This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
I really liked this Sunday, October 27th interview on Buelna News involving Drs. Alvarao Huerta and Fernando Guerra. It's cool to have a level-headed conversation of the Latino vote in light of the appalling racism exhibited by Trump and his supporters.
For a look at the latest anti-Latino rhetoric mixed with other racist, misogynistic rude, and crude disgusting remarks that were spewed at Trump's rally at Sunday's Madison Square Rally, check out my earlier post titled, Puerto Rico is No Joke: A response to the racist remarks made by Tony Hinchcliffe. And let's not forget the F***ing Mexican remark Trump made in reference to providing funeral support that he promised to Vanessa Guillen's family whose daughter, was viciously murdered on a military base in Killeen, Texas, where she worked as a member of the military.
Geez, the beloved Vanessa Guillen was a F***ing Mexican to him?!!! What a creep! In any case, Trump's F***ing Mexican comment motivated this "Tacos and Law" conversation hosted by Gabriel Buelna that you can follow on Tik-Tok and Youtube. Will have to check them out more as they're covering important topics and sharing great Mexican food recipes (on Tik Tok). A bonus!😺
Huerta and Guerra dove into the idea of Latino males supporting Trump. First of all, what should not get misconstrued according to Dr. Guerra is that most Latinos actually support Harris. There is interesting detail nevertheless to Latino support for Trump. One is that at the national level, we witness a dynamic of assimilation by not pushing ethnic politics. I would call this a process of "acting white." Doing so is harder at the local level where ethnicity plays out differently.
Though not addressed, it presumably means that ethnicity is an identity and resource that those interested in politics must marshall. A third important and super interesting to me dynamic is that Latinos have a long history of being conservative such as in their opposition to abortion. Drilling down further, within this conservative group are people from Latin American countries with right-wing leadership who come to the U.S. and become conservative.
Dr. Huerta said "some are confused" and this is probably true in every election where the candidates
are examined closely and are or are not trusted. He also said that we shouldn't "vilify" them as a consequence. I totally agree. We must always be respectful, especially since not all have the same knowledge base even where shared values exist. Dr. Guerra pointed to the working class makeup of the Latino community and said that Latinas and Latinos should support Harris because she will be better for the working class than Trump.
I'm most concerned about the very real possibility of a segment of Blacks or Latinos hating who they are—perhaps unknowingly—in the quest either for acceptance by whites or for a white identity itself.
Clearly, this is a process that immigrants like Trump himself and his family have gone through such that they can be—neither immigrants nor the children of immigrants that they are—but rather "white people," even to the point of denying one's immigrant identity. But then this makes sense, too, since one cannot be easily hateful or spiteful toward a group that one maligns if one belongs to it.
Great interview! Loved the conversation. You can view it here for yourselves if you like.
I hope that this piece gets the attention it deserves. It speaks, among other things, to the miseducation of our youth and how this translates into the disenfranchisement of our community. It's easy to point the finger at the community, to blame them for their lack of political literacy.
While, as discussed herein, this is frequently true, the onus resides in a system that refuses to even acknowledge what could be an ennobling curriculum that teaches them of the incredible sacrifices that have been historically made by members of their own community for them to have the right to vote and thusly, exercise agency over their own futures. Borrowing from the late Brazilian educator, Paolo Freire, instead of getting educated for liberation, they are educated for domestication, to be powerless and alienated from schools, policy struggles, and politics, as a whole. If they only new that this, too, is their inheritance...
Considering that education for domestication is the status quo, viewed from this perspective, the educational system is actually succeeding in protecting the incumbencies of those in power who unsurprisingly, do not prioritize equitable school funding policies to provide this vast community with the same high quality education that their peers receive in the most well-funded schools in our state and nation. Not only has "wokeism" not even been a factor in their own political formation, the powers that be seek to ensure that it never manifests to begin with.
All is not lost as these youth remain teachable. And for this, we advocate, and will continue to do so.
A new report exploring young Latinos’ views on immigration sheds light on one of the most important voter groups in the midterm elections, and found a noteworthy gender divide.
QAnon conspiracy theories were one of many forms of online misinformation that targeted Latino voters during the 2020 election.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Greetings from your co-host Leah Askarinam. Blake Hounshell is off this week. We have an item tonight from our colleague Jazmine Ulloa, who reports on a new analysis of young Latinos’ media habits.
