they are least likely to be hired during economic
prosperity and first ones fired during economic slumps). They argue that since
undocumented immigrants experience sharp rises and falls in the labor market, that
their receipt of welfare will mirror this pattern. Their analysis of the Current
Population Survey (CPS) from 1994 to 2000 supports their hypothesis; they find that
improved labor market conditions explain one-third of the reduction in the relative
welfare gap since the enactment of welfare reform laws. These results are significant
even while controlling for other factors (Lofstrom and Bean 2002). Lofstrom and
Bean show how labor policy rather than welfare policy is important to stabilize the
undocumented immigrant community. Thus, while others argue that giving
immigrants welfare benefits is a factor that causes more immigration (Borjas 2002),
Lofstrom and Bean provide further evidence to support the argument that job
opportunities and not welfare benefits (Kullgren, 2003; Berk, Schur, Chavez and
Frankel 2000) are reasons why immigrants come to the United States.
Another debate in the literature examines how much undocumented
immigrants use social services. Berk and co-authors (2000) examine the utilization
109
of social services among undocumented Latinos
41
in El Paso, Houston, Fresno and
Los Angeles from 1996-1997. The authors first examine undocumented immigrants
participation in finacial public assistance programs such as Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or Social
Security. Berk and his co-authors note that while undocumented people were not
eligible for these services in 1997, some undocumented people received these
benefits, because they were still able to obtain them through family members who
were lawful permanent residents or citizens (particularly U.S. citizen children of
undocumented people who are eligible for AFDC). The utilization of SSI and Social
Security by undocumented Latinos was under four percent across all four sites.
Thus, there was minimal usage of these social programs among undocumented
Latinos in the cities that the authors explored. However, there was wide disparity in
the utilization of AFDC among undocumented respondents across the four sites.
While only about two percent of the respondents in Houston received AFDC
benefits, approximately nine percent of the respondents received AFDC benefits in
Fresno and El Paso. However, approximately eighteen percent of respondents in Los
Angeles stated that they received AFDC benefits (Berk et al. 2000: 58-59). The
authors do not explain the large discrepancy between cities, however, it could be that
there are more undocumented people in Los Angeles, and perhaps more

41
Berk, Schur, Chavez, and Frankel (2000) focus on undocumented Latinos for both practical and
policy-oriented reasons. The authors state that much of the policy debate on health care and social
policies focused on immigration from Latin America and states that bordered Mexico. Furthermore,
for pratical reasons Latinos are estimated to represent about seventy percent of all undocumented
immigrants in the United States. For further information see Berk et al. (2000), page 53.
110
undocumented people live in households with documented people that can receive
these benefits for the family. Furthermore, the authors examine how much
undocumented immigrants use food stamps and the Supplemental Nutrition Program
for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The authors state that undocumented
immigrants are not eligible for food stamps, but can receive WIC benefits (however
as aforementioned U.S. citizen children of undocumented parents are eligible for
benefits including food stamps). The authors find that a large number of
undocumented Latinos use food stamps in El Paso, with about forty-eight percent of
respondents in El Paso stating that they use food stamps. Respondents in the other
sites used food stamps a lot less, with eight to eighteen percent of respondents using
food stamps in the other cities. Again, larger numbers of undocumented Latinos
utilized WIC benefits in El Paso when compared to the other cities. For example,
forty-seven percent of respondents used WIC benefits in El Paso while twenty-eight
percent used WIC benefits in Houston, and approximately twenty-five percent of
respondents used WIC benefits in both Fresno and Los Angeles. Berk and his co-
authors also report the percentage of undocumented adults who have at least one
child in a public school (the authors do not clarify the citizenship status of the
children). The authors find that across all four cities at least forty percent of
undocumented parents has at least one child in public schools. They also examine if
these children receive free or reduced priced lunches. The findings show that
undocumented parents participated in the free/reduced price for their children in high
numbers. In El Paso, sixty-six percent of the respondents reported using the lunch
111
service, while in Houston, thirty-eight percent of the respondents used the lunch
services. In both Fresno and Los Angeles approximately forty-six percent of the
respondents stated that their children participated in the lunch service program (Berk
et al. 2000: 58-60). Thus, Berk and his co-authors provide information regarding the
utilization of social services among undocumented immigrants.
Moreover, a significant debate within the literature examines if immigrants
use social services more than natives. However, research on this debate tends to
yield differing results (Van Hook, Glick, and Bean, 1999; Borjas, 1994; Fix and
Passel, 1994). Van Hook and her co-authors find that the disparate conclusions
about who uses more resources, immigrants
42
or natives, result from the different
units of analysis used in this type of research. They find that four types of aggregate
level units are used to examine usage of welfare: household, family household,
family, and minimal household units.
43
While the household unit is most commonly
used in this research, the authors compare the units of analysis in order to see if this
affects social service usage among natives and immigrants (Van Hook et. al 1999).

42
Van Hook and co-authors (1999) define immigrants as foreign-born persons living in the United
States, and natives are defined as U.S. born persons. Thus this article does not make the distinction
between documented and undocumented immigrants. However, this article is still prevalent to the
discussion of undocumented immigrants since many immigrants live in mixed status households-
members have different immigration status (Hagan, Rodriguez, Capps and Kabiri 2003). Therefore,
some households might receive benefits if they are documented while other members within the
household might be undocumented.

43
Household units are defined as people within a household who can be unrelated or who may not
share resources or participate in decisions relating to long-term resource consumption or production.
Family households are defined as households containing individuals related through blood, marriage,
or adoption. Family units are defined as coresidential units containing the family head, spouse (if
present), and dependent children. The minimal household unit refers to the smallest identifiable unit
within a household that has the potential to reside independently of others. See Van Hook et al.
(1999), pg. 112.
112
They find that the unit of analysis does matter; in the household and family
household based comparisons, the usage of welfare for immigrants is higher than for
natives. However, for the smaller units of analysis (minimal household units,
individuals, families and family members), the welfare usage is not significantly
higher among immigrants than among natives. Further, the authors find
differentiation among types of social services. While the unit of analysis did not
bear any significance for Aid to Families with Dependent Children/Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (AFDC/TANF), the unit of analysis did matter for
Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The use of larger sized units of analysis makes
immigrants receipt of SSI appear higher relative to natives’ than does the use of
smaller size units (Van Hook et. al 1999). Thus, extant literature on undocumented
immigrants and social services focuses highly upon their utilization of services,
usage of services relative to natives, and how immigration policy (at the state and
national level) affects their usage of these services. While, this literature is
important, it has missed the perspective that negative attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants might be affecting people’s feelings about non-
immigrant-specific policies such as universal health care.

