George I. Monsivais

Monsivais explores the political and cultural allegiances of Hispanic immigrants to understand the role of both their country of origin and their adopted country in their lives.

When the news media broadcasts pictures of Hispanic immigrants waving the flags of their countries of origin, Americans become concerned. Are these immigrants affirming a political allegiance expressing a cultural preference? Monsivais addresses this question by first developing minimum criteria of being "American" by examining historical and current literature and Supreme Court decisions; conducting a secondary analysis of "The National Latino Immigrant Survey" as reported in New Americans by Choice (Pachon and DeSipio, 1994); and reporting the results of focus group interviews conducted with legal Hispanic immigrants. The findings demonstrate that overall they are likely expressing ethnic/racial or cultural concepts and not political preferences.