Racial Minorities

Immigration as a Leadership Issue

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act ended patent favoritism toward Europeans in immigration policy. Through the act, “family reunification” supplanted “country of origin” as the primary criteria for visa approval. Although regarded as a technicality by legislators in 1965, ultimately, this provision of the act would introduce a new term into the American political lexicon: chain migration. Defying intentions and expectations, the Immigration Act upended the ethnic balance that its sponsors had all intention of preserving (Graham 2002). In turn, immigration rates have climbed steadily over the past few decades. By 2000, the Census Bureau reported that immigrants constituted more than 10 percent of the American population; the highest proportion since 1930. Furthermore, one-half of the foreign-born population in 2000 came from Latin America and one-fourth came from Asia. As a result, the Latino population has increased by more than 50 percent since 1990 and the Asian population increased by at least 48 percent. Anything of this scope is bound to be interdisciplinary. Demographers give us a sense of the range of contemporary immigration; political scientists and sociologists explore the power dynamics involved in this transformation. Economists tend to focus on the ways in which this influx of immigrants affects the American economy. Clearly and deeply, immigration also triggers new leadership questions spanning all of these fields.

As Joel Perlmann and Mary Waters put it, “if one met a nonwhite American before 1970, he or she was very likely to have been black; today the chances are better than ever that the nonwhite American will not be black.” In fact, Perlmann and Waters continue, “the percentage of black among all nonwhites stood at 66 percent in 1970, 48 percent in 1990, and 43 percent in 2000 and can be expected to continue declining in coming decades” (2002, 6). While the overall proportion of American minorities is on the rise—making up approximately 25 percent of the entire U.S. population in 2000 (National Research Council 2001)—clearly, blacks are not fueling this growth. Rather, it is non-black immigrants and their children who account for the increase in the minority population. Furthermore, since most contemporary immigrants tend to settle in urban areas, they “emerge as new actors in political arenas where other minorities, notably African Americans, are already established players” (JonesCorrea [Page 1293]2001, 9). Thus, the potential for interethnic rivalry is high, and the actions, standpoint, and tone of minority leaders toward navigating and mediating such tension is critical.

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