06: What are we getting wrong about Latino politics?

Welcome to The American Ingredient, a podcast that examines grace in American society from
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an academic perspective, focusing on the work from social scientists and legal scholars. The
American regent demonstrates that race is not the only ingredient in making America. But in order
to make America, you need to. Heaping spoonfuls for
the discussion of race within the US has primarily been painted as black and white.
And in this discussion, many groups have been forgotten about, such as Native Americans. Asian-Americans,
as well as Latino Americans, in particular, Latino Americans. Because they’ve been out
in the West. They have many ways been treated as a forgotten group,
but they’re now gaining more attention. Furthermore, Latino Americans have been treated as immigrants.
However, as we look at American history, many of them did not cross the border. The border
crossed them. And so they begin with in the U.S. for centuries,
but are still treated as newcomers with the rising concerns about immigration.
There are rising concerns about Latino politics, and political scientists attempted to
try to understand Latino politics better. But even it has failed to some degree.
Look at the polls and the way in which the political pundits talked about Latino vote. There are many
who argue that this misunderstanding of the Latino experience has led to a variety
of misconceptions about their wants and needs, their level of political participation,
as well as what the immigrant experience is really like in the US amongst Latinos.
In this episode, I interview Professor Matthew Baretto of the Universe of California, Los Angeles’s
political science department. Many of you may remember Professor Baretto named for my interview with Professor Christopher
Parker of University of Washington. They are the coauthors of Change. We can’t believe in a book
that dictates the rise of the Tea Party. And also they’re currently examining the rise
of Donald J. Trump to the presidency. Today, we’ll be talking about his work on Latino
Decisions, a polling firm that he began with. Professor Gary Segura, who is currently
the dean of UCLA, is Public Policy School. The purpose of Latino Decisions is
to improve upon our knowledge of Latino public opinion. And
in doing so, they hope to give nuanced the Latino experience and dispel
many of the myths we have regarding the Latino experience and Latino life.
We begin the interview with Professor Baretto, discussing the impetus behind Latino Decisions.
So Gary and I started this about 10 years ago now we were
involved in a consulting project when we were both professors at the University of Washington,
and some folks reached out to us and said, hey, could you jump onto this project and give us some advice
on this questionnaire? And they had hired a fairly reputable
national well-known D.C. pollster to do some polling of
Latinos. So Gary and I joined along with some other folks as consultants, and
we were just blown away with the lack of cultural sensitivity,
awareness and even some violations of basic social science norms that you and I would just
laugh at if we saw it presented at a political science conference and we thought this is what is passing is very
high and reputable D.C. polling of our community. And so
we did the project. We learned a lot actually doing the project, but we came away from it thinking
there’s a real need and a desire to try to get it right when it comes to the Latino community,
to try to getting the polling numbers right, to try to get questions worded from a culturally appropriate way.
And so that’s where we started. We started in the 2008 cycle trying to work with Latino
advocacy groups who we knew would be receptive and want to work with Latino social
science scholars on these projects. And so we did that. We did our first couple
of polls. I remember in late 2007 heading into the 2008 presidential
election and really started going in that 2008 presidential election, just trying
to get accurate data from the Latino community on the radar
of people who were involved in this sort of larger political consulting and just media
information, newsgathering, so that they could tell the story. Right, of what Latinos wanted to see
when it came to politics. That’s really where it started. And from there, we’ve just increased star
number of projects each year. So this is a large polling effort. Were
there any hiccups you had along the way or I guess what does it do to convince larger
communities to go along with you and kind of move away from these other firms that had
taken up a certain level, the market share? Yeah. I mean, that’s the hardest part was try to breaking through. So
Gary and I both had tenure at the time as political science professors. And so
we thought we knew what we were doing and at least our community had validated us in terms of our
research. But when you try to get into the D.C. polling world or political consulting role is totally
separate, you know, they looked at us like a couple of dumb political science professors who didn’t know the first thing about
the real world. And so it was hard. We had to go and give a lot of presentations.