Undocumented Immigrants and Health Care
The literature on undocumented immigrants and health care does not address
how negative sentiments towards the undocumented population might be tied to
feelings about health care reform. The literature in this area focuses upon how
113
immigration policy affects undocumented people usage of health care services and
the community at large. Also, the literature explores how undocumented people in
general utilize health care services and their access to health care services. For
example, Chavez, Flores, and Lopez-Garza (1992) examine the over-all health care
utilization of undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans in San Diego and
Dallas. They find that if their respondents had private insurance, then they were
more likely to have had obtained care recently in the United States. However,
respondents who lacked insurance were likely to never seek health care in the United
States. Also, they found that the respondents in their sample who are insured, used
clinics rather than hospital services, which are more costly. The authors suggest that
this finding points to supporting health care for undocumented people since it can be
more cost-effective for society. Furthermore, Chavez and co-authors find that their
respondents did not overuse government health insurance programs, such as
Medicaid or Medi-Cal (only three people used these programs in Dallas out of a
sample of 207 respondents and another four people used these services in San Diego
out of a total of a sample of 144 respondents). Finally Chavez and co-authors find
that the people in their study use emergency rooms a major source of health care.
Thus, Chavez and co-authors present much needed information about the
undocumented community and how they utilize health services.
114
Furthermore, Leighton Ku and Sheetal Matani (2001) examine the utilization
and access to health care of noncitizen immigrants
44
, naturalized citizens, or native
born citizens. They use the National Survey of American’s Families which includes
data about citizenship, insurance status, and health care utilization. The survey is a
nationally representative sample, combined with a thirteen state sample. Ku and
Matani (2001) find that there are large disparities between noncitizen immigrants and
native citizens in health care insurance coverage and access. First, noncitizens
immigrants and their children (this pattern is consistent for citizen and noncitizen
children with noncitizen parents) were less likely to have health insurance when
compared to native citizens. Noncitizens immigrants and their children were less
likely to have Medicaid and job-based insurance when compared to native citizens.
Furthermore, noncitizen immigrants were much more likely to lack medical
insurance in general when compared to native born citizens. Second, given
noncitizens lack of health insurance coverage, they also have low levels of access to
health care services in the United States. Noncitizen families have less access to
both ambulatory medical and emergency medical care. For example, forty-one
percent of noncitizen adults did not did not visit a doctor, nurse or emergency room
in a year. Further, thirty-eight percent of noncitizen children and twenty-one percent
of citizen children with noncitizen parents did not visit a doctor, nurse or emergency
room in the past twelve months. The percentage of noncitizens or children of

44
Ku and Matani (2001) define non-citizens as “legal permanent residents (the largest group),
refugess, undocumented aliens, and other immigrants who have not been naturalized.”-pg. 249.
115
noncitizens not using medical services is high in comparison to citizens. Twenty-one
percent of native adult citizens and thirteen percent of children of citizens report not
going to a doctor, nurse or emergency room in the past twelve months (252). In all,
Ku and Matani show that a large disparity exists between native citizens and
noncitizen immigrants when it comes to health care insurance and access to health
care. Noncitizen immigrants and their children lack health insurance coverage and
access to health care even when the children are citizens of the United States even
when controlling for race, health status and socio-economic status. Ku and Matani’s
work is signifcant for showing that noncitizen immigrants not only lack health care,
but also do not utilize health services as much as previously assumed by the public.
However, it is critical to examine how stereotypes of undocumented immigrants
might be attached to people’s attitudes regarding government sponsored health
insurance.
Furthermore, Berk, Schur, Chavez and Frankel (2000) examine access to
health care and the utilization of health care services among undocumented Latinos
45

in Houston, El Paso, Los Angeles, and Fresno. They find that in all four cities,
undocumented Latinos have low rates of health care utilization. For example, rates
of physicians’ visits were much lower for undocumented Latinos when compared to
the Latino population, and the total U.S. population. Also, hospitalization rates
among undocumented Latinos were similar to the hospitalization rates of Latinos and

45
See footnote #6 regarding Berk and his co-authors (2000) reasons for focusing upon undocumented
Latinos.
116
the U.S. population. However, undocumented Latinos did use the hospital more than
Latinos or the U.S. population for childbirth services (Berk et al. 2000: 56-57). The
authors also examine the extent to which undocumented Latinos utilize Medicaid
services in 1997. They find that Medicaid usage varies dramatically between cities.
In Los Angeles about ten percent of undocumented Latinos reported using Medicaid,
while twenty-five percent of undocumented Latinos reported using Medicaid in
Fresno. However, in Texas, Medicaid usage was minimal among the undocumented
Latino population. Approximately two percent of undocumented Latinos reported
Medicaid usage in both El Paso and Houston. The authors attribute this discrepancy
to certain laws in California that required undocumented immigrants who met certain
eligibility requirements to enroll in Medicaid
46
(Berk et al. 2000: 58-59, 64).
Similarly, Hubbell and co-authors (1991) examine the access to health care for
undocumented Latinos in Southern California County. They find that sixty percent
of undocumented Latinos lack health insurance in Southern California, and the
undocumented Latinos who do have some form of health insurance, obtain it from
their employers. In comparison, thirty-eight percent of Latino citizens lacked health
insurance and sixteen percent of Anglos lacked health insurance (Hubbell et al. 1991:

46
In 1986 the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) required coverage of emergency medical
services, and childbirth services under Medicaid for undocumented immigrants if they were able to
meet certain eligibility requirements. Also in 1986, Los Angeles County required that undocumented
immigrants to apply for Medicaid, enabling the county to recover some expenses. Furthermore, in
1988, California provided nonemergency care as a state-only funded benefit to undocumented
women who needed it for pregnancy care (provided they met eligibility requirements).
Undocumented immigrants could gain access to these medical services when the authors collected the
data for the paper. However, the authors note that the 1996 PRWORA severely restricts the type of
medical care available to undocumented immigrants. See Berk et al. 2000, page 64 for further
information.
117
415-416). Thus, undocumented Latinos in Southern California are more likely to not
have health insurance in comparison to Latino citizens and Anglos. Furthermore,
Hubbell et al. (1991) find that undocumented Latinos are more likely to lack a
regular source of care, find it difficult to obtain access to health care, lack financial
means for medical care, and language created a barrier in obtaining care, when
compared to Latino citizens and Anglos (415-416).
47
The aforementioned literature
is important for showing how undocumented citizens lack both health care insurance
and access to health care when compared to other demographic groups in the United
States. However, there is a gap in this literature that fails to examine how attitudes
towards undocumented immgirants affect people’s attitudes towards government
sponsored health insurance. I intend to fill this gap in the literature by examining the
relationship between sentiments towards undocumented immigrants and people’s
feelings towards government health sponsored health care insurance.
Moreover, literature on undocumented immigrants and health care examines
how the PRWORA affects the undocumented population’s access to health care.
The PRWORA intended to reduce undocumented immigration, but instead placed
severe restrictions upon undocumented people’s access to health care which burdens
health care administrators and also can be deleterious to the public’s health (Kullgren
2003). Furthermore, the restrictions of PRWORA have prevented U.S. born children

