The Cuban-American community has traditionally been studied as an immigrant population. Only a little more than one of every four Cuban Americans was born in the United States, underscoring the fact that this is a relatively new ethnic group. Still, it is clear that a large second generation (the first to be born in the U.S.) Cuban-American population is beginning to emerge in the United States. In 1980 almost four out of five Cubans were foreign born; by 1990 this percentage had declined to almost three out of four (Boswell, 1994: 18).
The emergence of a significant native born Cuban-American population raises a series of questions on whether the Cuban community can maintain its ideological coherence for a second generation. Cuban-American politics has been characterized by a remarkable level of political cohesiveness. The clearly articulated goal of the Cuban community in the United States is the overthrown of Fidel Castro regime and the establishment of a democratic government in Cuba. Cuban-Americans oppose by a three-to-one margin the establishing of diplomatic relations with their homeland. Anti-Communism and anti-Castroism are a "given" in the Miami Cuban community (Perez, 1985:95). Cuban-Americans= anti-communism is an important factor in explaining their alliance with the Republican Party. During the last four presidential elections (1980, 1984, 1988, 1992) South Florida's Cubans gave the Republican candidate over 70 percent of the vote (Moreno & Warren, 1992; Moreno & Warren, forthcoming).
This study uses data from the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS) to investigate whether their are any major differences between the political attitudes of first and second generation Cubans. We expect to find significant cleavages in attitudes between first and second generation Cubans, particularly in partisanship, ideology, and matters relating to Cuba itself. In general, we hypothesize that second-generation Cubans will more closely resemble the general political profile of the general U.S. population (non-Latin whites) than older first generation Cubans. Specifically we expect younger Cuban-Americans who did not experience the triple traumas of the Cuban Revolution, an often treacherous journey across the Straits of Florida, and exile in the United States to have significantly different political attitudes than their parents= generation. This paper hopes to shed light on the political future of the Cuban American community by investigating patterns of political socialization and attitudes toward Cuba and the Cuban American community by second generations Cubans.
A Brief Profile of the Second Generation Population
Second generation Cuban-Americans have not only had different life experiences than older Cubans but they also enjoy a relatively higher standard of living. There are significant differences in the aggregate between first and second generations Cubans in terms of wealth, education, and ethnic identity. Not surprisingly second-generation Cubans are richer, better educated, and identify more closely with the United States than older generations. The distinction between first and second generation Cubans is demonstrated in educational attainment levels. While, the Cuban-American population as a whole has an educational level similar to other Hispanic groups living in the United States, second generation Cubans do as well or better than Anglos. Overall, Cuban-Americans have higher average educational attainment levels than Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Central Americans, and Dominicans, but lower than South Americans and other Hispanic groups living in the United States. Cubans also have lower educational levels than the total U.S. population. About 46 percent of Cuban-Americans 25 years of age and older did not have at least a high school diploma; at the same time almost 16 percent had a Bachelor's Degree, or higher, from a four year college.
However, once we control for first generation effects of immigration, the aggregate Census data shows that Cubans do much better than any other "Hispanic" group and in fact are more educated than native born Anglos. In the native born category, 56.9 percent of Cuban-Americans as opposed to 54.6 percent of Anglos were high school graduates or held GED's, while an additional 26.1 percent of Cuban-Americans as opposed to 20.6 percent Anglos were educated beyond the high school level. (Issarcharoff, 1994: 23) Thus, the data of educational attainment among Cuban-Americans shows a remarkable level of polarization between generations. Lisandro Perez, who first noticed this phenomenon in 1985, explained it by stating:
On the one hand, the traditional socioeconomic selectivity of the migration from Socialist Cuba, combined with the high proportion of young Cubans who have attended and are attending universities in this country, has produced a fairly high proportion of college graduates. On the other hand, a population with a high proportion of elderly persons (especially if they are migrants from a developing country) can be expected to have many persons who did not attend school beyond the elementary grades. (Perez, 1984: 2)
The same pattern of polarization between first and second generation Cubans exists in regards to income. Despite the myth of the "Golden Cuban" (i.e., that all Cubans are wealthy) overall income for Cuban-Americans points to a somewhat modest standard of living; Cuban per-capita income in 1989 was $13,787 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990). Overall, Cuban-Americans fared better in terms of income than other Hispanic groups, but they still lagged substantially behind Anglos. Moreover, according to the 1990 census about 15 percent of the Cuban-American population lived below the poverty level, compared to only nine percent of non-Hispanic Whites.
