This study examines perceptions regarding affirmative action policies and workplace discrimination on the careers of Mexican American municipal administrators in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. Data were gathered through personal interviews and by circulating self-administered questionnaires to administrators in three ethnic groups: Hispanic, Black, and Anglo-Whites. Mexican Americans were separated from all others in the Hispanic ethnic group since they are the focus of the study. Municipal administrators were separated further by managerial level—executive, professional, and supervisory. Differences by ethnicity and managerial level were expected in each substantive area.

Earlier studies have shown that Hispanics tend to lag behind Anglo-Whites and Blacks on variables acknowledged to contribute to career advancement—seniority, education, on-the-job training, and English proficiency (Morales & Ong, 1993; Reimers & Chernick, 1991; Tienda & Ding-Tzann Lii, 1987; Hale & Kelly, 1989; Browning, Marshall, & Tabb, 1984). Results of previous studies may be attributable to the lumping together of all Hispanic ethnic groups—even Mexican national laborers who have only recently arrived in the United States. Including statistical information on Mexican nationals masks important differences between them and Americans of Mexican descent—the Mexican American. Obvious differences may be noticeable in education and workplace seniority. Some researchers suggest this tendency to lump all Hispanic ethnic groups together, in the same study, skews research results (Bean & Tienda, 1987; Chavez, 1991). By carefully separating data by nativity and ethnicity, a contemporaneous study to the one described here, indicates that Mexican Americans do not lag behind in terms of seniority, education, and on-the-job training (Ortega 1998).

In the body of literature focusing on Hispanics in general, comparatively little research has focused on the Mexican American professional in municipal administration. Indeed, it has been suggested that what we do know about the group that has become known as Hispanics may be more typical of blue collar workers than their white collar counterparts (Cafferty & McCready, 1985). Even less is known about the perceived effects of local and federal affirmative action policies and workplace discrimination on the careers of professional Mexican Americans, since they have not been ethnically identified specifically as "Mexican Americans" in studies about career advancement. Research about Mexican Americans in municipal employment is needed since minority administrators are in positions to influence policies important to minority groups (Karnig & McClain, 1988). By the year 2025 Hispanics will be the largest minority group in the United States (DeFreitas, 1991). Among Hispanics, Mexican Americans are one of the largest ethnic subcultures due to the proximity of Mexico to the United States.

Identifying roadblocks that impede the career advancement of minority administrators, with the intention of eliminating them, may result in more hiring of and promotions for minority administrators in municipal employment. Other researchers who have studied career advancement have articulated the importance of investing in specific kinds of human capital such as education, seniority, and on-the-job training (OJT). Human capital investments are considered critically important to career advancement (Forbes & Piercy, 1991; Bean & Tienda, 1987; Borjas & Tienda, 1985). Findings from this study, reported elsewhere, show Mexican American municipal administrators in this study are equally well educated as their Anglo-White and Black counterparts (Ortega, 1998). The same study found Mexican American municipal administrators have comparable amounts of seniority, and have participated in several types of on-the-job training (OJT)—all of which the literature suggests should contribute to career advancement (Bray, Campbell, & Grant, 1974; Taussig & Joslyn, 1932; Warner & Abegglen, 1955).

The literature also establishes that individual city managers can make a difference in the implementation of affirmative action policies intended to provide minority groups with opportunities to be hired in government and to advance in their careers (Bayes, 1989; Browning et al., 1984). The Browning, Marshall, and Tabb study (1984) of ten California cities, demonstrated the difference an individual city manager can make in the equitable implementation of affirmative action policies. The Browning group credited one city manager with the equitable implementation of affirmative action policies in three of the ten cities in their study. Managers who listen to specific, well-articulated, concerns of employees stand to reap benefits in terms of productivity and morale. The caveat here is that an employee, or his/her representative organization, must present concerns clearly and concisely. Conversely, employers must listen to the concerns expressed without feeling threatened. This is the essence of Argyris’ "double’looped" learning (1957). To begin important dialogues, skilled negotiators or communication facilitators may be needed. Productive dialogue may allow the organization to take appropriate steps to remedy a specific situation, or avoid a potentially harmful one. City managers and their human resource departments are in a position to identify, develop, and utilize the talents of every employee. Examining results from this study may help them develop the full potential of minority administrators.

To address the issues in this study, questionnaires were distributed to Hispanic, Black, and Anglo-White municipal administrators in the City of Phoenix and the City of Tucson, Arizona. Respondents were separated into three job categories: executives, professionals, and supervisors. Americans of Mexican descent are the focus of the study and thus were separated from all other Hispanic respondents.

