In the second part of the book, we look at Latinos at the polls by exploring in detail the 2008 presidential primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the 2008, 2010, and 2012 general elections. In Chapter 5, we explore the claim made by Hillary Clinton’s Latino pollster that Latinos would not vote for black candidates. We show that, in fact, race had little to do with the Latino primary vote, and in Chapter 6 we show that this remained true in the general election. What really made the difference at the polls was Clinton’s far deeper and longer ties to the Latino community.
Latinos overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and in Chapter 6 we provide several of the reasons why. We show clearly that neither immigration nor race was particularly important to Latinos in that contest, despite immigration’s importance in 2006 and 2010 and the general importance of race to white voters. Rather, the Iraq War and the collapse of the economy—and Senator John McCain’s lack of credibility on both issues—set the stage for a Democratic landslide among Latino voters. In examining this election, we offer several novel ways to think about the importance of Latino voters to elections.
In 2010 Democrats suffered a big setback in the congressional elections. Latino voters, however, played a critical role in preserving the Senate for the Democrats and keeping Harry Reid (D-NV) in his job. In Chapter 7, we offer a detailed account of the evolution of Latino enthusiasm across the 2010 electoral cycle and the key roles played by immigration politics, Arizona’s SB 1070, and the Dream Act.
The 2012 presidential election looked very different from the 2008 election. The incumbent administration had been very disappointing on immigration, which was now a major campaign issue, and the national economy remained weak. Nevertheless, that election would prove historic for the Latino electorate: for the first time ever, Latino votes provided the margin of victory for the winning candidate. Chapter 8 examines the role of Latinos in that election and extends our thinking from Chapter 6 about how best to estimate Latino influence.
The third and final section of the book examines key issues in the Latino community beyond the economy. We start by delving deeply into immigration politics. In Chapter 9, we look at the experience of California in the 1990s, when Proposition 187 (and later 209 and 227) played a key role in moving the state from politically competitive (and even leaning Republican in presidential and gubernatorial elections) to one of the safest Democratic strongholds in the country. California’s experience in the 1990s, we suggest, has much to show us about how the politics of the nation will evolve in the coming years. If past is prologue, we can only conclude that in continuing to allow short-term strategic calculations and the outspoken voices of xenophobia within their coalition to shape Republican policy and political actions, GOP leaders are courting politically catastrophic consequences for their party over the long term.
In Chapter 10, we look at the current environment through the same lens and identify districts where immigration politics may begin to reshape the House of Representatives, if not in the election of 2014, then in elections to come. Although a majority of Latino voters report having voted GOP at least once, the reputation of the Republican Party continues to suffer in ways that may tarnish its brand for a generation. There are certainly things the GOP could do to increase its Latino vote share, as we show in this chapter, but currently it is doing none of them.
However important the issues of the Iraq War, the economy, and immigration have been in the last few electoral cycles, a variety of other concerns also have an important impact on the lives of Latinos, and those concerns significantly influence their political orientations and voting behavior as well. In Chapter 11, we examine the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which has so dominated the political landscape since it was passed in March 2010; Latinos have consistently favored Obamacare and opposed its repeal. In Chapter 12, we look at environmentalism. Although environmental problems are often constructed as white, middle-class issues, Latinos show themselves to be acutely aware of them, both immediate issues like local air pollution and global issues like climate change. Defying conventional wisdom, Latino registered voters demonstrate strong environmental attitudes and a considerable willingness to act politically on the basis of those views.
So here we go. As with any good story, we start at the beginning, and so we ask that most basic question: exactly who are Latinos?
Part I
UNDERSTANDING LATINOS AND THEIR PLACE IN THE POLITY
Chapter 2
UNITY AND DIVERSITY
Coauthored with Adrian Pantoja
The rapid growth of the share of Latinos in the US population in the last decade is now widely recognized in academic and political circles.* Just over 12% of the US population in 2000, Latinos accounted for 16.3% in the 2010 census—a 33% increase in ten years. A majority of that growth came from native births rather than immigration. According to US Census Bureau projections, Latinos will make up one-quarter of the national population by 2050.
Although the Latino share of the electorate has significantly lagged the population share, it too has grown substantially. In 2008 Latinos were an estimated 9% of the national electorate, up considerably from 5.4% in 2000 and dramatically from 3.7% in 1992, when Bill Clinton was first elected president.1 Disadvantages in education and income are generally associated with lower rates of voter registration and turnout, but Latinos have nevertheless been closing the gap, largely by overperforming for their socioeconomic status. And in reported voter participation, Latinos trail non-Hispanic whites with the same levels of both education and income by a mere 4%.2
The remainder of the lag can be attributed to two factors, both of which will become less significant with time. First, Latinos in the United States are a very young population; among those who are citizens, only 57.7% are over the age of eighteen (compared with 79.1% of non-Hispanic whites), according to the American Community Survey. Second, noncitizens make up around 40% of the adult Latino population. Although many of them are undocumented residents whose future in the country is uncertain at best, in time these noncitizens will be replaced in the population with their US-born offspring.
