The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Rhys Williams of Loyola University Chicago, was presented this week at the annual convention of the American Sociological Association, in San Francisco. In order to take America's temperature on the topic of immigrants, the researchers went to an unlikely place: Ohio.
For all its purple-state, heartland rep, large portions of Ohio are still very monochrome - which is to say white - and mostly untouched by on-the-ground experience with people not born in the U.S. Local opinions about immigrants would thus presumably be shaped mostly by what people read or see on TV, combined with a general sense of America's shared melting-pot history. "This makes Ohio ideal for understanding public attitudes ... largely unaffected by actual immigrant levels," the researchers wrote.I've always been a bit dubious about looking to Ohio as a reflection of average American attitudes, but the study did reveal some interesting findings.
Timberlake and Rhys surveyed more than 2,100 Ohioans about their attitudes toward four groups: Europeans, Asians, Middle Easterners and Latinos, specifically asking them about each group's intelligence, income levels, self-sufficiency, ability to assimilate and proclivity toward violence. The results were often surprising - and often not.
Uniformly, Asians finished first in the wealth, intelligence and self-sufficiency categories, followed by Europeans and Middle Easterners, with Latinos finishing last. Asians fell a notch, to second, in willingness to assimilate, with Europeans taking the top spot. When it came to violence, the order was reversed: Latinos on top, then Middle Easterners, then Europeans and Asians.
I don't know, is any of this information really surprising? We're all well aware that there's currently a heightened climate of hostility towards immigrants -- let's be frank, Latinos in particular -- in this country, fueled by the sagging economy and the crazy rhetoric of the Glenn Becks of mass media.
If anything, this research seems to support the idea that many of the racist, xenophobic stereotypes that are out there about immigrants are fairly ingrained in the attitudes of average Americans. Is it really coincidence that European immigrants would be perceived as the most willing to assimilate?
However, the researchers look to U.S. history, and offer some optimism: "Every immigrant group that was demonized and ostracized eventually overcame the prejudice and became part of the nation's cultural quilt." Really? Says who?
