UC Santa Cruz

Young Latinos are the fastest growing portion of the U.S. electorate and make up 44% of eligible Latino voters (Krogstad et al. 2016). However, research finds that they tend to score lower on measures of civic knowledges (Torney-Purta, Barber, and Wilkenfeld 2007; Levinson 2007; Rogers, Mediratta and Shah 2012) and are generally less politically engaged than their Black and White youth counterparts (Cohen 2010). This is one narrative of young Latino political engagement.

Feminist research finds that narrow conceptualizations of the political have erasing and minimizing effects on the political contributions of marginalized communities (Hardy-Fanta 1993; Cohen, Jones, Tronto 1997; Bedolla 1999). From this research a second, contrasting, narrative of young Latino political participation has emerged. It finds that this portion of the population participates in a variety of social movements and explicitly political organizations, including the immigrant rights movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (M.E.CH.A.) (Ortega 2001; Seif 2004; Zimmerman 2011; Galindo 2012; Negron-Gonzales 2013; Beltran 2015; Cruz 2016; Heredia 2016; Gamber-Thompson and Zimmerman 2016). Similarly, sociological studies of youth political participation have consistently framed young people as politically engaged and significant contributors to the political realm (Cohen 2010; Taft and Gordon 2013; Nenga and Taft 2013).

This study considers a third possible narrative of young Latino political engagement with a specific focus on Latino Greek Letter Organizations (LGLOs). Greek letter organizations are widely contextualized as primarily “social” organizations (including by their membership) comprised of “ordinary” (as opposed to explicitly self-identified activist) youth (Hanisch 1969; Clarke 2010; Harris,Wyn, and Younes 2010). However, research has shown that Women of Color sororities are important socio-political spaces (Giddings 1988; Whaley 2010; Crossley 2017). Leveraging this insight this study asks the following: (1) What are the forms of political engagement present in the supposedly "apolitical" space of a Latina sorority? (2) How do the social, institutional, and organizational contexts of this organization shape these engagement practices? (3) How do the undergraduate members of a Latina sorority define politics and make sense of the sorority’s political engagement practices?