Online disinformation hit Latino communities hard ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
It came in the form of videos, tweets and WhatsApp messages, YouTube videos and the rants of Spanish-language radio hosts. It included false reports of widespread violence on the streets of Democratic cities after the murder of George Floyd, QAnon conspiracy theories, and overblown claims of terrorists and criminals crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
As the most egregious material spread online — and in the private text chains of young Latinos’ tÃas and tÃos — organizers with United We Dream Action, an immigrant rights organization founded and led by young immigrants, jumped into the fray. The group trained members to provide accurate information to their families and friends and create shareable content across social media platforms that was meant to dispel anti-immigrant and anti-Black narratives.
Now, with the 2022 midterms months away and both parties scrambling for the votes of one of the most crucial swing groups in American politics, the organization released a report today that more deeply explores Latinos’ online engagement with material about immigration. Long exploited by bad actors on the web, the contentious issue is widely expected to be pivotal in elections across the country.
The immigrant advocacy network teamed up with Harmony Labs, a nonprofit research group in New York, to study the television and online consumption habits of more than 20,000 Latinos nationwide who agreed to share their data from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 2021. Latinos over 36 were more likely to encounter polarizing anti-immigrant narratives than other cohorts, the analysis found, mainly through right-wing news sites, television and YouTube.
It also found an interesting gender divide among younger Latinos.
Latinas ages 18 to 35 drew from a much wider variety of news and entertainment sources than their older counterparts, the analysis found, and were more likely to seek out stories not just about immigration policy but also about immigrants and the immigrant experience.
Their search queries and content consumption were curious and community-driven, reflecting “a desire to understand and engage with the people and world around them,” according to the findings.
But Latino men in the same age cohort were far different. Those surveyed tended to inhabit “a very insular, virtual world,” the researchers said. Many young Latino men spent much of their time online engaging with anime and fantasy gaming, and did not absorb much media about immigration or immigrants at all, either positive or negative. When they did consume immigration content, it tended to be about policy and stemmed from conservative-leaning sources.
GameStop stocks and Covid news
Beyond that, their news consumption choices tended to be more individualistic and entrepreneurial. Of 45,000 articles read by Latinos in the first nine months of 2021, only two topics appeared to grab the attention of large numbers of young Latino men: the amateurs who drove up the stock price of GameStop, and Covid-related school closures.
Both young Latinos and Latinas demonstrated less interest in politics, and for the young men, the top “political” personalities were influencers who discuss a broad variety of cultural topics and fall across the political spectrum: Philip DeFranco, Joe Rogan and Mr. Beast.
The vacuum of political information for young Latino men, coupled with their desire for economic stability and penchant for individualism, is likely to leave that group more susceptible to right-wing anti-immigrant narratives and disinformation in the future, the groups concluded.
This uniquely positions young Latino men for negative arguments “that there isn’t enough for them and that someone else is taking their opportunities,” said Juanita Monsalve, the senior marketing and creative director for United We Dream Action. But it also creates an opportunity to intervene with counter-messaging, she added.
“We have this research to figure out how to create culturally responsive content and show up in the spaces where they want to consume it,” Monsalve said.
The report’s findings track with previous research on Latinos’ political leanings — and they add to the picture that is emerging of how these voters are newly up for grabs.
Latinos in general tend to lean Democratic, but in 2020, Donald Trump improved his performance among these voters in some parts of the country, and with working-class Latino men in particular, by centering his messaging on the economy.
Young Latinas are likely to be more liberal than their male peers, and are more worried about social justice and equity issues like racism, immigration and climate change.
Organizers with United We Dream Action, an immigrant rights organization that has worked to dispel online misinformation targeting Latinos.Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
More young Latino men voted for Trump in 2020 than they did in 2016, but whether Republicans will continue to build support among the demographic “is an open question,” said Vladimir Enrique Medenica, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware and director of survey research at the University of Chicago’s GenForward project, which surveys voters ages 18-36.
What is known, he said, is that many have no interest in politics, or they identify as independent or do not have an affiliation to either major political party. This is partly because many feel alienated from politics and unrepresented by either party.
Many also face greater barriers to college education and economic opportunities, both of which help shape people’s political views and can be particularly important to the process of politicization for second-generation Latinos, whose parents immigrated to the United States and who may not have developed a strong attachment to either Democrats or Republicans, Medenica said.
Opening for Republicans
In Florida, where Spanish-language hosts have amplified anti-Black narratives and exaggerated claims of election fraud, Republicans have seen an opening to appeal to more young Latino men through YouTube and social media, said Andrea Cristina Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising, a racial justice organization focused on building political power for marginalized communities.
As an example, she pointed to an ad released last month by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida with the U.F.C. fighter Jorge Masvidal, who is of Cuban and Peruvian descent.
