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Unveiling the Nexus: How Bias Victimization Experiences among Latinx Communities Impact Political Engagement

NCJ Number
310815
Journal
Social Science Quarterly Volume: 105 Issue: 5 Dated: 2025
Date Published
August 2025
Abstract

Objective
Hate crimes aim to send a message of exclusion: that someone does not belong in the civic polity because of some dimension of the victim's identity. Surprisingly, little work has directly investigated whether hate crimes—and bias-motivated victimizations more broadly—have the intended effect: discouraging the political engagement of victims. One barrier to answering this question is that marginalized populations most likely to experience these victimizations are less likely to appear in traditional surveys.

Method
Using a community-based sample from three cities of Latinx Americans who have been the victims of bias crime, we examine the impact of bias victimization on political engagement.

Results
We find interestingly divergent effects: bias victimizations reduce participants' faith in government, while bias and non-biased victimizations increase local political participation, and only non-biased victimizations increase voting.

Conclusion
In other words, bias victimizations decrease faith in government but may backfire by inspiring rather than discouraging local political participation.

(Publisher abstract provided.)

Date Published: August 1, 2025