ABSTRACT
Party identification has long been considered a key marker of political incorporation. Yet, there remains substantial room in extant scholarship for a compelling portrait of how and when members of immigrant groups decide to affiliate with either of the two dominant political parties in the U.S., versus remaining non-partisan. Using the case of Vietnamese Americans and multivariate regression analyses of the 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS), this paper advances the “immigrant cohort hypothesis.” We investigate patterns of party identification across immigrant cohorts – defined in our paper as Wave 1 (1975–1979), Wave 2 (1980–1994), and Wave 3 (1995–2008). These cohorts are defined not only by their characteristics or the circumstances of their departures but also by the contexts of their arrival. Findings from our cohort analysis indeed highlight that an important moment for political imprinting processes takes place among Vietnamese immigrant cohorts at the times of exit and reception. We suggest that quantitative studies of political integration would benefit from formal incorporation of the historical contexts inhering to each group’s arrival.
