Boricua in the Barrio: Political Trust among Puerto Ricans in Chicago and Nationwide

Existing research establishes that political trust is not only an important determinant of individual political behavior and government effectiveness, but may also measure the health of civic society. Declining trust among Americans is well documented, and is generally attributed to the series of political tragedies and scandals that have plagued the nation since the 1960s. This paper looks specifically at trust among Puerto Ricans, demonstrating that acculturation is corrosive of political trust. Less acculturated, island-born Puerto Ricans retain some amount of trust in government, while more acculturated, mainland-born Puerto Ricans are much more cynical. Data come from a series of surveys of Latinos in Chicago and the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS). The two sets of data encompass a decade of public opinion research and a wide geographic area.