"Latinos are not a monolith."

[littlemissmartypants]

Last edited Sat Oct 12, 2024, 01:07 AM - Edit history (1)

A new book that may illuminate why so many Latinos follow DT.
❤️ pants

DEFECTORS: THE RISE OF THE LATINO FAR RIGHT AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR AMERICA from Paola Ramos

In 'Defectors,' journalist Paola Ramos explores the effects of Trumpism on the Latino vote
Portrait of Pamela AvilaPamela Avila
USA TODAY

Published 8:00 p.m. ET Sept. 27, 2024 Updated 8:51 p.m. ET Oct.
10, 2024
Latinos are not a monolith.

We've heard that time and again, particularly when it comes to decoding the "Latino vote" during an election year. And time and again, the 63 million Hispanics or Latinos living in the U.S. (36 million of which are eligible to vote) have proven that very sentiment right. In 2020, Donald Trump won a higher percentage of the Latino vote than he did in 2016, and according to a recent Pew Research Center report, that number continues to shift.

So, despite Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric and border policies, why are Latinos tempted to vote against their own community? Why do Latinos feel comfortable among the far-right? What roles do tribalism, trauma and traditionalism play in all of this, and why should we listen to this growing group of voters?

Those are all questions Emmy-winning journalist Paola Ramos seeks to answer in "Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America" (Pantheon, pp. 256, out now).

The Telemudno News and MSNBC contributor's follow-up to "Finding Latin-X: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity" explores how race, identity and political trauma have ignited a far-right sentiment among Latinos and how this group is shaping American politics.
More...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2024/09/27/paola-ramos-defectors-book-latino-trump-voters/75372411007/

The votes of 63 million Latino Americans will be a
deciding factor in the November election. Despite his history of anti-immigration rhetoric, Donald Trump has been making inroads with this constituency, which in the past leaned Democratic. Award-winning journalist Paola Ramos investigates this shift in her new book "Defectors:
The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.
Originally aired on October 1, 2024

❤️ pants

[msongs]

1. found the article sorta vague nt

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Some additional links...

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/25/1201499003/latinos-are-moving-to-the-far-right-paola-ramos-thinks-she-knows-why

https://www.vogue.com/article/defectors-paola-ramos-book-interview

https://www.harvard.com/book/9780593701362

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204316963-defectors

[littlemissmartypants]

5. Video from Amanpour...

Description:
The votes of 63 million Latino Americans will be a
deciding factor in the November election. Despite his history of anti-immigration rhetoric, Donald Trump has been making inroads with this constituency, which in the past leaned Democratic. Award-winning journalist Paola Ramos investigates this shift in her new book "Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.
Originally aired on October 1, 2024

[Klarkashton]

2. Sure vote against your best interests.

Vote for the orange asshole who doesn't give a shit about anything but staying out of jail.
Not a monolith my ass.

[GP6971]

16. Hello Sunshine!!

How's your weather today? Feel like pizza today?

[jfz9580m]

4. This is a no-brainer for those of us who are non-white

Last edited Sat Oct 12, 2024, 02:47 AM - Edit history (2)

People tend to vote their own interests. And overtime that tends to move a lot of people left of centre is my impression.

Regardless, if you do think humans really are the same everywhere, it follows that a subset of our fellow humans will veer right, whatever the race or nationality.

Best case it is a sort of sensible moderate right which seems to be an endangered species on the actual right. Worst case it is far right.

Immigration is after all only one issue-the other issues are labor, the environment (chronically neglected despite its importance), regulation, religion etc etc. And on many of these I have not found there to be that stark a difference between people based on race (or sometimes even gender). But yeah given Trump’s racism and misogyny it is extra shocking when women or nonwhite people back him. Some of it is misogyny in non-white men or racism in women etc etc. A two party worldview does not actually exactly represent the complex reasoning people follow when it comes to their political choices. But regardless, I would have thought Trump is so extreme it should be a no-brainer..


(That is not that awesome for the truly left of centre since that means that as the far right goes crazy, right leaning moderates do tend to want to push left of centre people to the margins on the left. The world as a whole right shifts..

Shrug..at any rate the far right is far worse than the so-called moderates. Policy wise the left of centre take a hit.

At any rate, at this point in history one needs a coalition of moderates and the actual left to defeat the far right.)

