Capitalizing on the Numbers:
Interest Group Activities That Promote Political Assimilation of the
Mexican-American Community
Darrell Lovell, Louisiana State University
and
Timothy S. Rich, Ohio University
Prepared for presentation at the National Conference of the Southern Political Science
Association. January 8-10 at New Orleans, Louisiana. Copyright by the authors. Any
unauthorized duplication of this paper may be a violation of common law copyright.
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Capitalizing on the Numbers:
Interest Group Activities That Promote Political Assimilation of the
Mexican-American Community1
Darrell Lovell
Louisiana State University
Timothy S. Rich
Ohio University
Introduction
The potential of Mexican-American political power can be quite misleading. The
2000 Census counted 35.3 million Americans as “Hispanic”, 12.5 percent of the nation’s
population, thus becoming America’s largest minority group. 2 Much of this increase has
occurred recently, as the Hispanic population’s increase from the 1990 Census was 57.9
percent.3 Of “Hispanics”, 58.5 percent were of Mexican ancestry. The Mexican-
American population is growing at such a rapid pace, that many predict that Hispanics as
a whole will outnumber Anglos in the United States within the next thirty years. Even if
their population increases begin to slow down, this group can potentially play a huge role
in American politics as Mexican-American electorate may become the most sought after
political demographic in the next thirty years.
Currently, one may expect the Mexican-Americans, and Hispanics as a whole, to
have a political voice relative to African Americans. Such an expectation ignores many
circumstances that are unique to this segment of the population. This two-part project
attempts to determine the factors that lead to lower levels of political activity among this
segment of the population and the effect interest groups have in influencing American
politics as a whole.
First, previous research on the political activity of