We had to meet a lot of new folks. We had to go to their conferences, their conventions,
big on panels and try to demonstrate our expertise to show that we really did understand
public opinion and voting patterns in the Latino community. We had to demonstrate
that we could turn projects around, you know, in two weeks and not take two years to get something
published. And so we did that. And that’s why we turned to at the beginning, a lot of Latino advocacy
groups that we had previous relationships with or who had trusted us. So we were doing
projects for now, LEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
We were doing projects for the National Council of La Raza, which is now called Needles US.
And we were doing projects for those sorts of organizations that maybe had already
heard of us, had trusted us, knew that we had a good reputation in the academic space.
And when they then went onto the national stage to present their findings, they
could bring us along and say, hey, these are our pollsters. These are the guys collecting the data. And from there, we just slowly
would get one more project. One more project. But it took a very long time and was very, very difficult
in the first few years. I mean, we probably worked two or three or four or so years before we
really had a large number of projects happening on a regular basis. And we would just take
the projects we could get and then try to promote the results. What were some of the biggest mistakes
or bad assumptions that these pollsters had in terms of studying the Latino population
that you had to say right off the bat? The first was that Spanish speakers are not voters. And so there
was this general sense that, yes, what you see on Telemundo have big
ratings that have a lot of followers, but that’s where the nonvoters are and that the voters are only
over here in the English speaking community. And you can just message them in the same way that you would message anyone
else. And so the first thing we had to do was demonstrate right off the bat that, no, there is a huge number
of immigrants who are naturalized citizens and voting. And we’re not just
seeing that in Miami or Los Angeles, but across the country.
Immigrants were driving really the growth of the Latino electorate in.
The late 1990s and early 2000s, and so those folks were coming in and you needed
to reach people not only when you implemented the pull, you needed to have bilingual
callers up, but then when you did your political outreach, you needed to have a message in Spanish. That was probably
the first thing. And it still amazes me. But you will still see polls there
in your state of Texas where they’re doing a lot of polling over the Senate election. You’ll still see polls that
are conducted 100 percent in English today in 2018 in the state of Texas.
In fact, it’s probably a majority of them that are conducted that way. And so we come in and
say, listen, there are huge number of communities that are not English dominant. It may
not be their first language. They’re more comfortable in Spanish. They are watching Spanish language TV. Spanish language
radio. And their Facebook feed is in Spanish. Let’s reach out to them in
the language that they’re the most comfortable as I think that was really the first thing that we had to help people
over common understand. And you have seen that in a lot of places with really the strong
voter participation rates by immigrant communities will continue to try to make that point clear
as we do our research and outreach that you don’t want to take those for granted. And then the second I would say is
that when you get to the English speaking community, there’s some similarities here with the African-American community. That
is, the English speaking Latino community is identifying for the most part as Latino
and does not always resonate with these same ads, these same outreach
messages that are often geared towards a more middle upper class
suburban swing voters. And so what we’ve been trying to inform folks is that when you go
to even the English speaking community, don’t just assume that your messages are working. Try to
find ways to understand those folks. They may be the children of immigrants. They may still resonate to the immigrant
issue because of their parents. But you you need to reach them in English, but do so from
a culturally appropriate lens. And so we’ve been pushing those two messages out pretty much consistently,
I think, from the start. And as I said, there’s still a need to do that in 2018. Well, you
do have a lot of work in Latino politics. You are a political scientist. First, as you know, you think
of the work don’t behavior work. You’ve done what political institutions and the fact that you’re a pollster.
And one of the things that I think is really interesting about your work
is that it seems to give us something that was missing. And
I think of you as a political scientist who uses Latinos as a subject to study. But you’re political
scientist first. And so given what you’ve studied, what is
the importance or why is it important that we understand the complexity of Latino social and political life?
