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Nowhere to Run
 Nowhere to Run
Race, Gender, and Immigration in
American Elections

C H R I S T IA N DYO G I P H I L L I P S

1
 3
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933729

ISBN 978–​0–​19–​753894–​4 (pbk.)

ISBN 978–​0–​19–​753893–​7 (hbk.)

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197538937.001.0001

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For Letty, Mariedavie, and Ella
My past, present, and future
 Contents

List of Figures  ix
List of Tables  xi
Acknowledgments  xiii

1 Introduction  1
2 Empirical Strategies for Intersectional Research  29
3 Candidacy in Contexts  47
4 Demographics Are (Men’s) Destiny  69
5 The Rest of the Pie: Partisanship and Race-​Gendered
Opportunities in Predominantly White Districts  93
6 If Not Here, Then Where?: Constrained Opportunities for
Immigrant Representation in Los Angeles County  111
7 “She Came out of Nowhere”: Elite Networks and Candidate
Emergence in Los Angeles  139
8 Conclusion: The Future of Candidacy and Representation
in American State Legislatures  167

Appendices  185
Notes  207
Works Cited  227
Index  247
 Figures

1.1. Percent of All State Legislative General Election Wins, Even-​Numbered

Years 1996–​2014 6
1.2. Percent of All State Legislative General Election Wins, Nonwhite Groups Only,
Even-​Numbered Years 1996–​2014 7
3.1. ALS Responses: “Please Describe Your Decision to Run for the State
Legislature for the First Time” 49
4.1. White Proportions of State Legislative Election District Populations,
with Total Number of Candidacies by Quintile 72
4.2. Percent of Legislative Districts with Majority-​White Populations, by State 73
4.3. Local Polynomial Plot of Probability of Election and Racial Group Proportion
of Population, Women and Men, by Race 79
4.4. Most Frequently Reported Occupational Industries of ALS
Respondents, Percent 86
6.1. State Legislative Election Victories, Los Angeles County: 1996–​2016 118
6.2. State Legislative Election Victories, Los Angeles County: 1996–​2016
(White Men Excluded) 119
6.3. State Legislative Election Winners by Race-​Gendered Group and District
Population, 1996–​2016 121
6.4. Latina/​o Proportion of District Population in State Legislative General
Election Wins 124
7.1. Asian American Proportion of District Populations in Los Angeles
County, 2016 143
7.2. Race and Gender of California Assembly Members Elected in
Los Angeles County, 1996–​2016, by District 163
A1. The American Leadership Survey Questionnaire 186
B3. White Proportions of State Legislative Election District Populations,
by Census-​Based Redistricting Period 197
B4. Predicted Probability of Winning State Legislative General Election on
Co-​Racial Population 201
 Tables

2.1. Historic and Projected Racial Makeup of the U.S. Population, Percentages
(Pew Research Center, 2016; U.S. Census Bureau, 2018) 33
2.2. Top Ten Counties: Rate of Latina/​o Population Growth
(Pew Research Center, 2016) 34
2.3. Asian American Populations by Size and Percent Change 35
2.4. Descriptive Statistics of All State Legislative General Election Victories
in GRACE, 1996–​2015 41
2.5. Race and Gender of American Leadership Survey Respondents (2015) 42
2.6. Party Affiliation of ALS Respondents, Percent 43
3.1. Top Four Considerations when Deciding to Run, Percent 54
3.2. “What Was the Single Most Important Reason that You Ran?” 60
4.1. Mean Racial Population Proportions for Winning Candidates, Open Seats,
1996–​2015 71
4.2. Percent of State Legislative Districts with Majority-​White Populations
post–​2010 Census, by State 73
4.3. Likelihood of Presence on General Election Ballot 76
4.4. State Legislative General Election Success Rates 77
4.5. Decision to Run: Percent of ALS Respondents Who Were Encouraged 81
4.6. Percent of Responses to: “What Was the Single Most Important Reason
that You Ran?” 81
4.7. Discouragement by a Party Leader, Percent 82
4.8. Previous Officeholding and Political Organization Involvement, Percent 84
5.1. Frequency of State Legislative Election Candidacies, 1996–​2015 95
5.2. Number of State Legislative Election Candidacies by Party, 1996–​2015 95
5.3. Number of General Election Candidacies by White District
Population Quintiles 96
5.4. Percent of Elections Won by Democrats, by Quintile 97
5.5. Number of Non-​Incumbent Winners in Qs 4 and 5, by Partisanship 98
5.6. Number of Non-​Incumbent Candidacies in Qs 4 and 5 99
5.7. Model of Likelihood a Republican or Independent Won 99
xii Tables

5.8. States with Most Candidacies by Non-​Incumbent, Republicans and

Independents 100
5.9. Number of Non-​Incumbent Election Victories in Threshold Districts,
1996–​2015 103
5.10. Non-​Incumbent General Election Candidacies, Threshold Districts 104
5.11. Republican and Independent Non-​Incumbent Candidacies in
Threshold Districts, by Most Frequent States 105
5.12. Democratic Non-​Incumbent Candidacies in Threshold Districts,
by Most Frequent States 106
6.1. Number of State Legislative Election Wins, by Race-​Gender 122
7.1. Political Backgrounds of Latinos in the State Legislature, 1996–​2016 152
7.2. Political Backgrounds of Latinas in the State Legislature, 1996–​2016 153
A2. Types of Civic Activities of ALS Respondents, Percent 191
B2A. Number of State Legislative General Election Wins by Race-​Gendered Group 196
B.2B. Percent of All State Legislative General Elections Won by
Race-​Gendered Group 196
B4. Probit Regression Model of Likelihood of Winning State Legislative
General Election 199
B5. Likelihood a Republican or Independent Candidate Won General Election
(Full Results) 202
C1. Open-​Seat Election Victories in Majority-​Minority Districts, 1996–​2014 203
D1. Primary and General Election Candidates in State Legislative Races,
2006–​2016, Percent 204
 Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to the titas, ates, kumares, nanays, and lolas from whom
I have learned most of what I know about women’s capacity to persist and
lead. My grandmother, Letty Grey Dyogi, raised me with stories of childhood
mischief amid wartime occupation and poverty. My mother, Mariedavie
Dyogi Phillips, came to the United States as a young adult and served in
combat zones in the U.S. Air Force, often as the only woman in her squadron.
Living in the Philippines as a child, my first images of women in politics were
protesters, militant nuns, and an embattled president.
As an adult working in the labor movement, I was lucky to be surrounded
by women of color who believed in organizing and their collective power.
Zeny Garcia, Gloria Manlutac, and Jere Talley were worker leaders from
whom I learned invaluable lessons about courage and conviction. I did not
understand the power of righteousness until Jere turned to me on a day full
of fearsome challenges and said, “I read last night in my Bible that the Lord
promised: ‘No weapon formed against thee shall prosper.’ And I believe that.”
These experiences formed the lenses I bring to my work as a scholar.
I am thankful to my committee at Hampshire College: the late Kay Johnson,
Brown Kennedy, and Lise Sanders, who taught me to trust my ideas for
examining power. Later at the Princeton School of Public and International
Affairs, Nannerl O. Keohane again provided untold encouragement, by
taking my plans to enter the academy seriously and reading the first draft of
the ideas for this book, in a paper for her seminar on leadership.
My time at UC Berkeley fostered many of the relationships that have been
most important to advancing this project, and my beginnings as a professor.
I am thankful for my dissertation committee: Taeku Lee, Rodney Hero, Gabe
Lenz, and Lisa Garcìa Bedolla. Whenever I needed them, they generously
showed up, each in different ways. As a woman of color, who studies other
women of color, I learned in graduate school that we have to create the spaces
and acceptance for our work even as we do it. The members of my committee
always ensured I had the resources, tools, and support to do just that, and
I am grateful for their advice and continuing mentorship.
xiv Acknowledgments

My intellectual home at Berkeley was the Interdisciplinary Immigration

Workshop led by Irene Bloemraad and Cybelle Fox. They and my peers
from other departments created a collaborative and welcoming space for
developing scholarship and learning from each other. Along with Irene
and Cybelle, Dani Carillo and Robin Savinar have read more drafts of my
thoughts in process than anyone else, and I thank them for their patience and
feedback.
I worked with many research assistants at UC Berkeley, New American
Leaders, and the University of Southern California in building the Gender,
Race, and Communities in Elections (GRACE) dataset. Patrick Vossler
has also played an invaluable role in finishing this project. I am so thankful
for the organizations and institutions that supported these students’ work
with me, and each researcher’s diligence and willingness to help bring this
research to fruition. This work has also been supported by grants, and
fellowships from the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley,
the Travers Fellowship, the New York Community Trust, the Center
for Immigration Research Initiative at UC San Diego, and Soroptimists
International. New American Leaders was also an important partner in the
American Leadership Survey (ALS) and in allowing me to attend their an-
nual conference to conduct interviews. I also benefited from presenting parts
of this work at meetings of the Politics of Race Immigration and Ethnicity
Colloquium and am so grateful to the colleagues and friends who keep that
important network of scholars and collaborators coming together.
My colleagues in the Political Science Department at the Ohio State
University were generous with their time and assistance in navigating my
new role as a professor. Most importantly, Wendy Smooth welcomed me as
a collaborator and mentor and has continued to share encouragement and
feedback ever since.
At the University of Southern California, my colleagues have read drafts,
shared resources, and helped me to carve out time and space to finish this
book. I benefited immensely from a manuscript workshop co-​sponsored
by the Department of Political Science, the Department of Gender and
Sexuality Studies, and the Center for International Studies and am grateful
for their support. The comments and advice I received from Sophia Wallace,
Corrine McConnaughy, Wendy Smooth, Marisa Abrajano, and Christian
Grose at that workshop helped refine the arguments and narrative of this
study in numerous ways. I am particularly indebted to Ange-​Marie Hancock
 Acknowledgments xv

Alfaro and Jane Junn; having their feedback and guidance has improved this
book immeasurably.
The candidates, activists, donors, legislators, consultants, and other leaders
who agreed to be interviewed for this book were unstinting in their frankness
and generous with their insights. This book would not exist without them,
and I thank them. I am also grateful to have worked with Angela Chnapko at
Oxford; she has understood this project and supported it from our first con-
versation. She brought together a panel of anonymous reviewers whose feed-
back has strengthened this book considerably; they also have my gratitude.
Jenny Ma has been part of this project since we were both at UC Berkeley,
and she remained a steadying force and trusted collaborator. I cannot thank
her enough for her careful work and friendship for the last seven years. More
recently, Monique Maravilla came into my life when I needed space and un-
wavering encouragement in order to transition from graduate student to
published professor, and she generously gave me both.
The best investment of time I made during graduate school was in the
regular meetings of our “old ladies club.” Rhea Myerscough, Denise van der
Kamp, and Elsa Massoc pushed me to always ask for more, edited my work,
and shared information that was otherwise hard to find. We sensibly added
Danny Choi as an honorary member, and I cannot thank them all enough.
Rhea has stayed my writing partner to this day, and I am indebted to her be-
yond measure.
Words are insufficient to express my gratitude to Jonah and Ella. Jonah has
created a life for our family that is oriented around helping us all become our
best selves, and my career as a scholar. They have both rearranged their lives
over and over so that I could remain singularly focused on writing this book.
I am so happy and thankful for the little world that the three of us share.
If, despite all of this support and assistance, any errors remain in this study,
they are mine.
 1
Introduction

Everyone talked about demographic changes as if they were magical.