To counter any political messages this election cycle meant to sow racism, division or voter confusion, Mercado’s group has been relying on “promotoras de la verdad,” Latina organizers who serve as “truth warriors” and have been canvassing homes to combat misinformation on issues including the coronavirus, vaccines, Florida’s recently passed law restricting classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity, and the upcoming midterms.
“Latina women are organizing to take back the narrative and the disinformation poisoning our community,” Mercado said. But they cannot do it alone, she added.
Now this really energized me. Interesting and encouraging analyses of the Latina/o vote by the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at UCLA based not on exit poll data, but actual ballots cast, resulting in the most reliable data possible.
The results are impressive, demonstrating "a 30.9% increase, nearly double the nationwide 15.9% growth in ballots." Overwhelming, votes went toward Biden even in Florida where Biden beat Trump by a margin of 2 to 1.
Now, our task is to protect the franchise, not only challenging voter suppression laws, but also resisting the miseducation of our youth that the republican party seeks via its bogus anti-Critical Race Theory agenda. And while we're at it, let's eliminate mental testing and create assessment systems that honor the wealth, wisdom, knowledge, and ways of knowing that our communities bring to our local contexts everywhere. After all, we are all mostly indigenous, including Afro-Indigenous, to this continent and we have survived over 500 years of domination driven by European expansionism and on-going colonialism (e.g., Mexicans Didn't Immigrate To America -- We've Always Been Here by Pedro Garza.)
Notwithstanding current attempts to disenfranchise Latinas/os and other people of color, Latinas/os are poised to propel this country toward a bright and prosperous future. In fact, it's already happening. 😊
SÃ se puede! Yes we can!
You can download the full report at their website here. I share the executive summary or overview below.
-Angela Valenzuela
Overview:
This report offers a comprehensive look at the Latino vote in the 2020 presidential election by analyzing votes cast in 13 key states that are home to 80% of the nation’s Latinos. By analyzing ballots cast rather than relying on exit polls, we reduce errors that emerge in exit interviews due to small samples, unrepresentative selection of survey respondents, incomplete understanding of early and absentee voters, and language bias.
Main Findings:
We estimate that 16.6 million Latino voters cast a ballot for the 2020 presidential election nationally. This represents a 30.9% increase, nearly double the nationwide 15.9% growth in ballots cast between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. This was the single largest 4-year increase in Latino vote ever.
Latino voters supported the Democratic candidate, Joseph R. Biden, by very wide margins across the country, and consistent with margins won by Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Latino voters supported Biden over Trump by a nearly 3 to 1 margin in the counties we analyzed in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Latinos chose Biden over Trump with a 2 to 1 margin or larger in the counties we analyzed in Texas, Georgia, and Washington, and in Florida outside of Miami-Dade.
In Arizona, the size of the Latino electorate and their overwhelming support for Joe Biden flipped the state from Republican to Democrat for the first time since 1996.
In Georgia and Wisconsin, where the difference between the winning and the losing candidate was roughly 12,000 and 21,000 votes, Latino voters’ strong support for Biden and growth in votes cast helped tip the state in favor of the Democratic candidate.
In Florida, the Latino vote is diverse and unique from the rest of the nation. Latinos in Miami-Dade supported Trump by a 2 to 1 margin, but Latinos in the rest of the state preferred Biden with a 2 to 1 margin. Overall, a majority of Latinos in Florida voted for Biden, not Trump.
Latino voter registration is growing at a rate six times faster than the general population. Latino voter turnout is growing at a rate five times faster than the general population. Only ill-informed experts, Latinos and non-Latinos, refer to Latinos as “the Sleeping Giant.”
(What’s more, the Latino population is growing at a rate three times faster than the general population. That tells me that Latinos are not even sleeping when they go to bed. Let’s stop this “Sleeping Giant” nonsense already.)This is the 14th presidential election in which I am voting. I have seenLatino voter registration and voter turnout increase in every presidential election. Still, in every presidential election, so-called Latino and non-Latino experts refer to us as “the sleeping giant.” ¡Ya basta con esaignorancia! In 1982, when USHLI started registering voters in Chicago, there were about 80,000 Latinos registered to vote. Today, there are 288,000Latinos registered to vote, and the number of Latino elected officials has
increased from three to over 30, at all levels of government. There’s noLatino Sleeping Giant in Chicago! In 2012, the so-called “sleeping giant” cast 11.2 million votes nationally.
