Who belongs in America? Latinxs' skin tones, perceived discrimination, and opposition to multicultural policies.

OBJECTIVE

Consequences of colorism are well documented, yet little is known about its relationship with political views of racial/ethnic minorities. Although a very small literature found no evidence that skin tone shapes political attitudes of Latinx Americans, the present study was the first to extend this to immigration and language policy preferences. Because support for public policies is an important mechanism through which inequality is either reduced or reproduced, this filled an important gap in the literature on colorism and political behavior.

METHOD

Using binary or ordered logistic regression, skin tone, perceived discrimination, and demographic characteristics were examined as predictors of Latinxs' policy preferences for U.S. border security and/or mandated use of English. Several probability samples were analyzed: one national sample ( = 430), as well as other national ( = 349, mean age 41), regional ( = 256, mean ages 36-40), and nationally representative samples ( = 8,065, mean ages 32-35).

RESULTS

Relative to their counterparts, the lightest-skinned Latinx women were more tolerant of restrictive policies-tighter border security and a preference for English as the only official language. Among Latinx men, medium-skinned subgroups reported the most unfavorable opinions about a U.S. border wall policy whereas lighter-skinned men were less opposed to this policy.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggested that skin tone biases may be tied to men's engagement on border security issues and women's support for language and border policies. Therefore, colorism may be implicated in important processes that shape American politics and Latinx public opinion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).