Is The Latino Voter A Myth?
Is there too much diversity in America's fastest growing voter bloc to say there's such a thing as a Latino voter?
One of the unexpected questions I have been getting on my book tour lately is “Is there actually a “Latino voter”? It’s a good question and a fair one. Every time I’m interviewed in the media and a reporter says “The Latino vote is not monolithic”, I find myself responding by saying “No voter group is monolithic - BUT there are many similarities that bind us together.”
But are there? And if there are, are they lasting or do ethnicity and culture change so quickly in this digital age that holding on to both is a fool’s errand?
I want to tackle this question by inviting you to listen to two podcasts on the subject. I think you’ll find them interesting. Very interesting and here’s why:
The first is my interview with one of the most astute observers of culture generally but Latino culture specifically. His name is Gustavo Arellano and among many other things, notably an aficionado of both food and baseball, he is a widely recognized columnist for The Los Angeles Times. The fact that he spends so much time on the three things I also love is purely coincidental I assure you!
After years of being asked by editors to write about the Latino vote from various publications, Gustavo decided to take a road trip through the desert Southwest to consider the question of Latinos and political priorities differently. Though Gustavo is younger than I am, he too has grown tired of the trite and elementary understanding of Latinos, our votes, and what it all means during election time.
The Los Angeles Times recently published his ten-part series and it’s remarkable writing. I sat down to interview him after only reading the first two chapters and through the course of our discussion I realized that the series would only get better as I continued and that’s what happened. At first, I approached the series hoping to learn something individually - and while I did - the more I read the more I realized a much bigger understanding was unfolding for me. Yes, even for me who has been studiously observing Latino voting behavior for thirty years.
Do yourself a favor and listen to the podcast first, I want you to get a sense of Gustavo’s personality because it will make the reading of the series that much better. Ultimately you come to understand that Latinos are not all that different from other Americans except that we are and that is the conundrum I’ve lived trying to explain and educate leaders of both parties how that can possibly be.
Let me know your thoughts on this series - in whole or in part - I’m hoping this opens up a line of discussion here on The Great Transformation because I know this community will understand it and this is the future of how we will be discussing race and ethnicity in America going forward after the 2024 election regardless of who wins.
Gustavo begins with the declaration that "The Latino Vote is a Myth". In a particularly insightful section in the first chapter, he writes:
“That’s why I initially rolled my eyes when my editors suggested a road trip to ask Latinos whom they plan to pick for president, when “our” votes can make or break a candidate as never before.
The “Latino vote” is a tired trope, I argued. It’s an insulting one too. To say there even is such a thing reduces a wildly diverse group into a trite narrative that I’ve spent my career trying to debunk, when not ridiculing it altogether.
Latino disenchantment with the Democratic Party, the growing numbers of us who support Donald Trump, our emerging power in swing states — I’ve covered all of this ad nauseam over the last eight years. I was in no mood to go down those same trails along with the rest of the national media.”
Now I also want you to take a few minutes to listen to the New York Times Opinion podcast I just recorded with my friend Isvett Verde who is an editor on the Opinion Pages of the NYT. Isvett is also an adjunct professor of Latinx media studies at the City College of New York (CUNY) and we discussed the recent fallout from the racist tirade we were all subject to at Madison Square Garden. The brief podcast is titled “Will the racism at Madison Square Garden really matter?'“
The racist “jokes” at the rally presented a conundrum for someone who believes that a lot of the rightward shift that has been going on for a decade during the Trump years is economic and assimilative. If that’s true why would a racist attack on one’s ethnicity bring voters back as I have also been arguing about these jokes? Ultimately the answer is a variation of the “we’re not that different until we are” narrative.
BUT…the real kicker is the last question that riffs off of that variation and I think it ties both Gustavo’s reflections, my work, and the entire Latino narrative of the 2024 election cycle home into one critical question…and you’re gonna have to tune in to find out what that is!
Did Trump Just Lose His Crucial Latino Support? - New York Times, Nov. 1, 2024
Gracias again!
I’m going to listen to these. It’s always bugged me how so many of us in politics assume latinos or any identity group will vote in some unison form. I actually think we’re headed to a place in America where a person’s identity is going to stop being as sure of an indicator of how they will vote. As you’ve notes numerous times before, a lot of the voter divide is happening across educational lines now.
This is why I am proud Harris has taken on a working class message. That reaches a wide majority of voters and doesn’t rely on assumptions or stereotypes based on peoples identity. It also speaks to the universal issues impacting almost all Americans.