Political science students survey Mexican expatriates about election
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Three months before Mexico votes for its new president, a Purdue University political science professor and his students are learning how interested Mexican expatriates are in the July 2 election."For the first time, Mexican expatriates are allowed to vote via absentee ballot for Mexico's next president, and very few people have applied for the ballots," says James McCann, an associate professor of political science who studies political behavior in the United States and Mexico. "The voting behaviors and civic dispositions of Mexicans in the Midwest are particularly very understudied, and this is the region that is seeing an incredible growth in Mexican residents.
"My class is taking a look at what matters politically to U.S. residents who were born in Mexico. It also provides the students a way to improve their fluency in Spanish and gain experience in field work outside of the classroom."
In the class "Mexican Expatriates in the Crossroads of America: Political Research on Bi-national Citizenship," eight of the 10 students are non-native Spanish speakers. Their areas of study include political science, psychology, history, engineering and aviation technology. During the cold winter weather, students are surveying people at laundry facilities in communities with large Mexican populations, such as Frankfort, Ind. The students, who are expected to question a total of 100 expatriates by the end of the semester, also will target three other Indiana cities — Delphi, Lafayette and Crawfordsville — in the coming weeks.
It's estimated that 200,000 Mexican citizens live in Indiana, and that number continues to grow, McCann says.
"In political science, we talk a great deal about economic globalization, but we do not know as much about globalization as it pertains to citizenship," he says. "I want to understand what expatriates are thinking about in the upcoming Mexican presidential election. Does the election have any meaning to them, and, if so, what are their sources of political information? And secondly, what does dual citizenship with voting rights mean for the United States? Are expatriates likely to participate in U.S. civic life?"
Dozens of countries offer dual citizenship and dual voting rights, so it's not unusual for people in the United States to cast ballots during elections in their home country. McCann says at least 4 million people in the United States could be eligible to vote in Mexico's presidential race. The Mexican Federal Electoral Institute is reporting fewer than 60,000 expatriates have applied for absentee ballots.
After the semester, McCann would like to expand the survey to other Midwestern cities. He also is involved in a National Science Foundation project that is polling people in Mexico about politics. McCann will compare these behaviors with what he learns about expatriates.
McCann's research is funded by Purdue's College of Liberal Arts and Department of Political Science, and the Carnegie Corp. of New York.
Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Source: James McCann, (765) 494-0738, mccann@polsci.purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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