The disparity in income levels between Anglos and Cuban-Americans evaporates when figures are adjusted to include only post-first generation Cubans. The Census data show that 55.1% of U.S. born Cuban-Americans as opposed to 44.1% native born Anglos had household incomes above $30,000, including a striking 36.9% of Cuban-Americans as opposed to 18.1% of Anglos who had household incomes above $50,000. At the other extreme, only 3.8% of U.S. born Cuban-Americans as opposed to 4.8% of native born Anglos had per capita incomes below $2,500.
The successful incorporation of native born Cuban Americans into American economic life has contributed to their "Americanization." Not surprisingly, second generation Cubans identified themselves as "American" more strongly than their parents= or grandparents= generations. While, only 10.5% of first generation Cubans identified themselves as "American" almost 40% of second generation Cubans self-identified themselves as "American." Similarly, while almost all first generation Cubans identified themselves as Cubans (92.7%), a significantly smaller number -- 70.9% -- of those in the second generation identified themselves with their parent's homeland (de la Garza, et. al., 1992: 38).
Second generation Cubans were also more likely to use pan-ethnic identification than first generation Cubans. Nearly 27.7% of second generation Cubans as compared to 5.8% of first generation Cubans identified themselves as AHispanic@ in the LNPS. The term ALatino@ was used by 17.1% of foreign-born Cubans and 18.9% of those born in the United States. However, it should be noted that the second-most-common form of identification for native-born Cuban respondents was AAmerican.@
Not surprisingly, second generation Cuban-Americans use significantly less Spanish than their parents= generation. While, 88.5% of foreign-born Cubans used Spanish as their principle language only 36.9% of U.S. born Cubans used it. Younger Cubans are far more likely to use both languages -- 37.6% compared to 9.7% for their older counterparts. Moreover, over a quarter of second generation Cubans use English as their principle language. In contrast, only 2.1% of foreign born Cubans are primary English speakers.
Despite their relatively high social-economic status, English usage, and their eagerness to identify as "American," second generation Cuban-Americans claim higher levels of discrimination against their ethnic group than their older counterparts in the LNPS. Nearly a quarter (24.2%) of native-born Cuban Americans as compared to 11.3% of foreign-born Cubans report that they have suffered incidents of ethnic discrimination. Moreover, while only 26.9% of first generation Cubans believe there is discrimination against Cubans, over half of American-born Cubans believe their is "some" or "a lot" of discrimination. At the other extreme, 58.9% of foreign born Cubans hold there is no discrimination against Cubans as compared to only 23.5% of second generation Cubans. Older Cubans tend to have a far more positive image of ethnic justice in the United States; 41.3% believe there is no discrimination against Mexican-Americans and 38% believe that African-Americans do not suffer from discrimination. In sharp contrast the overwhelming number of second generation Cubans believe that these groups suffer at least some discrimination (85.9 and 87.2 percent respectively.)
The social profile of second generation Cubans describes a population which is losing some of its "special" characteristics. The new generation of Cuban-Americans is not only more successful than their parents= generation but more American and "pan-ethnic." Simultaneously, it is showing evidence of becoming more mainstream and more Latino (in terms of identifying with other U.S. Hispanics). However, it should be noted, that a majority of second generation Cuban-Americans still use Spanish in the home and perhaps logically would identify more with Cuba than the United States.
Data and Methods
The data for this paper are taken from the Latino National Political Study (LNPS), which was fielded in late 1989. This study is significant in that it is the first of its kind to intentionally target Latinos in the United States for their political attitudes across a wide range of issues. For our purposes of studying the differences in political attitudes amongst various groups of Cuban-Americans, the study yields both a quantity of data and a range of pertinent survey items previously unavailable on this scale. We subsampled all persons who are identified by national origin by the LNPS screening variable as ACuban.@ Accordingly, the subsample used in this paper is 681 cases(1).
Immigration status explanatory variables
Two explanatory variables were constructed for our purposes of dividing the sample into groups which reflect the respondents= length of residency in the United States and their immigration status. The first in an ordinal, three category Aimmigration status@ variable which divides the sample as follows:
1. people who immigrated to the United States when they were more than 10 years old (77.6% of the sample, N = 528);
2. people who were 10 years of age or younger when they immigrated to the United States (12% of the sample, N = 82);
3. people who were born in the United States (10.4% of the sample, N = 71).