The growing Latino electorate has already significantly reshaped politics in the Southwest and California and is beginning to do so in Texas, Florida, and even Georgia and North Carolina. As the Latino population and electorate continue to grow, so will the impact of Latino public opinion on the national conversation—and on political outcomes in particular.
JUST THE FACTS
Much of the discourse on Latino politics in the United States is filled with myths and misperceptions based on anecdotal accounts gathered by news reporters or self-designated experts. Moreover, many observers assume that what is true for the Mexican-origin population is also true for Puerto Ricans or for other Latin American ancestry groups. But considering that over twenty countries in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula are represented in Latino ancestries, generalizing from the experiences of one nationality group overlooks important differences between them. Differences between Latino immigrants and those who are non-immigrants or who have been living in the country for many generations are also significant but often ignored. And the political differences between Latinos who are Democrats and those who are Republicans are often significant. In this book, we address many of the myths surrounding Latino politics and identify many of the similarities as well as the differences across varying types of Latinos.
Before we delve into the diverse and dynamic world of Latino America, it is important to establish some baseline demographic information on the 53 million Latinos presently living in the United States. Longtime observers of Latino politics can recall a time when Latinos flew under the political radar because they were considered demographically and politically insignificant. The rapid growth of the Latino population in the late twentieth century, however (see Figure 2.1), coupled with a political awakening in the mid-1990s, propelled them into the national spotlight.
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FIGURE 2.1The Latino Population in the United States (in Millions)
Although Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, the two largest Latino groups, were active in the 1960s civil rights struggles, by and large Latinos were not significant nationwide political actors in the 1970s and 1980s. But by the 2000 census, Latinos had grown to over 35 million (or 12.5% of the US population; see Figure 2.2) and were on the verge of becoming the nation’s largest minority. In the last decade, their size and growing political clout have come to the notice of political pundits and politicians, many of whom proclaim that the “sleeping giant” has finally “awakened.” No doubt, Latinos’ political strength will only continue to surge in the coming decades, given the population growth forecasts shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2.
Immigration is a critical factor behind Latino growth rates and a pivotal policy issue for Latinos, as we will see in this book. The foreign-born Latino segment has more than doubled in the last forty years, from 20% in 1970 to 40% by the 2000 census, to an estimated 43% today (see Figure 2.3).
FIGURE 2.2The Latino Population as a Percentage of the Total US Population
The doubling of the number of foreign-born Latinos can be directly attributed to changes in US immigration law, beginning with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Essentially, the 1965 act eliminated the preference categories for Northern and Western Europeans in favor of a preference system that emphasized family reunification. The 1965 act facilitated immigration not only from Latin America but also from Asia and other parts of the globe, leading to a so-called fourth wave of mass immigration. In fact, immigration patterns from Latin America closely follow changes in US immigration laws and migration patterns from other parts of the world. In contrast to previous immigration waves, however, Latin Americans constitute the largest segment of contemporary immigrants, at 53%.3 Not surprisingly, the backlash that followed this wave was largely directed at immigrants from Mexico, since that country was the single largest source of immigrants from Latin America in 2010 (55%), as well as from around the world (29%). In effect, immigration became synonymous, in the minds of the American electorate, with “Latino” in general, and with “Mexican” in particular. As popular dissatisfaction with all forms of immigration—and particularly undocumented immigration—grew and was stoked by political provocateurs, it is not surprising that Mexican-origin people were most often identified, targeted, and disparaged.
FIGURE 2.3The Foreign-Born Percentage of the Latino Population in the United States
Before we look at the states with the largest concentration of Latinos, it is important to examine the differing sizes of the national-origin groups that make up the Latino population. Then, given that Latino settlement patterns in the United States are driven by history, geographical proximity to the country of ancestry, employment opportunities, and the social networks established by transnational ties, we can establish where and why particular ancestry groups reside where they do.
Mexican Americans are the largest segment of the Latino population, at 29 million, or 65% of Latinos in the United States. The second-largest group, Puerto Ricans, make up a mere 9%. Cubans constitute less than 4%, Salvadorans 3.6%, and Dominicans 2.8% of all Latinos in the United States. When we consider the distribution between native- and foreign-born populations across each group (see Table 2.1), what is most striking is that for most Latinos the foreign-born population is a considerably larger portion of their total numbers than the native-born population. That Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans are the exception may seem odd, given that Mexico is the single largest source of immigration to the United States. Yet a closer look at the history of the population reveals that Mexican Americans have a long and continuous presence in the United States. Some Mexican Americans can trace their ancestry to the time when the American Southwest belonged to Mexico (thus the adage, “I did not cross the border, the border crossed me”). A significant portion also arrived at the turn of the twentieth century, following the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Many more came as braceros during World War II to fill labor shortages brought about by the war. The fact that an estimated 500,000 Mexican Americans served in the US armed forces during World War II shows the size of the population even before the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Settling in the American Southwest was natural given its geographic proximity to Mexico, the economic opportunities it offered, and the long-standing presence of Mexicans in the region.