RESPONDENTS

The total number of returned questionnaires was 278 (72.02%) of the 388 distributed. Of the responses, 277 were usable. This return rate exceeds the normal standard of 60 percent for sample surveys (Babbie, 1992). Among the respondents, there are 103 Mexican Americans (37.1%), 107 Anglo-Whites (38.5%), 11 "other Hispanic" (4.0%), 44 Blacks (15.8%), 8 "other ethnicity" (2.9%), and 5 "no ethnicity" (1.8%). Mexican Americans, as a specific ethnic group separate from all other Hispanics, are the primary interest of this study and Black, and Anglo-White administrators serve as comparison groups. All other categories were eliminated from the analysis. Municipal administrators who returned completed questionnaires include 58 executives (upper-managers), 121 professionals (mid-managers), and 98 supervisors (lower-level managers).

DESCRIPTIVES BY ETHNICITY, MANAGERIAL LEVEL, CITIZENSHIP & POPULATION

Table 1 presents distributions of usable questionnaires (N=254) by ethnicity, managerial level, and citizenship. Questionnaires of respondents who claimed "no ethnicity," or "other ethnicity" were eliminated from the analysis. Although the proportions of executives among both minority groups are smaller, as expected, there are sufficient cases for analysis across the combinations of ethnic group and managerial levels. Table 2 presents demographic information on the State of Arizona, including the state’s two largest cities, Phoenix and Tucson, and their respective counties—Maricopa and Pima. Table 3 presents between-city distributions. For purposes of this analysis descriptive statistics are grouped by ethnicity and managerial level.

——Insert Table 1 About Here——

Among Mexican American participants there are thirteen executives, fifty-six professionals, and thirty-four supervisors. Anglo-White participants include thirty-five executives, forty professionals, and thirty-two supervisors. Black participants include eight executives, fourteen professionals, and twenty-two supervisors. The minority participant pool reflects the fact that Mexican Americans are the dominant ethnic group in Phoenix and Tucson comprising twenty-six and twenty-nine percent of city populations, respectively. Anglo-Whites make-up approximately seventy percent and Blacks are less than five percent of city populations. Table 1 shows also that ninety-one respondents who self-identify as Mexican American are U.S. born, eight are naturalized citizens, and one is not a citizen. Since the focus of this study is primarily about U.S. born Mexican American municipal administrators, naturalized citizens and respondents who are not citizens were excluded from the study. All Blacks are included in the study.

Demographic information relevant to the Hispanic population in Arizona is presented in Table 2. It depicts the number of Hispanics in the most densely populated areas of Arizona. Phoenix and Tucson are the two largest cities, as are their respective counties, Maricopa and Pima. From these demographics, it can be seen that Hispanics are the dominant ethnic group in the research sites. Although the information obtained from the most recent census information does not contain a specific breakdown of Mexican Americans in the Hispanic category, it can be assumed that Mexican Americans are the dominant ethnic group, due to the proximity of Mexico to the United States.

Insert Table 2 About Here

These figures show that Hispanics are the dominant minority group in Arizona. Hispanics comprise nearly 19% of the total state population, more than 15% of Maricopa County, and 26% of the City of Phoenix. Tucson, located in Pima County, is the second largest city, with a Hispanic population of 29%.

When one views Table 1--showing the total number of participants--with the population figures shown in Table 2, it seems apparent that Hispanics, largely Mexican Americans, are not well represented in the employment pool of either municipality. This study is not, however, about representative bureaucracy, and it did not seek to make population comparisons with existing employment pools of the respective municipalities. The primary focus of this study is on the perceptions of all available Mexican American municipal administrators regarding the possible career effects of affirmative action policies and workplace discrimination in their respective cities. Thus, issues of representative bureaucracy and employment pool representation are not part of the database and remain important issues for future studies.

Table 3 shows the distribution of participants by city of employment and ethnicity. Overall the respondents are approximately evenly split between the two cities. That is, 124 respondents (49.0%) work in Phoenix and 129 (51%) work in Tucson. The ethnic distributions between the two cities are less balanced. Most of the Mexican Americans (70 administrators or 68%) are located in Tucson, versus 33 (32%) Mexican Americans participating from Phoenix. Conversely, most of the Blacks (35 administrators or 79.5%) who returned a questionnaire worked for Phoenix; only nine (20.5%) of the Black administrators who answered the questionnaire were located in Tucson. The Anglo/Whites are about evenly split between the two cities. The differences in numbers of minority participants reflect first, the differences in employee pools available for sampling and, second, the differences in the minority administrators selected to complete the questionnaire. Since there is no reason to suspect between-city variation on key analyses variables, and because of the practical need to use two cities to acquire enough minority cases to analyze, the pool of respondent’s combines Tucson with Phoenix administrators.