47
Hubbell and co-authors (1991) find that in terms of not visiting a doctor in the previous year,
undocumented Latinos and Latino citizens are similar in this respect. They also find that no
statistically significant difference existed between undocumented Latinos and Latino citizens in terms
of regular sources of care, physician visits during the previous year, financial and language barriers.
See Hubbell et al. 1991, pages 415-416 for further information.
118
of undocumented immigrants from not receiving medical benefits for several reasons
(Hagan, Rodriguez, Capps, and Kabiri, 2003; Kullgren 2003). First, fear of being
deported has lead to many undocumented immigrants to not seek medical care for
their U.S. born children (Kullgren 2003). Second, people are mis-informed by
Medicaid services and told that their U.S. born children do not qualify for medical
services (even though they do qualify) or undocumented immigrants are confused
themselves about the eligibility of their children (Hagan, et al.2003; Kullgren, 2003).
Even though social service agencies cannot deny benefits such as Medicaid or CHIP
to eligible people based solely on a person being undocumented, this confusion and
fear has already caused detrimental effects for the health of the undocumented
community (Hagan et al., 2003). For example, Hagan and co-authors find that people
who work in the informal sector and farmers are particularly affected harshly by the
new restrictions. Since farm workers and workers in the informal sector are paid in
cash it is difficult to document permanent U.S. residency to qualify for benefits.
Therefore this sector of the undocumented community could not document work
history required for pre-1996 Legal Permanent Resident status to retain eligibility for
food stamps or eligibility for SSI. Some of these people also lost Medicaid because
their eligibility for Medicaid stemmed from their eligibility of other benefits. Thus,
the PROWRA just further harmed an already at-risk community. Finally limiting
undocumented immigrants’ access to health services, not only affects the health of
their community but also the community at large since it weakens health officials
abilities to fight the spread of communicable diseases (Kullgren 2003). The
119
literature examining the health care and the undocumented community does explain
how immigration policy affects the access to health care for this community.
However, I intend to argue that attitudes towards undocumented immigrants are
linked to attitudes towards non-immigration specific policies such as universal health
care.
To summarize, first, a review of the literature points to how negative attitudes
develop towards undocumented immigrants and how anti-illegal immigration
policies develop in response to this negative public opinion. This leads to scholars
developing work on how these immigration policies affect the undocumented
population. I intend to argue that attitudes towards undocumented immigrants may
matter beyond immigration policy, specifically for health care reform. I investigate
new linkages between public attitudes toward unpopular groups and health care
reform. My main research question is do negative attitudes towards undocumented
immigrants affect people’s feeling towards government provided health insurance? I
explore this research question in the analysis below.

Data and Methods
This analysis uses the American National Election Study (ANES), 2004: Pre-
and Post-Election Survey data. This survey was a national multistage area
probability sample, conducted by telephone between September 7, 2004 and
December 20, 2004. The data contains 1,212 respondents that were U.S. citizens,
eighteen years or older, in the 48 coterminous states. I chose the 2004 ANES
120
because this survey includes important measures of attitudes towards health care
reform, attitudes towards Latinos and illegal immigrants, and control variables
significant to my model. Furthermore, compared to other surveys, the 2004 ANES
includes a very good measure of people’s support for government provided health
insurance, the dependent variable in the model. Finally, the ANES surveys are
conducted over time, with consistent measures of the variables in the model, thus I
can expand the analysis over time in further research.
48
This analysis focuses upon
white racial attitudes for two reasons. First, the white population comprises the
majority racial/ethnic group in the United States and the majority voting group, thus
examining white racial attitudes captures the majority public opinion in the United
States. Second, the ANES is conducted in English and does not contain a large
sample of racial minority and ethnic groups, thus my analysis is limited to
respondents who self-identify as “white”.

48
In order, to show that the findings are consistent across data sets, I used a second survey, The 2004
National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) (Appendix C, table 4.5). The sample consists of 81,422
randomly selected U.S. adult residents (over eighteen years old). The survey was conducted by
telephone through a random digit dialing procedure from October 7, 2003-November 16, 2004. The
National Annenberg Election Survey is used because it has similar measures as the ANES regarding
support for government health care and attitudes towards immigrants. However, the question
regarding immigration in the NAES does not specifically focus on undocumented immigration. The
question asks if respondents favor restricting immigration. This question does not allow me to make
the distinction between legal versus illegal immigrants, unlike the question regarding immigration in
the ANES. Therefore, the results to the NAES will serve only as supplemental to the ANES results,
and will appear in appendix C, table 4.5 but will not be discussed within the text. The coding for the
2004 National Annenberg Survey is in appendix F.
121
Variable Construction
The dependent variable--the importance of government provided health
insurance to the respondent--is categorical and takes on five values: extremely
important, very important, somewhat important, not too important, and not at all
important.
49
Since the dependent variable is ordered, and is not continuous, ordered
probit is the most appropriate model. However, replication of the analyses using
ordinary least squares regression yields no substantive differences in the significance
or sign of any coefficients.
50
When applicable, all variables are coded such that
higher values are associated with the more conservative ideological position. Based
upon quantitative work on race, ethnicity and policy (Gilens 1999; Winter 2006), I
placed variables into three different categories: 1) immigration variable-assesses
respondent’s attitudes towards undocumented immigration 2) attitudes toward
government-analyzes respondent’s conservatism towards government and
respondent’s political ideology 3) control variables-account for demographic

49
Also, I conducted a multiple regression model with a different dependent variable for the model in
order to show that the findings are consistent despite question wording. The dependent variable here
is based upon the respondents placing themselves on a government/private insurance scale. The scale
goes from (1=government insurance) and (7=private insurance). Please see appendix E for coding.
This model still shows that attitudes towards undocumented immigrants are associated with negative
feelings towards government insurance. This model is shown in appendix D, table 4.6.

50
I also estimated the ordered probit model and a multinomial logit model with the dependent variable
having three categories. These models yielded no substantive differences with the ordered probit
model presented here in Table 4.4. I also conduced a logit model with the dependent variable coded
as government insurance is not too important/not at all important=1 and 0=else. There was no
substantial difference between the ordered probit model and the logit model.

122
differences. The simplified
51
version of the ordered probit model below allows me
to analyze the relationship between anti-illegal immigrant sentiment and health care
reform policy:
ATTITUDES TOWARD GOVERNMENT PROVIDED HEALTH INSURANCE =
β
1
ATTITUDES TOWARDS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
+ β
2ε
ATTITUDES TOWARD GOVERNMENT
+ β
3
DEMOGRAPHICS & CONTROL VARIABLES
+ ε
The first independent variable,
52
an illegal immigration thermometer,
examines respondent’s feelings towards illegal immigrants: warm, neutral, cold.
This independent variable attempts to isolate people’s attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants and how these attitudes might affect people’s feelings
towards health care reform policy. I expect the illegal immigration thermometer to
be positively related to the dependent variable, attitudes towards government
provided health insurance.
The second set of independent variables measures people’s feelings towards
the services government provides to people, and people’s political ideology.
Scholars find that Americans’ political culture, their desire for a limited role for

51
This is a simplified version of the model because it only contains the categories of the independent
variables and not each single independent variable that is in the model.