As if somehow that meant that naturally government structure and
the composition of those elected was magically just going to change.
. . . And that hasn’t been the case.
—​Georgia General Assembly Member Brenda Lopez Romero
(Yu, 2016)

Brenda Lopez Romero’s election to the Georgia General Assembly in 2016

was heralded by the press as a harbinger of change in the American elec-
torate and politics.1 Her pathway to that victory was marked by challenges
and breakthroughs. Born in Mexico, Lopez Romero moved to Georgia to re-
unite with her father when she was five years old. She still recalls walking into
a local diner with him as a child and being confronted by white men. The
men asked Lopez Romero and her father if they had just crossed the river and
told them to go back where they came from.
Lopez Romero waded through over a dozen years of administrative
backlogs to become a U.S. citizen just before entering law school. This likely
surpassed the expectations of the high school guidance counselor, who, she
recalls advised her that her bilingual skills might make her a good secretary.
Later, while working in her own immigration services practice as an attorney,
Lopez Romero volunteered on Democratic campaigns and thought about
running for office someday. When that day arrived, she defeated an oppo-
nent in the Democratic primary, who had been endorsed by the incumbent
and the governor, becoming the first Latina elected to the state legislature in
Georgia’s history.
By all accounts, Lopez Romero is exceptional. And in her view, that is a
key problem in American electoral politics: “We shouldn’t still be talking
about firsts. . . . It’s 2016 and we should be beyond that by now, but we aren’t”

Nowhere to Run. Christian Dyogi Phillips, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197538937.003.0001
2 Nowhere to Run

(Yu, 2016). Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities
in elected office proved so persistent?
Georgia’s General Assembly is hardly alone in this. Within the halls of
nearly every American state legislature, there is scant descriptive evidence
of the large-​scale population changes that have occurred since the late 1990s.
White women and men combined won 90 percent of state legislative election
victories in 1996 (Gender, Race, and Communities in Elections [GRACE])
and 83 percent in 2018 (Fraga, Juenke, & Shah, 2019). During the same pe-
riod, the white share of the U.S. population declined from 72 to 60 percent
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). Women (from all racial groups combined) won
25 percent of state legislative victories in 1996, and more than two decades
later, they won 30 percent of state legislative victories in 2018 (Fraga, Juenke, &
Shah, 2019).
These patterns are amplified in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the
session of Congress that convened in 2019, whites were nine times more
likely than Asian Americans to be represented by someone from their
same racial group in the House, and white men were even more likely to be
represented by a white man than in the session of Congress that convened in
2017 (Bump, 2018). The stagnant character of the race and gender composi-
tion of elected officials runs counter to widely espoused ideals of democratic
pluralism and political access.
The paucity of descriptive diversity also has direct consequences for rep-
resentation. Descriptive representation is, in its most narrow conception,
Hannah Pitkin’s “mirror” of the polity (1967), where individuals from par-
ticular groups “stand in” as representatives for those with whom they share
certain characteristics. This study is motivated by a view of descriptive rep-
resentation that encompasses a more robust connection between “ideas and
presence” (Phillips, 1998), particularly for members of marginalized groups.
As Melissa Williams and others have argued, “even though the experiences
and perspectives of marginalized group members are themselves diverse,
the social positions of group members are sufficiently similar that there are
good reasons to believe that members of marginalized groups, on average,
are more likely to represent the concerns and interests of citizens from those
groups” (Williams, 2000; Young, 1990; c.f. Strolovitch, 2007; Dovi, 2003).
Moreover, empirical studies have shown that descriptive representation is
a meaningful, and often immediate, signal to voters and elites alike of which
groups have a say in political decision-​making (Atkeson & Carrillo, 2007;
Barreto, 2007; Gay, 2001a; Reingold & Harrell, 2010; Rocha et al., 2010; Tate,
 Introduction 3

2003). Indeed, a robust connection between descriptive and substantive rep-

resentation has been observed for racial minorities and women at multiple
levels of government (English, Pearson, & Strolovitch, 2018; Celis et al., 2008;
Dovi, 2007; Hawkesworth, 2003; Hero & Tolbert, 1995; Mansbridge, 1999;
Mendelberg, Karpowitz, & Goedert, 2013; Preuhs, 2006; Sapiro, 1981) (c.f.
Cameron & Epstein, 1996; Lublin, 1997; Swain, 1993). Beyond enacted leg-
islation, legislators from underrepresented communities also exhibit dis-
tinct policy positions, agendas, and approaches to the legislative process
(Barrett, 1995; Bratton, Haynie, & Reingold, 2006; Minta, 2011; Preuhs,
2007; Reingold & Smith, 2012; Rocca, Sanchez, & Uscinski, 2008; Tate, 2003;
Thomas & Welch, 1991).
For political science, descriptive representation is also a means of eval-
uating a central theory of democratic governance—​the idea of the United
States as a polity where diverse groups can compete for political influence.
In this respect, the roots of underrepresentation are fairly straightforward.
Many researchers have asserted that the primary shortfall driving un-
derrepresentation occurs at the candidacy stage—​women and people of
color are competitive candidates, but too few throw their hat into the ring
(Lawless, 2015). Numerous studies have demonstrated that rates of success
among candidates from different race and gender groups are fairly even,
provided they are on the ballot in the first place (Branton, 2009; Carroll &
Sanbonmatsu, 2013; Darcy & Schramm, 1977; Juenke, 2014; Lawless, 2015;
Shah, 2014) (c.f. Pearson & Mcghee, 2013).
Extant studies of female and racial minority candidates tend to treat them
as parallel, rather than overlapping (King, 1988; Smith & Stewart, 1983), so-
cial groups. This approach fails to account for the ways in which multiple
dimensions of identity simultaneously shape pathways to candidacy, for all
groups. As a result, the extent to which constraints on electoral opportunity
drive underrepresentation has been obscured.
Lopez Romero’s own account of her journey to elected office returns again
and again to the concept of opportunity. On the night of her election to the
state legislature, she said, “The reason I’m here is because people have opened
doors for me and provided me with opportunities to become who I am”
(Yeomans, 2016). She described being able to immigrate to the United States
legally and safely as an opportunity (Vashi, 2019). She characterizes the
growing mobilization of immigrant communities in her district as an oppor-
tunity (Yu, 2016). The opportunities she talks about vary widely, extending
far beyond an open seat and good electoral timing. The theory and analysis in
4 Nowhere to Run

this book also take a multifaceted view of electoral opportunities—​in some

cases opportunities are individual seats or districts, and in others they are
slots on a ballot or the realistic positioning necessary to become a candidate.
Breakthrough candidates like Lopez Romero bring to light new
dimensions of a seemingly classic American political narrative focused
on opportunity. Her public narrative reflects the turns her life has taken as
an attorney, a woman, a Latina, and an immigrant. Her experiences, and
those of other candidates in this book, reveal how racialized and gendered
institutions and processes simultaneously facilitate and constrain electoral
opportunities. This book is about sharp differences in those opportunities
across groups and how they contribute to persistent underrepresentation
among elected officials.

Descriptive Persistence amid a Changing Electorate

Descriptive representation’s utility as a powerful (Mansbridge, 1999; Dovi,

2007; Phillips, 1995; Tate, 2003; Young, 1990), if imperfect (c.f. Cameron &
Epstein, 1996; Lublin, 1997; Swain, 1993), tool for enriching democratic in-
corporation has propelled a wealth of scholarship in political science. Two
distinct literatures within that research area focus on why racial minorities
and women are underrepresented in elected office. Studies focused on voter
attitudes, or the public “demand” for women and minorities, as a primary
factor in underrepresentation have returned mixed results (e.g., Huddy &
Terkildsen, 1993; Philpot & Walton, 2007; Bejarano, 2013).
While voter stereotypes and other issues related to the success of
campaigns are clearly relevant, focusing only on that phase of elections
overlooks a more central issue—​whether a descriptive representative is on
the ballot in the first place. More recently, numerous studies have demon-
strated that race and gender disparities in officeholding result primarily from
significant differences in what types of people run for office in the first place
(Branton, 2009; Carroll, 2009; Juenke, 2014; Lawless & Fox, 2005; Palmer &
Simon, 2010; Sanbonmatsu, Carroll, & Walsh, 2010; Shah, 2014). The bal-
ance of empirical evidence shows that in order to understand patterns of de-
scriptive representation, we must look to who gets on the ballot.
The emphases in these literatures, however, on single dimensional
identities—​race or gender—​have contributed to understandings of can-
didate development and emergence that tend to speak past each other.2
 Introduction 5

Research on race and ethnic politics has repeatedly demonstrated the im-
portance of majority-​minority districts in facilitating the descriptive repre-
sentation of African Americans, Latina/​os, and Asian Americans (Barreto,
Segura, & Woods, 2004; Branton, 2009; Gay, 2001b; Hardy-​Fanta et al.,
2016; Segura & Woods, 2006). During the same period, women and poli-
tics scholars have developed a number of tools for understanding the reasons
why individual women, especially white women, choose to run for office less
often than men; this includes self-​regard, personal relationships, and the
potential consequences for people in women’s immediate circles (Carroll &
Sanbonmatsu, 2013; Fox & Lawless, 2010b; Kanthak & Woon, 2015; Lawless &
Fox, 2005).
Although this scholarship is rich, it more often than not conceptualizes
salient descriptive identities as both monolithic and unrelated. Lumping all
women together, for example, suggests that women’s candidacies are equally
likely to be affected, in similar magnitudes, by the same forces. In the same
vein, collapsing an analysis down to a comparison of whites, Latina/​os, Asian
Americans, and African Americans assumes that the processes that shape
women’s and men’s candidacies are the same and lead to similar outcomes.
Basic empirical evidence, and a long-​standing literature on women of color
in politics, belies these assumptions. To be sure, because race and gender
are socially and politically salient categories, there is value in these simple
comparisons as a starting point. However, analyses of representation and
candidacy that exclusively recognize only racialized or gendered processes
obscure more than they reveal about the factors that shape who runs and
who wins in the United States (D. King, 1988).
Figure 1.1 illustrates the empirical necessity of moving beyond analyt-
ical frameworks that only reckon with one dimension of identity at a time.
This figure is based on an original dataset that I constructed, encompassing
demographic data for districts and candidates across 62,779 state legisla-
tive general elections spanning 1996-​2015 (GRACE). The figure reports the
percent of all state legislative general election victories won by members of
eight different groups during the period 1996–​2014. Close to 90 percent
were won by white women and men combined (Figure 1.1). Within every
racial group, women won elections less frequently than men (Figures 1.1 and
1.2). While Figures 1.1 and 1.2 encompass election data from 1996 to 2014,
extensions of the GRACE dataset that run through 2018 exhibit the same
patterns.3 The clear disparities across these two sets of social groups under-
score the importance of using race and gender as central axes for studying
 6 Nowhere to Run

80%

70%

White Men
Percent of All State Legislative General Election Wins

60%

50%

40%

30%

White Women

20%

10%
All Others

0%

1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
Year

Figure 1.1. Percent of All State Legislative General Election Wins, Even-​
Numbered Years 1996–​2014.

descriptive representation. Just as importantly, simultaneous differences in

the outcomes between white and nonwhite women, and white and nonwhite
men, and variation in the gaps between women and men within racial groups
make an explicit case for the necessity of assessing descriptive representation
through an intersectional lens.
The key characteristics in this pair of figures are persistence and difference.
Women’s win percentages are much lower than those of men, across all racial
groups. However, the size of the gap between co-​racial men and women is
within a range of 1–​2 percentage points for African Americans, Latina/​os,
and Asian Americans, and roughly 40 points for whites. These gaps have
been explored individually in the literature at several points in time, within
 6%

5%
Percent of All State Legislative General Election Wins

4%

3%

2%

1%

1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
Year
Race-gendered Group
African American Men African American Women Asian American Men
Asian American Women Latinos Latinas

Figure 1.2. Percent of All State Legislative General Election Wins, Nonwhite
Groups Only, Even-​Numbered Years 1996–​2014.
8 Nowhere to Run

each racial group. But what is striking about Figures 1.1 and 1.2 is their ver-
tical and longitudinal consistency across groups. The second feature of note
is the gulf between white women and men and women and men of color. This
distinction provides a crucial caveat to analyzing descriptive representation
through the lens of gender alone. Men of color’s presence in state legislatures
is nowhere near that of white men, and the same can be said for women of
color and white women. The model of electoral opportunity I offer in this
book accounts for these variations and the ways in which individual-​level
choices, group-​level processes, and broad political contexts interact with one
another to shape representation on state legislative ballots.

