Menna Demessie: Writings

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In addition to the ardent call for political scientists to broaden their theories about legislative representation and behavior to include a broader analysis of the everyday operations of Congress, the call for a more nuanced approach to the study of race and ethnic politics resonates just as deeply. With the emergence of black ethnic caucuses such as the Ethiopia and Ethiopian American Congressional Caucus (EEAC) and the subsequent election of President Barack Obama, African immigrants and their progeny have been made visible to the American polity in ways they have never been before. As an Ethiopian American whose personal and professional interest aims to highlight the significance of black ethnic political participation and representation in U.S. politics, I found working for Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) as an APSA Congressional Fellow to be an extraordinary opportunity to explore how and why African American members of Congress in particular, and other nonblack legislators more broadly, represent their constituents beyond race. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

The article reports on the upcoming 2016 elections following the two presidential elections, the first election without Voting Rights Act for African American voters.

The article reports on the 40th anniversary celebration of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Inc. for the state of black agenda after the President Barack Obama presidency.

This paper is a case study on thefirst and only murder-suicide to ever take place at Harvard
University. In 1995, Sinedu Tadesse, a college student who immigrated from Ethiopia,
killed her roommate, Trang Phuong Ho, an immigrant from Vietnam. Not only has this
story been silenced, but there remains no clear answer as to the motivation behind the
murder-suicide. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ways in which the immigrant
experience, or more specifically the cost of coming to America, may help explain Sinedu 's
motivation. In particular, this paper gives rise to the often-untold narratives of assimilation
unaccomplished?narratives that result in severe states of dislocation, fear, isolation, and
depression in an effort to mitigate, and possibly eliminate the trails and tribulations of
the immigrant experience

This dissertation develops a new perspective on descriptive and substantive representation based on race by exploring legislative behavior in congressional caucuses that serve black ethnic communities. Furthermore, it attempts to understand how and why congressional caucuses invite more complex analyses of such ethnic cleavages, while also providing insight into how legislators think about, work for, and represent racial and ethnic minority groups across the U.S. Using a mixed-methods approach, I analyze members' behavior on African congressional caucuses at both the group and individual level using a primary data set involving 120 House members. My quantitative analysis employs an ordered logistic regression model analyzing caucus activity on a set of U.S.-Africa foreign policy issues outlined in the Council of Foreign Relations U.S.-Africa Policy Recommendation Report in 2005; while my qualitative analysis is based on interviews with Africa caucus representatives and African embassy officials. I argue that descriptive representation and substantive representation are virtually inseparable when it comes to race and ethnic-based caucuses. For black ethnic caucuses, even when ethnicity becomes the predominant characteristic by which legislators join caucuses, race i matters when it comes to the legislative efforts of caucus members; the more black members present on a black ethnic caucus, the more active or engaged the caucus tends to be in representing its policy goals and interests. However, while race remains significant at the individual level, I also find that cross-racial representation on black ethnic caucuses is significant; the ability of Whites, Latinos, Asians, and African American members of Congress to work together as a caucus contributes more to caucus activity compared to the Congressional Black Caucus. Additionally, being a member from a state with a large African foreign-born population is also significant, suggesting that members are generally responsive to black ethnic constituencies.