In 2016, 12.7 million Latinos voted, an increase of 1.5 million, whileBlack voter turnout decreased by 765,000 (the largest decline by any ethnic or racial group in 20 years).Voter turnout among all groups historically drops in midterm elections, but Latino voter turnout increased from 6.8 million in 2014 to 11.7 million in 2018, an increase of 4.9 million voters, the largest among all ethnic/racial groups nationally!Texas is a perfect example. In the 2018 election, Latino voter turnout reached 1.9 million, almost double over 2014. Voter turnout among young Latinos 18-32 years of age increased 500%, and two Latinas
were elected to Congress! This blue wave of Latino voters helpedDemocrats flip 12 State House seats and a few Senate seats. In HarrisCounty (Houston), the 3rd largest county in America, the Latino vote helped flip 17 judgeships and a Latina was elected County Judge, the highest office. This is the result of amazing work being done bySouthwest Voter Registration Education Project and several other groups that have been working diligently to register, educate, and getLatinos out to vote. There’s no Sleeping Giant in Texas!
Similarly in Arizona, the surge in Latino voter registration and turnout flipped the US Senate seat held by Republican Martha McSally in 2018.In Virginia, Latinas defeated several Republican incumbents who ran anti-immigrant campaigns in races for seats in the House of Delegates.In 2018, Latino voter turnout, which nearly doubled nationally, turned conventional wisdom about midterm elections on its head.In 2020, a record shattering and history-making 16,000 million Latinosmay turn out to vote. That’s an increase of 3.3 million voters, enough to flip the White House and possibly a few US Senate races in majorbattleground states. Hopefully, any references to “the Sleeping Giant”
will become a thing of the past for good, and donors will finally realize that growing the Latino vote is a very worthwhile investment.
Join the Friends of the American Latino Museum for a weekend of conversations about diverse storytelling, creating inclusivity, and the watershed year 2020 promises to be. And each night, we will bring our friends together for a celebration of the work done and the work yet to come.
Where: Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center 600 River St. • Austin, TX
When: March 13 – 14, 2020
With the support and partnership of NBC Universal Telemundo and the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative, we are excited to bring this space to SXSW.
Be sure to register below and check back here regularly for updates on our schedule and ways to get involved. We can’t wait to see you in Austin!
We are grateful to be joined in Austin with our friends, supporters, and leaders from across the entertainment and advocacy space.
A conversation featuring Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) and Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Ivette Rodriguez of LA Collab; Ruben Garcia of Creative Artists Agency; Sonja Diaz of UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative; moderated by Julio Ricardo Varela of Futuro Media.
The American Latino experience has been largely left out of conversations in history, media, politics, and entertainment. This exclusion leads to ignorance around the contributions of Latinos across industries, giving rise to stereotypes and misunderstandings. As the Latino community continues to grow, xenophobia and misinformed rhetoric regarding Latinos have taken a serious toll on our community and the nation—in some instances, even putting lives in danger.
But over the last decade or more, there has been a concerted effort on all fronts to push back and regain control of the narrative by Latinos and Latinas in media, politics, and business. With more Latinos than ever in government, behind the camera, and giving voice to our community’s stories, we have an opportunity to seize and shape the conversation around the diversity of our history and our present day America. How can today’s various platforms find synergy to create inclusivity for Latinos while tackling ignorance and hate? And how can we use our platforms of power to create a more positive narrative around our community?
A powerful conversation featuring Congressman Will Hurd (TX-23); Dr. Matt Barreto, UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative; and Julie Rodriguez, DNC Platform Committee; moderated by Vanessa Hauc, Noticias Telemundo.
For the first time in history, Latinos are the largest minority group of potential voters in the United States. In the 2020 election, a record 32 million Latino Americans will be eligible to vote. But far from being a uniform voting bloc, the Latino community in the US is incredibly diverse demographically, culturally, and ideologically. Engaging and mobilizing Latino voters has been a priority for campaigns and interest groups as Latinos make up an increasingly larger segment of the US population. But authenticity is key—are activists and candidates doing a better job of speaking to the concerns and interests of Latinos? What gaps still remain?
In the wake of Super Tuesday, join us for a conversation about the watershed year 2020 promises to be, and the role of the Latino community.
Along with a really good story about immigrant right's activist Carlos Garcia's recent election to Phoenix City Council in Arizona with a thin, 384-vote lead, this piece by Dianna M. Náñez of USA TODAY offers a substantive analysis of the Latino vote. Key quote:
Nationally, there are an estimated 58.9 million Latinos, making up about 18.1% of the U.S. population and accounting for the nation’s second-largest ethnic group, after whites. Yet only about 6,700 elected officials are Latino, according to a 2018 analysis by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO. That amounts to a political representation rate of 1.2% in local, state and federal elected offices.