--Insert Table 3 About Here—

STUDY RESULTS

To explore the personal perceptions of Mexican American municipal administrators about the career effects of affirmative action policies and workplace discrimination, questions arising from the literature are examined. The first question addressed in this study is: "Are there different perceptions about affirmative action policies among Mexican American, Black, and Anglo-White municipal administrators?" The second question addressed is, "Are there differences in perceptions about workplace discrimination among Mexican American, Black, and Anglo-White municipal administrators?" Each question is elaborated upon in the next section.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

The first question addressed in this study is, "Are there different perceptions about affirmative action policies among Mexican American, Black, and Anglo-White municipal administrators?" It was expected that differences in perceived benefits of affirmative action would be found among Mexican American, Anglo/White, and Black administrators. The expectation was that minority administrators would be more likely to report the belief that affirmative action policies of their respective municipalities have contributed positively to their careers to a greater extent than Anglo/White administrators. It was expected also that Anglo-White administrators would report reverse discrimination.

Perceptions of affirmative action policies were measured using a single item poll. Participants were asked: "To what extent do you believe affirmative action programs of the city impacted your personal advancement in the organization?" The fixed response format offered five choices: 1 = strongly reduced my chances; 2 = somewhat reduced my chances; 3 = no effect on me; 4 = somewhat helped my chances; and 5 = strongly helped my chances. Thus, in the measure of perceptions of affirmative action policies, higher numbers indicate stronger perceptions that such programs helped, while lower numbers indicate lower perceptions of help.

Table 4 shows the mean score on the affirmative action variable by managerial level and ethnicity. A two-way analysis of variance on these data shows that perceptions of help from affirmative action show statistically significant main effects by both ethnicity (F=9.3, p<.05) and managerial level (F=3.4, p<.05). The two-way interaction of ethnicity with managerial level is not statistically significant (F=1.1, p>.05).

The differences by ethnic group are exactly as expected. Across all levels of managerial responsibility, both Mexican Americans and Blacks showed higher mean ratings than Anglo/Whites. Thus, on average, Mexican Americans and Blacks tended to perceive that affirmative action policy effects were toward "somewhat helpful." Anglo/Whites tended to perceive affirmative action policy effects closer to "no effect on me." Among those Anglo/Whites who did perceive affirmative action as having an effect, it is interesting that the differences between them and minorities are greatest at the executive level and smallest at lower levels of management. Even independent of ethnicity, administrators at higher levels believe that affirmative action has been of greater help in their career than administrators at lower levels.

——Insert Table 4 About Here——

It is important to note that Anglo/Whites perceive affirmative action policies in general as either neutral or helpful to their careers at all three levels of management. This finding suggests that Anglo/Whites in this study do not have a basic hostility toward affirmative action. It should be noted also that Blacks tended to have higher mean scores than Mexican Americans, indicating that overall they believe that affirmative action policies were of greater personal help to their careers.

WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION.

The second question addressed in this study is: "Are there differences in perceptions about workplace discrimination among Mexican American, Black, and Anglo-White municipal administrators?" The expectation was that all three groups would report the existence of discrimination in the workplace (Hale & Kelly, 1989). In other words, minorities would feel ethnic discrimination and Anglo/Whites would feel "reverse discrimination." Levels of workplace discrimination were measured using a single item poll: "To what extent do you personally believe that racially or ethnically based discrimination (open or hidden) has affected your career advancement into management positions?" Participants were given a choice of four fixed choices in answering the question: 1 = absolutely none; 2 = slight level; 3 = moderate level; and 4 = high level.

Table 5 shows the mean workplace discrimination scores by ethnicity and managerial level. A two-way analysis of variance indicates that there is a statistically significant main effect for ethnicity (F=20.6, p<.05), but no significant effects for managerial level (F=1.5, p.>.05) or the interaction term (F=.53, p>.05). When we examine the means, two very important findings are evident.

——Insert Table 5 About Here——

The first thing of interest in Table 5 is that all of the ethnic groups at each of the three managerial levels have low average ratings of perceived discrimination in the workplace. Most of the means approach the rating of "slight level" of discrimination. This suggests that in these two cities, among municipal managers, neither minorities nor Anglo/Whites perceive much discrimination.

The second important finding is that while Anglo/Whites have the lowest perceptions of workplace discrimination, Blacks at every level perceive (or rate) discrimination against them as greater than the levels perceived by Mexican Americans. This difference may be partially attributable to the greater activism and awareness of Blacks in the civil rights movement and to the ability of leadership within the movement to promote the importance of affirmative action policies for Blacks in the workplace (Bryner, 1988; Jones, 1985).

In sum, the expectation that all three groups would report the existence of discrimination in the workplace is partially supported by the data: the two minority groups do see some discrimination based on ethnicity (although at comparatively low levels). Anglo/Whites, however, did not report the perception of "reverse discrimination" as anticipated.