What can that help us to understand broader issues in America as well as
broader issues dealing with American politics? Yeah, no, that’s great. I mean, I think you phrased that exactly right,
Erick. That is that, you know, we’re interested in these communities maybe because this is where we
grew up. But we don’t see it as a niche or a subfield. We just see that as part of American politics,
that is, we’re trying to understand what is happening in these communities, why people are motivated, why they
are not just from the same lands that anyone studying the political institutions
and processes in America. And so for me, I think what that is, is that when I was
coming out of graduate school and working on my dissertation, there was an overwhelming consensus
that Latinos were bad voters, that they were less engaged, that they were more focused on Latin America,
that they weren’t really that committed to the civic institutions in America. And
I didn’t always see that in the communities where I was. I saw more engaged communities when
we had candidates and issues that resonated. And so I started, you know, tackling
from the start these age old questions of voter participation rates, public opinion,
support for the different political parties in America. The same questions that had been
top questions being analyzed in American politics for decades. And I was just doing that,
too, from the perspective Latinos. And I think what that tells us then about America overall
is some of the same findings we have resonate with Latinos. That is when you do outreach, when you have candidates
that that resonate with communities, when they conduct get out the vote drives,
when they do voter mobilization, when they talk about issues, you see the same things. And so we’ve documented
places and instances where Latinos have voted at higher rates than whites, where immigrants,
naturalized citizens have voted at higher rates than u.s.-born whites. And what we’re
finding is that Latinos are voters and Americans just like anyone else. And
I feel like it was similar to some of the early African-American politics research where
there were findings of in-group identity that were propelling and there were
in-group institutions that were propelling sense of civic engagement. And we wanted to demonstrate
that that that was happening in the Latino community when it was when it wasn’t. Why wasn’t it?
Why was there that lack? So I think it’s. Volumes to how our institutions
engage and mobilize our communities, whether you’re talking about Latinos, African-Americans.
Maybe that you could relate this to American Muslims, a growing group. It’s getting a lot of
attention. Or other groups. LGBT groups or other groups. How do groups
in our diverse and pluralistic society. How do groups get engaged
when the different groups feel like they are a valuable member of society that has
equal footing? And those are some of the questions I’ve been grappling with from a research perspective
that I think will continue regardless of what groups we’re talking about in America. Those are the questions you should be asking
today in American politics. Is there any particular politically then that
we were not prepared for because we did not spend more time looking at
Latino public opinion? ML Yes, definitely. I mean, that’s a great question. I think that
there’s been a long line of those over the years, not just with Latinos, but African-Americans
and other groups as well, you know. But for sure, I think the first thing that comes to mind, at least in
contemporary events, is the 2006 immigration marches and
the aftermath of what happened there. And those, you know, were the largest
attended. A series of political protest marches in the nation’s history is estimated to
be between 5 and 7 million participants in those from March through
July of 2006 across America. And people were not necessarily
ready for those. They saw these undocumented immigrants as being marginalized,
as being voiceless and not being able to vote or really even petition their elected members of Congress.
And so they were on the sidelines. That was what political science theory would suggest.
But instead, what we found was that they were very well integrated into society, into civic institutions,
and they had political voice and they recognized how these series of laws
that the U.S. Congress was considering were going to deeply affect them. And it wasn’t just
undocumented immigrants who participated, but many naturalized citizens, immigrants who
had become U.S. citizens. And then the children and the grandchildren, the second and third generations,
those born in the United States who had that connection. And so
the political science, traditional theory didn’t see that interconnectedness as it ranged from undocumented
communities to the children the U.S. born. They didn’t see the connections to the naturalized
citizens. And so we had these huge protest marches that led to some increases in
voter registration, political voice, but really political organizing. We can really trace the rise
of the DREAM Act movement and the dreamers to those sort of
larger rallies that were taking place in 2006. Many of those who became leaders
in the dream movement were teenagers or even junior high kids and participated
in some of those 2006 rallies. And then they continued to sort of really push and promote. So, you
know, that was something that I think our traditional theories one of understood well. And now we have a much better
understanding for how marginalized groups can influence outcomes,
how they gain political power and representation. And so it’s important to continue
looking at those. I think we have some lessons today. We can extend those same things and lessons today to
protest against the Muslim ban that we saw at the start of the Trump administration or the protests that
we’ve seen recently in Texas over the family separations that were happening. And
all of the members of Congress think about all the members of Congress on the Democratic side who are now saying, hey, I
want to go tour these facilities. That was all brought about from immigrant
activism from these folks who, you know, people are acting on behalf of their
brothers and sisters who are being locked up and detained for seeking asylum
and refugee status. And that’s something that’s hard to see. It’s hard to see how a voiceless or
a powerless community might have that amount of activism in them. So it’s important to continue to look
at those, I think of, you know, just in terms of recommended reading. Chris Apaid, Milan’s book
that’s just come out on this topic and really looking at the history of the 2006 marches
and forward really is required and saying, let’s go look at these voiceless,
under-researched, understudied communities and see how they can have an impact. One
of things that you pointed out is there’s always been this juxtaposition between those who are naturalized
citizens and those who are newly immigrated, whether it be documented or undocumented.