Admittedly, dividing the sample at the 10 year old age point is somewhat arbitrary. The political psychology literature usually either divides generational political attitudes at either 12-13 years old (the age at which people Acome of political age@), or at 18 years old (the age at which one legally becomes an adult). We chose the 10 year old cut-off point since it seems reasonable that people who were 10 or younger have few significant direct memories of politics in Cuba under Fidel Castro, or of the journey to the United States. We also ran the following analyses using the age cut-off at 18 years old, and there were no substantive differences obtained in the results.(2) Further, some may be bothered by what at first blush may seem relatively small subsample sizes for the group which immigrated at age 10 or less (82) and the group of U.S. born Cuban-Americans (71). Of course statistically these are both large subsamples, if one uses the criteria that an N in excess of 30 constitutes a Alarge@ sample (Agresti, 1990).
A more critical error would be that the within-group errors in the subsamples have wildly differing variances. Such a situation would pose an interpretation problem for any analysis of variance using this immigration status measure as an independent variable. Since we use oneway ANOVA in several of our tables to follow, we cite the Levene=s Test of Homogeneity of Variance in the text of this paper where appropriate, to make sure our bivariate analyses are honestly interepretable. Further, such unequal variances in subsamples would also pose a problem in bivariate tabular analysis which use measures of association that are overly-sensitive to such distributions. Since Lambda is a nominal measure of association that can be strongly affected by unequal variances across categories, we avoid its use in our tabular analysis, instead using the much more robust Cramer=s V, while unfortunately sacrificing the P-R-E interpretation a measure like Lambda would provide.
The second of our two operationalizations of this explanatory variable specifically avoids the problem of arbitrariness. This variable, percent of life spent in the United States, simply divides a respondent=s age at immigration by his or her reported age. Axiomatically, the value of this variable will be 1 for U.S. born respondents. This operationalization further allows for a better interpretation of the regression coefficients to follow than would the three-point categorical coding, since this variable has an interval level measurement. At any rate, the three category ordinal variable on immigration status and the interval level variable percentage of life spent in the United States correlate at r = .81, and is of course statistically significant.
Dependent variables
Clearly, one could choose literally dozens of interesting politically-oriented dependent variables for this study, owing to the richness of the LNPS. Indeed, in the profile given above, one gets a hint of the amount of data available in the LNPS. Since we are analyzing differences amongst Cuban-Americans by their immigration/length of residency status, two logical groups of dependent variables stand out. Our first group of dependent variables are all concerned with some aspect of political socialization. When one is investigating ethnic groups and attempting to explain the political behavior of those groups based on how much of their lives they have spent in the United States, differences in political socialization are surely important. Second, and specific to the situation of Cuban-Americans, one would be very interested in differences in attitudes toward Cuba and Cuban-Americans themselves by the amount of one=s life one has spent in the United States. Accordingly, we conduct bivariate and multivariate analyses of seven of these variables in the following section: political activity, political knowledge, attitudes toward increased government spending, trust in the national government, partisanship, one=s feelings of closeness to Cuban-Americans, and respondents= attitudes toward re-establishing relations between the United States and Cuba. The first three of these variables (activity, knowledge, and attitudes toward increased government spending) are scales constructed from the LNPS data. Full details of coding are in the appendix.
If one establishes that there are statistically and substantively significant differences between different groups of Cuban-Americans on these important dependent variables, the next step is to discover whether or not these differences hold up when other important explanatory factors of socialization are measured. Thus, in the multivariate analyses to follow, we include the following control variables: formal education in years, level of political interest, yearly family income, age in years, whether or not the respondent is a citizen, and political ideology (coded liberal-moderate-conservative). We also include a measure of self-described partisanship in all the models except, of course, for the model in which partisanship is the dependent variable! These are logical explanatory factors of political attitudes and socialization with a long history of use in studies of national survey samples. If the relationships between our dependent variables and immigration/length of residency status are still significant even when the above are measured, then we will obviously be more confident of the true political differences between these groups of Cuban-Americans.