52
I examined the correlations and multi-collinearity diagnostics on the independent variables, they
were all at an acceptable threshold.
123
government, distrust for government, and conservative notions of government still
influence Americans’ attitudes towards government supported health care (Jacobs
2008; Blendon, Marttila, Benson, Shelter, Connolly, and Kiley 1994).
53
Perhaps
negative attitudes towards government provided health insurance stem from views
about limited government or the role of government in American life. The variables
in the attitudes toward government category test that relationship. The limited
government services variable asks respondents to place them on a scale from one,
signifying that the government should provide many more services, to seven,
signifying that the government should provide many fewer services. I would expect
the limited government services variable to be positively related to the dependent
variable. The variable political ideology ranges from liberal, moderate, and
conservative.
54
Since the attitudes towards government variables are coded with the
higher values denoting more conservative beliefs, I would expect these variables to
be positively related with negative attitudes about health care reform.

53
There is a long tradition of scholarship that examines different hypotheses for why health care
reform does not pass in the United States. For example, there is the American political development
argument. This theme focuses on American exceptionalism; how the U.S. differs from other countries
in terms of fragmented political institutions, weak labor unions and weak political parties, which all
contribute to a distinct American political structure that makes it difficult to pass universal health care
in the U.S. (Amenta 1998; Levine 1988; Trattner 1989; Steinmo 1994; Richards 1994). While I could
not control for all of these explanations due to data limitations, I was able to control for the American
political culture argument with the variables in the ‘Attitudes Toward Government’ category.

54
When the model was run with political parties, instead of ideology, the model yielded similar
results. Political ideology was used here instead of political parties because my model is testing
whether attitudes towards undocumented immigrants is a significant predictor of negative attitudes
towards health insurance reform regardless of conservative orientations towards government, and I
felt political ideology measured this the best.
124
The final set of independent variables, demographic variables, consists of
income, education and age.
55
The gender variable is coded as one for male and zero
for female. The employed variable is coded as one if someone is working now and
zero for otherwise. The married variable is coded as one if the respondent is married
and coded zero for any other relationship status. Finally, generation is accounted for,
coded as one if the respondent’s parents were born in the United States and zero if
they were born elsewhere.

Results of the Model
I first conducted crosstabulations of a two key independent variables; illegal
immigration thermometer and limited government services, (tables 4.2-4.3). Table
4.2 clearly shows that people who have negative feelings about illegal immigrants
also have negative feelings about government provided health insurance. The results
in table 4.2 show that seventy-one percent of the people who feel that government
provided health insurance is not at all important also have negative feelings about
illegal immigrants.

55
I also included a “union membership” variable-whether the respondent belongs to a union or not
and I found that having the variable in the model had no affect so I removed it from the model.
125
Table 4.2: Attitudes Towards Government Health Insurance and Illegal Immigrants,
White Sample Only

Illegal Immigration
Thermometer
(1-3; 3 = cold)
Importance of government health insurance to
respondent
Warm
(1)
Neutral
(2)
Cold
(3)
1 = Extremely important 23% 27% 50%
2 = Very important 20% 26% 55%
3 = Somewhat important 18% 25% 58%
4 = Not too important 8% 31% 62%
5 = Not at all important 0% 29% 71%
Source: American National Election Study 2004

Table 4.3 shows that respondents who want fewer government services also
do not feel that government provided health insurance is that important. Table 4.3
shows that fifty-six percent of respondents, who feel that the government should
provide fewer services, also feel that government provided health insurance is not
too important. The findings above suggest that negative feelings towards
undocumented immigrants and conservative notions of government are linked to
negative attitudes toward government provided health insurance, but do these
relationships sustain in a multivariate context? I constructed an ordered probit model
that more clearly delineates the relationship between the independent and dependent
variables.
126
Table 4.3: Attitudes Towards Government Health Insurance and Government
Services, White Sample Only

Government Service Thermometer (1-7; 7 = few services)
Importance of
government
health insurance
to respondent
Government
should provide
many more
services (1-2)
Government
should provide
some services
(3)
Government
should provide
fewer services
(4-5)
Government
should provide
many fewer
services (6-7)
1 = Extremely
important
15% 36% 39% 10%
2 = Very
important
7% 39% 45% 8%
3 = Somewhat
important
4% 36% 51% 9%
4 = Not too
important
13% 21% 56% 10%
5 = Not at all
important
0% 71% 14% 14%
Source: American National Election Study 2004

I use ordered probit estimations to ascertain the effect of the independent
variables described above on the probability that respondents harbor negative
feelings towards government provided health insurance. I report the unstandardized
coefficients, the standard errors, and the average change in probability across the
categories of the dependent variable. I report the average change for the model to
facilitate ease of interpretation when compared to a logit model. For a dichotomous
logit, the effect is the change in probability of the dependent variable from the lowest
to the highest level of a predictor. However, since the dependent variable is
categorical and not dichotomous, it makes more sense to report the average change
127
in probability across the categories of the dependent variable.
56
In order to compute
these values I use the prchange command in the SPost add-on module for STATA
(Long 2005).
Overall, the results in Table 4.4 show that negative attitudes towards illegal
immigrants are significant predictors of negative feelings towards government
provided health insurance, regardless of other potential intervening factors such as
conservative notions of government. The results associated with the first variable
show that there is a statistically significant association between colder feelings
towards illegal immigrants and feeling that government provided health insurance is
not important. Respondents who possess negative attitudes towards illegal
immigrants are on average 3.7% more likely to feel that government provided health
insurance is not important. While this might seem like a small effect, it is important
to note that the size of the effect associated with colder feelings toward
undocumented immigrants is similar to the size of the effect associated with other
significant variables in the model such as education. This result shows that the
debate centering on health care reform has neglected that attitudes towards illegal
immigrants are significant predictors of why people feel negatively towards
government provided health insurance. While previous literature focuses on
conservative attitudes towards the role of government to explain why people in the
U.S. do not approve of government provided health insurance, this result shows that

56
Since the prchange command reports average changes as absolute values, the signs correspond to
the same direction as the ordered logit coefficient.
128
negative public opinion towards illegal immigrants also explains why people
disapprove of government provided health insurance. While we know that U.S.
public opinion towards illegal immigrants is negative, the findings presented here
clearly show how these feelings are now directly affecting people’s approval of
government provided health insurance, a policy that few associate directly with
immigrants or immigration.
The second group of independent variables suggests that there exists an
important relationship between conservative attitudes towards government and
negative attitudes of government provided health insurance. Respondents who feel
that the government should provide fewer services are on average 6.2% more likely
to feel that government provided health insurance is not important. Furthermore,
people who possess a conservative political ideology are on average 3.2% more
likely to feel that government provided health insurance is not important. These
findings are not surprising since people who want the government to provide fewer
services, and who possess conservative political ideologies are more likely to be
proponents of private health insurance rather than of a government provided health
insurance. However, attention to these attitudes alone does not explain fully
variations in the public’s support of government provided health care.
The final set of independent variables, demographic variables, shows that
education is significantly related to attitudes about health care reform. The less than
high school variable showed a significant inverse relationship with the dependent
variable. Respondents who have less than a high school education are on average
129
7.2% more likely than people who have a high school education or greater, to feel
that government provided health insurance is important. Furthermore, respondents
who have a high school education are on average 3% more likely to feel that
government provided health insurance is important. Therefore, the less education
one has, the more likely they are to favor health insurance reform. The other
demographic variables were not significantly related to the dependent variable.