TABLE 2.1The Latino Population in the United States, by Nativity, 2007
Source: Garcia (2012), 30.
Migration from the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was also significant prior to the 1965 act. In fact, because Puerto Ricans have been US citizens since 1917, the immigration act had little impact on their migration patterns. Puerto Rican migration can be traced back to Operation Bootstrap, an economic development program initiated in 1952 by the Commonwealth’s first elected governor, Luis Muñoz Marín. Operation Bootstrap had a profound impact on Puerto Rican migration. In the 1940s there were 69,967 Puerto Ricans in the United States, but by the 1960s the population had grown to 887,662. The primary destination point for Puerto Ricans was New York, which is home to the largest concentration of Puerto Ricans on the mainland to this day.
Cubans and Salvadorans migrated as a direct result of turmoil brought about by revolutions in their homelands. With the ousting of President Fulgencio Batista’s regime by Fidel Castro on January 1, 1959, political and economic elites fled from the island of Cuba; geographic proximity and long-standing networks made Miami their natural destination. Because Cubans were fleeing a Communist regime, they were easily able to enter the country because they were considered political refugees. This experience stands in sharp contrast to what happened in the 1980s to Salvadorans who were fleeing political violence initiated by a regime that was an ally of the United States. Salvadorans were treated as economic refugees and summarily returned to El Salvador if they were caught at the border or within the United States. After a series of legal challenges, Salvadoran refugees were finally granted temporary protected status. Los Angeles became a primary destination for Salvadorans given its proximity to El Salvador and the established communities of Mexican and Central American immigrants.4
Among the top five Latino groups in the United States, Dominicans have been the greatest beneficiaries of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. The easing of immigration restrictions combined with the overthrow of the Trujillo dictatorship (1930–1961) to dramatically increase migration from the Dominican Republic to the United States. The first wave of Dominican migrants came to escape the civil strife following Trujillo’s assassination and the bloody political vacuum that ensued. Only 9,897 Dominicans had come to the United States in the 1950s, but that figure jumped to 93,292 in the 1960s. Many of those leaving in the 1960s were middle-class Dominicans seeking to avoid becoming victims of the political violence, and the US government, in an effort to stabilize the country, granted US visas even to potential opponents of the US-backed regime. Since that era, Dominican emigration, largely motivated by the push and pull of economic factors, has risen dramatically. Between 1961 and 2000, 828,713 Dominicans legally immigrated to the United States. Like Puerto Ricans, Dominicans have primarily settled in New York City.5
FIGURE 2.4Latino Population Size, by State
From the map in Figure 2.4 showing the geographic distribution of the Latino population in the country, we can observe that more than half (55%) of US Latinos reside in three states: California, Texas, and Florida. California is home to the nation’s largest Latino population, with about 14.4 million Latinos. California’s Latino population alone accounts for more than one-fourth (28%) of US Hispanics.6 When it comes to the four largest ancestry groups, more than half (61%) of the Mexican-origin population in the United States reside in California (11.4 million) and Texas (8 million) alone. About two-fifths (41%) of the Puerto Rican population live in two states: New York (1.1 million) and Florida (848,000). More th
an two-thirds (68%) of all Cubans live in one state: Florida (1.2 million). Dominicans are highly concentrated in the state of New York, with nearly half residing there in 2010 (675,000, or 48%). Nearly half (48%) of the Salvadoran population is concentrated in California (574,000) and Texas (223,000).7
TABLE 2.2Selected Demographic Characteristics of the Top Five Latino Groups in the United States
Source: Pew Hispanic Center, Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2008 survey.
Data on identification as Catholic are from the 2006 Latino National Survey.
Despite the differences in their migration and settlement patterns, the various ancestry groups share many sociodemographic characteristics, though of the five largest Latino ancestry groups, Cubans have a distinctive sociodemographic profile (see Table 2.2). Cubans on average are older, they are more educated, and they have higher incomes and home-ownership rates. The sociodemographic differences between Cubans and the other Latino ancestry groups stem largely from the demographic characteristics of the immigrants who fled the Cuban revolution. Now living in exile in this country, those immigrants, for the most part, represented the upper strata of Cuban society—in sharp contrast to the sociodemographic status of immigrants from the other Latino groups.
Cubans aside, the other groups are more alike than different in their demographic profiles. Across these and other Latino groups, Catholicism remains the dominant religion. Some geographic and socioeconomic differences have an impact on Latino political beliefs and behaviors, however, and there are key social factors we must consider as well.
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