Is there a distinctiveness in their attitudes? So is there one a level
of group consciousness that crosses this, I guess, born a U.S. versus
naturalized or immigrant divide? But on top of it, are there also differences in terms
of what they would like out of the U.S. or kind of their social political demands?
Yeah, definitely there’s large distinctions within the Latino community. One of the
mistakes I think that people make a lot of times is in painting a broad brush
across the Latino community. And that’s easy to do when we see activism and when we
see mobilization around issues where people care about. But and
we’re seeing that right now on the immigration issue. We are seeing unity on that issue.
However, there is a lot of diversity within the Latino community at the same time. And,
you know, there are differences that people are looking towards, policy issues towards,
you know, just everyday basic sorts of needs towards, you know,
attitudes, even towards the treatment and incorporation of immigrants. This was something that really
until the 0 6 rallies, until we had seen that sort of level of antagonism
towards immigrants, we were seeing differences. So we constantly want to be looking at issues of
years in the US. How many years have you or your family been in the U.S.? What generation are you? Were you
born here or your parents born here? Were your grandparents born here? And then, of course, class
is a considerable important variable in understanding and Latino acculturation and really
being able to distinguish between immigrants and subsequent generations who
have integrated very effectively and moved up the chain. These are variables
that are very important in being able to distinguish what happened was really
going back to the щоб rallies in California, going back to the Pete Wilson years,
Pete Wilson Professor Broder was referring to is former governor of California, Pete Wilson,
who served as governor from 1991 to 1999 when Governor Wilson took over the state
of California, was in the midst of an economic downturn and had a budget shortfall. Governor
Wilson took part in a variety of activity to try to shore up the state economically, including raising taxes,
as well as changing welfare benefits and itsome to provide fewer resources to
make sure that the state was able to meet its budget concerns. He also developed a tough
on crime policy as a way to shore up certain aspects of the state,
but in particular to Latino politics. He was a supporter of Proposition 187,
which was a 1994 ballot initiative which restricted illegal immigrants from access to
state services such as health and education. While Governor Wilson and supporters of Prop
were using up a great deal of state resources while not paying taxes. Many studies
have found that the strong support for this is really based upon immigrant animus and racial animus
in regards to this. And so many people have put the economic argument into question. Furthermore,
this policy ignited the Latino population throughout the state and has actually
harmed Republican Party in the state of California for many years, with Arnold
Schwarzenegger being the only Republican to win the governor’s seat since now.
One thing about Prop 187 is that it does have a strong legacy because several states adopted this
policy shortly after California did. And so while Prop 187 may
be seen as very unpopular, many states such as Texas also adopt
similar policies to restrict the access of undocumented immigrants to certain government
services. Daunia going back to the Pete Wilson years 1994, Proposition 187.
When these new waves of attacks against immigrants and Latinos in general
unfolded that were, of course, seen extended today, it started to create
more unity. And we draw a lot of lessons from the sort of idea
of linked fate and group consciousness in the African-American community. That is, we know there’s incredible
diversity across ideological and class lines within the African-American
community. But sometimes it becomes difficult to escape that. When your community feels under attack
and you look and you see allies that have your same last name and you’re same
an immigrant experience and your same skin color. And that unity becomes stronger. So
I think we’re in one of those moments, you know, so it’s sort of an answer of yes. There’s incredible diversity and we do
see those distinctions. But in the Latino community today, when you have such strong language
in such strong policies coming out of the White House, it tends to breed more unity.