SUMMARY

Study findings indicate that the expectation that differences would be found in perceived benefits of affirmative action, is supported generally--to the extent that minority administrators view the affirmative action policies of their respective cities as helping their careers "somewhat." Anglo/Whites, on the other hand, rate affirmative action policies as having almost "no effect" on their careers. The second question, focusing on workplace discrimination, was only partially supported by the study. Both minority groups see some workplace discrimination. Anglo/Whites, however, did not report the perception of "reverse discrimination" as expected. Thus, participant responses to the perceived benefits of affirmative action suggest such policies are only somewhat helpful to Mexican American municipal administrators. Contemporaneously, Mexican American administrators did not report high levels of workplace discrimination.

This study cannot explain why Anglo-White participants do not appear to resent affirmative action policies, however, it seems clear that something desirable has occurred among these participants that accounts for this positive outcome. Although specific affirmative action programs were not the subject of this study, two possible explanations may be advanced. First, it may be that this result is attributable to the perceived equitable implementation of affirmative action policies by the respective city managers, as suggested by the Browning (1984) study. Secondly, these two municipalities may have exemplary diversity programs that adequately account for this outcome. However, the effectiveness of specific diversity programs in changing attitudes about affirmative action also was not addressed here. The effectiveness of specific diversity programs within municipal government is a subject for future study.

In conclusion, from a public policy standpoint, it is in the best interest of municipal governments to implement affirmative action policies equitably so all employees perceive that they are fairly treated, as suggested by the responses from employees of the City of Phoenix and the City of Tucson, Arizona. Given the narrow scope of the study, however, it is difficult to generalize these results to other jurisdictions. Clearly, there is a need to expand the study to other municipalities to make this determination. Data gathered in this study also suggest a need for future studies that examine the effectiveness of specific affirmative action policies and diversity programs.

REFERENCES

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Browning, R. P., Marshall, D. R., & Tabb, D. H. (1984). Protest is not enough: The struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for equality in urban politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bryner, G.C. (1988). "Affirmative Action: Minority Rights or Reverse Discrimination," In R. Tatalovich and B.W. Daynes (Eds.), Social Regulatory Policy (pp. 142-176). Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

Cafferty, P. S. J. & McCready, W. C. (1985). (Eds.). Hispanics in the United States: A new social agenda. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Chavez, L. (1991). Out of the Barrio: Toward a new politics of Hispanic assimilation. New York: Basic Books.

DeFreitas, G. (1991). Inequality at work: Hispanics in the U.S. labor force. New York: Oxford University Press.

Denhardt, R. B. (1981). In the shadow of organization. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

Denhardt, R. B. (1984). Theories of public organization. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Forbes, B. J., & Piercy, J. E. (1991). Corporate mobility and paths to the top. New York: Quorum Books.

Hale, M. M. & Kelly, R. M. (1989). Gender, bureaucracy, & democracy. New York: Greenwood Press.

Jones, J.E., Jr. (1985). "The genesis and present status of Affirmative Action in employment: economic, legal, and political realities." Iowa Law Review 70:901-944.

Morales, R., & Bonilla, F. (Eds.). (1993). Restructuring and the new inequality. In R. Morales & F. Bonilla (Eds.), Latinos in a changing U.S. economy (pp.1-27). Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Ortega, R. (1998) Blue collar/blue blazer: the career advancement of Mexican Americans in public administration. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Arizona State University, Tempe.

Reimers, C., & Chernick, H. (1991) Hispanic employment in the public sector: Why is it lower than Blacks’?" In E. Melendez, C. Rodriguez,& J. B. Figueroa, (Eds.), Hispanics in the labor force: Issues and policies (pp. 135-157). New York: Plenum Press.

Taussig, F. W., & Joslyn, C. S. (1932). American business leaders. New York: The MacMillan Company.

Tienda, M., & Ding-Tzann L., (1987). Minority concentration and earnings inequality: Blacks, Hispanics and Asians compared. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 141-165.

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Sources: Special Census of Maricopa County, October 27, 1995: Population by Hispanic Origin and Race—Maricopa County and Places.

*Census Bureau Estimates Released 12/18/97 (July 1, 1996 Estimates of Population by Age, Sex and Race by Arizona County.

**1990 Census of Population & Housing, P.L. 94-171 Data Table 2: Hispanic Origin and Race for Arizona Counties and Places. Prepared by: Arizona State Data Center, DES Population Statistics Unit.

Table 4 shows the mean score on the Affirmative Action measure by managerial level and ethnicity. A two-way analysis of variance on these data shows that perceptions of help from Affirmative Action show statistically significant main effects by both ethnicity (F=9.3, p<.05 and managerial level (F=3.4, p<.05). The two-way interaction of ethnicity with managerial level is not statistically significant (F=1.1, p>.05).

Table 5 shows the mean workplace discrimination scores by ethnicity and managerial level. A two-way analysis of variance indicates that there is a statistically significant main effect for ethnicity (F=20.6, p<.05), but no significant effects for managerial level (F=1.5,p.>.05) or the interaction term (F=.53, p>.05).