Conclusion

The concluding chapter offers a review of the main arguments and findings of the book and situates them in the broader literatures on women of color in politics, immigrant incorporation, and descriptive representation. Immigrant communities’ recent and possible future roles in reshaping American electoral processes are also discussed. The chapter specifically details how the intersectional model of electoral opportunity can offer more expansive accounts of the forces shaping descriptive representation, due to its embrace of multidimensional and multilevel analyses. This includes a discussion of how the representation of other marginalized groups that are not centrally featured in the book, such as LGBTQ communities, working-class and low-income communities, and white women, can be studied in future research using the intersectional model’s approach. The chapter closes by looking forward to upcoming redistricting processes and reforms that may address the structural challenges to equitable electoral opportunities and representation raised in the book.

Not a Country or a Stereotype: Latina LDS Experiences of Ethnic Homogenization and Racial Tokenism in the American West

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also called Mormonism, has experienced rapid changes in its US demographics due to an influx of Latinx membership. The most recent growth in the US church body has been within Spanish-speaking congregations, and many of these congregant members are first or 1.5-generation immigrant Latinas. Using ethnographic data from 27 interviews with immigrant members living in Utah, Nevada, and California, LDS Latinas reported that while US Anglo members did seem to appreciate certain aspects of their cultural customs or practices, they also reported frequently experiencing ethnic homogenization or racial tokenization within US Church spaces and with White family members. Our findings indicate that the contemporary LDS church, despite some progressive policy implementations within its doctrinal parameters, still struggles in its ever-globalizing state to prioritize exposing White US members to the cultural heterogeneity of non-White, global LDS identities and perspectives. Latina LDS experiences and their religious adjacency to Whiteness provide a useful lens by which researchers can better understand the ways in which ethnic identity, gender, legal status, and language create both opportunities and challenges for immigrant incorporation and inclusion within US religious spaces and add to the existing body of scholarship on migration and religion.

The Contradictions of Liminal Legality: Economic Attainment and Civic Engagement of Central American Immigrants on Temporary Protected Status

This study examines how Temporary Protected Status (TPS) may shape immigrants’ integration trajectories. Building on core themes identified in the immigrant incorporation scholarship, it investigates whether associations of educational attainment with labor market outcomes and with civic participation, which are well established in the general population, hold for immigrants who live in the “liminal legality” of TPS. Conducted in 2016 in five U.S. metropolitan areas, the study is based on a unique survey of Salvadoran and Honduran TPS holders, the majority of immigrants on this status. The analyses find that TPS holders with higher levels of educational attainment do not derive commensurate significant occupational or earnings premiums from their education. In contrast, the analysis of the relationship between educational attainment and civic engagement detects a positive association: more educated TPS holders are more likely to be members of community organizations and to participate in voluntary community service, compared to their less educated counterparts. These findings illustrate the contradictions inherent to TPS as it may hinder certain aspects of immigrant integration but not others. This examination contributes to our understanding of the implications of immigrants’ legal statuses and of immigration law and policy for key aspects of immigrant integration trajectories.