Overview of the Argument and Findings

In order to accurately account for significant differences in the electoral

experiences of women and men within and across racial groups, the anal-
yses in this study approach the persistence of under-​and (in the case of
white men) overrepresentation, intersectionally. Intersectionality theory
intervenes into political science debates over identity, groups, and political
access by questioning the underlying formulation of identities as additive
“components” that an individual may choose to subtract, add, highlight, or
hide in their social interactions. In contrast, intersectionality theorists argue
that group identities are mutually constituted, as are the social processes and
power relationships to which they are connected (Collins, 1990; Crenshaw,
1991; Hancock, 2007; McCall, 2005). This renders individuals’ identity-​
related experiences incapable of being separated into standalone pieces; for
example, “this is what she experiences as an Asian American, and this is what
she experiences as a woman” is an untenable and unrealistic understanding
of how an Asian American woman navigates the social and political world.
Figures 1.1 and 1.2 make clear that although race and gender are both sa-
lient dimensions of state legislative candidacies, processes related to these
identities shape social structures and political power in different ways. The
intersection of those forces positions “race-​gendered” groups such as Latinas
and Asian American men in the electoral context in ways that are related, but
distinct (Hawkesworth, 2003; Collins, 1990). I use the term “race-​gendered”
as a modification of Mary Hawkesworth’s concept of “racing-​gendering,”
which she describes as an attempt “to foreground the intricate interactions of
racialization and gendering in the political production of distinctive groups
 Introduction 9

of men and women. Racing-​gendering involves the production of differ-

ence, political asymmetries, and social hierarchies that simultaneously create
the dominant and the subordinate (Hawkesworth, 2003).” For the purposes
of this study, the term “race-​gendered” signals the ways in which race and
gender simultaneously constrain and facilitate access to electoral opportu-
nity for distinct groups of women and men.
Empirical research on electoral politics that uses an intersectional frame-
work is a growing area of scholarship. One particularly robust facet of
this work has focused on voter evaluations of candidates (e.g., Gershon &
Lavariega-​Monforti, 2019; Gershon, 2013; Philpot & Walton, 2007; Bejarano,
2013; Carey & Lizotte, 2019; Frasure-​Yokeley, 2018; Phillips, 2018, Doan &
Haider-​Markel, 2010; English et al., 2018), while other studies of the emer-
gence of female candidates from individual racial groups have also deep-
ened and complicated disciplinary understandings of how identities shape
representation (Smooth, 2006; Gay & Tate, 1998; Jaramillo, 2010; Montoya,
Hardy-​Fanta, & Garcia, 2000; Cruz Takash, 1993).
Comparative studies across racial groups in this vein have been less nu-
merous (Swain & Lien, 2016; Shah, Scott, & Juenke, 2018;) and include the
groundbreaking Gender and Multi-​Cultural Leadership study’s analysis of
women and men of color in elected office (Hardy-​Fanta et al., 2016). This
infrequency stems in part from intersectionality’s embrace of the complexity
of power relationships between groups; that complexity is an accurate reflec-
tion of how the real world functions but can be challenging to operationalize
in an empirical research design focused on multiple groups, or large-​scale
phenomena.4 However, at the same time, several questions about the roots of
underrepresentation in a diverse polity demand an analysis that can contend
with multiple dimensions of identity, context, and the dynamism of opportu-
nity and constraint. Is there a “women’s pathway” (Carroll & Sanbonmatsu,
2013) to candidacy? Should we expect the emergence of candidates like
Brenda Lopez Romero and other Latinas, and Asian American women, to
conform to that pathway, be shaped by their status as racial minorities, or
something else? Are concerns about personal relationships and family life
relevant to understanding why Latino and Asian American men are under-
represented? Should we expect the growth of immigrant-​based communi-
ties to translate into greater representation on the ballot for Latinas, Latinos,
Asian American women, and Asian American men?
These questions’ dynamism and multidimensionality require data that
encompasses different levels of electoral opportunity and constraint. To
10 Nowhere to Run

meet those demands, I developed new data that facilitates study of

the candidacies of Asian American women and men and Latinas and
Latinos running for state legislative office across different levels of anal-
ysis. The Gender Race and Communities in Elections Dataset (GRACE)
incorporates data on state legislative candidates’ race and gender identi-
ties, as well as district contextual data, for nearly every state legislative
general election from 1996 to 2015—​roughly 62,000 observations.5 The
American Leadership Survey (ALS) is a national study of sitting state
legislators (N = 547) that I fielded in 2015, and it encompasses the lar-
gest national survey sample of Asian American and Latina/​o legislators
discussing their candidacies to date. I also incorporate insights from 54 in-​
depth interviews that I conducted from 2015 to 2017 with candidates, po-
tential candidates, legislators, donors, consultants, organization leaders,
and other political elites across 12 states. Finally, a case study of Asian
American and Latina/​o candidate emergence in Los Angeles County
from 1996 to 2017 illuminates the race-​gendered character of informal
institutions and networks within racialized communities that are often at
the heart of candidate emergence processes.
The picture that emerges from this data is clear: race and gender simulta-
neously constrain and facilitate electoral opportunities for Asian American
women and men, Latinas, and Latinos. As a result, viewing the factors of
candidate emergence through a single “axis” (Crenshaw, 1991) lens of ei-
ther race, or gender, leads to overly narrow, and in some cases, inaccurate,
understandings of the underlying mechanisms that shape who is on the
ballot. Chief among these is a key assumption about the nature of electoral
opportunity for racial minorities: the larger a particular population, the
stronger the expectation that a member of that group will be on the ballot
and/​or be elected. This idea holds a central place in debates over majority-​
minority districts and legislative redistricting processes and has been empir-
ically affirmed along racial lines repeatedly, particularly for its relevance to
African Americans (Branton, 2009; Gay, 2001b), and, more recently, Latina/​
os (Barreto et al., 2004; Juenke, 2014; Hardy-​Fanta et al., 2016). The positive
relationship between district population proportions and elected represen-
tation, however, is much more robust for men than women across every ra-
cial group. Among Asian Americans and Latina/​os, that gap is even wider at
the candidacy stage. Asian American women and Latinas face geographic
constraints tied to district racial composition that are distinct from each
other and from those of co-​racial men.
 Introduction 11

In the women and politics literature, scholars looking to move away from
earlier frameworks of candidacy based on the experiences of men, have de-
veloped theories that focus on women’s individual-​level decision to run. An
assumption that threads through much of this research is that there are con-
siderations that shape (and hinder) women’s candidacies much more than
men’s, such as a lack of ambition (Fox & Lawless, 2010b; Lawless & Fox,
2005) and a concern for candidacy’s impact on women’s immediate and inti-
mate relationships (Carroll & Sanbonmatsu, 2013).
The theory I present in this book approaches the decision to run in a
different way, by widening the range of relevant factors to include group
memberships that intersect with gender, and the influence of race-​gendered
social institutions and systems. This change in scope reveals, through
interviews and survey responses from legislators and candidates, that deficits
of political ambition and self-​confidence are not the exclusive province of
women when deciding to run. In comparison with white men, nearly every
other race-​gender group has a less robust self-​image of themselves as po-
tential officeholders. Moreover, although personal relationships and house-
hold arrangements are an important consideration among most individuals
contemplating candidacy, they function in distinct ways across race-​gender
groups. Among Latinas and Asian American women, a constellation of
intimate-​level concerns constrains opportunities in ways that are sometimes
similar, and sometimes specific, to their racial and ethnic communities.
For Latinos and Asian American men, the same sets of arrangements and
relationships are a key consideration, in part because they are often struc-
tured in a way that facilitates their capacity to take on electoral opportunities.
These individual-​ level concerns are significant, but they reveal only
a narrow slice of the factors that shape the decision to run among Asian
Americans and Latina/​os. Self-​recognition of immigrant identity and mem-
bership in marginalized social groups provide a complex mix of group-​
based considerations that can simultaneously push an individual toward
candidacy and pull them away. These considerations, and the tensions they
give rise to, were particularly salient in interviews with Latinas and Asian
American women. On the one hand, seeing yourself as embedded in an im-
migrant community or marginalized racial group serves as a motivational
resource for potential candidates with high levels of group consciousness
(Miller et al., 1981) and may help them withstand other challenges that stem
from the struggle to be recognized, including outright discouragement from
elites. On the other hand, the opportunity costs of running for office instead
12 Nowhere to Run

of continuing advocacy work, or achieving a level of professional prestige

that is legible in their community, can foster ambivalence among those same
groups of potential candidates.
The findings in this book suggest that many groups face an electoral op-
portunity landscape circumscribed by intersecting social hierarchies. In par-
ticular, two simultaneous, and interactive, processes shape the contours and
differences in electoral opportunity across groups. At the national level, the
array of majority-​white populations across most districts sharply limits the
number of realistic opportunities for Latina/​os and Asian Americans of ei-
ther gender to get on the ballot and interacts with partisan contexts in a way
that narrows prospects further for women from those groups. At the local
and group level, within districts and among Asian American and Latina/​o
political elites and activists, that scarcity of viable opportunities exacerbates
informal processes and institutions that tend to push Latinas and Asian
American women further from the candidate pipeline. This integration
of national-​and local-​level processes reveals that the pathways to getting
on the ballot are few and far between for Latina/​os and Asian Americans,
and especially fraught with prospects for exclusion for Latinas and Asian
American women.
Additionally, the results in this analysis clarify the answer to a question
that has increasingly gained traction among scholars and pundits appraising
prospects for Latina (Bejarano, 2013; Casellas, 2011; Fraga et al., 2006) and
Asian American women candidates:6 Are these women of color electorally
“advantaged?” The evidence suggests not. As Lopez Romero stated, in spe-
cific contexts and situations, Latinas and Asian American women encounter
openings and opportunities where “doors are opened.” But they also face sys-
temic and structural dynamics at the individual, group, and local levels that
marginalize them as potential candidates and squeeze the availability of re-
alistic electoral opportunities even further. Because they encounter a range
of overlapping and intersecting constraints in both majority-​minority and
majority-​white districts, Asian American women and Latinas are often effec-
tively left with nowhere to run.

