Abstract of Latino Leadership in City Hall, by Emily Farris, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2014 In recent years, there has been a large increase in the total number of Latinos serving in elected office – from 3,743 in 1996 to 5,740 in 2010. Latinos now hold considerable influence in cities such as San Antonio and Los Angeles and growing influence in other cities across the country. Latinos’ electoral success signifies the rapidly changing climate of urban America and poses a new chapter in the history of racial and ethnic politics for American cities, which experienced previous waves of Italians, Irish, African Americans and others before. The focus of my dissertation is on the following research question: Under what conditions do local Latino elected officials act as a voice and advocate for Latino communities? Central to this question, I ask: do local Latino elected officials view themselves as representatives of a identifiable or unified Latino community? What do they, as leaders, view as their role in representing their ethnic community? If Latinos are understood to be a diverse community with weak ties, how does Latino leadership vary in urban areas nationwide? What local factors influence their leaders' ideas on representation? To address these questions, I combine original quantitative and qualitative research. The dissertation relies on surveys of local Latino elected officials’ backgrounds, contexts, beliefs, and actions and qualitative data from case studies in Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut. The dissertation demonstrates that like other city leaders, Latino elected officials’ capacity to lead is embedded in a web of institutional, economic, and political constraints, which are particularly complex at the local level. My research suggests that Latinos choose their leadership style based on personality, political instincts, and electoral circumstances. I find that ethnicity can play a role in their leadership behavior, but not all local Latino elected officials emerge as what we traditionally consider to be ethnic leaders.
Farris, Emily,
"Latino Leadership in City Hall"
(2014).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0M32T45