I digressed from the point of the OP (there is a little Trump in all of us when it comes to dithering off topic!). But it doesn’t surprise me that in groups which you would expect would vote left of centre, there is a growing far right element that backs the misogynistic “strong man”. The chronic nuisance that is religion is also a factor.

Interesting read btw. No surprises there if you think deeply about politics at all. But still..
War tends to be off my radar because I have so many issues with the peacetime activities of humans as an environmentalist that I never even get around to war.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Excellent reply, jfz9580m. ...

Thanks for weighing in! You made several interesting points. Thought provoking.
TY!

❤️

[jfz9580m]

13. Thank you littlemissmartypants

Thanks for the op. It was an interesting read..

[littlemissmartypants]

14. Thank You, jfz9580m!

[PeaceWave]

6. There are 50 states in the U.S. and 33 countries in Latin America...

Of course, all Latinos aren't going to vote the same way. Unfortunately, most Americans have little to no understanding of geography and culture beyond their own borders. That said, I do worry about the appeal of the Republican Party to non-Cuban Latinos. The Cubans will always vote Republican - Primarily because they've all been brainwashed into believing the Republican Party will avenge their loss at the Bay of Pigs (a plan which was actually hatched under the Eisenhower administration) and return to them their stolen ancestral homeland. Yeah. Okay. Good luck with that. It's the non-Cuban Latinos who are up for grabs. But, just like any other demographic group, we've got our differences and will vote accordingly. Unfortunately, many Catholic Latinos are, due solely to the abortion issue, going to be inclined to vote for the Republican Party. This is where open discussion about the issue is important, as was the case when Biden discussed being an Irish Catholic but also being for a woman's right to choose. Did he take heat for it from the Church? Yes. But, so what. It's the peoples' blessing, not that of the Pope that's necessary to win an election. If Democrats don't hammer home this issue - That your faith does not preclude your membership and participation in the Democratic Party, then Republicans can and will continue to use religion as a wedge issue among the Latino community. That's my dos centimos on the subject.

[LeftInTX]

27. I think of the Mexican-American as a bit like the Italian-American community.

They came.
They were different.
They assimilated.

Keep in mind that only US citizens can vote!!!! There are not many immigrants who eligible to become citizens.

The majority of US citizens came during the Mexican Revolution.

Another group of US citizens were naturalized by Reagan.

Another were born in the US to non-citizens. (Most of these are younger and more progressive, but they are young. Their kids will likely be different)

A minority of wealthy Mexicans have bought their citizenship. They come here to escape kidnapping and crime in Mexico. They are wealthy here in the US also. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/globe-wealth/article-yes-you-can-buy-your-way-into-us-citizenship/

Another minority: Asylum. Mexicans are not eligible for asylum.

[qwlauren35]

7. I figured this out a few elections ago.

I first learned that many Latinos are conservative when Obama was running in 2008. I thought it was due to the influence of Catholicism and the macho culture. My takeaway from this article is that millions of Latinos are as scarred by the remnants of colonialism and enslavement as black people are. It just manifests differently.

[LeftInTX]

22. Many are just plain old assimilated.

Keep in mind that newer immigrants are likely not citizens.

The colonialism happened 500 years ago and Mexicans are generally 1/2 European because the Spaniards did not bring women with them. My husband is ancestors of both. A conquistador is his 13th great grandfather, yet his DNA is 1/2 indigenous. It's basically "history" as opposed to family experience. Of course, I would love to know what happened on a personal level and there are actually books out there, but we have haven't purchased them. (There are narratives.) But this is history, just as in I'm Armenian and I'm curious about how my family migrated from Eastern Armenia to Western Armenia during the Byzantine Empire. My great grandfather wrote books detailing their lives in the "old country". But their ways (which were very backward and which I understand) are more or less history to me because they lived under sharia law and tribalism. I do not feel an emotional attachment to sharia law. They did. They were "tribal" until they died. I "understand" where they were coming from, but my life is different.

[qwlauren35]

25. I probably could have assimilated...

People who deny half of their heritage have scars. Because someone is telling them to deny half of who they are - that half is negative, unacceptable, unacceptED, and generally bad.

Imagine having to deny half of your family. It would shake my foundations.

I have met several Latinos who look quite white... to me, with dark-skinned parents . They are quite proud to share pictures of their families.