Findings
Since we are interested both in the bivariate relationships between the above dependent variables and immigration/length of residency status, and whether or not these relationships remain significant when other explanatory variables are added, we present our results below in two-part tables. Each table is devoted to explaining one of our socialization and political attitude variables. The top part of each table presents the bivariate relationships, while the bottom part shows our multivariate analyses. We of course in the bivariate tables use whatever method is appropriate for our level of measurement on the dependent variable: either contingency tables with the appropriate measures of significance and association, or one-way analysis of variance, when the dependent variable is measured at the interval level. With one exception, our multivariate analyses are OLS regressions, with unstandardized regression coefficients and standard deviations shown. Since the variable for one=s attitude on diplomatic relations with Cuba was operationalized in a dichotomous fashion, we use logistic regression in that one case.
Table One presents data on the relationship between immigration status/length of residency and a zero to seven scale of political activity, the operationalization of which is presented in the Appendix. As can be seen from the top part of Table One, there is a significant bivariate difference between our three groups of Cuban-Americans, with people who immigrated at the age of 10 or less and U.S. born Cuban-Americans engaging in a significantly higher level of political activity than their (far more numerous) counterparts who arrived in the United States after they were 10 years old. It must be pointed out, however, that none of these three groups is overwhelmingly politically active, since the entire sample engages in an average of .46 political activities out of a possible seven. Further, the variances are unequal, with those for the young immigrants and U.S. born Cubans being significantly higher than those for the much larger group of older immigrants (Levene=s F=30.38; p<.001). So, that there still remain significant differences between these three groups in levels of political activity is all the more striking given the fact that their unequal distributions make statistical significance in differences all the more difficult to obtain.
The multivariate model also presented in Table One indicates that this difference in levels of political activity by length of U.S. residency also remains significant even in the presence of other explanatory variables. Specifically, while family income and political interest positively covary with increasing levels of political activity, the relationship between the respondents= percentage of life spent in the United States and increasing levels of political activity remains significant. Reading the appropriate regression coefficient, one who spent 100% of his or her life in the United States would engage in .84 more political activities (out of seven) than a person who had spent close to none of his or her life in this country, holding all other variables constant. Therefore, the relationship between increasing levels of political activity and increasing percentage of life spent in the United States remains significant. At an intuitive level, this of course makes sense; however, it is important to also realize that whether or not one is a citizen has no significant bearing on one=s level of political activity. Thus, the influence of the percentage of one=s life spent in the United States on one=s level of political activity is independent of one=s citizenship status, and may represent higher levels of socialization into American political life on the part of U.S. born Cubans and people who were relatively young when they immigrated.
Table Two similarly presents data on the relationship between immigration status/length of residency and one=s level of political knowledge. Here, the dependent variable is a zero to four scale assessing the number of correct answers to four political identification questions: which party controls the most seats in the House of Representatives (asked in 1989), and what jobs do Dan Quayle, William Rehnquist, and Xavier Suarez hold. Interestingly, there is no significant difference in levels of political knowledge between our three groups of Cuban-Americans, with the grand mean of correct answers being 1.84. Of course the multivariate analysis in Table Two also indicates that percentage of lifetime spent in the U.S. likewise has no independent influence on levels of political knowledge in a multivariate test. As one might expect, increasing levels of political knowledge are predicted by increasing levels of education, political interest, income, and age; citizens also have a significantly higher level of political knowledge than non-citizens. When taken in tandem with the results from Table One, it is quite interesting that while there is no significant relationship between political knowledge and one=s percentage of life spent in the United States, there remains a significant influence of length of residency status on one=s level of political activity.
Attitudes toward increased government spending are the subject of Table Three. Here the dependent variable is a zero to ten scale of attitudes on increased government spending on ten items (the operationalization of this scale is presented in our Appendix). Thus, a score of 5 means that the respondent wants to see the government increase its spending on five of the ten items, even if it means increased taxes. As can be seen in the first part of Table Three, there are statistically significant, though seemingly trivial, differences in attitudes on increased government spending between the three length of residency groups, with U.S. born Cuban-Americans being the group least supportive of raising government spending in general. Still, the differences between U.S. born respondents and their counterparts who immigrated to the United States after the age of 10 are almost one full point on this scale.