And so to the extent that there is that diversity and differences, where at least in a moment
right now politically, what we’re seeing, those differences being put aside, even though they do exist, because
people are very upset and they see that they have more in common with one another and
they want to stand up for other immigrants rather than try to distance themselves. So it’s
really a. Fascinating. I welcome more people to study this. When will that go away? When will we see
U.S. born Latinos moving away from the immigrant experience and distancing themselves?
The threat and the attacks that people are facing. We think is continuing to drive that
that sort of solidarity that’s happening right now. To what degree has Hispanic are being Latino
become racialized as opposed to being an ethnicity where we think of racial categories as permanent,
handed down or birth, whereas an ethnicity is much more fluid? Do you
think this threat has led to so such as in the case of blacks, a racialized
identity to where the reactions of Boothby, the government or outside
forces have clearly forced groups of individuals who may not necessarily be the same
to see themselves as the same, at least within the U.S. context. I think we’re moving
in that direction, that’s what’s really fascinating for us scholars to study
is who feels that strength of identity, who feels that racialization and who doesn’t?
So the difference, I think, is that within the African-American community, it’s almost impossible
to not feel that racialized threat. There are certainly some people who don’t feel as strong, but
at some point there are national events that happen and people are reminded about
that. And we’re starting to approach that level of hostility, I think, within
the Latino experience. And when immigrants, regardless
of their citizenship status, when people who speak Spanish, regardless
of whether they were born in the United States or not, are racialized and called the
names, when new policies are put against them as a result of
their ethnicity, then you are racializing that. And we’re seeing that come up in focus groups,
survey research. More and more people are calling this out and saying, you know, there’s racism against Latinos.
People are saying this open ended when we ask them what’s happening in the country today. And
so I think as that happens, the Latino community, as I was saying earlier, they sort of hunker
down a little bit. You see more in common with your group members if you perceive
that, but not everyone perceives it. And that’s one of the most interesting things to try to unpack, is there are
some who say, yes, I am Hispanic, I’m fourth generation or third generation, but
I don’t feel that connection. You know, when they’re talking about immigrants, they’re not talking about me.
What we usually find are those folks are folks who are higher in class status,
perhaps from multiple generations. Their parents had a college degree. They have a college degree. They’ve moved outside
of enclaves. But that switch can turn back on in a moment because
the racialization of Latinos today doesn’t have any sort of bounds. So if you’re with
a group of friends and speaking in Spanish or if you’re just watching the news and you hear
the language that is being used to discuss immigrants, suddenly something goes off
in your head and you say, hey, wait a minute, they’re talking about my grandparents or it’s talking about everyone who speaks Spanish.
So we’re seeing more people, even those who were distant. We’re seeing more people feel those
attacks. And I do think that’s increasing the racialization against Latinos and that is increasing
this group identity right now. And again, the question is, how long will that last? Do we see that going on? But there’s
no question that it’s at play and it is increasing and it’s going to be increasing at least through the 2020
election cycle. We can we can bet on that. And then it will be unclear, you know, will
the country change? Will the Republican Party open up and try to incorporate
Latinos and welcome Latinos in a way that they previously
were able to do with other immigrant communities, Italians, Irish, German,
other immigrant groups who could find a place in the Republican Party and not be called
names for being immigrants? If that happens, you might be able to roll
back some of that racialization, but that rollback will take a very long time.
And sadly, we don’t see any signs of that. We only see signs of it increasing every time is Eric. Every day we turn on
the TV, there’s a new policy from the White House or a quote saying that we’re
invading this country, that we’re destroying this country, we’re infesting this country. And it’s really
the sort of language we haven’t seen publicly since Jim Crow era.
And, you know, it’s really sad. And I think that’s what’s what’s driving politics right now in her community.