Table 4.4: Ordered Probit Model of Attitudes Towards Government Supported
Health Care

Independent Variables Coefficients Standard Error Average Change
Immigration Variables
Illegal Immigration 0.119** 0.050 0.037
Attitutes Towards Government
Limited Government Service 0.067* 0.036 0.062
Ideology 0.102** 0.044 0.032
Control Variables
Income 0.005 0.009 0.017
Less Than High School -0.455*** 0.176 0.072
High School -0.196* 0.102 0.030
After High School -0.135 0.097 0.021
Male 0.050 0.078 0.008
Age -0.001 0.003 0.006
Employed -0.007 0.095 0.001
Married -0.120 0.085 0.018
Parents Born in the U.S. 0.139 0.122 0.022
cut 1 0.399 0.278
cut 2 1.316 0.280
cut 3 2.349 0.287
cut 4 3.250 0.321
* p < .10; ** p < .05; *** p < .01
N = 838; Log Likelihood = -1014.4694; LR chi2(12) = 34.09; Prob > chi2 = 0.0007
Source: American National Election Study, 2004
130
Discussion
Overall, the findings for the model show that attitudes towards illegal
immigrants are associated with attitudes towards health care reform. This finding
deserves our attention, as the association is significant even while controlling for
conservative attitudes towards government. Moreover, the racialization of Latinos
and the specific ways in which they are stereotyped/constructed as illegal immigrants
has an effect on whites’ views on government supported health care. This analysis
contributes to the literature on race, public opinion and policy. Previous scholarship
largely analyzes how whites’ attitudes toward blacks influence white attitudes
toward certain policies (Sears, Hensler, and Speer, 1979; Kinder and Sears, 1981;
Schuman, Steeh and Bobo, 1985; Gilens, 1999; Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000;
Hancock, 2004; Bobo and Tuan, 2006). The focus on whites’ attitudes toward
blacks shows that in the United States we have thought of race largely in terms of
blacks and whites. However, with an increasing population of immigrants, and an
increasingly diverse society, the racial composition of the United States is changing,
and this analysis shows that racial attitudes are shifting to reflect this change. My
concentration on undocumented immigrants and Latinos shows that white
American’s racial attitudes not only extend to these marginalized groups and have a
crucial effect on their attitudes toward certain policies.
Moreover, the focus on health care shows that racial attitudes can affect a
universal, race-neutral policy. Health care reform policy on the surface seems to
have little to do with immigration, or Latinos. However, this project shows how
131
attitudes towards these groups influence whites’ views on health care reform policy.
Moreover, undocumented immigrants and Latinos lack access to health care (Ku and
Matani, 2001; James, Thomas, Lillie-Blanton, and Garfield 2007). The on-going
health care debates will begin to reflect notions of who deserves these benefits, and it
is possible that undocumented immigrants especially will be viewed as undeserving
recipients of medical benefits. This can further hinder undocumented immigrants’
access to health care services, which can have dire health affects upon the
undocumented community and upon the larger American society.
Furthermore, the finding that whites’ attitudes affect their attitudes toward
health care reform policy is critical to understanding the intersection of race, public
opinion, and public policy. Health care is a universal policy that affects several
people in American society. The finding that feelings toward undocumented
immigrants and Latinos affect people’s perceptions of a universal policy such as
health care reform has important implications for other universal policies as well. In
the future it will be important to examine how feelings toward marginalized groups
such as undocumented immigrants and Latinos affect whites support for education
and environmental policy. The link between anti-immigrant attitudes and health care
policy forces us to rethink assumptions about public opinion towards undocumented
immigrants, American attitudes toward social welfare policies, and the future of
health care reform in the United States.
132
Chapter Five
A New Focus: Undocumented Immigrants, Latinos and Health Care

A Different Way to Focus on Race, Public Opinion and Policy
The main thesis of this dissertation is that whites’ attitudes toward unpopular
groups, such as undocumented immigrants, affect their support for “universal,”
programs such as government supported health care. More specifically, I argue that
the complex racialization of Latinos and the specific ways in which they are
stereotyped and constructed as illegal immigrants influences whites’ views of
government supported health care. This argument adds to the existing literature on
race, policy, and public opinion in two critical ways. First, traditional literature
largely focuses upon whites attitudes toward blacks. I contend it is critical to go
beyond this black-white dichotomy and examine whites’ attitudes toward other
marginalized groups as well, specifically, Latinos and undocumented immigrants.
Since Latinos are the largest minority group, and undocumented immigrants continue
to be a growing part of American society, I argue it is important to examine white
racial attitudes toward these groups also, in order to completely understand the effect
of white racial attitudes on public policies. Second, I focus on a policy that
Americans view as universal, health care. This contributes to the existing literature
on race, and policy because this literature largely focuses on policies that are linked
to a certain segment of the population, such as welfare policy which is intended for
133
low-income people. My project shows the continuing important role racial attitudes
play in shaping American attitudes toward public policies.

Attitudes toward Latinos and Undocumented Immigrants
In chapter two of this dissertation, I examine Latinos attitudes toward health
care policy reform. I focus on Latinos because of their specific health care needs,
and because very little is known about this communities’ policy attitudes toward
health care reform policy. I find that unlike other policies such as immigration
policy, internal differences within the Latino community such as acculturation, and
generation, do not divide the Latino community support for health care reform
policy. This leads to the question, Are Latinos unique in their support for health care
reform policy? I find that even while controlling for factors such as socio-economic
status, whites are less likely than Latinos to support health care reform policy. Thus,
I ask the question, what accounts for whites’ lack of support for health care reform
policy? I argue that attitudes toward unpopular groups in society account for whites’
negative feelings toward health care reform policy.
The findings in chapter two help to develop the conceptual model I
developed in chapter one. Here, I will re-introduce the conceptual model from,
chapter one, which serves to guide my dissertation.
134
Figure 5.1: Conceptual Model