The bottom half of Table Three presents a multiple regression model, with this government spending scale as the dependent variable. Here, percentage of life spent in the United States retains it statistically significant inverse relationship with attitudes toward spending, though political interest positively covaries with a propensity to support higher government spending, while income and age are significant predictors of decreasing support for higher government spending. Still, our key immigration status/length of residency variable retains its independent explanatory power, though at an admittedly rather low level of substantive significance.
Table Four contains a particularly striking example of the important political differences between Cuban-Americans based on the point in their lives when they came to the United States (or the fact that they were born in this country). Here, trust in government(3) is the dependent variable for bivariate and multivariate analysis. Much has been written in the public opinion literature about citizen efficacy in politics and on trust in the federal government to Ado what is right.@ In fact, this particular survey item has been in the major American opinion literature since at least the 1950's. As can be seen from the contingency table here, those Cuban-Americans who immigrated when they were more than ten years old hold positive trusting attitudes toward the government far out of proportion to those of either people who immigrated at the age of ten or less, or of U.S. born Cuban-Americans. Indeed, in light of the trends of the past 20 years for people to report less and less trust in government, the fact that 36 percent of people who were older than 10 when they immigrated say that they Aalways@ trust the government is quite striking. Similarly, there seems little substantive difference between the other two residency groups on this variable.
Paradoxically, the multivariate results also presented in Table Four indicate that this significant relationship between length of residency and distrust of government disappears when other explanatory variables are added. Here we see that citizens trust government less than non-citizens; that higher levels of political interest lead to lower levels of distrust; and that higher levels of income positively covary with distrust of government. These apparently anomalous results are, of course, why the careful researcher adds the control variables that a multivariate analysis allows, to access the truly independent effects of our length of residency variable on our dependent variables of interest.
Partisanship is the subject of Table Five. Here we present the breakdown of party identification by length of residency status, as well as performing a multiple regression analysis with partisanship(4) as the dependent variable. As seen in the first part of Table Five, there are significant differences between our three groups on party preference. Specifically, there is a decline of Republican identification as one moves from people who immigrated when older than age 10 (75.7%), to respondents who immigrated at the age of 10 or less (61.3%), to finally U.S. born Cuban-Americans (48.5%). There is also a concomitant rise in Democratic identification. At a crude level of analysis, one observes that the three-part Democrat-Independent-Republican breakdown for U.S. born Cuban-Americans approaches the Anormal@ percentages found in the public at large (though the number of Independents, interestingly, is rather low across all three groups). Still, in the aggregate, one is struck by the overwhelming support of Cuban-Americans for the Republican Party (70.9% for the full sample).
Further, this relationship between percentage of life spent in the United States and partisanship remains significant when other independent variables are introduced. As shown in the bottom of Table Five, as one=s percentage of life spent in the United States increases, one=s propensity to support the Republican Party decreases. Most importantly, this relationship holds up even when controlling for ideology and the other control variables. In fact, if one examines the standardized regression coefficients (which are not presented in any of these tables), percentage of life spent in the United States is the strongest predictor of partisanship (beta = -.238), even stronger than ideology (beta = .154). Surely this is strong evidence that percentage of life spent in the United States is an important agent of political socialization amongst Cuban-Americans.
The final two tables address issues which directly pertain to Cuba and Cuban-Americans. Table Six presents data on respondents= feelings of closeness to Cuban-Americans in general. Here, the dependent variable is the classic 0-100 Afeeling thermometer,@ with a response of zero meaning total Acoldness@ to Cuban-Americans, 50 meaning neutrality, and 100 meaning total Awarmth.@ Of course the variable can take on any whole number value within the 101 point interval. Understandably, all three length of residency groups exhibit relatively high Awarmth@ toward Cuban-Americans. The group of respondents who immigrated from Cuba after they were 10 years old has the highest Awarmth@ (87.1), while U.S. born Cubans have the Acoldest@ reading of the three groups (76.71). With a Tukey=s HSD test of the differences of means, both U.S. born respondents and those who immigrated at the age of 10 or less score significantly Acolder@ on this scale than does the group who came to the United States after the age of ten, though the former two groups are statistically indistinguishable from each other. There is, then, a measurable difference in attitudes toward the Cuban-American community by length of residency in this sample.