We are indeed in a crisis situation. We have been in one. Yet an increasingly larger and animated electorate, resulting in key victories, there is enormous reason for hope. Recent elections, including this one by Carlos Garcia in Arizona, suggest as much.
The USA TODAY Network is launching a series on the
Latino community in the U.S. called Hecho en USA, or made in America. Roughly
80% of all Latinos living in the U.S. are American citizens. But media coverage
of Hispanics tends to focus on immigration and crime, instead of how Latino
families live, work and learn in their hometowns. Hecho en USA tells the
stories of the nation’s 59.9 million Latinos – a growing economic and cultural
force, many of whom are increasingly born in the United States.
PHOENIX — Inside a
banquet hall at the Corona Ranch and Rodeo Grounds, tired couples and little girls
with long braids dance to the easy sway of ranchera music.
Election Day has turned into a sweaty-hot May night in Phoenix,
and Carlos Garcia, the
candidate everyone is here for, is waiting for the votes to be tallied.
Standing under a puffy mulberry tree, he’s listening to campaign supporters
swap stories and nursing his beer.
The historic race is still too close to call.
If elected, Garcia, a longtime human-rights activist, will become
the first Mexican immigrant to serve on the Phoenix City Council. He’ll
represent the fifth-largest and fastest-growing city in the nation. He’ll lead
a Latino-majority district once known as the segregated part of town where
Latinos and black families in Phoenix could own businesses and homes.
As if to ease nerves, Garcia directs the people crowded around him
to a woman whose coal-black hair whispers against her shiny hoop earrings.
She’s holding a piggy bank the size of a mango. It's stamped: “Carlos for Phoenix Council
District 8.”
“Tell them about the piggy bank,” Garcia says, nodding at Jacinta
Gonzalez.
In 2016, Garcia, Gonzalez and other protesters set out to block a
road leading to a Donald Trump campaign rally outside Phoenix. Gonzalez was
arrested – by deputies of then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, famous for being known as
“America’s toughest sheriff” and for being held in criminal contempt of court
for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop racially profiling Latinos.
After deputies questioned Gonzalez about her citizenship, she sued
and won a settlement. And she turned that money into something Garcia
desperately needed, the thing many rising Latino candidates lack: campaign
funding.
“We don’t have access to big donors, we don’t have access to
corporations that are going to invest in his type of leadership, so we have to
find other ways to support,” she says. “And so sometimes that’s litigation,
sometimes that’s fundraisers, sometimes that’s car washes. We do whatever we’re
able to do, because we need hope and we need the belief that we can actually do
things differently. And we can change the culture of how people get to office
and what people do when they’re there.”
Jacinta Gonzalez locks her
neck to a vehicle blocking the principal route of a rally for President Donald
Trump in Phoenix, Arizona.LUCY
SANDOVAL/PUENTE ARIZONA.
Despite
the nation’s ballooning Hispanic population, Latinos running and winning
political offices across the U.S. are too often an anomaly. Even in
Hispanic-majority districts, Latinos don’t run or win elections at the rates of
their white counterparts, various studies show. Now, candidates such as Garcia
– and his supporters – are looking to change that.
Nationally,
there are an estimated 58.9 million Latinos, making up about 18.1% of the U.S.
population and accounting for the nation’s second-largest ethnic group, after
whites. Yet only about 6,700 elected officials are Latino, according to a 2018
analysis by the National
Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO. That
amounts to a political representation rate of 1.2% in local, state and federal
elected offices.
When
Garcia made his campaign public, most people didn’t expect him to win, and not
just because of his anti-establishment background. Statistics are stacked
against outsider Latino candidates as much as they are traditional ones.
But ahead
of the 2020 presidential elections, Latinos across the U.S. have rallied
against policies and rhetoric they feel target their community and are working
to build momentum. Political activists are recruiting Latinx candidates to run
in local and federal contests and aiming to win.
Latinos
will need more than passion to reach political equity, said Angela Ocampo, a
University of Michigan political science professor. Indeed, if Latinos continue
to be elected at the same rate as they have in recent years, it will likely be
more than 50 years before parity is reached, she said.
“It’s
going to take a very long time,” Ocampo said. “It’s even worse when we
look at gender, at Latina representation.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, listens as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in October.
