Religion and the Political Engagement of Latino Immigrants: Bridging Capital or Segmented Religious Assimilation?

Abstract

This paper uses the Latino Immigrant National Election Study (LINES) to better understand the relationship between religion and immigrant political and civic engagement. Over the last half century, both American religion and the immigration landscape have changed in important ways. The LINES, which includes a number of religious questions from the American National Election Study and a rare focus on Latino newcomers, provides the opportunity to better understand the contemporary relationship between the two. We find that measures of religious belongings, beliefs, and behaviors (the Three Bs) are not generally associated with the civic and political engagements of Latino immigrants. We posit that such null results may be explained by the varying religious experiences of immigrants—some developing bridging social capital through religious institutions, but others experiencing what might be called segmented religious assimilation.

Keywords

• migration
• immigrants
• religion and politics
• segmented assimilation
• social capital
• Latino politics