Latinos in the USofA

If Kamala Harris had narrowly won the presidency, we'd be talking vigorously about this book, trying to understand why some Latinos shifted their party preferences in the vote. Since the Donald sneaked narrowly through to commit his ungoverned mayhem on the nation, most of us will likely miss it. But we shouldn't.

Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America by Paola Ramos is a lucid and affecting dissection of the fraction of the Latino electorate that has been drawn to Trump. Ramos, like her father Jorge Ramos, is a serious journalist. She's not spit balling when she delves into why some American Latinos are attracted to the right. The book is generous and fascinating, bolstered by the personal stories of her subjects who are her neighbors and more and more of ours.

Ramos explores three facets of Latino experience in this country: tribalism, traditionalism, and trauma.

Tribalism refers to the common trope in communities who experience exclusion from the "national mainstream," versions of "I want to identify with and as one of Them," however folks see the ruling class. Hence we get the life story of a Latino Border Patrol agent who succeeds indeed -- and then receives a nasty surprise about his own origin story. Traditionalism is represented by the Bronx beauty parlor owner who fears the Anglo society around her and looks to Trump to protect her. (No knock on hairdressers: I go to such a person to get clipped and she's very clear about which side of the class divide she and most of her Latino customers are on.)

The section on trauma did the most to open my thinking to what my neighbors bring with them from south of the border. The contemporary media environment enables them to subsist on the home country news in a way past immigrants might not have. During the pandemic, many imbibed Russian propaganda and disinformation that we seldom saw in English language sources. English speakers took in plenty of nonsense; new immigrants and Spanish speakers got an extra dose while shut away from the virus.

Ramos interrogates the history of Simon Bolivar, the hero leader of the overthrow of Spanish rule in the southern continent. His legacy is mixed.

Two things can be true at once. Simon Bolivar could have been both a liberator and an authoritarian caudillo. He could be a hero to some, an enemy to others. That seems a recurring story in Latin American history and politics, strongmen achieving "democracy" by way of authoritarianism. Or, rather, their own distorted version of democracy. ...

Democracies in Latin America are haunted by the shadows of strongmen. ...[For example] Nayib Bukele [in El Salvador] is simply the latest iteration of this dark legacy. ... Millions of people love Bukele. Millions of people want Bukele. They look up to him, not just in Latin America, but also in the United States.

She goes on:

For many Latinos, the purpose of being in the U.S. is to heal. To run away and escape from these wounds of the past. Yet the United States has a long history of exploiting the political trauma many Latinos carry -- particularly those fleeing communism and violence -- to score political points. ... American administrations have leveraged that pain, exacerbated it, and carefully weaponized it to their advantage. I thought about everyone who has been featured in this book ... So many of them don't appear to have healed from their wounds. ...

... America's foreign policy created fertile grounds for the steady rise of authoritarianism, not just in Latin America, but in our own backyard. It all comes full circle.

Ramos concludes:

The image America has of us doesn't necessarily translate into the image many Latinos have of themselves. Americans may see us as minorities, but many feel like the majority. They may see uses immigrants, but many feel like border vigilantes on the inside. They may see us as Black, but many feel white. They may see us as Indigenous, but many feel like Spaniards. They may see us as liberal on paper, but many feel conservative in their hearts. They may see us as people who value democratic ideals, but many yearn for the authoritarian strongman. The path toward finding ourselves in this country has never been linear. In our quest to find belonging in America, many Latinos are quietly oscillating between identities, spaces, and stories that are often disconnected and at odds with each other.

Latinos in this country are our future. That coming into demographic might has meant one trajectory in California and a different one in Florida. But what does it really mean? Ramos provides glimpses. There will be more.

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For what it is worth -- not much but there will the more to come -- Latinos are rapidly becoming disillusioned by the Trump regime's record on "Jobs and the Economy" according to the YouGov/Economist poll. In January Hispanics gave Trump a favorable 41-36 rating; but late February, they were registering 32-58 disapproval. That's a -31 point swing in a month!