Election season must be here again. Immigrant bashing is the plate du jour for candidates trying to consolidate a right-wing constituency.
This time around their fear-peddling tactics are bolstered by a Harvard University political scientist naming Latinos, specifically Mexican immigrants, as the biggest threat to American democracy.
“The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves–from Los Angeles to Miami–and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril,” wrote Samuel Huntington, chairman of the Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies, in a recent edition of Foreign Policy magazine.
More astute and globally conscious politicians, however, are trying to figure out how to reach out to this community. They understand that multiculturalism is what has defined democracy in the United States.
The numbers certainly are real.
There are 39 million Latinos in the U.S., making up 13 percent of the population–the largest minority group in America. There is only one generalization you can make about Latinos: They are diverse.
There are legal, political and cultural differences among national origin groups, and there are important class and regional divisions within each group. In addition, the different times of their immigration create communities within communities.
There are marked differences between those born here and those born in other countries. And there are important generational differences across communities.
Mexican-Americans are the largest group. In the mid-1800s the United States annexed large portions of Mexico’s territory but promised to incorporate Mexicans living in those areas as full citizens. Throughout the 1900s, Mexicans continued coming north. At times the borders were open; other times people faced deportation, even children born in the United States.
Today, many Mexicans are undocumented and not eligible to vote. However, 56 percent of Mexican-Americans are registered to vote. Given their numbers, it is the most significant portion of the Latino electorate. During the past two decades the Republicans have won over important numbers of Mexican-Americans, but most continue to vote for Democrats.
Unique histories
Puerto Ricans and Cubans also have long and unique histories in the U.S. By 1800, significant numbers of them lived in New York and Philadelphia. Cubans came to Florida’s west coast to work in cigar factories that had been displaced from the island by high U.S. tariffs.
During World War I, American policymakers did not want “foreigners” in the ranks of the Army, so the U.S. governmentgranted Puerto Ricans citizenship in 1917. This has created a unique set of political circumstances for Puerto Ricans, who are citizens without a state. They can travel without restrictions from the island to the mainland and are eligible to vote there, but those on the island are not represented in Congress or the Electoral College. Puerto Ricans are the most staunchly Democratic of all Latinos.
Cubans also continued coming to the United States after the Spanish-American War in 1898, but it was not until the Cuban Revolution of 1959 that special immigration programs were put in place. These were aimed at creating a temporary sanctuary for refugees fleeing communism until the fall of Fidel Castro’s government. As years passed and the regime continued, Congress passed legislation adjusting the status of the would-be temporary refugees. In effect, the change allows any Cuban who reaches the shores of the United States a legal status that makes it possible to apply for citizenship after five years. Seventy-two percent of Cuban-Americans are registered to vote.
Military dictatorships and repression throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1970s and ’80s created new waves of political refugees from South America, the Caribbean and Central America. South Americans and Dominicans settled mostly in the East, and Central Americans in the Midwest and the West Coast.
The Latino vote can be critical in close elections, in part, because of the Electoral College.
Mexican communities
Even though Mexican communities are emerging in non-traditional areas, including the Deep South, they are mainly concentrated in key vote-rich states in the Southwest and Midwest. In addition, some political analysts argue that Latino voters in less-populous states such as New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado can be swing votes there. They note that these states combined have more electoral votes than Florida, but a lot of media attention is focused on that state’s voting patterns.
In Florida, Latino voters have changed.
The federal government made concerted efforts to disperse Cuban exiles throughout the United States, and important Cuban communities emerged in Chicago, New Jersey and Los Angeles.
However, since the 1980s most Cubans coming to the United States stay in Florida and others have returned to live near their port of entry. Today, 70 percent of Cubans in the United States live in southern Florida.
In the mid-1970s the majority of Cuban-Americans were registered Democrats, but the Republicans have consolidated their support by strong anti-Castro rhetoric and by supporting Cuban-American candidates.
In the past decade many of the Puerto Ricans who concentrated in Eastern and Midwestern industrial cities have migrated to Florida, particularly the Orlando area. When considering all Central and South Americans, Cubans now represent 60 percent of all Latinos in Florida.
There are as many unregistered Latinos who are American citizens as there were Latino voters in 2000–more than 5.5 million. Another intangible to take into account is that newly registered voters tend to be among the most motivated.
But how can this potential be mobilized?
One obvious answer is that each community and region needs to be thought of as unique, rather than a non-white monolith. The “browning” of all those of Latin American origins lumps them together into one group. While this glosses over Latinos’ differences, it also has allowed them to leverage political influence beyond their individual numbers.
Common threads
As such, there is an agenda of common interest among most Latinos.
Language is one of the threads that brings together this culturally and politically heterogeneous community.
Many Latinos want to continue speaking Spanish. This is increasingly important for second- and third-generation Latinos who understand that in a global economy access to multiple languages is an advantage. Contrary to claims by opponents of Latin American immigration, Latinos are also interested in learning English, so dual-language educational programs will appeal to Latino voters.
Immigrant rights are important for Latino communities. Even those whose status is secure understand that anti-immigrant sentiment is detrimental to all Latinos.
There is another set of issues that are important to immigrant communities: relations with their homelands. This is also true for Cuban exiles.
Today remittances sent to relatives in Cuba constitute the top gross national product of the island. An aggressive policy aimed at protecting immigrants from home country exploitation in these transactions would be a welcome change from the policy of opposition to sending money back.
Social services
The U.S. also should encourage outreach efforts by the Mexican government that include a host of social and educational services for their communities in the United States. An educated, economically prosperous community is good for both nations.
Latinos, like most other Americans, list economics and education as their top political priorities.
The party that successfully courts and integrates Latinos will be guaranteed future victories, if not the upcoming presidential election.
U.S. history is filled with examples of anti-immigrant hysteria, particularly in election seasons. The truth is that the presence of Latinos in the United States demands new ways of thinking about hemispheric relations. But in the world we live in, effective ties with our neighbors may prove to be critical to the security of the United States.
And as to threat of multiculturalism to U.S. culture, that’s a problem the Founding Fathers resolved long time ago: Create a political community that respects cultural and religious differences. Turning immigrants into voters is one way to do that.