As shown above in the conceptual model, I focus my attention on whites’
attitudes toward Latinos and undocumented immigrants. This new focus contributes
to the existing scholarship on race, public opinion and policy. First, the existing
literature focuses on white attitudes toward blacks. These authors often examine
how white’s stereotype of blacks stem from white’s feeling that blacks violate the
Race
and
Class
Race
and
class
Elites
Institutions
Media
Lobbyists/
Interest
groups
135
traditional values of the United States; especially the stereotype that blacks are not
hard-working but that they are lazy (Kinder and Sears, 1981; Schuman, Steeh and
Bobo, 1985; Gilens, 1999; Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000; Hancock, 2004; Bobo
and Tuan, 2006). In chapter three, (box 1 in the conceptual model) I show that
whites stereotype Latinos as well, and feel that Latinos violate traditional American
values. In chapter three I show that whites feel negatively toward Latinos, feel that
Latinos are lazy, and feel that Latinos are an economic threat. Moreover, these
stereotypes are attached to a complex way in which Latinos are racialized (and not
other racial and ethnic groups); as undocumented immigrants. Negative attitudes
towards Latinos are strongly associated with negative evaluations of illegal
immigrants. As the Latino population continues to increase it is critical in the future
to examine how white public opinion is going to be affected with the increasing
number of Latinos in our country.
The findings in chapter three showed that Latinos are racialized as
undocumented immigrants. I then examined white’s attitudes toward undocumented
immigrant and their attitudes toward health care in chapter four (box 2 of conceptual
model). In chapter four I find that whites’ attitudes toward undocumented
immigrants negatively influence their feelings toward government supported health
care. This finding deserves our attention, as the association is significant even while
controlling for conservative attitudes towards government. Moreover, the
racialization of Latinos and the specific ways in which they are
stereotyped/constructed as illegal immigrants has an effect on whites’ views on
136
government supported health care. This analysis contributes to the literature on race,
public opinion and policy. Previous scholarship largely analyzes how whites’
attitudes toward blacks influence white attitudes toward certain policies (Sears,
Hensler, and Speer, 1979; Kinder and Sears, 1981; Schuman, Steeh and Bobo, 1985;
Gilens, 1999; Sears, Sidanius, and Bobo, 2000; Hancock, 2004; Bobo and Tuan,
2006). The focus on whites’ attitudes toward blacks shows that in the United States
we have thought of race largely in terms of blacks and whites. However, with an
increasing population of immigrants, and an increasingly diverse society, the racial
composition of the United States is changing, and this analysis shows that racial
attitudes are shifting to reflect this change. My focus on undocumented immigrants
and Latinos shows that white American’s racial attitudes not only extend to these
marginalized groups, but also whites’ racial stereotypes of these groups have an
effect on their attitudes toward important public policies.

Public Opinion and Universal Policy: Health Care
Another major contribution of my work is that I examine how white racial
attitudes affect a universal, race-neutral policy, health care. Previous scholars have
analyzed how racial attitudes affect policies that are associated with a certain
segment of the population such as welfare, which is associated with people that are
low-income (Gilens, 1999; Hancock, 2004). Moreover, policies such as welfare, are
already largely associated with African-Americans in the public imagination
(Winter, 2008). However, I find that white stereotypes of Latinos and the specific
137
ways in which they are stereotyped and constructed as undocumented immigrants
exerts an effect on whites’ views of government supported health care. A major
lesson of this project is that health care reform’s race-neutral structure will not
insulate it from racial politics. Most people who use health care services are not
undocumented or Latino. However, as previously shown, white Americans’ thinking
about health care is thoroughly racialized: the stereotypes that Latinos are lazy,
undocumented immigrants, plays a central role in shaping white’s views towards a
more universal government supported health care program. This finding also
highlights the importance of continuing to examine universal policies such as
education and environmental policy which on the surface seem to have very little to
do with race.
Moreover, health care is a continuing concern for many Americans. For
example, in 2007, 45 million nonelderly people in the United States lacked health
coverage. Since 2000 the number of nonelderly uninsured has grown by 8 million
(The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2008). Employers are cutting back on
offering insurance benefits at the same time that average premiums are rising (since
1999, the average premium for family coverage has increased by 119%) (The Henry
J. Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research/Educational Trust 2008). Rising health
care costs combined with the recent economic crisis results in families cutting back
on care and facing serious financial problems. A recent Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
found that more than half (53 percent) of Americans say their family cut back on
medical care in the past 12 months due to cost concerns (The Henry J. Kaiser Family
138
Foundation 2009a). Moreover, undocumented immigrants and Latinos lack access to
health care (Ku and Matani, 2001; James, Thomas, Lillie-Blanton, and Garfield
2007). The finding that racial attitudes affect Americans’ support for universal
health care policies could result in more generous health reform policies not passing
and this can potentially affect a large number of Americans.

Policy Implications
One lesson to be drawn from the research presented here is that the universal
health care debate will need to include a conversation about whether universal health
care will cover undocumented immigrants. The U.S. government should consider
offering some form of health care to undocumented immigrants for several reasons.
First of all, the uninsured are more likely to go to the emergency room for care.
Going to the emergency room for health care can cost two to three times more than
for care provided in a different setting, for similar health conditions (Kaiser Family
Foundation 2006; McConville and Lee 2008). In terms of economics it makes more
sense over the long run to provide some form of health care for undocumented
immigrants. Also, limiting undocumented immigrants’ access to health services, not
only affects the health of their community but also the community at large since it
weakens health officials abilities to fight the spread of communicable diseases
(Kullgren 2003). Finally, the public needs to be made more aware that
undocumented immigrants underutilize health care services and government
139
programs such as Medicaid and Medicare in order to dispel the notion that
undocumented immigrants are draining our health care resources. The policy debate
concerning undocumented immigrants and health care reform should focus on all the
fiscal benefits (such as taxes paid by undocumented immigrants) and costs of
immigrants. Perhaps if the public is more fully informed of the facts concerning
undocumented immigrants, then this may change their public opinion towards this
group.
Also, it is quite possible that health care reform in the future will be delegated
to the states. Several border states such as California, and Texas, have large
undocumented populations. These states may have to decide what health care
programs to offer to their undocumented populations, if any. If health care reform
policy does become a responsibility of the states, it will be interesting to view how
border states will balance the needs of their documented residents with those of the
undocumented population.
Finally an important implication of my research is that “universal” policies
such as government provided health care which seem race-neutral on the outside are
actually affected by white’s attitudes towards marginalized groups. In this project I
have shown how whites’ negative attitudes towards undocumented immigrants affect
their attitudes towards health care. Moreover, white’s negative stereotypes of
Latinos negatively affect their attitudes towards undocumented immigrants. Based
on this finding I argue that government supported health care is indirectly racialized
against Latinos. These findings show that whites’ attitudes towards marginalized
140
groups can explain the lack of support universal policies, which on the surface seem
to have little to do with any particular group in society.

