{"id":324,"date":"2021-10-22T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T10:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/?p=324"},"modified":"2021-10-22T17:39:56","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T17:39:56","slug":"identity-and-experience-why-how-and-when-they-affect-politics-civic-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/2021\/10\/22\/identity-and-experience-why-how-and-when-they-affect-politics-civic-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity and Experience: Why, How and When They Affect Politics (Civic Mind)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Robin Lauermann, Professor of Politics & Chair of History, Politics and International relations, pens this series.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

(What is\u00a0Civic Mind<\/em>?\u00a0 Read our\u00a0welcome post for the series<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

My name is \u2026<\/p>\n

Conversation in the public sphere has recently revolved around fundamental questions of facts, made even more complicated by disinformation campaigns by foreign and domestic actors<\/a>.\u00a0 I would hazard to guess that many of us would treat our knowledge about our own basic identities as beyond question.\u00a0 Yet, is it? I was a young child when I learned that my parents made a legal change before I was born from our family\u2019s Polish surname to an English one.<\/p>\n

Although I grew up with connections to this culture, particularly with foods and festivals, it was also very apparent in many statements that my father made that he saw its identity fundamentally tied up in the ways that people treated him and others with similar backgrounds. \u00a0One of the most memorable examples related to his continual discouragement to pass along the language that he learned as a second-generation American, even as he supported me in taking four other languages in high school.\u00a0 Over the years of personal and professional reading, I have since learned that his experiences at that time were not unusual.\u00a0 For all of the critiques against \u201cidentity politics,\u201d such as those by Stanford professor Francis Fukuyama,<\/a> the reality is that individual\u2019s beliefs form from their experiences; when individuals that share a certain characteristic have shared experiences, they often produce similar responses, which account for differences between groups.\u00a0 When that identity facet ceases to have relevance to policy, the issues have likely resolved.<\/p>\n

Social identity has served as an essential building block for those who study political behavior.\u00a0 Among the earlier researchers, Robert Lane offers probably the most essential definition in Political Life, Why and How People Get Involved in Politics<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Social identity . . . refers to the use of attributes derived from a man’s identification with social groups to describe and define himself. It is the contribution made to his answer to “Who am 1?”, by his sense of belonging to some specified part of human society, a community, a professional society, a church, a nationality group, even sometimes a neighborhood \u2026 “the Tenderloin,” “the West End” (235-255).<\/p>\n

In the years since the birth of political psychology and sociology, analyses typically control for group identities that have relevance for specific questions about opinion formation, as well as the behavior resulting from those beliefs, attitudes and opinions.<\/p>\n

Opinion formation in politics, as with other beliefs, results from an ongoing and complex process.\u00a0 Our early experiences \u2013 be they positive or negative \u2013 have among the most significant.\u00a0 Not only do those elements produce some of the strongest impact (primacy principle), they shape our processing of new experiences, including the interaction with ideas of other individuals (See, for example, American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content, and Impact<\/a><\/em> by Robert Erikson and Kent Tedin, Chapters 5 &7).\u00a0 In turn, absent what we call cross-cutting influences \u2013 experiences that challenge or contradict prior ones \u2013 common experiences by those with similar social experiences tend to produce patterns of beliefs and opinions, making that identity politically relevant. Thus, identity is not inherently political, but becomes so due to historically relevant patterns; to the extent that a group experiences significant changes within society, an identity may lose its political relevance.\u00a0 This recent article in the Annual Review of Political Science <\/em><\/a>provides background and current context in this area of research.\u00a0 The experience of Polish immigrants illustrates this flow and ebb, though it is only one of many group experiences in this country.<\/p>\n

The history detailed in The United States and the Rebirth of Poland, 1914-1918<\/em> by M.B.B. Biskupski<\/a> shares the political role of Polish American immigrants in the years leading up to World War I. \u00a0Beginning in 1870, a wave of individuals fled the oppressive rule by the empires that had, over time, gobbled up the Polish state.\u00a0 Known as \u201cPolonia,\u201d the diaspora settled in the northern central and eastern portions of the country, as well as just over the border in Canada.\u00a0 Despite a common national identity, this group did not have unified beliefs, differences that stemmed from not only social and economic factors but also the area of Poland from which they arrived.\u00a0 Those Poles who settled in the Midwest\/Great Lakes region hailed from territory then controlled by the Germans tended to have more conservative religious and economic values and adopted a pro-Russia stance. Poles who migrated to the eastern seaboard of the US had secular, socialist and pro-German stances.<\/p>\n

Although they had limited success in raising funds and military support for Poland directly, they became an electoral force in American politics.\u00a0 Motivated by questionable assertions about immigrants in writings and speech, Polonia came out as a force against Wilson in 1912, to which Wilson responded by vetoing immigration restrictions and, after winning their support in 1916, entering the war and advocating for the return of an independent Poland.\u00a0 Ultimately, Wilson and other international actors would be successful in garnering this latter goal as part of the peace settlement of the war.\u00a0 (If you would like to read a little more detailed analysis, check out the book review that I previously published in a special volume of Rocznik Przemyski<\/a> <\/em>on pages 201-206.\u00a0 The larger volume offers a detailed portrait of the role of Polonia during the quest for the return of an independent Poland, as well as its experiences within America during and after the war.)<\/p>\n

Although the key issue that motivated Polish Americans to political engagement had been resolved, their experiences still reflected a distinct status in society. Despite the perception of America as a \u201cmelting pot\u201d, the process for many immigrants has been at best gradual, particularly for the waves that have come from different areas around the world than prior ones. In his book, Working Toward Whiteness<\/a>,<\/em> historian David Roediger examines the journey of many immigrant groups. His research notes that racial classifications came not solely from distinct characteristics of social groups, but also from policies that categorized individuals.\u00a0 For example, Southern and Eastern Europeans were not considered white and thus were marginalized by disrespect and discrimination.\u00a0 These groups sometimes made progress in gaining acceptance by perpetuating similar behavior against other marginalized groups such as Asian, African and Latinx Americans (See Chapters 1-3).\u00a0 Even though name changes were not pervasive for Southern and Eastern European groups, they did manage to work their way into acceptance within society in subsequent generations.\u00a0 As such, Polish ethnic identity does not make a noticeable impact on individuals\u2019 political beliefs in America today than it did in earlier decades.<\/p>\n

Social identity influences political opinion and behavior to the extent that groups of people share common historical experiences that are relevant to particular issues.\u00a0 For some individuals, aspects of their identity that are relevant at one point may not always be so.\u00a0 However, some experiences are so stark that huge challenges remain to overcome boundaries; where we observe group differences in opinion on issues, our first response should be to learn more about group experiences and discern the reasons for differing and even competing opinions.\u00a0 For example, listen to and read about the work<\/a> by Yosemite ranger Yenyen Chan to uncover the role of Chinese Americans or read this post about the experiences of Asian, African and Latinx Americans from our sister series Tocqueville Capital<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0By listening and learning, we may not only gain a broader perspective and evaluate how policies affect ability of all individuals to enjoy the rights and freedoms of our country, but we may also acknowledge the history and respect the cultures that have shaped portions of the American population as well as the larger history of this country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  (What is\u00a0Civic Mind?\u00a0 Read our\u00a0welcome post for the series!) My name is \u2026 Conversation in the public sphere has recently revolved around fundamental questions of facts, made even more complicated by disinformation campaigns by foreign and domestic actors.\u00a0 I would hazard to guess that many of us would treat our knowledge about our own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11462],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civic-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}