The multivariate analysis is even more illuminating. As percentage of life spent in the United States increases, feelings of Awarmth@ toward Cuban-Americans decreases. Interpreting the regression coefficient directly, a person who has spent 100 percent of his or her life in the United States has a feeling thermometer score 11.1 points lower toward Cuban-Americans than does the (hypothetical) respondent who has spent zero percent of his or her life in this country. Further, as one=s support for the Republican party increases, one=s feeling thermometer score for Cuban-Americans increases(5). Also, as political interest increases, feelings of warmth toward Cuban-Americans increases. Again, if one refers to the standardized regression coefficients (not reported in the tables), percentage of life spent in the United States is the most important predictor of the Cuban-American feeling thermometer score. Once again, this multivariate model is powerful evidence of the socializing effect of spending more and more of one=s life in the United States -- integration into the larger polity and culture, even to the erosion of one=s own ethnic identity.
Finally, Table Seven presents a contingency table and a logistic regression model of attitudes on establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and Fidel Castro=s regime. While 73.4% of the entire sample opposes diplomatic ties with Cuba, there are observable differences between our three length of residency groups. Not surprisingly, the people who immigrated to the United States at the age of 11 years and higher are the group most opposed to establishing ties with the island (76.6%). The results for the other two groups are less clear, however. The group least opposed to American-Cuban relations are those immigrants who arrived in the United States at the age of ten or less (58.9% oppose relations); U.S. born respondents are more opposed to normalization (63.9%) than their counterparts who were born in Cuba but immigrated at a young age.
So, it would not be unexpected if when other control independent variables are added to the model, the explanatory power of length of U.S. residency were less than overpowering, given the nonlinear relationship between these two variables. Indeed, this is the case, though the lack of significance is quite dramatic. The logistic regression coefficients presented in the bottom part of Table Seven indicate that not only is percentage of time spent in the United States not a powerful predictor of attitudes toward diplomatic relations with Castro; it is not significant at all. In fact, the Wald Statistic which tests the significance of logistic regression coefficients is 0.0010, about at low as one could imagine! Using dummy variables for the three Cuban-American groups in place of our interval level percent of time spent in the U.S. variable does not help. The model indicates that party identification and age are the only significant predictors of attitudes toward diplomatic relations with Cuba. Understandably, as age increases, the probability that a respondent will object to normalization of relations increases. Further, as support for the Republican Party increases, the probability of supporting recognition of the Castro regime decreases(6).
Conclusion
This paper set out to reject the null hypothesis that there were no significant political differences between Cubans based on their length of residency in the United States. Our results clearly demonstrate that there are important, and at times dramatic differences in the political attitudes of different generational cohorts of Cuban-Americans. The survey found some significant differences among Cuban-American generations with regard to party identification, but almost none regarding U.S. Cuban policy. The political socialization variables did hint that Cuban-Americans were moving toward attitudes more in keeping with the general U.S. population, though of course this was not directly tested here, since we used no comparable survey data for the United States public at large. This would of course be a fruitful avenue for future research, perhaps taking aggregate results from the 1990 Americsn National Election Study and comparing them to these data from the LNPS.
The most dramatic political difference between our three groups was party preference. A strong correlation exists between length of residency and party identification; specifically, there is a decline of Republican identification as one moves from people who immigrated when older than age 10, to respondents who immigrated at the age of 10 or less, to finally U.S. born Cuban-Americans. However, the results from U.S. born Cubans may be affected by a significant number of "Tampa Cubans" who are not only U.S. born but traditionally Democratic. Moreover, these results must be read in the context of overwhelming support among Cuban-Americans for the Republican in the aggregate. Ironically the survey found that U.S. born Cubans and respondents who immigrated at the age of 10 or less are more likely to support the GOP's position on cutting government spending than older Cubans.
In sharp contrast to many journalistic interpretations of Cuban-American attitudes, this paper found little evidence of independent cleavages between generations on establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and Fidel Castro's regime. In fact, the lack of significance was quite dramatic, an example of how a null finding can be politically significant.
However, the survey did find some evidence that younger Cuban-Americans were becoming "socialized" into mainstream U.S. politics. U.S. born Cubans and those who immigrated at the age of 10 or less are far more politically active and a little more knowledgeable than their parents. Moreover, younger Cubans are developing (like most other U.S. citizens) a cynical view of U.S. politics; a strong correlation was found between length of residency and distrust of the U.S. government.The results of this paper hint at the possibility that Cuban-American politics is becoming less monolithic. The political cohesiveness which characterized the first generation of exile politics may be giving way to more diversity. As the inexorable march of time and the inevitable toll it takes on human mortality continues, one would logically expect Cuban-American attitudes in the aggegate to mirror those attitudes seen in the younger generations of this analysis.