So I’m thinking about your work overall, and I realize that it does have a very clear
substance purpose where you are informing the public and the media and others about what is the Latino
experience. But Putin’s back, I guess, to the academic perspective, what
things in particular have you done to advance political science or what are some of the things that you’ve done
to correct or advance the way political scientists think about one Latino
behavior, but the political behavior in general? Well, I guess, you know,
I’m not sure if I’m the right one to answer that. You know, you have to look and see what other people are saying and writing
about some of the stuff that I’ve written. But I think the two things that I’ve tried to put my
sort of finger on in trying to help understand and, you know, get right is first under
what conditions do Latino Americans behave and perform politically?
Like everyone else, meaning under what conditions do we turn out at high rates? Do we participate in high rates?
And so documenting those first just a document that they exist and then unpack them and say why?
I think it’s been important. And I think people have built on that and said, yes, there are conditions. Hold on, though. We do have
evidence of Latinos turning out at high rates and and voting as a bloc
and voting in support of issues that are mobilizing. So that’s one. And I’ll continue to work on that as we hear this,
you know, myth of the sleeping giant and of under performance in the Latino community.
It’s not a static. It’s not always a community that underperforms. In fact, there’s lots
of evidence of engagement. And then the second, I think, is if you think about
political attitudes and political behavior more generally, I think of the work that I have been doing with Chris Parker
that we’re continuing as the country is changing, to think about how white Americans
are responding to the changing demographics and the changing political
influence that different groups have and how that is creating this reaction
that we call reactionary conservativism. And what lasting
effects that might have. We’re certainly in this moment that we think had been going on
really since the George W. Bush years, but was kept under wraps
by a white Christian southern president
who symbolically put any concerns at ease.
But those demographic changes in those political changes were happening and then, of course, was really unleashed
and taken over when Obama was elected president. And then and now just continuing further. So
documenting that, documenting the way that some white Americans have responded
to this sort of change in status, this change in political influence and
what that means for American democracy, not just for public. What does that mean for democracy?
You know, I think it is an important project and one that Chris and I are certainly continuing to work on and
we’ll be working on for quite a while. There’s this idea has been advanced by individuals.
The Central Huntington, along with a number of the Sam Huntington was referring to, is a former theorist
in the Department of Government at Harvard University. Huntington is known as a
very strong advocate for Berardi ideas, specifically ideas that support
the importance of Western civilization. One of his latest Lord of the Last Works before
he passed away was a book titled Who Are We, which talked about the American national identity.
And in particular, Huntington argued that the influx of immigrants, specifically
immigrants from Latin America, was problematic for maintaining American identity.
He argued that because they spoke Spanish, they were geographically located
in the primarily in the West, but also had close proximity to home where they could travel back and
forth that they would not assimilate. And so because of this, this would change the nation’s identity
and in many ways deteriorate the way we understood America. Several studies
have actually found that Huntington’s theory about this was was incorrect. And so while
he theorized that Latinos were not assimilating, the empirical work which tested this found that Latinos
were somewhat in a very quick rate. As Professor Baroda will point out, many of the arguments
and fears that Huntington expressed were unfounded and that we’re finding that Latino Americans,
Asian-Americans and other immigrant groups are assimilating at a very fast rate, either
as fast or faster than we found from European immigrants. Idea
has been advanced by individuals Disenroll Huntington, along with a number of other conservative
political theorists, that when we think about the American identity, that the influx
of immigrants, specifically Latino immigrants, is going to change the national identity.
Do you have any evidence to suggest that, one, that they’re not assimilating quickly, that
they are in some ways opposed to norms, things of that nature?
I mean, if you look historically, since the large waves of migration and of course,
discounting and setting aside the populations who were already part of Texas
and New Mexico and Arizona and California. But if you look at the sort of more contemporary modern waves of migration,
post-World War 2, there is nothing but evidence of incorporation,
assimilation and acculturation. All of the evidence points to rapid
acculturation in terms of language education class.
Latinos into the second generation have the highest rates of military
service of any racial or ethnic community. Homeownership status
rises dramatically after controlling for socio economic status. And so all of these other
markers are there. And we’re seeing that evidence. And that’s why the sort of Huntington. Who
are we? Clash of civilizations ideas, you know, is unfounded. What’s
happening is that migration has continued. And so they’re blinded by it because
they see immigrants speaking Spanish and they say, you know, who are these people? They’re refusing to assimilate.