Future Research
There are several avenues I would like to explore in the future in order to
expand and improve upon this research project. First, as displayed in the conceptual
model, several other factors affect public opinion toward whites’ attitudes toward
government supported health care policy that I was not able to account for in my
dissertation such as: media, institutions, elites, lobbyists, and interest groups. In
particular, previous scholars show that the media plays an influential role in
perpetuating racial stereotypes and influencing public opinion toward certain policies
such as welfare (Gilens, 1999; Hancock, 2004). Therefore in the future I will have to
examine the effects of these different factors on American public support for health
care reform policy.
Moreover, I feel that the causal link established in both chapters three and
four could be strengthened with experimental methods. I think it is necessary to
conduct an experiment to completely assess people’s attitudes towards
undocumented immigrant and their affect upon government supported health care in
order to make this causal link more powerful. It is also necessary to develop an
experiment for chapter three that examines people’s feelings towards Latinos and
their attitudes towards undocumented immigrants in order to strengthen this
argument. Also, in chapter three there may be problem with endogeneity regarding
141
the relationship between undocumented immigrants and Latinos. In future research I
would like to conduct a path model in order to examine this problem in more detail.
Furthermore, I would like to analyze the relationships of my models over
time. For example, attitudes towards undocumented immigrants tend to fluctuate
over time. However the data I used was for the year 2004 and that was not a year in
which anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric dominated the public discourse. Thus I might
find that this relationship is stronger in years with high levels of anti-illegal
immigrant discourse. Nevertheless it would be interesting to see if the effects of this
relationship are constant or change over time. Moreover, I would like to analyze the
relationship examined in chapter three, how attitudes towards certain racial and
ethnic groups affect attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, over time.
Throughout history different groups have been stereotyped as immigrants, such as
the Irish in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Examining over time how people’s
stereotypes towards certain racial and ethnic groups affect their feelings towards the
undocumented will allow me to view if the groups stereotyped as undocumented
immigrants has shifted or stayed the same throughout the years.
Also, beyond health care I would like to view if these attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants are attached to different universal policies that seemingly
on the surface have very little to do with immigration such as education and the
environment. Examining different policies will allow me to view if this public
opinion towards undocumented immigrants is unique only towards health care
reform or if this public opinion exists towards other policies as well.
142
Another thing to consider is if this relationship between attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants and health care holds in different geographic contexts.
That is, examining if differences exist among states with high levels of
undocumented immigrants and states with low levels of undocumented immigrants.
Also, it is important to examine how new immigrant destination states such as North
Carolina compare to “more established immigrant states” such as California compare
in terms of attitudes towards undocumented immigrants and health care.
Finally, I would like to examine the attitudes of other racial and ethnic groups
and not just the attitudes to white Americans. Perhaps these attitudes towards
undocumented immigrants and health care reform policy are not unique to whites. It
is quite possible that other groups in society also have negative feelings towards
undocumented immigrants and these feelings might influence their feelings towards
health care reform.

Conclusion
The U.S. health care system is in need of reform. It is surprising that a
country like the United States which is a world leader in so many different respects,
has the most expensive health care system coupled with a large number of uninsured
people. The ongoing health care reform debates has yet to include a discussion of
undocumented immigrants and it is yet to be determined if these immigrants who
contribute to our economy will be included in this discussion. This project shows
that complex factors influence American’s public opinion toward health care policy.
143
The focus on marginalized groups shows that people’s attitudes toward these groups
does influence their feelings towards “universal policies” such as health care, and
American’s attitudes towards undocumented immigrants are shaped by race. This
project demonstrates the crucial role of American’s attitudes toward certain
marginalized groups and how these attitudes have a significant impact on American
public policy.
144
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Appendices

Appendix A
Codes for the 1999 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Latino
Survey. Chapter 2.

U.S. Born
Were you born in the U.S. or in another country?
1=U.S. born
0=Foreign born

Second generation
Were either of your parents born in another country?
Dummy variable
1=Second generation (born in the U.S. with parents foreign born)

Third generation
Were either of your parents born in another country?
Dummy variable
1=Third generation (born in the U.S. with parents also U.S. born)

English at Home
What language do you usually speak at home? Only Spanish, more Spanish than
English, both equally, more English than Spanish, or only English?
Dummy Variable
1=Only Spanish/More English than Spanish

Married
Are you currently married, living with a partner, widowed, divorced, separated, or
have you never been married?
Dummy variable
1=Married
164
Partisanship
In politics today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, an
Independent, or something else?
0=Democrat
1=Independent
2=Republican

Age
What is your age?
Age is continuous with the youngest respondent being 18 and the oldest being 90.

Income
What is your total annual household income from all sources and before taxes?
1=less than $20,000
2=$20,000 but less than $30,000
3=$30,000 but less than $40,000
4=$40,000 but less than $50,000
5=$50,000 but less than $75, 000
6=$75,000 but less than $100,000
7=$100,000 or more
Don’t Know or Refused=System Missing

Health Insurance
Do you think the government should provide health insurance for Americans without
insurance, or is this something the government should not do?
1=Government should not do this
0=Government should provide insurance

Employment
What is your employment status? Are you...
1=Employed by someone else/Self-Employed
0=else
165
Latino
1=yes, Latino or Hispanic, if answered yes to: “Are you, yourself of Hispanic or
Latin origin or descent such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban or some other Latin
background?
0=Non-Latino white, if answered “No” to: “Are you, yourself of Hispanic or Latin
origin or descent such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban or some other Latin
background? And “white” to “Do you consider yourself to be white, black, or
African-American, Asian-American, or some other race?”

National Origin
In order to account for national origin, dummy variables are constructed for Cubans,
Central/South Americans, Dominicans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. The Mexican
national origin group served as the comparison group. The national origin groups
were based upon the following set of survey questions: Earlier you said you were
Hispanic or Latino, what country did your family of ancestors come from? Which
country do you identify with more? Dummy variables were used for the coding:
Central/South Americans=1; 0=non-Central/South Americans; Cubans=1; non-
Cubans=0, etc.

Favor Small Government
Would you say you favor a (smaller federal government with fewer services), or (a
larger government with many services)?
Dummy variable, 1=smaller federal government with fewer services
166
Appendix B
2004 American National Election Study (ANES) Codes. Chapter 3.

Income
1=none-21,999
2=22,000-44,999
3=45,000-89,999
4=90,000 and above
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Education
Less than high school
1=none, 8 grades or less, 9-11 grades
0=otherwise

High school
1=high school diploma, equivalency degree
0=otherwise

After high school
After high school
1=more than 12 years of schooling, no higher degree; junior or community college
level degrees

College grad/after college(excluded category)
1=BA degree, advance degree
0=otherwise

Ideology
0=liberal
1=moderate
2=conservative
Don’t know/Refused=system missing
167
Gender
Male=1
Else=0

Age
1=18-29 years
2=30-49 years
3=50-69 years
4=70-89
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Employed
1=employed
0=else

