In recent years, a series of relatively popular controversial immigration policies have emerged that are widely believed to infringe upon Latino Americans' civil rights—policies that potentially treat Latino Americans as not fully American. The current research investigated the psychological consequences of being exposed public polices that may signal that one's ethnic group is being excluded from the national identity. Seventy-two Latino- American participants' implicit and explicit American identity and socio-political motivation were measured after exposure to one of three controversial public policies. These policies varied in the extent to which they characterized Latino Americans as belonging to the American identity (an exclusionary policy, an inclusionary policy, or a race-neutral policy). Results revealed that, after exposure to an exclusionary policy, second+ generation Latino Americans showed a slight boost in explicit identification with America, while firstgeneration Latino Americans' showed a reduction in their explicit American identity. Policy exposure had no bearing on participants' implicit American identity, mainstream comfort in America, or socio-political motivation. In sum, these findings suggest that exposure to controversial public policies may have more of a bearing Latino Americans' explicit than implicit American identity, and that generational status may play a key role in determining whether exclusionary policies have a positive or negative impact on Latino Americans' explicit national identity.