The Intersectional Model of Electoral Opportunity

The race-​gendered processes uncovered in this book build on intersectional

scholarship on the emergence of Black women (Smooth, 2006; Gay & Tate,
 Introduction 13

1998), Latinas (Jaramillo, 2010; Montoya et al., 2000; Cruz Takash, 1993),
and minority women and men (Shah et al., 2018; Hardy Fanta et al., 2016) as
candidates. Bringing that work into conversation with new, in-​depth data on
Latinas, Latinos, and Asian American women and men, as well as large-​scale
contextual information on populations and elections, allows for the develop-
ment of a more expansive, empirically informed model of candidate emer-
gence and the underlying mechanisms of descriptive representation.
The intersectional model of electoral opportunity accounts for three simul-
taneous conditions that shape descriptive representation among candidates.
First, the dominance of white male incumbents and predominantly white
district populations limits the number of realistic electoral opportunities for
race-​gendered groups other than white men. Second, the constraints on op-
portunity that groups face are informed by race-​gendered processes that are
related, but distinct (Collins, 1990). Third, groups of potential candidates are
embedded in multiple contexts whose salience is dynamic, and interactive.
Four groups are central to this model: white men, white women, men of
color (Latinos, Asian American, and African American men), and women of
color (Latinas, Asian American, and African American women). This enu-
meration is not an assertion of uniformity in electoral experiences across
minority racial groups or subgroups; rather, it reflects the discrete and persis-
tent gap between white women and white men’s levels of officeholding, and
those of the other groups in this study. The model’s identification of these
four groups draws on Leslie McCall’s (McCall, 2005) argument for the “stra-
tegic” use of existing categories as publicly understood markers that help
identify, but do not bound, points of intersection and analytical interest.7
All groups aspire to mainstream political influence—​in the current anal-
ysis, this influence is achieved via descriptive representation in elected offices.
The pathway each group must traverse to become successful candidates and
reach that point is not only a result of their own individual status and re-
sources. It also reflects the ways in which race-​gendered group membership
tends to constrain and facilitate access to viable electoral opportunities, and
the relative sociopolitical positioning of groups.
This model contends that candidates’ race and gender identities are a cen-
tral factor in the number and geographic distribution of realistic electoral
opportunities. At the same time, race-​gendered processes generate distinct
privileges and disadvantages for members of different groups, which inform
and influence their competitive positioning as potential candidates. One way
to think of the intersectional model of electoral opportunity is to imagine a
14 Nowhere to Run

state’s legislative chamber building as a place where a number of groups want

to ensure that their members have some presence. Realistic electoral oppor-
tunities serve as doorways to gain entry to the building. However, member-
ship in different race-​gendered groups influences the number of doors that
individuals can access, and the likely state of the pathway leading up to it.
The first feature of this model is that for women and men of color, the
number of doorways is much more limited than in earlier models of group
competition due to the dearth of realistic opportunities for them to compete
electorally in the vast majority of districts (Browning, Marshall, & Tabb, 1984;
Dahl, 1967; Dawson, 1995; Hero, 2010). For most candidates, their percep-
tion of an electoral opportunity’s viability is shaped in large part by the voters
and residents they can see and count on to donate, volunteer, and turn out. In
most state legislative districts in the United States, that constituency is pre-
dominantly white. Women and men who are not white rarely win in state leg-
islative districts with a predominantly white majority population. Thus, the
racial makeup of district populations is a constraint that strategic candidates
of color of both genders account for when deciding where and when to run.
In most districts white potential candidates do not face the same consid-
erations as nonwhite candidates do of appealing to a majority of constituents
with a racial background different from their own. Thus, white women and
men are unfettered by race in their access to electoral opportunities.
In contrast, women and men of color have some access to realistic oppor-
tunities, but it is sharply limited in practice. There are a small number of
majority-​minority districts, and a handful of African Americans, Latina/​os,
and Asian Americans who represent majority-​white districts. Importantly,
while there is a clear difference in the way race shapes the geography of elec-
toral opportunity for whites and nonwhites, race-​gendered patterns of par-
tisanship further distinguish the number of doorways to which women and
men within each racial group have realistic access.
The second feature of the intersectional model is that each group’s social
“position” (Bourdieu & Johnson, 1993; Kim, 1999; Young, 2011; Masuoka &
Junn, 2013), relative to each other and the institutions and actors at the main-
stream center of political influence, is distinct. Race and gender shape social
structures, privileges, and oppression in ways that are connected (Collins,
1990), but different, and, as a result, these groups’ pathways to electoral op-
portunity are different in myriad ways as well. Those differences reflect the
systemic and institutional power that groups hold, and they have qualitative
impacts on the pathway to candidacy.
 Introduction 15

To illustrate, white men are the historically dominant group in elected

government and electoral politics. They are most of the incumbents and
candidates, and their membership in dominant racial and gendered groups
means that they do not have to overcome structural barriers in political
and social life related to their identities as white men. These institutional
advantages tend to uniquely position white men on a fairly direct and smooth
pathway to electoral opportunity relative to other race-​gender groups.
Although men of color also experience advantages related to their gender,
such advantages do not operate in isolation from disadvantages related to
their racial group membership. The distribution of predominantly white
populations across districts limits the number of electoral opportunities re-
alistically available to men of color. However, in the few majority-​minority
districts where nonwhites are most likely to run, men of color’s membership
in the dominant gender group translates into their being widely recognized
as potential candidates.8 In majority-​white districts, men of color may also
be legible as potential candidates, but their access to the benefits of a shared
racial group in the electorate is reduced, and political elites’ incentives to sup-
port a racial minority candidate are likely diminished as well. By accounting
for the ways in which privilege and disadvantage operate simultaneously, this
race-​gendered approach allows for white men and men of color to experience
gender-​related advantages that are connected, but different (King, 1975).
The connective tissue between white women and white men’s positioning,
and sociopolitical power, is their racial group membership.9 White women
have access to the same doorways as white men, due to the abundance of
districts with a co-​racial majority population. However, their pathway is
quite different. One aspect of this difference is related to white women’s close
residential proximity to white men. A frequently documented benefit avail-
able to incumbents (Ansolabehere & Snyder, 2002; Mayhew, 1975) is their ca-
pacity to dissuade competitors. Given that most districts are predominantly
white, it is likely that the descriptive competition white male incumbents
tend to dissuade is often white women. White women’s shared racial group
membership with white men simultaneously advantages and disadvantages
their positioning as potential candidates in majority-​white districts.
White women also face a long catalog of challenges in becoming
candidates that has been observed by women-​in-​politics scholars (Carroll,
1994; Fox & Lawless, 2010a; Crowder-​Meyer, 2013; Sanbonmatsu, 2006;
Fulton & Maestas, 2006; Schneider & Bos, 2014; Thompson, 2015). The issues
identified by this rich literature render white women’s pathways to electoral
16 Nowhere to Run

opportunity less smooth and straightforward than that of white men (Carroll
& Sanbonmatsu, 2013).
As a group that faces marginalization related to both dimensions of their
identities featured in this study, women of color are positioned in a manner
that renders their access and pathways to electoral opportunities distinct
from white men, white women, and men of color. Women of color face race-​
gendered constraints on electoral opportunity that are overlapping and in-
teractive across the individual, group, and macro levels.
The scarcity of “minority” seats is a constraint that women and men of
color share, but that condition also exacerbates race-​gendered processes of
“secondary marginalization” (Cohen, 1999; Strolovitch, 2006, 2007) among
political elites, as men of color tend to dominate the informal groups and
networks that plan and negotiate to maintain or win the one or two “Latino”
or “Asian” or “Black” seats in a state or metropolitan area. Secondary mar-
ginalization describes processes within communities that are excluded
from mainstream politics, whereby the political activities and leadership of
members of a dominant subgroup render multiply disadvantaged subgroups
politically invisible (Cohen, 1999). Women of color are often obscured in
these networks and struggle to be recognized as viable candidates by po-
litical elites. As a consequence, their ability to leverage electoral resources
that are concomitant with a sizable co-​racial population, and often neces-
sary to make an opportunity realistic, tends to be less robust than that of
men of color.
Women of color are also likely to face overlapping, systemic factors at the
group and individual level that can pull them away from candidacy in elec-
toral politics. Scholarship on Latinas and Black and Asian American women
in politics has documented race-​gendered differences in modes of political
activism, and inequities in professional and economic achievement (Moraga
& Anzaldúa, 1981; Hondagneu-​Sotelo, 1994; Gay & Tate, 1998; Hardy-​
Fanta, 1993; Jaramillo, 2010; Jones-​Correa & Leal, 1996; Montoya et al.,
2000; Pardo, 1998; Cruz Takash, 1993; Sampaio, 2002; Lien, 2001; Phillips
& Lee, 2018). At the individual level, personal relationships and domestic
arrangements can have asymmetric impacts on the pathways to electoral op-
portunity for women and men of color (this asymmetry is also true for white
women and white men but, again, operates in ways that are specific to each
racial group). Race-​gendered social structures and expectations around do-
mestic life can often facilitate the candidacies of men of color while imposing
unique barriers and burdens on women of color.
 Introduction 17

Among women of color with high levels of group consciousness, those

issues may overlap with a sense of inefficacy and/​or distrust toward the po-
litical process linked to their membership in racialized groups (Dawson,
1995; Hajnal & Lee, 2011; Masuoka, 2007; Williams, 2000). These so-
cial group identities can also generate a complex mix of pressures and
incentives for potential candidates. Along similar lines, a strong sense of
connection to immigrant communities simultaneously enacted feelings of
obligation and resistance to candidacy among Latinas and Asian American
women I interviewed (these sentiments were not as consistently reported
by Latinos and Asian American men). These intersecting factors illus-
trate the necessity of integrating constraints and resources across multiple
levels into our understanding of the ways in which multiple marginaliza-
tion positions women of color along candidacy pathways that are distinctly
fraught with potential for exclusion, diversion, and derailment (Cohen,
1999; Crenshaw, 1991).
The structural differences in each group’s pathways are not absolutist dec-
larations of a fixed ranking of electoral opportunity, but they do recognize
the institutionalized and intersectional power of white supremacy and pa-
triarchy in American electoral politics. For example, a number of the Latinas
and Asian American women I interviewed described what they saw as
moments of relative advantage in their journey as candidates. One common
anecdote in this vein involved sometimes consciously relying on varying
stereotypes of Latinas and Asian American women as “non-​threatening” to
diffuse conflicts with male elites and voters. Fully cognizant that they were
viewed as “something else” in political spaces, these women recognized the
need to operate strategically within structures and social institutions that
disadvantaged them based on their race and gender group memberships. To
paraphrase one Latina state legislator I interviewed, women of color often
make the most of doors opened for them, in part because they know those
doors do not open very often.
The intersectional model of electoral opportunity captures the dynamism
of candidate emergence processes as they operate within and across power-​
based structures and institutions. It also embraces complexity by accounting
for a straightforward aspect of every potential candidates’ lived reality: their
identities encompass multiple dimensions. The result is a framework for un-
derstanding the underlying processes driving descriptive representation that
reflects the power of institutions, and context, and recognizes the diversity of
political experiences in the American polity.
18 Nowhere to Run

Why Focus on Latina/​os and Asian American Women

and Men?