Married
1=married
0=else

Parents Born In The U.S.
1=Yes parents’ born in the U.S.
0=else

Limited Government Services
1=more services
7=fewer services

Attitudes Toward Illegal Immigrants
1=warm
2=neutral
3=cold
Don’t know/Refused=system missing
168
Stereotype-Lazy-Latinos
1. Hard-working
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Lazy
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Stereotype=Lazy-Asians
1. Hard-working
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Lazy
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Stereotype-Lazy-Blacks
1. Hard-working
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Lazy
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Attitudes Toward Hispanics
1=warm
2=neutral
3=cold
Don’t know/Refused=system missing
169
Attitudes Toward Asians
1=warm
2=neutral
3=cold
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Attitudes Toward Blacks
1=warm
2=neutral
3=cold
Don’t know/Refused=system missing

Attitudes Toward Hispanics Taking Jobs Away
1=not at all likely Hispanic immigrants will take jobs away
2=somewhat likely that Hispanic immigrants will take jobs away
3=very likely that Hispanic immigrants will take jobs away
4=extremely likely that Hispanic immigrants will take jobs away
Don’t know/Refused=system missing
170
Appendix C
Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes Towards Government Spending on
Health Insurance (2004 National Annenberg Election Survey).
Chapter 4. [Table 4.5]

Table 4.5: Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes Towards Government Spending
on Health Insurance (2004 National Annenberg Election Survey)

Independent Variable Coefficients Standard Error Average Change
Immigration Variable
Favor Restricting Immigration 0.096*** 0.014 0.045
Attitudes Towards Government
Favor Reducing Taxes 0.066*** 0.008 0.042
Ideology 0.475 0.015 0.148
Control Variables
Income 0.061*** 0.006 0.080
Less Than High School -0.361*** 0.053 0.054
High School -0.259 0.029 0.042
After High School -0.106*** 0.026 0.017
Male 0.234*** 0.021 0.039
Age 0.005*** 0.001 0.072
Employed 0.007 0.027 0.001
Born in the U.S. 0.197*** 0.051 0.031
Cut 1 2.983 0.094
Cut 2 3.864 0.095
Cut 3 4.311 0.097
* p < .10; ** p < .05; *** p < .01
N = 15,246; Log Likelihood = -12070.722; LR chi2(11) = 2023.80; Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
** Married not included because not a question in the survey
Source: 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey
171
Appendix D
Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes of Preference of Government or
Private Health Insurance (2004 American National Election Study).
Chapter 4. [Table 4.6]

Table 4.6: Ordered Probit Model of White Attitudes of Preference of Government or
Private Health Insurance (2004 American National Election Study)

Independent Variables Coefficients Standard Error
Immigration Variables
Illegal Immigration 0.141** 0.072
Attitudes Towards Government
Limited Government 0.427*** 0.051
Ideology 0.459*** 0.064
Control Variables
Income 0.047*** 0.013
Less Than High School -0.128 0.249
High School -0.172 0.150
After High School -0.026 0.144
Male 0.035 0.115
Age 0.010*** 0.004
Employed 0.090 0.138
Married -0.011 0.124
Parents Born in the U.S. 0.115 0.178
Constant -0.094 0.402
* p < .10; ** p < .05; *** p < .01
N = 840; F(12, 827) = 21.55; Prob > F = 0.0000; R-squared = .2382; Adjusted R-squared = .2272
Source: American National Election Study 2004
172
Appendix E
2004 American National Election Study (ANES) Codes. Chapter 4.

Importance of Government Provided Insurance
1=Extremely important
2=very important
3=Somewhat important
4=Not too important
5=Not at all important
Else=system missing

Private/Government Insurance
1=1
2=2
3=3
4=4
5=5
6=6
7=7
Else=system missing

Employed
1=Employed
0=else

Married
1=married
0=else

Parents Born in the U.S.
1=yes born in the U.S.
0=else

Male
Male=1
Else=0

173
Less Than High School
1=none, 8 grades or less, 9-11 grades
0=otherwise

High School
1=high school diploma, equivalency degree
0=otherwise

After High School
1=more than 12 years of schooling, no higher degree; junior or community college
level degrees

College Grad/After College(excluded category)
1=BA degree, advance degree
0=otherwise

Illegal Immigration Thermometer
1=warm
2=neutral
3=cold

Ideology
0=liberal
1=moderate
2=conservative
Else=system missing

Limited Government Services
1=more services
7=fewer services

Age
18-89 years
174
Income
01. None or less than $2,999
02. $3,000 -$4,999
03. $5,000 -$6,999
04. $7,000 -$8,999
05. $9,000 -$10,999
06. $11,000-$12,999
07. $13,000-$14,999
08. $15,000-$16,999
09. $17,000-$19,999
10. $20,000-$21,999
11. $22,000-$24,999
12. $25,000-$29,999
13. $30,000-$34,999
14. $35,000-$39,999
15. $40,000-$44,999
16. $45,000-$49,999
17. $50,000-$59,999
18. $60,000-$69,999
19. $70,000-$79,999
20. $80,000-$89,999
21. $90,000-$104,999
22. $105,000-$119,000
23. $120,000 and over
175
Appendix F
2004 National Annenberg Election Survey. Chapter 4.

Male
1=male
0=else

Less than High School
1=grade 8 or lower, some high school, no diploma
0=else

High school
1=hs diploma or equivalent
0=else

After High school
1=technical or vocation school after highschool, some college, no degree; and
associate’s or 2 year college degree.
0=else

College degree/after college (excluded category)
1=4 year college degree, graduate or professional school no degree, graduate or
professional degree
0=else

Age
18-97 years

Employed
1=working full/part time
0=else
176
Government Spending on Health Insurance
1= More
2 =Same
3 =Less
4= None

Favor Restricting Immigration
Restricting immigration to the
United States—should the federal
government do more about it, do the same as
now, do less about it, or do nothing at all?
1=nothing
2=less
3=same
4=more
Else=system missing

Ideology
1=liberal
2=moderate
3=conservative

Favor Reducing Taxes
The federal government reducing
federal taxes—do you favor or oppose the
federal government doing this?
If favor/oppose: Do you strongly
(favor/oppose) or somewhat (favor/oppose)
the federal government doing this?
1=strongly oppose
2=somewhat oppose
3=neither favor nor oppose (neutral)
4=somewhat favor
5=strongly favor

Born in U.S.
1=Born in U.S.
0=Else

177
Income
1= Less than $10,000
2 =$10,000−$15,000
3 =$15,000−$25,000
4 =$25,000−$35,000
5 =$35,000−$50,000
6 =$50,000−$75,000
7 =$75,000−$100,000
8 =$100,000−$150,000
9 =More than $150,000

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Asset Metadata

Creator Medeiros, Jillian (author)

Core Title Health care for all? Anti-Latino and anti-immigrant attitudes, health care policy, and the Latino community

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Politics

Publication Date 08/04/2009

Defense Date 06/18/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag health care,health disparities,Latino politics,OAI-PMH Harvest,race and ethnicity

Place Name USA (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Wong, Janelle S. (committee chair), Crigler, Ann N. (committee member), Musso, Juliet A. (committee member), Ramirez, Ricardo (committee member)

Creator Email jamedeir@usc.edu,jillucsd@hotmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2473

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Document Type Dissertation

Rights Medeiros, Jillian

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Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu