Fivethirtyeight posted this article: “There’s no such thing as the Latino vote”
Gary Segura, a co-founder and senior partner at Latino Decisions, sees both economic and cultural factors at play. First, higher-generation Hispanic Americans are likelier to be higher income, which nudges them toward the Republican side of the aisle. But their Hispanic identity also tends to be weaker. For instance, a 2017 Pew report found that only about one-third of self-identified Hispanics whose families have been in the U.S. for at least three generations had parents who took them to Hispanic cultural celebrations or who spoke often about their heritage while growing up, and relatively few live in predominantly Hispanic or Latino neighborhoods. According to that Pew report, Latinos are more likely than white or Black people to marry people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds — which means that Latinos with deeper family roots in the U.S. are also more likely to be of mixed ancestry. Simply put, the longer a Hispanic family has lived in the U.S., the likelier they are to have assimilated — and vote more like white Americans, who lean toward the Republican Party.
It’s a good article. That’s why I posted it, six or seven posts above. Thanks for the memories.
I’m fascinated by bilingualism in second generation Westeners. South Asians seem to nearly always speak some Hindu -Punjabi -Gujarati (etc.); Chinese some Mandarin -Cantonese (etc.; admittedly learning writing is very involved)… Americans of Latino heritage often do not speak much Spanish or even necessarily have interest in that, with many exceptions. I can’t say I understand.
Speaking Spanish: not particularly. While the Spanish language is one of the major things that ties Latino/Hispanic people together, the Argentine with no native ancestry who speaks Spanish has very little in common with Guatemalan who speaks Kʼicheʼ and poor Spanish.
I think that might depend a lot on where you are - most second generation Latinos I know do speak Spanish. The few exceptions I know have only one Latino parent and Spanish wasn’t spoken at home.
The despacito moment actually occurred after Louis Fonsi, the songwriter of the song introduced Biden. It wasn’t “a look at me I know of some latino culture” moment but rather, I know who you (Fonsi) are and what impact you made. Out of context, it does look like he is trying to court latinos, but in context it just looks like he is appreciating his “host”.
As to the non-Latino candidate speaking Spanish it depends on what they’ve got to say in that Spanish. Merely demonstrating you can carry on a business meeting without slipping into gibberish is on the “oh, that’s nice” end of the range. If you communicate relevant points and demonstrate knowledge of issues that affect the audience, with minimal scripting and ability to improvise, now, that is more like it. But actua knowledge of the issues and content of proposals is more important to gain my support. Once that is established, IMO it should be a given that someone who knows what’s up will be less likely to step on landmines (Though OTOH I will not get bent out of shape over demanding absolute conforming to whatever is the latest list of what is or is not accepted.)
Which is a fascinating counter to the common trope that Latinos somehow are “slow to assimilate” relative to prior immigrants. IME the younger second-generations are retaining it more, though still adopting English as everyday primary use outside the family.
IMHO what those particular Cuban Americans get wrong is why Cuba has the problems it does. Yes, Cuba is socialist, but that isn’t the problem. The problem with Castro was not that he was a socialist, it’s that he was an authoritarian asshole. It was the authoritarian nature of the government that caused Cuba’s problems, not the socialism. The Scandinavian countries don’t have the same problem with socialism because they aren’t ruled by authoritarian dictators. Ironically, they are falling into the same trap by supporting an American wannabe authoritarian dictator.
Except that especially for the first generation of Cuban exiles, a lot of them would not have given a damn that he was an authoritarian asshole as long as he’d allowed them to keep their private property and enterprise and minding the business.
I am not Cuban, not socialist, did not lose a business nor property and dislike Castro’s general authoritarianism. But under Batista, I was under the impression Cuba was casinos, mob money, exploitation and widespread poverty. I simply do not know if the average person was better off then. Castro should have probably quit decades ago. But the idea Cuba was paradise before Castro did not apply to everyone - maybe even the majority?
Agreed that Batista was also an authoritarian asshole. Of course replacing one authoritarian with a different one doesn’t solve the problems, it just changes who is being victimized by those problems. Iran is a similar example with the shah and the ayatollah.
Another interesting article about Latinos who favour Trump.
Essentially, it says these Latinos tend to (1) see themselves as Americans and not identify much with other Latinos, eschewing this label, (2) care much more about Conservative judiciary and social values than Trump’s personal actions (3) strongly dislike illegal immigration (4) stress self-sufficiency so do not worry about systemic discrimination (5) historically distrust government and see Democrat “socialists” as a proxy for a big government role.
Very true but that is a distinction I do not think Trump or most MAGA-types consider. They are not known for considering nuance and will happily toss the lot into one pile, claim they are all rapists, and toss them over a wall.
As such a Latino voting for them feels like a black man voting for the KKK.
