Joe Short
University of Arkansas at Little Rock National Identity and Immigration Policy
Background
Like many U.S. States recently, Arizona introduced Senate Bill 1070, which mandates interrogation about migrant status when officials has a suspicion about an individual’s legal status within their state. Opponents of the bill suggest the law encourages racial profiling against Hispanic or Asians more than Americans of European decent (Mukherjee, Molina, & Adams, 2012). Proponents argue it has to do with upholding law and order and is not about race. The study will look at a distinction in national identity that concerns nationalism and patriotism (Mukherjee, Molina, & Adams, 2012). Both terms are designed as follows: …show more content…
It is expected that a patriotic perspective will show no difference in its relationship with support to punish both the immigrant and the companies that employ them (Mukherjee, Molina, & Adams, 2012).
Methods 100 participants, 50 male, 50 female non U.S. born and non-Caucasian will be used to take a three part survey, each using a seven point Likert scale, asking to strongly disagree to strongly agree to the survey questions. The surveys will ask opinions of immigration policy, patriotism and nationalism as well as constructions of American identity (primordial, cultural and civic).
Proposed Analyses and Expected Results A statistical correlation will be performed to determine the influence that nationalism and patriotism has on the ever changing immigration policy in the U.S. it is expected that the nationalism view will show support to target only the illegal immigrants, since its focus is on national superiority and dominance and that the patriotic view will support targeting both the immigrant and the companies that hire illegal immigrants, since the patriotic view emphasizes positive effect towards ones country. Should the expected results bear out, this will support the proposed hypotheses.