There are a lot of people in America who don't have connections with their families because of negative experiences. They have scars, and they know it. People who assimilate have hidden scars and may even be in denial about those scars. Their families did nothing wrong. They just weren't white.

[LeftInTX]

28. I don't believe my husband has scars. He went to better schools than I did.

There are two types of assimilation: Assimilation in Mexico and assimilation in the US. The assimilation in Mexico began 500 years ago. The assimilation in the US began about 100 years ago. (That's when most of his family came here. His grandfather and wife worked for Southern Pacific in Mexico and got a job in the US. His other grandfather simply crossed the border without a job. He ended up marrying a Mexican-American whose family had been here for several generations)

There are many definitions of assimilation. Speaking English? Welp, it's the language. Not speaking Spanish? It happened to him because his parents didn't teach him. Although he does know Spanish.

Immigrants from all countries face hardships. Look at my family. They had much worse hardship than my husband's who is Latino. My grandparents are genocide survivors. My grandmother was in a concentration camp. Only a handful of their family survived. No one is saying, "Poor you" to me. Am I victim of colonialization? Who is the colonizer? Yes, my grandparents were victims of colonization in Turkey. When I mention Armenia and it doesn't bring up red flags in the reader, I can tell they don't know what victimization is! (That's when I feel scarred.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide

[thucythucy]

8. They are to MAGAts.

These people honestly believe being far right will save them from the consequences of rampant xenophobia and racism backed by the agencies of the federal government?

When the racists come for them, their yelling, "But but but I'm a Trump supporter!" might be the last sounds they ever make.

[littlemissmartypants]

12. Yep. Very naive, imo.

But it is a cult so it's high probability that they're delusional. ❤️

[valleyrogue]

19. They are like Peter Thiel. They will be deported, rounded up in concentration camps,

or be on the end of a rope if these Christian Reconstructionists or Project 2025 crazies ever get control of national politics.

How STUPID can people get?

[Brainfodder]

9. Theory I recall on this was, other "races" also have subsets that they have grown to despise and want out TOO.

I am more HUMAN RACE over bickering about or feeling superior over skin tone.

Look hard and creepy on your own time, but beware in life it could cost a lot of missed ops and could cause some bad ops.
Bad optics is bad optics and cops react to that shit, and thus trouble can come calling and apparently does in some neighborhoods?

Meanwhile, we have a long running conflict among 2 core groups that have no concern for each other at all, so much so they have outside terror groups joining the fray?

Is that what I am seeing in 2024?

[flamingdem]

10. My recent arrival Cuban friend in Miami blames Biden for not supporting the anti-government protests

of 2021. Part of that seems to be an excuse for herd mentality with other Cubans who've been there longer.

Something tells me the Cubans of color are not Trumpers but I'm not sure. Once again not a monolith.

The writer of the book is Cuban American I believe. So, will have to check out her book.

[LeftInTX]

17. This post sums up Texas

Particularly those who have lived in the USA for generations and no longer speak Spanish at home see themselves as white.

A fifth-generation Tejano who owns a successful HVAC company, drives a brand-new Ford F-350, with son in the Marine Corps and two daughters at Texas A&M will have no sense of shared solidarity with a migrant agricultural worker from Honduras.

And, yes, these Latinos are often Trumpers.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=19557520

I live in 60% Latino neighborhood and it is exactly like this! My husband's grandparents are from Mexico, but he grew up speaking English. In Texas, the majority came here during the Mexican Revolution. (1910-1930) I think of Latinos like an ethnic group, similar to Italian. They came. They were different. They assimilated.

They are afforded disadvantaged minority status due to their previous mistreatment. My husband got a free college education. (Program no longer exists) However, my husband actually went to much better K-12 schools than I did because he went to private Catholic schools. His parents had a disadvantaged education in the 1940s. Nowadays the status is mostly reserved for small business and agriculture workers etc.

[valleyrogue]

18. This makes NO sense whatsoever. WHY would any Latino ever vote MAGA GOP

or support far right ideas? These people are the FIRST ones in line to be persecuted, should Trump or somebody of his ilk ever get (back) in the White House.

[LeftInTX]

20. Why would an Italian?

There are 65,329,087 Latinos in the country.
20% of the population!

You think Trump is gonna deport 65 million people?

It's like women voting for Trump.