An important fulcrum of this book is its empirical focus on two immigrant-​

based communities: Asian Americans and Latina/​os. Immigration policies
and immigrants themselves have been an integral part of American polit-
ical and social hierarchies since the nation’s founding (Ngai, 1999). The pace
of immigration has undergone a qualitative change in recent decades, and
changes in the composition of the polity that are related to the expansion of
these communities have been pressing issues for a number of election cycles.
Immigrants, their families, and their wider communities are also clearly of
interest to lawmakers in state legislatures, even in states where their propor-
tion of the population is in the single digits.
Yet, while immigrant communities are salient enough to merit legisla-
tive time and resources across most states and seemingly endless attention
by presidential and federal candidates for office, their underrepresentation
in elected office is often explained away as rooted in their small population
size in individual states, or short tenure in the United States. These apparent
contradictions belie an underlying tension in electoral politics, and in polit-
ical science’s understanding of the mechanisms driving descriptive represen-
tation. The presence of immigrants and their families is significant enough
to demand official attention, but immigrant community members’ own
experiences and perspectives are arguably less valued, either as informative
cases for academic theorizing, or as representatives of the views and needs of
Americans.
The approach of this book is to treat the experiences and presence of
the two largest immigrant-​based communities as equally informative for
developing theories of descriptive representation as those of other race-​
gendered groups. Moreover, I situate Asian American women and men,
and Latinas and Latinos, within the broader context of electoral realities
that they and other groups face. The growth of racialized immigrant groups
is not only altering the composition of the electorate and its potential
demands for representation; it is also generating new processes of demo-
cratic incorporation.
By utilizing an intersectional approach to contextualize and compare the
experiences of Latinas and Asian American women with each other and
other race-​gendered groups, Nowhere to Run builds on an extensive litera-
ture focused on women of color in politics. To illustrate, many of the key
 Introduction 19

concepts that I draw from in developing the model of electoral opportu-

nity were initially formed to explain aspects of Black women’s political lives;
race-​gendering (Crenshaw, 1991; Collins, 1990; Hawkesworth, 2003) and
secondary marginalization (Cohen, 1999) are chief among them. In the
empirical analysis chapters, Latinas and Asian American women’s frequent
conceptualizations of themselves as “insider outsiders” (Collins, 1990) rela-
tive to political elites reflects similar positioning of African American women
candidates documented by Brown, Hawkesworth, Smooth, and others
(Brown, 2014b; Hawkesworth, 2003; Smooth, 2006). Throughout the lit-
erature on African American women in politics, a theoretical focus on
positionality has pushed back on disciplinary tendencies that effectively
“erase” Black women (such as when scholarship is oriented around either
gender or race) (C. King, 1975; Jordan-​Zachery, 2006; Smooth, 2006; Collins,
1990; Hawkesworth, 2003; Philpot & Walton, 2007; Stokes-​Brown & Dolan,
2010; Orey, Smooth Adams, & Clark, 2006) and forged new intellectual space
for understanding intragroup politics and the diversity of Black political
experiences (Brown, 2014b; Darcy & Hadley, 1988; Gay & Tate, 1998; Tate,
2003). These emphases on positionality, intragroup diversity, simultaneity,
and power are crucial theoretical underpinnings of the electoral opportunity
model in this book.
However, as Mae C. King pointed out in 1975 (as have others since), when
we account for the differences in how sexism and racism structure discrimi-
nation, it becomes clear that Black women’s political experiences are not di-
rectly comparable to those of Black men or white women, or by extension,
Asian American women or Latinas (King, 1975). Histories of “slavery, racial
oppression and sex discrimination make black women’s position distinct”
(King, 1975), just as histories of immigration and exclusion, racial oppres-
sion, and sex discrimination make the sociopolitical positioning of Latinas
and Asian American women unique (Glenn, 2002; Volpp, 2005; García
Bedolla, 2005; Beltràn, 2010). While this book is not focused on African
American women, being a woman of color in a white male-​dominated set of
institutions is a shared, if distinct, experience for Asian American women,
Latinas, and Black women. These three groups all participate in politics as
outsiders to two dominant groups—​whites and men. Thus, it is perhaps un-
surprising that while the bulk of the literature on women of color in poli-
tics focuses on women and men within one particular racial group, there are
many theoretical and empirical insights across studies that clearly resonate
with each other.
20 Nowhere to Run

Given these complex relationships among women of color themselves

and the literatures focused on Black women, Asian American women, and
Latinas, it is useful to pause here and specify how this study situates the
experiences of Black women. The theory I advance draws from intersectional
scholarship focused on Black women, Latinas, and Asian American women.
It is intended to be broad enough to capture how race-​gendered processes
and institutions constrain and facilitate opportunity and representation, si-
multaneously at multiple levels of analysis. That is why the theory is oriented
around four groups: white men, white women, women of color, and men of
color. Groups of women included under the category “women of color” have
some relationships to political institutions and experiences that are shared,
and others that are not. This theory does not prescribe how race-​gendered
processes related to candidate emergence unfold within racial groups, pre-
cisely because I expect those dynamics to be different among African
Americans, Latina/​os, and Asian Americans.
The empirical analysis of Latina/​os and Asian Americans in this book
demonstrates more specifically how overlapping identities structure op-
portunity within those groups. When results for Black women and men and
white women and men are included alongside those of Latina/​os and Asian
Americans, it is because I believe they provide essential information for un-
derstanding the political context of that particular analysis. Often, the results
for Black women (and Black men) that I present in this manner reconfirm
or complement extant findings in the literature on Black women in politics.
I make note of those connection in the footnotes, while focusing the anal-
ysis in the text on results for Latinas, Latinos, and Asian American women
and men.
Scholars of Latinas in politics have also countered the persistence of “the
invisible Latina” in mainstream political science scholarship (Montoya et al.,
2000). Much of that work has advanced the importance of accounting for
multiple types of activism in feminist analyses of politics. By treating com-
munity organizing and non-​electoral civic work as “real politics,” Mary
Pardo, Carol Hardy-​Fanta, Anna Sampaio, and others expand the bound-
aries for political leadership to include geographies where Latinas are at the
center (Hardy-​Fanta, 1993; Pardo, 1998; Walker & García-​Castañon, 2017;
Sampaio, 2004). My analysis of Latina candidates and potential candidates’
community-​ based constructions of politics and advocacy in this book
echoes and elaborates on similar dynamics among Latina political activists
advanced by these scholars.
 Introduction 21

Studies of Latinas in electoral politics have often focused either on richly

detailed case studies of elected officials in a particular area of the United States
(Cruz Takash, 1993; Fraga et al., 2003; Jaramillo, 2008; García et al., 2008), or
voter perceptions of Latinas as candidates (Bejarano, 2013; Cargile, 2016).
While none focuses entirely on candidate emergence, these literatures sug-
gest that Latinas’ pathways to officeholding are distinct from Latinos’: Latina
candidates may be viewed differently by white voters than Latinos (Bejarano,
2013), and they face exclusion and burdensome expectations relative to co-​
racial men (Cruz Takash, 1993; Jaramillo, 2008; García et al., 2008; Montoya
et al., 2000).
Turning to scholarship focused on Asian American women in politics,
most early studies focused on voter behavior and have been carried out by
Pei-​Te Lien and her coauthors (Lien, 1994, 1998, 2001; c.f. Phillips & Lee,
2018; Yih, 2016; Sriram, 2016). More recently, Lien and Filler examined the
pathways to officeholding by Asian American elected officials serving in
2014, arguing that there are gendered differences in the occupational and
civic trajectories of Asian American women and men (Filler & Lien, 2016).
Instead of being the subject of single–​racial group studies, it has more often
been the case that Asian American women as candidates and elected officials
have been included in larger, comparative studies and volumes (Swain &
Lien, 2016; Brown & Gershon, 2016; García Bedolla, Tate, & Wong, 2005;
Sanbonmatsu, 2013; Scola, 2006; Shah, Scott, & Juenke, 2018). Among these,
the Gender and Multicultural Leadership Study (Hardy-​Fanta et al., 2016,
2006) has been the most comprehensive, widely examining the contours of
women of color’s candidacies and service in elected office. Hardy-​Fanta and
colleagues include a relatively small number of state legislators in their na-
tionwide sample of elected officials of color (respondents in their data are
predominantly local-​level officials), but the results and analysis I present in
Chapter 3 of this book affirm their suggestion that the decision to run for of-
fice should be considered through a lens that is wider than individual-​level
ambition and account for differences in the way women and men of color
relate their own political trajectories to those of their communities (Hardy-​
Fanta et al., 2016).
These literatures have made a forceful case for the distinct positionalities
of women of color, but those understandings have not yet been fully incor-
porated into theories of candidate emergence and competition for represen-
tation. Additionally, Latinas and Asian American women are members of
immigrant communities, but there have been few efforts to clarify how that
22 Nowhere to Run

dimension of identity intersects with others in shaping their opportunities

for representation on the ballot or in office.
By situating Latinas, Latinos, and Asian American women and men within
multiple contexts, and comparatively analyzing how the processes that shape
electoral opportunity for these groups are race-​gendered, this book makes
three key empirical and theoretical contributions to the literature on women
of color in politics.
First, the GRACE dataset facilitates an analysis of the prospects for de-
scriptive representation that women of color face that is unprecedented in
terms of scale and inclusivity. This is particularly true for Asian American
and Latina/​o candidates. The integration of national data spanning nearly
two decades with interviews and surveys in Nowhere to Run complements
the many richly textured, qualitative studies of smaller groups of women-​of-​
color activists and elected officials that have propelled this literature.
Second, this study offers an explicit account of the ways in which simul-
taneous pressures within communities and, more broadly, in electoral pol-
itics shape the possibilities for women of color’s political leadership and
representation—​including specific attention to the domination of white
men and white-​majority districts in the landscape of electoral opportunities.
These contributions are rooted in the intersectional research design of this
study, and discussed more extensively in Chapter 2.
The third contribution is facilitated by the choice to center this analysis on
Asian American women and men, and Latinas and Latinos—​all members
of racialized immigrant-​based communities. Throughout the interviews
for this book, candidates and legislators, particularly women, framed them-
selves as members of American racial minority groups that are also deeply
connected to a diverse array of immigrant-​specific experiences. Nativity, im-
migrant generation, and membership in an immigrant-​based community
are all distinct concepts and dimensions of identity—​and they are not inter-
changeable with race.
In this book, the “bundle of processes” (Lee, 2008b) related to immigra-
tion and immigrant political incorporation serves as a framework for under-
standing widespread changes in American democratic processes. To this end,
immigration is a political and social phenomenon that helps drive the chan-
ging roles that race and gender play in electoral politics, because of the simple
fact that it is changing the composition of the polity—​and therefore the mix
of groups and individuals competing for opportunities for representation—​
in ways that political scientists have yet to fully grapple with. Moreover,
 Introduction 23

“immigrant’ is a dimension of identity that is distinct from race, but that

intersects with race in unique ways across groups. Just as I refrain from treating
race or gender as stand-​alone, “on or off ” component variables, I also do not
use nativity or immigrant generations in this analysis as isolated quantitative
variables that flatten or stand in for the experiences of diverse communities.
Nor do I assume that Latina/​o or Asian American identities are constituted as
racial identities in the same ways as African American or white, because they
are not connected to the institutions of American slavery and immigration and
naturalization policies in the same way (Kim, 1999; Masuoka & Junn, 2013).
Instead, I treat the ways that membership in an immigrant community
intersects with candidates’ race and gender identities to shape their opportu-
nities as “an open empirical question” (Hancock, 2007). For some respondents
I interviewed, membership in an immigrant community is tied to the
racialization of immigration as an issue; they feel connected to and motivated
by the concerns of immigrants because they share a racial group that is treated
broadly as outsiders (Masuoka & Junn, 2013). For others, their identity as an
immigrant is tied to the material and political challenges of immigrant incorpo-
ration, or a sense of obligation to the United States as a place of socioeconomic
opportunity or political liberty. The multiplicity of these and other reasons are
part of why an intersectional analysis of immigrant community members is
necessary—​the constitutive elements of that identity are very different across
race-​gendered groups. Immigrant as a dimension of identity can be mean-
ingful, without a forced expectation of uniformity of experience (Beltràn, 2010).
Among respondents I interviewed, immigrant identities were most often
mentioned in conversations about individual-​level motivations and sense
of attachment to a group or community. “Immigrant” as a characteristic of
a specific electoral opportunity or network of elites was mentioned much
less frequently, and when it was discussed, it was often tied into the racial
contours of a particular district. In other words, Latina, Latino, and Asian
American women and men I spoke to were cognizant that districts with
large Asian American or Latina/​o populations likely contain voters from
immigrant communities, but conversations about where certain candidates
could be viable, or broader systems and elite networks that shape who has
access to electoral opportunities, were largely oriented around race and
gender. The analysis in the following chapters also reflects these emphases.
Deploying these treatments of immigrant identity in a study focused on
Asian Americans and Latina/​os contributes to a more holistic understanding
of the roles that identities play in the candidacies and representation of
24 Nowhere to Run

women of color. Focusing on these two groups allows analytical space for
immigrant identities to be multifaceted and intersectional, instead of being
flattened into or conflated with racial identity. As such, Nowhere to Run
brings much needed data and analysis of the emergence of Asian American
women and Latinas to the body of scholarship on women of color in poli-
tics, while also arguing that their experiences reshape the salient identities
for which this literature must account.

Plan of the Book

This book demonstrates the intersectional model’s explanatory power by

analyzing the emergence of Asian American women, Asian American men,
Latinas, and Latinos as candidates for state legislative office. It also offers
the first opportunity to assess long-​standing assumptions about how racial
group populations are connected to opportunities for representation, among
women and men, within and across the four largest racial groups in the
United States, over a significant time frame.
The intersectional model’s capacity to make sense of a wide array of elec-
toral processes and outcomes allows the distinct political trajectories of Asian
American women and men and Latinas and Latinos to become new sources
of analytical leverage in understanding how multiple dimensions of identity
shape electoral opportunity. The multilevel and multi-​method analysis that
unfolds in this book sheds light on the race-​gendered constraints on electoral
opportunity Latinas, Latinos, and Asian American women and men face, as
they attempt to gain mainstream political influence through descriptive rep-
resentation. The evidence throughout demonstrates that relationships, phe-
nomena and structures that political scientists and elites have typically treated
as either racialized, or gendered, are, in fact, shaped by multiple dimensions of
identity simultaneously. By clarifying the mechanisms that drive candidacy, we
can better understand how to strengthen the institutions and processes that are
designed to connect a rapidly changing electorate to those who govern.

Chapter Outline

Intersectional empirical studies of American politics that utilize cross-​

group comparison with large-​scale data must confront distinct analytical
 Introduction 25

challenges, from the stages of developing research questions to data gathering

and analysis (Hardy-​Fanta et al., 2016; Strolovitch, 2006, 2007; Strolovitch,
Wong, & Proctor, 2017; Wong, 2006). As such, this book seeks to continue
developing the methodological tools for research in this vein. For readers
interested in this emerging approach, Chapter 2 specifies how the research
design of this book operationalizes intersectionality theory through its data
collection and analytical approach. This includes an expanded discussion
of how using this framework to analyze Asian American women and men,
and Latinas and Latinos, facilitates new understandings of the relationship
between race-​gendered political processes and electoral opportunity within
their communities, and more generally across other groups.
Chapter 3 shifts and expands the lenses extant scholarship has often relied
on to explain why potential candidates decide to run or not, by moving away
from a primary focus on individual-​and intimate-​level concerns, to an in-
teractive set of considerations that engage individual, household, group, and
macro contexts. As Masuoka and Junn (2013) aptly put it, “agency at the in-
dividual level is constrained by relative group position.” The results and anal-
ysis in Chapter 3 affirm the utility of that approach for understanding the
decision to run for office, and they add the important proviso that agency
at the individual level is also facilitated by relative group position as well.
Additionally, I rely on a feminist conceptualization of self-​ recognition
(Collins, 1990; Pardo, 1998; Espiritu, 1999; Glenn, 2002; Deveaux, 1994) to
argue that a strong sense of immigrant identity plays a complex and previ-
ously underappreciated role in advancing the likelihood of candidacy among
Asian Americans and Latina/​os, even as it may also enact considerations that
undermine the strategic appeal of running for office.
Majority-​minority districts have figured centrally in debates over under-
representation of racial minority groups. Chapter 4 takes this discussion in
a new direction by focusing on how the small number of majority-​minority
districts limits the realistic array of electoral opportunities for Asian
American and Latina/​o women and men. The chapter also shows that up to
now, the utility of majority-​minority districts in advancing descriptive di-
versity in elected office has been mischaracterized. The classic expectation
of a positive relationship between a racial group’s size and its likelihood of
having a descriptive representative on the ballot or in office is much more
robust for men than women. To explain why, Chapter 4 uses interview data
to demonstrate that within these rare districts widely perceived as non-
white candidates’ primary opportunity for representation, the politics of
26 Nowhere to Run

recognition among political elites tend to disadvantage Asian American

women and Latinas, relative to co-​racial men. As a result, they are less likely
than co-​racial men to be in a position to reap the electoral benefits often as-
sociated with a majority-​minority district population.
Chapter 5 underscores a key theme of this study: that understanding
how one group’s opportunities are constrained requires simultaneously
accounting for how those opportunities are facilitated for others. Over
three-​quarters of all state legislative elections occur in districts in which
whites comprise 80 percent or more of the population, and yet those types
of districts have rarely figured in studies of minority representation. This
chapter encompasses the first comprehensive analysis of the prospects
for representation of Latina/​os and Asian American women and men in
predominantly white districts across the United States. I show that past
performance suggests that these prospects are presently dim. Chapter 5
also provides an account of how partisanship interacts with race-​gendered
processes to create particular limits on the electoral opportunities of
Asian American women and Latinas. The final section of the chapter
addresses the phenomenon of the “crossover” candidate, often character-
ized by pundits and some scholars (Bejarano, 2013; Casellas, 2011) as a
Latina or Asian American woman running in a plurality or predominantly
white district, on the basis of her presumed appeal to white voters. While
districts on the threshold of majority-​minority status hold some theoret-
ical promise for expanding descriptive representation along those lines,
electoral outcomes from the past two decades of state legislative elections
suggest that caution is warranted.
Chapters 6 and 7 use a case study of Los Angeles County as an extreme
case to test the intersectional model’s explanatory power as well as provide
specific illustrations of the informal political institutions and networks that
many respondents across the country identified as a key element in candidate
emergence. Los Angeles County is defined by large immigrant populations,
strong coalitions of racial minorities who are Democrats, large labor unions
active in electoral politics, and a highly effective Latina/​o political infrastruc-
ture focused on candidate development and support. Yet here, as in the rest
of the country, white men’s choices about where and when to run appear rel-
atively unconstrained while women and men from other racial groups are
engaged in a seemingly never-​ending game of musical chairs around a small
number of select seats. Informal political institutions dominated by men of
color that purportedly vet and support Latina/​o candidates often actively
 Introduction 27

exclude Latinas, and Asian American women face intersecting barriers to

becoming candidates and an absence of pan-​ethnic organizational support.
While Los Angeles has often been described as a political power center for
immigrant communities, the reality is that race and gender define which
groups within those communities have realistic opportunities to access
that power.
Nowhere to Run’s concluding chapter briefly reviews the book’s key
findings, underscoring that the constraints and resources that determine
electoral opportunities intersect and are distinct for women and men, within
and across racial groups. It also offers a forward-​looking approach to ana-
lyzing candidacy and representation that corresponds with the emerging
American population of the 21st century. Although rooted in long-​standing
institutions (formal and informal), the conditions and expectations that
shape electoral opportunities for Asian American women and men and
Latinas and Latinos are “conventional, but not innate (Harris, 2000).” I close
the book by outlining two key areas where, if conventional practices were
to change, prospects for candidacy and descriptive representation would
likely improve: risk-​assessment methods used by parties and other organi-
zations engaged in candidate development and an explicit focus on under-
represented subgroups by elites and organizations engaged in candidate
development.

Conclusion

Lopez Romero’s success in Georgia in 2016 is a testament to both the

challenges and possibilities that confront American communities seeking
representation. As immigration-​driven population changes continue apace,
the descriptive gap between the governed and those who govern grows
more acute and threatens the democratic legitimacy of policymaking pro-
cesses in legislatures. These changes also push against the theoretical limits
of candidate emergence and descriptive representation frameworks that
rely on single dimensional categories of analysis. The intersectional model
of electoral opportunity is centered on simple concepts that are complex in
their ramifications for understanding democratic processes—​that individ-
uals are simultaneously members of more than one social group, and their
political leadership is shaped by processes and institutions large and small.
The integration of multiple dimensions of identity, and levels of salient social
28 Nowhere to Run

contexts, allows the model to recognize the necessity of addressing under-

representation, by simultaneously accounting for overrepresentation.
The institutions at the heart of this study represent key challenges in the
American democratic project: racially lopsided districts, race-​gendered and
exclusionary political networks, and limited organizational capacity to sup-
port new candidates in new places. These issues, however, are neither fixed in
stone nor “natural.” They also do not reflect some unspoken, mass will of the
voters that demands the overrepresentation of white men. Indeed, among
voters who are underrepresented in elected office, the candidacy and public
service of a member of their own social group can facilitate an important
boost to their participation and trust in democratic institutions.10 This book
identifies the mechanisms that currently prevent voters from having those
descriptive choices, in the hope that their transformation will move the com-
position of ballots, and legislatures, closer to that of the population.
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lo Stato e
l'istruzione pubblica nell'Impero Romano
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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eBook.

Title: Lo Stato e l'istruzione pubblica nell'Impero Romano

Author: Corrado Barbagallo

Release date: February 8, 2024 [eBook #72900]

Language: Italian

Original publication: Catania: Battiato, 1911

Credits: Barbara Magni and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LO STATO E

L'ISTRUZIONE PUBBLICA NELL'IMPERO ROMANO ***
LO STATO E L’ISTRUZIONE
PUBBLICA NELL’IMPERO
ROMANO
 CORRADO BARBAGALLO

LO STATO
E

L’ISTRUZIONE PUBBLICA
nell’Impero Romano

CATANIA
FRANCESCO BATTIATO, EDITORE
1911
 PROPRIETÀ LETTERARIA
Catania, Stab. Tip. Cav. S. Di Mattei & C.
INDICE
 INTRODUZIONE

L’istruzione pubblica in Europa è tutta creazione italica. Il più geniale

dei filologi francesi, Gastone Boissier ha illustrato mirabilmente, da
par suo, questo grandissimo, tra i meriti della nostra stirpe, nella
storia della civiltà umana: «Appena gli eserciti romani erano
penetrati nei paesi sconosciuti, vi si fondavano scuole; i retori vi
giungevano dietro le orme del generale vincitore, portando seco la
civiltà. La prima cura di Agricola, appena ebbe pacificata la
Britannia, fu di ordinare che ai figli dei capi s’insegnassero le arti
liberali.»
«Appena i Galli furon vinti da Cesare, si aperse la scuola di Autun.
Per farci intendere che presto non vi saranno più barbari e che gli
estremi paesi dal mondo si inciviliscono, Giovenale dice che nelle
più remote isole dell’Oceano, perfino a Thule, si pensa di far venire
un retore. La retorica conquistava il mondo nel nome di Roma, e i
Romani sentivano di doverle una grande riconoscenza e che l’unità
del loro impero si era fondata nella scuola. Popoli, che differivano fra
loro per l’origine, per la lingua, per le abitudini, per i costumi, non si
sarebbero mai così fusi insieme se l’educazione non li avesse
raccostati e riuniti. Ed essa vi riuscì in modo mirabile. Nell’elenco dei
professori di Bordeaux, quale Ausonio ce l’ha tramandato, noi
vediamo figurare insieme e vecchi romani e figli di Druidi e sacerdoti
di Beleno, l’antico Apollo gallico, che insegnano tutti, come gli altri,
grammatica e retorica. Le armi li avevano mal sottomessi;
l’educazione li ha interamente domati» [1].
Non ostante così grande merito, la letteratura storica del nostro
paese è forse l’unica, che non possegga una sola monografia sulla
forma e sullo svolgimento della istruzione pubblica nell’evo antico.
Ma tale considerazione, per quanto grave, non potrebbe, forse,
giustificare del tutto un nuovo studio sull’argomento. La cultura
moderna, che ha come suo carattere la internazionalità, riesce a
prevenire, il più delle volte, il desiderio, o il bisogno, di una
produzione nazionale su determinati oggetti d’interesse generale. E
precisamente, nel caso nostro, nonostante la mancanza di lavori
italiani, nonostante che anche la letteratura francese, ch’è stata in
ogni secolo un mezzo maraviglioso di diffusione delle idee, non ce
ne porga compenso adeguato, potremmo pur dire di avere molto da
attingere, dalla produzione storico-pedagogica dei popoli dell’Europa
non latina, specie, come sempre, dalla grande nazione tedesca e un
po’ anche (chi l’avrebbe mai detto?) da quella delle nazioni slava e
ungherese [2].
Ma tutti questi scritti, che, salvo poche eccezioni, riescono quasi
inaccessibili alla maggior parte dei lettori e degli studiosi italiani,
sono macolati in genere da due difetti organici. L’uno è ch’essi
fondono insieme la trattazione della istruzione pubblica romana con
quella greca, [3] il che, a sua volta, produce due conseguenze fatali:
la negligenza dello studio dell’istruzione pubblica nel mondo latino, la
cui importanza viene, praticamente, rimpicciolita ed oscurata, e la
confusione di tipi, di istituti e di condizioni, che, se hanno fra loro
innegabili rapporti di analogia e di parentela, rimangono pure
profondamente distinti. L’altro difetto è che tutte le monografie,
esistenti sulla istruzione pubblica nel mondo romano, o romanizzato,
si sono esclusivamente limitate a dare un’idea — sia pure esatta e
minuta — del meccanismo interiore della scuola a tipo classico. Or
bene, di questo noi siamo oggi perfettamente informati, e non mette
in verità conto proseguire ad occuparcene. Ma ciò non significa
punto che si possegga — o si sia fornito — un adeguato concetto
della diffusione, e delle condizioni della istruzione pubblica, nel
mondo romano.
Questo concetto può solo scaturire dall’esame degli istituti scolastici,
nei vari paesi dominati da Roma; ma è appunto tale studio che può
dirsi manchi interamente alla letteratura pedagogica europea.
Inoltre, da questa insistenza delle varie monografie a dissertare del
funzionamento della scuola greca e romana, consegue un difetto
ancor più grave per il nostro studio: la trascuranza delle sue
specifiche condizioni durante l’età imperiale. Infatti, poichè il
generale ordinamento interno della scuola romana, nel massimo
fiorire della repubblica, differisce assai poco da quello della
medesima nell’età successiva, è chiaro che chi ha illustrato la prima
non ha poi creduto necessario ripetere il lavoro per la seconda, nella
quale tuttavia gl’istituti di istruzione pubblica raggiunsero il loro più
notevole sviluppo.
Da queste premesse il lettore può in anticipazione rappresentarsi
alla mente le linee generalissime del lavoro, che crediamo debba
ancora essere tentato dagli studiosi europei, e specialmente dagli
italiani. Esso dovrebbe riuscire da un lato alla illustrazione di tutti gli
elementi specifici, apportati da l’impero romano nell’istruzione
pubblica del mondo da esso dominato; dall’altro, a una serie di
monografie sulle condizioni, le vicende, lo svolgimento di questa
istruzione, nei varii paesi, che soggiacquero alla dominazione
romana. Appunto perciò la prima parte di uno studio, quale noi lo
concepiamo, deve essere dedicata a chiarire la natura dei rapporti
tra il governo centrale e la istruzione pubblica, e a dare l’idea dello
svolgimento di questa forma della politica imperiale; perchè la
caratteristica dell’istruzione pubblica nell’impero, quella che tutte le
altre accoglie e subordina, fu appunto l’ingerenza del potere
centrale, che concluse con la creazione di quella istruzione di stato,
ch’è oggi il tipo più universale, quella anzi che noi siamo indotti a
identificare con l’istruzione pubblica propriamente detta.
Tale l’indagine storica, che oggi presento ai lettori, e che mi è riuscita
meno agevole di quanto la natura del soggetto farebbe supporre,
sopra tutto a motivo della incertezza dei suoi mutevoli confini, che ho
dovuti a ogni passo rimettere in discussione. Infatti, con la parola
istruzione, io non volli intendere soltanto la coltura intellettuale, ma
anche l’educazione morale; nè l’una e l’altra volli identificare con
certe categorie determinate, oggi a noi più familiari,
dell’insegnamento, ma le sorti di entrambe ricercare attraverso tutte
le varie, impreviste forme, in cui si esplicò l’azione dei principi e dei
governi, che furono intenti ad istruire e ad educare. Era per ciò facile
— e quindi pericoloso — che il nostro studio storico sull’istruzione
pubblica si tramutasse in un saggio sulla cultura intellettuale del
tempo, o, peggio, in una dissertazione sul mecenatismo dei principi
romani. Ma, per quanto, all’atto pratico, le varie distinzioni non
riescano agevoli, tuttavia io mi sono sempre guardato dal cadere in
siffatti equivoci, e, se di cultura o di mecenatismo ho qualche volta
discorso, è stato solo per mettere uno sfondo al quadro, o una
premessa alla dimostrazione.
Ugualmente facile (o pericoloso?) era venire a discorrere di certe
forme d’istruzione speciale, che vantò anche l’impero romano e di
cui possono indicarsi, quali esempi, le scuole d’armi, le scuole dei
gladiatori etc. Ma è parso a me evidente che questi e simili istituti
non rientrassero nel concetto generale d’istruzione pubblica, a cui
pure viene subordinata, per certi caratteri di universalità, anche
l’istruzione professionale, e ho tralasciato questa parte, che forse,
anche, avrebbe richiesto per se sola tutta una speciale trattazione.
Ma tali gravi difficoltà nel fissare i limiti del mio compito sono piccole
e scarse rispetto alle numerose, suscitate dall’esame dei mille
argomenti e dei mille svariatissimi problemi, coi quali il soggetto del
presente studio va indissolubilmente congiunto. Moltissimi invero tra
questi non hanno ancora avuto una trattazione o una soluzione
definitiva; molti non ne hanno avuta nessuna, e io mi sono, caso per
caso, dovuto accingere a fornirne qualcuna. Non mi illudo di avere
sempre colto nel segno; sarebbe presunzione eccessiva. Sono però
convinto d’avere sempre, nei limiti delle mie forze, compiuto il mio
dovere di ricercatore e sopra tutto di avere soddisfatto a
quell’obbligo, che è sommo per chiunque, e che il più grande storico
dell’arte antica incideva in una frase scultoria dell’opera sua
maggiore, l’obbligo cioè di ogni studioso «di non mai paventare la
ricerca del vero, anche se a pregiudizio della propria estimazione»,
chè «i singoli debbono errare, affinchè i molti procedano verso la
verità» [4].
 CAPITOLO I.
Gli Imperatori di casa Giulio-Claudia e
l’istruzione nell’Impero Romano.
(30 a. C.-68 d. C.)

I. La politica scolastica degli Imperatori di casa Giulio-Claudia.

I privilegi di Augusto ai praeceptores. Una scuola di stato per
la nuova aristocrazia imperiale. — II. Le biblioteche pubbliche
augustee. — III. Il governo di Augusto e la custodia delle
opere d’arte. — IV. Augusto e l’immunità dai carichi pubblici ai
medici e ai docenti di medicina. — V. Augusto e la nuova
educazione della gioventù. — VI. Contenuto religioso e
morale di questa educazione. — VII. Augusto istituisce un
ufficio di sovrintendenza generale su l’istruzione e
l’educazione della gioventù romana. — VIII. Augusto e
l’istruzione pubblica nelle provincie; la biblioteca del
Sebasteum; l’amministrazione e la direzione del Museo
alessandrino. — IX. L’istruzione pubblica e il governo centrale
da Augusto a Nerone. Caligola e i concorsi di eloquenza. Il
Museum Claudium. — X. La corte e la sua influenza sulla
nuova aristocrazia. I concorsi di eloquenza istituiti da Nerone
e l’incremento degli studi di retorica. Il governo di Nerone e gli
studi di filosofia. — XI. Le immunità agli insegnanti datano
probabilmente da Nerone. — XII. Rassegna e ampiezza di
queste immunità. — XIII. Casi di immunità speciali a favore
degli insegnanti primarii. — XIV. Nerone e l’ellenizzarsi
dell’educazione fisica in Roma. — XV. Nerone e l’incremento
dell’istruzione musicale. — XVI. I successori di Augusto e le
 organizzazioni giovanili a Roma e in Italia. — XVII. Nerone
ricompone le biblioteche perite nell’incendio del 64. — XVIII.
Gli Imperatori di casa Giulio-Claudia e gli studi di
giurisprudenza. — XIX. Il nuovo regime e l’istruzione
pubblica.

I.

Ebbero, e praticarono, gl’imperatori della casa Giulio-Claudia quella

che oggi si direbbe una politica scolastica loro propria? Chi scorra,
anche con diligenza, le trattazioni esistenti sulla storia dell’istruzione
e dell’educazione nel mondo romano non può non rispondere
negativamente. Il governo di quegli imperatori sembra rimanere
estraneo a tutta l’operosità ufficiale svoltasi in questo campo durante
il primo secolo di C. Eppure, è ben difficile dire se altre dinastie
abbiano, nello svolgimento dell’istruzione e dell’educazione
nazionale, esercitato un’influenza pari a quella dei Giulio-Claudii,
come è altrettanto difficile indicare i principi romani, che ne abbiano,
in maniera egualmente larga, affrontato il non agevole problema.
Fra essi, al posto di onore, va, come era prevedibile, collocato
Augusto. Tre sono i provvedimenti, che di lui si sogliono ricordare, e
che, direttamente e indirettamente, si connettono alle cure
dell’istruzione pubblica: 1) un privilegio concesso ai docenti
nell’occasione di una grande carestia; 2) l’istituzione di una scuola
pei principi; 3) l’istituzione di pubbliche biblioteche.
Augusto continuò il concetto e la politica di Cesare. Per lui, come per
il suo grande predecessore, i maestri delle scuole elementari, medie
e superiori, erano, nella vita dello stato, non quantità ingombranti,
ma elementi di forza e di benessere sociale. Così, nell’occasione di
una grande carestia in Roma, probabilmente quella del 10 di C., egli
fu costretto a ordinare lo sfratto di tutte le ciurme di schiavi
trasportati a Roma per la vendita, di tutte le bande di gladiatori,
persone, come si vede, destinate a uffici, o esercenti mestieri, dei cui
vantaggi il pubblico romano nè soleva, nè sapeva, privarsi. Il decreto
di sfratto fu esteso a buona parte degli schiavi addetti ai servizii
domestici e pubblici in Roma — si voleva, pare, diminuire ad ogni
costo il numero delle bocche — nonchè a tutti i forestieri. Chi ha
un’idea di quello che sogliono essere le città capitali, specie se città
cosmopolite, può formarsi una lontana idea degli effetti di
quest’ultima parte del decreto imperiale. Chè Roma non era soltanto
una capitale; era, in quel tempo, la capitale del mondo, era
l’universal porto di mare, era la città, che, come si esprimevano i
suoi poeti, sarebbe cessata di vivere, se gli stranieri non l’avessero
colmata di loro stessi [5]. Privarla di tutti i forestieri era lo stesso che
mutilarla di una parte viva del suo organismo. Tra quei forestieri
numerosissimi erano i greci, anzi gli abitatori di tutto il mondo
ellenizzato, e, quindi, i pedagoghi, i litteratores, i grammatici, i
rhetores [6]. Con la loro espulsione Roma sarebbe rimasta priva di
una buona metà di coloro che v’impartivano l’istruzione. E due sole
eccezioni Augusto fece: l’una per i praeceptores, [7] l’altra per i
medici, maestri anch’essi, come vedremo; [8] e il privilegio accordato
significò che, per il primo degli imperatori romani, ridurre al popolo il
pane della scienza era più dannoso del lasciarne ridurre il pane
quotidiano.
Di Augusto — dicemmo — si rammenta altresì l’istituzione di una
scuola pei principi. Svetonio, esponendo la biografia del grammatico
Verrio Flacco, narra che, «scelto da Augusto quale precettore ai suoi
nipoti, egli passò nel palazzo imperiale con tutta la sua scuola ma
con l’impegno di non ammettervi più alcun altro discepolo. Ivi egli
fece lezione nell’atrio della domus Catilinae, che era allora una parte
del palazzo imperiale, con lo stipendio annuo di 100,000 sesterzi» [9].
(L. 25,000 circa).
Qualche storico [10] ha raccostato tale fatto al provvedimento
dell’imperatore Vespasiano, di cui avremo a suo tempo ad occuparci,
pel quale taluni dei retori greci e latini furono stipendiati a spese
pubbliche. [11] Evidentissimamente, il paragone non regge: i due atti
sono di natura essenzialmente diversa. Vespasiano, col suo
provvedimento, metterà a disposizione del pubblico dei buoni
maestri, reggenti scuole pubbliche, e porrà, accanto alle altre, una
scuola di paragone, di cui toccava allo stato scegliere gl’insegnanti.
Augusto invece confiscava a beneficio di una ristretta classe di
persone una scuola aperta per l’innanzi al pubblico. E il suo
tentativo, se a qualcosa, accenna, non già all’avocazione della
scuola allo stato, bensì al regime della istruzione domestica.
Ma senza dubbio una scuola esclusivamente domestica la sua non
fu. I cittadini e i residenti in Roma mandavano i loro figliuoli ad istituti
di vario merito e di vario nome. È quello che accade in ogni tempo
per le scuole rette da privati. Ogni cittadino sceglie il maestro più
consono al suo modo di vedere in fatto di questioni morali, politiche,
didattiche, e più acconcio alle proprie risorse economiche. Ogni
classe sociale ha quindi gli istituti privati, in cui preferisce mandare i
suoi figli. La scuola di Verrio Flacco dovette essere quella
dell’aristocrazia romana. Augusto vi mandò i suoi nipoti, e ne chiuse
l’accesso ad elementi estranei, e stipendiò, a compenso dei danni
eventuali, nonchè a garanzia propria, il maestro. Egli alimentò così la
scuola della nuova aristocrazia romana imperiale.
Ma fece anche di più: «educò ed istruì, insieme con i propri, i figliuoli
di molti principi alleati di Roma» [12].
Egli dunque, mentre da un lato alimentava una scuola per
l’aristocrazia romana, dall’altro voleva che quella scuola fosse un
corso speciale per l’istruzione dei principi romani e di quelli, che con
Roma vivevano (ed egli desiderava vivessero) in rapporti amichevoli.
Per tal via la scuola di Verrio Flacco assumeva un chiaro
intendimento politico, Augusto mirava a consolidare e a conquistare,
con la voluta somiglianza dei costumi e dell’indirizzo educativo, con
l’intimità dei rapporti personali, i buoni rapporti internazionali dello
Stato romano. L’opera saggia, ma di un carattere affatto diverso da
quella che inizierà Vespasiano, è dunque, sopra tutto, un’opera
personale di Augusto. E onere suo personale fu con certezza lo
stipendio fornito a Verrio Flacco, che non gravava sul bilancio dello
Stato, bensì sulla cassa privata del principe. Questo particolare però
non deve avere l’importanza, che potrebbero farvi attribuire analogie
contemporanee. È notorio: nell’impero romano i confini tra la cassa
privata dell’imperatore e il bilancio dello Stato, fra le attribuzioni
personali dell’imperatore e quello del governo centrale, furono
sempre assai incerti, e le istituzioni ed erogazioni del principe
potevano bene — nel loro valore politico — apparire — od essere —
un atto dello Stato, come ogni pubblica iniziativa assurgere — nel
suo merito — a iniziativa personale dell’imperatore.

II.

Più notevole, nei rapporti con l’istruzione pubblica, si fu l’istituzione

di pubbliche biblioteche. Questo era stato uno dei propositi migliori di
Giulio Cesare; [13] uno dei tanti, che il pugnale dei congiurati aveva
spezzato con la sua vita.
In sui primi anni dell’êra cristiana, l’idea veniva ripresa da un privato
cittadino, C. Asinio Pollione, e da lui attuata con l’apertura al
pubblico di una biblioteca greco-latina [14]. Augusto collaborò da par
suo all’opera di Pollione.
La prima biblioteca augustea fu la Palatina, fondata nel 28 a. C. nel
luogo stesso, in cui la casa di Augusto era stata colpita dal fulmine,
perchè ivi — gli aruspici avevano spiegato — Apollo reclamava
l’erezione di un suo tempio. E sorse il tempio, e, col tempio, un
portico, nonchè una biblioteca greco-latina [15].
La seconda biblioteca, fondata da Augusto, fu l’Ottaviana (25 a.
C.) [16]. L’incarico di ordinarla venne affidato al grammatico Caio
Melisso [17], un personaggio del circolo di Mecenate; e come la
precedente, anzi, come tutte le biblioteche del tempo, essa ebbe al
solito due sezioni: una greca e una latina.
Quanto al mantenimento e al personale delle due biblioteche, noi
non possediamo nessuna precisa notizia dell’età di Augusto, o
almeno nessuna, riferibile a questo tempo. Ma, dall’analogia dei
decenni più prossimi, possiamo trarre la conclusione che il
personale, almeno nei gradi più elevati, fu allora, per la Palatina,
reclutato tra gli ufficiali della casa e gli addetti alla cancelleria del
principe, e che il mantenimento gravò sul fiscus imperiale [18].
Quanto alla Ottaviana, in epoca impossibile a determinare, noi
troviamo codesto istituto di proprietà municipale [19]. Se quindi essa
venne fondata dall’imperatore appositamente per il municipio di
Roma, il personale e il suo mantenimento dovettero, fin da Augusto,
gravare solo sull’aerarium cittadino, senza che la cassa speciale del
principe si addossasse altre spese all’infuori di quelle della
fondazione. Se invece tale trapasso avvenne in età più tarda, la sua
sorte, durante il regno di Augusto, dovette essere identica a quella
della Palatina e perciò la biblioteca dipendere direttamente dal
governo centrale. Come che sia, anche a proposito delle biblioteche
di Augusto, ha pieno valore il rilievo, che credemmo opportuno fare
discorrendo della scuola dei principi. In questi primi albori del
governo imperiale, noi non riesciamo a distinguere esattamente
quanto merito spetti alla persona dell’imperatore, quanto alle
iniziative del governo, quali e quanti carichi si addossi il primo, quali
e quanti tocchino al secondo. Ma noi dobbiamo, egualmente,
soggiungere quello che allora dicevamo. «Nell’impero romano, i limiti
fra la cassa privata dell’imperatore e il bilancio dello Stato, fra le
attribuzioni personali dell’imperatore e quelle del governo centrale,
furono sempre assai incerti, e ogni istituzione od erogazione del
principe poteva bene — nel suo valore politico — apparire, od
essere, un atto dello Stato, così come ogni pubblica iniziativa
assurgere — nel suo merito — a iniziativa personale
dell’imperatore». E questo criterio, a motivo della natura del servizio,
cui ora più specialmente ci riferiamo, va affermato con maggiore
intenzione di quello che nel precedente paragrafo non facemmo.

III.
Come per la fondazione delle prime pubbliche biblioteche, il governo
di Augusto va segnalato per la inaugurazione dei primi Musei e delle
prime pubbliche Pinacoteche.
L’amore e la ricerca delle opere d’arte datava in Roma da molti anni,
e fin da Cesare noi notiamo quella che sarà la caratteristica
dell’impero: la trasformazione dei templi da luoghi di religione in
luoghi effettivamente destinati al pubblico culto dell’arte, i cui
monumenti vi si potessero da chiunque conoscere ed ammirare [20].
Ma quivi, come nei luoghi pubblici, non si accoglieva, almeno per
ora, che una piccola parte di tutto ciò che l’aristocrazia romana era
andata acquistando, o depredando, in Grecia ed in Oriente. La
maggiore rimaneva ancora nelle case dei privati, che vi destinavano
gallerie apposite, loro dominio e loro geloso godimento. Era chiaro
come tutto ciò fosse in contrasto col desiderio delle classi popolari e
con gli intendimenti di un governo, che voleva essere democratico. E
colui che raccolse il pensiero dei più, il pensiero del governo, e lo
espresse pubblicamente all’aristocrazia romana, fu M. Vipsanio
Agrippa.
A grippa, sebbene Plinio lo dica uomo, per cui la vita rude riusciva
preferibile alla trionfante mollezza del suo secolo, [21] fu uno dei più
squisiti amatori delle belle arti, che vanti la storia del mondo civile. Di
capolavori artistici ne acquistò molti in Oriente; alla sua edilità si
deve la ricostruzione di gran parte di Roma, ch’egli aveva trovato di
mattoni e lasciava di marmo. Il suo amore per l’abbellimento edilizio
ed artistico non si limitò alla capitale, ma si prodigò anche a favore di
altri municipii italici e provinciali [22]. Ed egli, in Roma, non sappiamo
in quale occasione della sua fervida attività politica, forse nella
circostanza della inaugurazione del Pantheon, [23] pronunziò un
discorso, col quale esortava vivamente l’aristocrazia ad aprire al
pubblico i proprii musei e le proprie pinacoteche [24].
Noi non sappiamo quanti accogliessero la esortazione, che egli
lanciava, non tanto come suo pensiero personale, quanto come
pensiero del governo. Sappiamo però di certo che l’accolse colui che
già era stato il fondatore della prima pubblica biblioteca in Roma, C.
Asinio Pollione, e che ora aperse egualmente al pubblico la sua
galleria ed il suo museo [25].
Ma l’esortazione imperiale, che fu tanto efficace da scuotere uno dei
più irosi repubblicani del tempo, dovette venire assai più
diligentemente raccolta, e meditata, dalla aristocrazia di recente
formazione, devota al nuovo regime, e così pedissequa imitatrice,
come instancabile ricercatrice, di ogni desiderio che accennasse
dall’alto. Sopra tutto è presumibile, anche in mancanza di notizie
positive e specifiche, che la pubblicità fosse subito data alle opere
d’arte contenute nei musei e nelle pinacoteche imperiali.
Come dunque delle private collezioni di libri greci e latini, così il
governo di Augusto è da presumersi autore diretto, e indiretto, della
prima esposizione al pubblico delle principali opere d’arte, che sino a
quell’ora i felici della capitale del mondo serbavano gelosamente
custodite al proprio esclusivo godimento spirituale. Da quest’inizio si
svolgerà il piccolo nucleo dell’amministrazione delle belle arti in
Roma, che, come vedremo, sarà uno dei meriti della politica degli
imperatori del II. secolo dell’êra volgare.

IV.

Ma un atto di Augusto, che sarà il primo anello di una lunga

tradizione, un atto che avrà tangibili effetti immediati, non suole
essere minimamente ricordato dagli storici dell’istruzione pubblica.
Nel 23 a. C. Augusto, guarito da grave malattia, faceva conferire, dal
senato, una piena immunità da ogni carico pubblico al medico
orientale, che l’aveva salvato e ai suoi colleghi di professione, nè
solo ai viventi, ma eziandio ai futuri [26].
Già vedemmo di un privilegio concesso ai medici in occasione della
carestia del 10 di C. L’una e l’altra concessione hanno per noi
un’importanza notevolissima, in quanto che esse non andavano
soltanto a favorire l’esercizio materiale della professione, ma