JACK GRUBER, USA TODAY
More
Latinos running for political office
In recent
months, Latinos have been courted to run for congressional seats in Texas,
Colorado and New Mexico. At the local level, Regina Romero was elected in early
November as the first female mayor of Tucson, Arizona’s second-largest city,
making her the only Latina mayor in the 50 largest cities in the U.S. In 2018,
Democrat Michelle Luján Grisham, a 12th-generation New Mexican, was elected as
the first Latina Democratic governor of New Mexico. She replaced Susana
Martinez, a Latina Republican.
Some
political analysts are calling it the Trump effect, a backlash against
political rhetoric and measures they believe harm Latinos, migrants and people
of color. Ahead of 2020 White House and congressional races, that phenomenon
could favor Democrats, who historically garner more support from Latino voters.
But for
decades, Latino candidates like Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
of New York or Garcia have received sparse support from mainstream political
machines.
Like
Garcia, Ocasio-Cortez, a self-identified democratic socialist, built her campaign
around community support that few establishment politicos saw coming. The
29-year-old, born in the Bronx, was working in a bar to support her family
before she was elected in 2018, becoming the youngest woman in Congress.
Ocasio-Cortez’s
ethnicity stands out. There were only four Latino U.S. senators and 34 U.S.
representatives as of January 2018, according to NALEO. That number increased
slightly after the 2018 election when voters sent four additional Latino
members to the House and made the 116th Congress the most representative of
Latinos in history. Still, that’s just a fraction of the nation’s 100 senators
and 435 representatives.
Analysts
point to varied reasons for the disparity, including policies that suppress the
Latino vote and political funding systems that benefit candidates perceived as
viable winners, which in many cases are white people picked by top Republican
and Democratic party leaders.
“These
parties and their donors, they’re very influential, but in many cases, Latinos
are receiving limited support from the important actors as they’re trying to
launch their campaign,” Ocampo said.
Ocampo
analyzed congressional races in Latino-majority districts. She found that even
with the majority-minority advantage, electoral success falters. For example,
Latinos are the largest ethnic group in California (40%) but make up
only 24% of the California Legislature, according to a 2018 Ocampo
study.
And in
New York, where Latinos make up about 19% of the population, there are only 20
Latino state legislators, accounting for about 9% of all New York state
lawmakers.
The
outlook for Latina lawmakers is especially bleak, Ocampo said. Of the 6,749
elected Latino office-holders across local, state and federal levels, only
2,485 were women.
The
highest rate of parity by Latino political representation is in Florida and New
Mexico. New Mexico has the nation’s highest percentage of the Latino population
at 48.8%. In Florida, the state with the sixth-largest Latino population,
Latinos represent 26.1% of the population, according to 2018 U.S. Census data.
But the state’s estimated 4.8 million Latinos in Florida have benefited from
decades of political activism in Cuban, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan and other
Hispanic communities largely in Miami that has resulted in an unusual number of
Hispanic lawmakers holding local and statewide offices.
Data
shows that when candidates of color run, their races draw more voters of color
to elections, and those voters are more likely to vote for a candidate from
their own racial or ethnic background, said Matt Barreto, a University of
California, Los Angeles, professor of political science and Chicana/o studies
and co-founder of Latino Decisions, a political research firm.
“The
research suggests that they aren’t being recruited, they are not being sought
out by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” he said.
The
Latino vote isn’t monolithic, but the growing demographic can wield power in
competitive races won by the margins.
Mark
Lopez, a Pew demographer, noted that while Latinos tend to vote at a higher
rate for Democratic candidates, there’s a significant conservative Latino
voting bloc. He points to the 2004 election when former President George Bush
captured an estimated 45% of the Latino vote. Roughly 29% of Latinos voted for
Trump in 2016 after he launched his campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists.”
In the
closely watched Texas Senate race in 2018, Ted Cruz won over Beto O’Rourke.
Cruz, the incumbent, repeatedly pointed out to voters that he was the son of a
Cuban immigrant and that O’Rourke was not Hispanic. Cruz ultimately captured
50.9% of the vote in the tightest U.S. Senate race in Texas since 1978.
O’Rourke, who also targeted his campaign to appeal to Latinos, captured 64% of
the Hispanic vote.
Two years
before the Senate showdown, Cruz ran for president against Trump and another
Latino candidate, Marco Rubio, whose father also came to the United States from
Cuba. A robocall during the 2016 election on behalf of Trump and targeting
Rubio suggested even Latino candidates with conservative credentials can face
rhetoric and challenges winning over voters unsure about supporting non-white
candidates.
"The
white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be
called 'racist.’ Donald Trump is not a racist, but Donald Trump is not afraid.