[Vogon_Glory]

26. I suspect certain Latino groups think they're immune

A lot of 1960’s era emigres have light skin and European features. Furthermore, they arrived with chips on their shoulders regarding the Marxist Castro regime and what they see as the failure of the Democratic Presidency to support the counter-revolutionaries at the Bay of Pigs.

A lot of the persecution of Latinos in previous generations has fallen off, so folks who’ve been in the US two or three generations no lingers see themselves as being “Them”.

[Cha]

21. Which means they all are Not for American Democracy.

Nothing to be proud of.

[Sympthsical]

23. There's a component of patronizing racism in how some regard Latinos

There's a kind of resting assumption running under these conversations that assumes Latinos are either immigrants or not far removed from immigrants, and that they will therefore care deeply about immigration issues.

I live in California, and many Latinos I know are third, fourth, or even fifth generation. They see themselves as American rather than Latino-immigrant the way many white liberals see them. Even those who do immigrate do not automatically relate to the issue as automatically as some on our side assume. My SIL is a great example. She immigrated here legally, her family comes and goes, she lives and works in an area with many Latino immigrant communities.

Do not ask her about immigration. DU would not love her response.

There are so many times I listen to people discuss Latinos, and I keep thinking, "So . . . have you ever actually met any Latinos?"

It's a little insulting to many of them, and nothing lit that in neon more than when mostly white people came on down from on high and thought they were going to dictate LatinX to an entire minority because they knew their culture better.

Like the presumption was absolutely wild, and I think the pushback was a wake up call for many non-Latinos who thought they knew the community. They knew jack and shit. But they assumed a whole lot. "You're brown. Don't brown people care about these things?!"

No. People need to check how they talk about that community sometimes. Because it's gotten weird over the past ten or fifteen years, and you can feel there's resentment and dislike about it there. Even those who do hate Trump and his rhetoric aren't exactly thrilled with us for frequently talking down to them all the time and acting like they all just hopped the fence.

It's a bit racist.

[LeftInTX]

24. I know.

[Lucky Luciano]

29. Yup. This post makes an important and very valid point.

[soandso]

30. You nailed it

I really hate this lumping of people into perceived boxes and the assumptions that go with that. Someone said something about "they vote against their own interests", presuming they know what someone else's interests are. Really? What are their interests? Do tell. Talk about arrogant. My own experiences with Mexican ancestry friends, in California, was that their interests were present time oriented, to their own lives, here and now, and had nothing to do with ancestry. Better job, buying a home in a safe and nice neighborhood, very traditional family oriented. IOW, rather run of the mill on planet Earth. None were Latino activists and whether they came recently or were multi generational American, none wanted to live in Mexico. I knew two Cubans and they both hated communists, understandably.

I remember when AOC made the statement, also in attempt to put a huge group of individuals into a false box, "Latinos are black" and how there had to be a conversation about the African roots of Latinos. Once again, speaking for millions (or billions?) of people and projecting her ancestry onto others and saying what their priorities should be, which caused a big Latino backlash against her untrue assertions. I have never understood one person assuming to speak for another, let alone millions. It's dismissive of the fact that people are individuals and simply human beings with their own ideas. Doing that doesn't win anyone over, especially in politics.

[Sympthsical]

31. The majority frequently gatekeeps minority voices

It's like with the LGBT community. Straight people think, "Well the HRC said . . ." or "Well, GLAAD said . . ."

The problem is, those two organizations do not speak for us. But they get a seat at the table, and whatever they're on about is assumed to be, "The gay community must think this."

And we don't. Most of us do not care about whatever the HRC is banging on about this week. Straight people care. What the HRC does - and does very well - is launder money from corporations and politicians into shiny Gay Approved stickers they hand out. It's very beneficial, and I hear the cocktail parties with power and celebrity are lovely.

Latinos are getting the same short shrift. You have some voices, like the example you mention, and others who marry immigration and the Latino community and then white people come away thinking that's practically the only thing Latinos care about. If you can't say the word Latino without the word "immigration" following shortly after, you're operating under at least some mildly racist assumptions.

There's a simple rule in all this - do not assume the self-appointed spokespeople for a community are representative of it. There is a lot of money to be made by those who "speak for the community" and they climb on up that ladder to get their coin. But are they telling people what the community thinks, or are they telling people what they think the majority wants to hear?