Notes
References
Agresti, Alan. 1990. Statistical Methods in the Social Sciences.
Boswell, Thomas D.. A Demographic Profile of Cuban Americans. Miami: Cuban American National Planning Council, 1994.
De la Garza, Rudolfo, Louis DeSipio, F. Chris Garcia, John Garcia, and Angelo Falcon. Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.
Issarcharoff, Samuel "Groups and the Rights to Vote," In Rodolfo O' de la Garzas and Louis DeSipio, Latinos in the 1988 Election, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992).
Moreno, Dario and Christopher Warren. "The Conservative Enclave: Cubans in Florida." In Rodolfo O' de la Garzas and Louis DeSipio, Latinos in the 1988 Election, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992).
Moreno, Dario and Christopher Warren. "The Cuban Community and the 1992 Presidential Election." Harvard Journal of Hispanic Politics, Vol 6, 1992-1993: 27-36.
Moreno, Dario and Christopher Warren. Cuban-American Politics. Book manuscript in progress. Forthcoming, 1997.
Perez, Lisandro. "Cuban Miami." In Guillermo Grenier and Alex Stepick (eds), Miami Now! Immigration, Ethnicity and Social Change (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992): 83-108.
Perez, Lisandro. "The Cuban Population of the United States: The Results of the 1980 U.S. Census of Population," Cuban Studies, Vol 15, No.2, Summer 1985, p. 1-18.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of the Population, Public Use Microdata Sample, 1990.
Appendix
The following are the components of the scales used in the above analysis, and which were not fully explained in the test of the paper.
A. Political Activity -- an additive scale having a range of zero to seven. Each component of the scale is coded zero if the respondent has never participated in this activity, and one if he or she has ever:
1. Signed a petition;
2. Written a letter or telephoned a public official;
3. Attended a public political meeting;
4. Worn a campaign button or displayed a bumper sticker for a campaign;
5. Attended meetings with candidate or public officials;
6. Worked for a party or candidate;
7. Contributed money to a campaign.
B. Support for Increased Government Spending -- an additive scale having a range of zero to ten. Each component of the scale is coded one if the respondent wants to see soending on the following government programs increased, even if it means rasing taxes (coding is zero otherwise):
1. Environment;
2. Public education;
3. Welfare;
4. Health care;
5. Science and technology;
6. Child care;
7. Legal immigrant and refugee programs;
8. Defense;
9. Crime prevention;
10. Programs to help blacks.
Table One
Political Activity by Length of U.S. Residency
Bivariate
Mean of Political Activity
Over 10 when immigrated0.31
10 years or younger when immigrated0.90
U.S. Born1.03
F = 23.65***
Multivariate
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant -.94**.37
Percentage of life spent in the United States .85***.22
Political interest .13***.04
Ideology -.04.06
Party identification -.03.06
Yearly income .06***.01
Education .01.01
Citizen? .06.11
Age .00.01
N = 548
R-Squared = .16
* = p<.05; ** = p<.01; *** = p<.001
Table Two
Political Knowledge by Length of U.S. Residency
Bivariate
Political Knowledge Mean
Over 10 when immigrated1.81
10 years or younger when immigrated1.99
U.S. Born1.96
F = 1.45 (N.S.)