If they go back to those same immigrants 20 years later, they’ll see that almost all of them are speaking English now
and their children are all speaking English. Now they’re just looking at a cross section and a snapshot in
time and seeing, you know, these Spanish speakers are here ruining our country.
But of course, they come with all of the same sort of underlying democratic values that already founded
America in terms of hard work, in terms of Christian values,
in terms of family values. All of these same values
are there. And, you know, the immigrant experience is one of, you know, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps
and the decision to migrate. From your home country is itself that first
sort of decision that the same, you know, Europeans who landed
on the East Coast and eventually marched their way across this country. Contemporary immigrants
are doing that same thing. They’re saying there are better opportunities for us, for our family
somewhere else. So let’s go pursue those. And, you know, dozens of economic
studies have have documented the business creation, the economic
ingenuity and inventiveness of immigrant communities, including of Mexican
and Latino immigrant communities. So I think it’s quite compatible. All of the evidence shows that. The
problem is that people look at these small snapshots in time and they say, hey, wait a minute, there’s a lot of Spanish speakers
here. What’s wrong with you Latinos? And there are a lot of Spanish speakers here. And
the other thing we know today is that that acculturation process is not a one way
street for Latinos in the way that it might have been centuries ago for German and Italian
immigrants. That is that many Latinos pick up English, assimilate
a coal train into America, but they also maintain that Latino identity and Spanish
speaking and other Latino customs and cultures. And so we shouldn’t expect that
shedding that complete shedding of our identity. We should not expect that that’s not something that America
demands. And so I think if that’s what the Huntington disciples are looking for, they won’t
find that. But that’s wrong to look for. One things that one
of our past guests, Travon Logan, talked about was understanding race not as a control
wearable, but race as an experience. What has
political science or the other social science disciplines? What have they missed about the Latino experience?
I know a lot of times we’ll control forward in our models or try to account for in some way, but
in many ways it seems to be an experience. And so what are some of the key things, what the experience that we’re
missing right now? Well, I think at the top of that list is just the interconnectedness
across migration generations. And this happens in two ways. It happens
one at the individual level, at the familial level. That is, you might have
a Latino who’s situated with two immigrant parents and just controlling for
Latino in a model. You don’t understand that that person is very close to the immigrant experience
because their parents were immigrants. They may have even been undocumented and eventually have their status adjusted. And then you
have you could be the grandchildren of immigrants and have those close experiences with your grandparents.
And those are informative. And so at the familial level, at the individual level,
there are differing degrees of exposure to the immigrant experience. That is very
important because that influences the way you look at America, as
welcoming, as unwelcoming, the way you look at immigration issues. The second is at the community level that
that immigration experiences interconnected. You may not have that experience in your
own family, but you may live in a community or be proximity to a community that has high
density immigrant populations. And you’re reminded of it and you feel a cultural
connection to it. And you’re reminded of your grandparents or even your great grandparents for older
generations. And so there is no separate and distinct
undocumented community, immigrant community, fifth generation Hispanics who don’t connect.
Those are very rare. The average Latino is very interconnected to the immigrant
experience at both the individual level and the community level. And so that’s something that we constantly
are trying to look at by looking at someone’s generation, their proximity to the immigrant experience,
these community level variables. So you need to build in not only individual but community level variables. That
context matters. That church you go to, do you go to a Catholic church where the entire
mass is done in Spanish because that’s the church that your parents had always brought you to. And so now
that’s the church that you bring your children to. And I think that’s the most important thing to get right,
is that instead of just having these control variables, to really understand that experience
of connectedness to the immigration experience is very important in understanding Latinos
as a community and as individuals. You might encounter somebody who’s a professional, who’s a doctor,
a lawyer, an accountant, a consultant, somewhere. Maybe they live in the suburbs or
maybe they live in a central city that’s not heavily Latino now, but they might still have that experience
with them from the previous 30, 40 or 50 years growing up. And we need to understand
that so we can understand why they support these issues, why they view America the way they do.
