Why Americans Don't Vote

17 Pages 4244 Words

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activism, argued, “My children attend the public schools, so I should have a say in choosing those people who oversee how the [sic] school system is run. Similarly, I have the responsibility to pay taxes, so why can’t I have the privilege of contributing to how those taxes are spent?” (McNaught, 1999.) Increasingly, we hear countless similar voices across the country.
It is undeniable that immigrants have re-emerged as pivotal players in American politics. The last three decades of mass migration have produced the largest immigrant population in the United States since the turn of the century. One in ten individuals is foreign born, the highest level since 1910 when over 14% were foreign-born. Moreover, most of the new arrivals have come from Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, changing the ethnic and racial composition of the U.S. population. Since 1965, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. has tripled. Nearly one in ten families in the U.S. currently is a “mixed” family, having one or more parent that is a non-citizen and one or more child that is a citizen (Fix and Zimmerman, 1999). The U.S. Census reports that several states and locales now have a majority minority population, led by Hispanics who have surpassed African Americans as the single largest “minority” group in the U.S.
These demographic changes hold significant political implications, especially in the states and metropolitan areas where immigrants are concentrated. Six states are home for the overwhelming majority of new immigrants—California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois and New Jersey (in that order)—and within these states they are concentrated in eight metropolitan regions: Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, Anaheim, Chicago, Washington D.C. Houston and San Francisco. These immigrant-receiving states play an important role in choosing representatives for Congress—affecting the apportionment of seats in the House of Repre...