Multivariate
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant-.37.32
Percentage of life spent in the United States-.06.19
Political interest .14***.04
Ideology .08.05
Party identification .06.05
Yearly income .05***.01
Education .06***.01
Citizen? .29**.10
Age .01** .002
N = 548
R-Squared = .20
* = p<.05; ** = p<.01; *** = p<.001
Table Three
Support for Increased Government Spending by Length of U.S. Residency
Bivariate
Increased Spending Mean
Over 10 when immigrated5.92
10 years or younger when immigrated5.77
U.S. Born5.10
F = 2.71*
Multivariate
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant 6.86***.97
Percentage of life spent in the United States-.98*.49
Political interest .40***.11
Ideology .09.15
Party identification-.16.15
Yearly income -.07*.03
Education .00.04
Citizen?-.37.30
Age -.02** .008
N = 548
R-Squared = .05
* = p<.05; ** = p<.01; *** = p<.001
Table Four
Distrust of Government by Length of U.S. Residency
Bivariate
Always Trust GovernmentNever Trust Government
Over 10 when immigrated36.0%4.2%
10 years or younger
when immigrated13.6%4.9%
U.S. Born10.0% 10.0%
Chi-Square (full table) = 34.95***; Cramer=s V = .16
Multivariate
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant 2.25***.30
Percentage of life spent
in the United States .23.18
Political interest -.06*.03
Ideology -.07.05
Party identification -.07.05
Yearly income .03*.01
Education .01.01
Citizen? .21*.09
Age .00.00
N = 548 R-Squared = .10Full bivariate table not presented; * = p <.05; *** = p<.001
Table Five
Party Identication by Length of U.S. Residency
Bivariate
Republican Independent Democrat
Over 10 when immigrated75.7% 9.3%15.0%
10 years or younger
when immigrated61.3% 12.0%26.7%
U.S. Born48.5% 12.1%39.4%
Chi-Square = 28.40***; Cramer=s V = .15
Multivariate
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant 2.43***.25
Percentage of life spent
in the United States -.70***.16
Political interest .05*.02
Ideology -.15***.04
Yearly income .01.01
Education .00.01
Citizen? .05.09
Age .00.00
N = 550
R-Squared .08 * = p <.05; *** = p<.001
Table Six
Cuban-American Feeling Thermomenter by Length of U.S. Residency
BivariateFeeling Thermometer Mean
Over 10 when immigrated87.10
10 years or younger when immigrated82.44
U.S. Born76.71
F 9.32***
Multivariate
Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant 72.29***7.03
Percentage of life spent
in the United States -11.12**4.30
Political interest 1.48* .73
Ideology -.391.07
Party identification 3.59**1.12
Yearly income .04 .26
Education .38 .26
Citizen? 1.682.23
Age -.01 .06
N = 518
R-Squared = .06 * = p <.05; ** = p<.01 *** = p<.001
Table Seven
Opposition to Re-establishing Relations with Cuba by Length of U.S. Residency
BivariateRe-Establish RelationsDo Not Re-establish
Over 10 when immigrated23.4%76.6%
10 years or younger when
immigrated41.1%58.9%
U.S. Born36.1%63.9%
Chi-square = 13.35***; Cramer=s V = .15
Multivariate
Logistic Regression CoefficientStandard Error
Constant -3.33***.88
Percentage of life spent
in the United States .02.53
Political interest -.03.10
Ideology .24.13
Party identification .62***.13
Yearly income .02.03
Education .06.03
Citizen? -.33.29
Age .04*** .008
N = 525
Model Chi-Square = 63.18*** * = p <.05; ** = p<.01 *** = p<.001
Return to Table of Contents
Last Updated January 29, 1998 by Dario Moreno
1. 1. The sampled areas that contain large populations of Cuban-Americans in this study are: Dade and Broward Counties in South Florida, the Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area of west-central Florida, New York, and New Jersey. However, since our primary explanatory variable is the length of the respondent=s residency in the United States, the design and current state of the publicly released data leaves us with no way of directly determining the residential location of our Cuban-American subsample. Because the Tampa area has a relatively large number of U.S. born Cuban-Americans whose families have resided in Florida since the late nineteenth century, our design accompanied by the current data in unable to distinguish between this group of ATampa Cubans@ and Cuban-Americans born in especially Dade or Broward Counties since the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
2. 2. Since the presentation of these data would necessitate a doubling of the table presented here, they are not included. However, such tables are available from the authors on the World Wide Web at http://www.fiu.edu/~khill/papers/cuba/alt-tab.
3. 3.Actually, the coding of this variable is such that higher values on the variable indicate higher levels of distrust, so that it is more convenient to call this variable Adistrust of government.@
4. 4.For the multiple regression analysis, we employ a 5 category measure of partisan identification (Astrong Democrat, weak Democrat, Independent, weak Republican, strong Republican).
5. 5.Whether or not cause and effect may in fact be reversed here is beyond the scope of this paper: does being a Republican cause one to feel closer to Cuban-Americans, or vice-versa?
6. 6.Again, one could argue that cause and effect may in fact be logically reversed here, but the point remains that the relationship between Party ID and attitudes toward diplomatic ties in an understandably significant one.