So worth as you emphasizes the connection to the immigrant experience. Do you believe this continued connection
to the immigrant experience is because much like Asian-Americans, Latino Americans are
treated as as a as an other, that they’re really not part of the group. So if you
have a Latino surname that also you are seen as a foreigner,
somebody who momentously doesn’t belong but is not the norm.
Do you think that is why this connects to this to the immigrant experience is just
just cannot be separated? That’s certainly part of it. I mean, Latinos are continually,
you know, racialized as as un-American and told to go home. I mean, the regular
refrain, when someone gets mad at Latinos, when counter-protesters show up to protest
against an immigrant rights march, almost always you hear people saying, go home, get out of my country.
And so that is something that we’re constantly faced with and told. And
we saw this with the two women at the convenience store in Montana less than a month ago
who were just buying snacks at a convenience store and speaking to each other in Spanish. And a Border
Patrol agent happened to be there and asked them for their proof of citizenship. And
we saw this infamously with Hawtrey Ramos when he was covering Donald Trump on
the campaign trail and one of the Ramos supporters, after kicking him out of the press coverage,
you know, said, get out of my country. You don’t belong here. And he says, I’m an American citizen. So
that certainly is part of that. And because of that, we want to understand how people relate
to that. Now, it’s not the case that everyone has that experience, though, and I don’t think it is as strong
with Latinos as it is for Asian-Americans. There certainly. First of all, just as a
demographic more likely to be foreign born. And secondly, I think stereotyped at a higher rate
of being foreign born. But it is continuing and the
national discourse is continuing that today, that other isation or
that that un-American. But that’s the refrain that we’re most commonly faced with, is that
you don’t belong here. This is not your country. This is not your country. And you need to go home to
another place regardless of where you are from, where does where your family’s from, regardless of where you were born.
This is not yours. And when you’re faced with that, it does bring up those those emotions and that
connection to the immigrant experience. So I guess if you could basically take over political science
for a day, what would you tell them? This which we need to focus on. Quit ignoring this.
I think the interplay between racial groups is
not getting enough exposure. I think we’re doing a good job. We’re doing
a better job of understanding the Latino experience, of understanding the black
experience and the Asian-American experience. But I think we need to have
more on the interplay between groups. Why are we seeing blacks and Latinos together
protesting police violence or together protesting immigration officials? Why are
some whites reacting very strongly to black and Latino influence
while other whites are joining those rallies and are going to the Muslim ban
and the immigration rallies? And so I’d like to see more work done on
the interplay and how groups interact with each other and why groups sort of
find themselves in as allies or as opponents. And
what’s underlying that? And then, you know, if we have the Matawan for a moment, maybe then pushing and saying, how
can we promote more opportunities for cohesion and how can
we remove those opportunities that promote division, I
think would be really fascinating. Some people are working on that. I’d like to see more work done in that area.
One of the things that’s important to remember when we talk about race in America is that it is complex
and that the way we understand race dictates the policies
we put forth and that if we simplify the racial experience, we make very
bad policies. As Professor Baretto has pointed out, that many of the myths
or previously held beliefs had about Latinos in Latino politics have led
to really a misinterpretation and a bad understanding of Latinos.
And this has hurt both parties and in many ways has created bad policy.
What Professor Baretto hopes to do with Latino Decisions, along with his other work,
is to shed light on the experiences of Latino Americans
in the hope that this will help us better understand the political process.
Again, he is a political scientist first who uses Latinos as an example, and many
of his findings and many of much of the work that he has done is an attempt to
expand our understanding of the political world and by understanding and dispelling
the myths of the Latino experience. Hopefully we can dispel many of the myths and correct
our assumptions regarding political behavior in general.
Thank you for listening to the American ingredient. I’m Eric Daniel, a professor in the Department of Government at the University
of Texas. I would like to think Michael heidenreich and Jacob Weiss, their assistance, along
with the Department of Garbarek, the University of Texas and the University of Texas, ELEI t.c.’s
Development Studio.