Don't vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump," the robocall said.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-TX, arrives for a news conference to discuss the Supreme Court case involving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Nov. 12, 2019.DREW ANGERER, GETTY IMAGES
Latinos
inspired by civil rights fight
For
Democratic Texas U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who chairs the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, it’s simple: Either you have a voice on issues that affect
you, your family and your community, or others make those decisions for you.
By next
year, Hispanics are expected to become the largest ethnic minority voting group
to be eligible to vote in a presidential election, according to a study of the
2020 electorate released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center. In all,
32 million Latinos will be eligible to vote compared with 30 million voters who
are black. It would mark the first federal election where Hispanic voters
outnumber black voters.
Castro
said Latinos have made great strides since the civil rights era in the 1960s,
when Latinos battling discrimination formed the Chicano movement to fight for
the rights of Mexican Americans.
“It was a
community that was marginalized, and in some places, repressed,” he said. “When
my grandmother came to Texas, there were signs that said, “No dogs, Mexicans or
Negroes allowed.”
Castro and his brother, former presidential candidate Julián Castro, grew up in San Antonio, a city where Latino politicians run and win. Their mother, Rosie Castro, was a Chicana activist who in the 1970s joined La Raza Unida, a third-political party seeking to engage Latinos in politics.
Castro said he and his brother entered politics because they grew up watching Latinos raise their voices as activists and successfully run for office. In 1992, San Antonio-born Henry Bonilla was the first Hispanic Republican from Texas elected to Congress. And in 1981, Henry Cisneros became one of the first Latino mayors in the U.S. when he was elected by San Antonio voters. San Antonio had not had a Latino mayor since the 1800s, before Texas became a state. Later, Cisneros was appointed by former President Bill Clinton as U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
“Henry Cisneros inspired a lot of young people, I think you see that often times, when there’s a first in the community who runs for something,” Castro said. “The turnout rate for the Hispanic community was astronomical” during Cisneros’ election.
Castro’s brother, Julián Castro, was the only Latino in the 2020 presidential race before he dropped out last week.
“I think for a community that for many years had been marginalized and left out of politics, to now see someone from the community running for the highest office in the nation is important,” Joaquin Castro said in an interview before his brother exited the campaign.
Julián Castro has always embraced his Mexican immigrant roots. He followed in Cisneros' footsteps to become mayor of San Antonio in 2009. But a recent poll by Telemundo Noticias showed he lagged in Latino voter support compared with other Democratic presidential hopefuls. The November poll showed Castro in a three-way tie for fourth place among Latino voters, with only 2% support, while Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are leading the candidates among those voters, with 26% and 18%, respectively.
More Latinos are voting in local and federal elections
The White House isn’t the only political arena where Latinos are demanding a voice.
In 2006, when the nation considered a seminal immigration reform bill, there were only two Latinos in the Senate and 28 in the House.
“That was a critical bill that needed more Latino voices,” said Barreto, of UCLA. “That issue was so consequential at the time. It was a bill that was going to affect the lives of more than 10 million undocumented immigrants, many of them Latino.”
Some political analysts say the lingering effects of failed action helped spur today’s hardline immigration policies and public divide over nationalism and migrant’s rights.
But Barreto said lagging representation goes deeper than immigration issues.
“Every bill matters,” he said. “There’s a Latino angle to education reform, economic policies, health care.”
“These aren’t white issues, these are everyone’s issues,” he added. “Black, Latino, Asian communities, we should all be equally represented. That’s what we should expect in a healthy democracy.”
And the Latino vote is only poised to become more influential. Latinos represent the greatest number of Americans under 18, at 18.3 million, according to a 2018 Pew report.
Grassroots groups and larger ones like the Latino Vote Project have launched massive voter-registration drives in recent election cycles. Latino voter turnout in 2018, at 40%, reached a record high, increasing from 6.8 million in 2014 to 11.7 million. That’s the second-largest turnout among Latinos of any election year, presidential or midterm.
Lopez, the Pew researcher, said Latinos may be motivated to protect their rights and place in the U.S. About half of Latinos surveyed said their standing in the nation had worsened in 2018, compared with 32% who said the same in the weeks after Trump won the 2016 presidential election, according to a Pew report.
An estimated 55% of Latinos said they were worried that a family member or friend could be deported, and two-thirds said the Trump administration’s policies had been harmful to Latinos. That’s up from similar feelings about Barack Obama, at 15% in 2010, and George W. Bush, at 41% in 2007.
