Suchergebnisse

"The challenges that women face as political candidates can be compounded by race. In the case of Latinas, stereotypes as well as national media coverage and labeling of 'Latino' issues potentially creates an electoral burden for Latina candidates at the local, state, and national level. The intersection of race and gender is complicated and often creates more questions than it answers. How are Latinas elected? Are they served by this complex identity or hindered by it? Latinas in American Politics: Embracing and Changing Political Tradition begins addressing the issues by examining the stereotypes Latinas face while running for political office. More specifically, the perception of voters on ideological standings of Latinas provides insight as to what party Latinas are identified with and how they can use this to their advantage. In addition to establishing the role stereotypes play in the electability of Latinas, the way they use and diffuse these stereotypes via campaigns is examined. The images that Latinas present and how they interact with voters via social media establishes a new dynamic in campaigning and allows for theory building in the area of race, gender, and campaigns. Aside from campaigning, party identification for a Latina creates a different barrier. How do Latinas bridge this? Case studies of prominent Latina officials are examined to understand within which contexts and under what conditions Latinas as candidates and as elected officials will experience intersectionality as advantage and disadvantage. Finally, the examination of Latina congressional members shows whether and how the intersection of gender and ethnicity in descriptive representation contributes uniquely to patterns of substantive representation. Ultimately, this volume demonstrates how the intersection of race and gender creates unique situations for representation and electability of candidates"--

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) is one of the most important—if not
the most important—public policies developed
over the last half century to increase access to the U.S. political
system for people of color. The VRA also provides an important
context for understanding the ascension of nonwhite groups into the
elected leadership of the nation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Menifield 2001; McClain and Stewart 2002; Segura and Bowler 2005;
Bositis 2006). This essay assesses the
present-day significance of the VRA for the political representation
of communities of color by examining the implications of
majority-minority districts and other key provisions in the VRA for
the election of nonwhite officials in the beginning years of the
twenty-first century.

This research draws on the nation's first comprehensive database of elected leadership of color to provide a multi-cultural, multi-office, and multi-state look at the contours and context of descriptive representation by race and gender and with women of color at the center of analysis. We find that key to the persistent trend of growth in elective office holding of the nation's Black, Latino, and Asian American communities in recent decades is the expanding size of women of color elected officials. Compared to whites, gender gaps in descriptive representation are smaller among nonwhite groups. Although the proportion of nonwhite population may impact the degree of electoral success, we find parity ratios to vary by race, gender, level of office, and state. For example, states that have the highest share of the black population did not produce the highest level of representation of Black women. Finally, we find that gender differences within each race are generally significant, but far greater racial differences are found among men and women of color elected officials-especially at the municipal and school board levels of offices. We conclude that women of color have played a significant role in advancing descriptive political representation of people of color and of women in the United States as a whole. Adapted from the source document. COPIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM: HAWORTH DOCUMENT DELIVERY CENTER, The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580