“Immigration attitudes are at bottom moral choices.”
— Yalidy Matos, PhD
About the book
Immigration has been at the heart of US politics for centuries. In Moral and Immoral Whiteness in Immigration Politics, Yalidy Matos examines the inherent moral, value-based, nature of white Americans’ immigration attitudes, including preferences on local immigration enforcement programs, federal immigration policy, and levels of legal immigration allowed. Does identifying as white always signify a commitment to maintain the racial status quo or can it result in commitments to racial justice? How do we understand the passage of state-level sanctuary and anti-sanctuary immigration legislation through a white identity political lens? Thinking about whiteness as a moral choice complicates the idea that immigration policy preferences are mostly about demographic shifts.
To examine the centrality of morality in white Americans’ immigration attitudes, Matos looks at public opinion survey data as well as the roll call votes of elected officials.
Yalidy Matos
- Presents a novel understanding of how whiteness structures immigration attitudes and policy preferences
- Advances a new theoretical framework to understand white public opinion and behavior about immigration
- Examines the factors that move white Americans to express more progressive views on immigration
- Theorizes at the intersection of whiteness and immigration through a race, ethnicity, and politics (REP) lens, which seriously investigates and engages with questions of power vis-à-vis race and ethnic relations
Email Yalidy about Moral and Immoral Whiteness in Immigration Politics at Yalidy.Matos@rutgers.edu
Reviews
★★★★★
“Moral and Immoral Whiteness in Immigration Politics examines a policy issue that has been at the heart of US politics for centuries-that of immigration. Matos offers an innovative and fresh approach to understanding immigration attitudes in the US by looking at it through the lens of morality and whiteness. She then tests her theory with a series of empirical tests that take advantage of public opinion survey data as well as the roll call votes of elected officials. A must-read for scholars of political science, sociology, American studies, and public policy.”
Marisa Abrajano, Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego
★★★★★
“This is a timely, thoughtful, and wide-ranging book. Drawing on survey data, roll call votes, and historical analysis, Yalidy Matos offers fresh insights about the politics of immigration and whiteness in the United States. A must-read for students of public opinion, immigration, and racial and ethnic politics.”
Daniel Tichenor, Philip H. Knight Chair of Political Science, University of Oregon
About this research
Dr. Yalidy Matos is available for keynotes, workshops, and speaking engagements. Email Yalidy.Matos@rutgers.edu
Yalidy Matos 