“Many experienced some kind of discrimination event, like being told not to speak Spanish,” Lopez said. “Their lives have changed in a somewhat negative way in the last few years, primarily, since the election of Donald Trump.”
Councilman Carlos Garcia
(right) makes a point as the Phoenix City Council conducts a meeting at the
Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix, July 2, 2019. Councilman Sal Dicicio
listens (left).TOM TINGLE/THE REPUBLIC
From
protesting the government to running for elected office
In many ways, Garcia had already taken his place in history long
before election night in Arizona.
Years before his Election Day party, while attorneys for Arizona
and civil rights groups were battling over Senate Bill 1070 – the state’s
notorious “show me your papers” law – Garcia and other protesters
stood outside the Phoenix courthouse under the brutal July sun blocking the
intersection. When police officers moved in to make arrests, Garcia was in the
middle, wearing a white T-shirt with the words “We will not comply.”
After Trump was elected, he traveled to Arizona in 2017 for a
speech in downtown Phoenix. Garcia joined hundreds of people protesting the
president’s visit in the wake of a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that
turned deadly when a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of
demonstrators. The mostly peaceful protest outside the Phoenix Convention
Center turned chaotic when police used tear gas and stun grenades on the
crowd.
Hundreds of people later attended a Phoenix City Council meeting
demanding officials hold police accountable. By then, Trump had pardoned Arpaio
for the contempt conviction, further roiling many in the crowd.
The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association wrote a Facebook post on candidate Carlos Garcia.VIA FACEBOOKThe Phoenix Law Enforcement Association wrote a Facebook post on candidate Carlos Garcia.
Garcia stood before officials in a blue T-shirt that read “Not one more deportation.” He told council members the community would hold them accountable.
“To think that we spent three-quarters of a million dollars for this person, this president, to come spew hatred and bigotry, to come spit in our face and pardon the sheriff who was convicted," Garcia said. “The city paid for a campaign rally. We have an opportunity to ... do this and to stand up for not only Phoenix but cities across the country.”
Two years later, the Mexican immigrant’s face was plastered on campaign ads across south Phoenix where Garcia lives in a community with deep Latino roots. In the photo, Garcia wore a familiar cornflower blue traditional Mexican guayabera shirt, his baby girl on his shoulders and his wife, a teacher, and his son standing in front of him.
New City of Phoenix councilman for District 8, Carlos Garcia, poses with his family after taking the oath of office during the inauguration ceremony on June 6, 2019, at the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona
Latinos making political history at the voting booth
At the Election Day party, Garcia and his supporters continue to
wait for voting results in the shadows of a saguaro-studded mountain.
Gonzalez and her piggy bank the size of a mango still have the
floor. Earlier in the evening, Garcia called her onstage, named her the
campaign’s No. 1 donor and gave her the memento.
“Carlos has been on the front lines – organizing, fighting against
SB 1070, fighting against Joe Arpaio,” she says, her eyes filling with tears.
“It’s actually been a great joy of mine to be able to use the same money that
came from Arpaio, the same money that came from the state’s incarceration
system, to actually support his run for City Council.”
As the desert night fades, Danny Ortega, a Phoenix attorney who
has fought for civil rights since the Chicano movement, leans against a
wood-carved bar watching Garcia mingle with campaign supporters. Ortega
says young and old Latinos backed Garcia because they saw a candidate who
looked like them, cared about them and sacrificed for them.
“For too long, we lost our way,” Ortega says, standing with his
longtime friend Alfredo Gutierrez, who served for 14 years in the Arizona
Legislature and has protested with Garcia. “Too many Latinos thought they had
to act white to win. Now, they’re seeing the power in our own identity.”
Garcia moves closer to a grove of old trees, where it’s quiet. He
says it's justice that money won from a lawman who targeted his family and
community, would help him overcome the campaign financing barrier most Latinos
face when they run for office.
“I’ve had six people in my family that have been deported, I grew up undocumented. And hold that truth,” he says, shaking his head. “I grew up working class. I’m a single child of a single parent. And with my mom’s strength, that she was able to raise me, that she was able to succeed in this country and make sure that I got through school, went to college, I’ve been able to help my community for the last 16 years.”
By the night’s final vote tally, Garcia holds a slim two-point margin. As his supporters leave the plaza, no one knows if Garcia’s lead will hold.
In the morning, the final election results are in. Garcia is at home with his family. With six words on his Facebook page, he says what everyone who supported the outsider Latino candidate – despite the odds – is waiting to hear: “We got it! Thank you all!”
He wins the race with 51.47% of the vote. By 384 votes, Garcia, and the community who voted for him, has made history.
