I get it. Voting can generally really feel like we’re selecting between the lesser of two evils, if we determine to vote in any respect.
Although Latinos voted in document numbers in 2024, hundreds of thousands of eligible Latino voters sat out an election whose consequence enormously impacted them.
Once more, I get it: Each Democrats and Republicans have combined reputations within the Latino group. For instance, Ronald Reagan promoted himself as a compassionate conservative who sought out middle-of-the-road approaches to immigration reform. The identical Reagan who additionally funded the Contras in Nicaragua, who had been embattled with the Sandinista authorities.
Rising up in a Mexican and Nicaraguan household, there have been these in my household who beloved Reagan for his amnesty policies and others who despised him for fueling the devastating warfare in Nicaragua.
It’s difficult.
As a result of many Latinos carry with them each an attraction to strongman politics and an aversion to something that even remotely smells of communism. We now have reminiscences or heard the tales of Castro, Ortega and different regimes.
In keeping with a Pew Research Center survey, 53% of Latinos have a damaging impression of socialism, with solely 41% viewing it positively. This damaging impression is strongest with older generations and people with direct experiences of socialist regimes.
For instance, 82% of Cuban Americans specific a really or considerably damaging impression of socialism, a sentiment that’s much less pronounced amongst different Latino subgroups however nonetheless notable. Our dad and mom and grandparents lived via revolutions, dictatorships and plenty of occasions got here to the U.S. for security, safety and to provide future generations a greater life.
For the Latino group as we speak, we’re at a crossroads. And whether or not we acknowledge it or not, the poll incorporates greater than voting for a candidate. The impacts are felt in all that we care about: household, security, love, our younger folks, our abuelas. How, it’s possible you’ll ask?
For instance, in case your sister was in a home violence state of affairs, the Department of Justice has made a number of funding cuts to lifesaving applications across the nation, making it that rather more troublesome in your sister to depart that pendejo you understand isn’t good for her. Our kids are susceptible as a consequence of funds cuts to important baby care applications, equivalent to Head Start. Single parents are elevating 1 in 4 Latino kids, and with out high quality baby care, they can not work to maintain themselves and their households.
Within the 2024 election, the U.S. economic system and inflation had been top issues for Latino voters. However the economic system is extra than simply the worth of eggs, gasoline, or groceries. Surviving on this economic system comes with added limitations primarily based on immigration standing, age and housing stability.
For undocumented elders, they proceed to work past what their our bodies can deal with as a result of they can not entry Social Safety, even after they pay into it. UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center estimates that “in 2019, California noncitizen farmworkers aged 45-54 numbered 46,393; these aged 55-64 numbered 29,276; these aged 65-74 numbered 5,350; and people aged 75 and above numbered 258. Assuming that no less than 42% of noncitizen farmworkers are undocumented, as much as 14,651 farmworkers missing any type of financial security internet are at present at retirement age or will attain it inside the subsequent few years, with one other 19,485 to quickly comply with.”
For individuals who do have Social Safety, it’s typically not enough, and so they proceed to toil choosing crops or cleansing homes to make ends meet. As housing programs are gutted, 24% of public housing residents who’re Latinos are vulnerable to homelessness.
At this second, we should think about the way forward for our group. We are the fastest-growing population in the United States. Some Latinos reside within the shadows, afraid of all that’s taking place round them. Others consider that the present second is necessary for the nation’s good.
There are Latinos, together with members of my household, who vote conservatively for non secular causes. About half of Latino evangelical Protestants (52%) say the Republican Occasion represents the pursuits of individuals like them no less than considerably properly — a better share than amongst Latino Catholics (32%) or religiously unaffiliated Latinos (28%).
We’re not a monolith, all considering and voting the identical, and even for a similar causes. And we additionally can’t afford to be passive, as if we will likely be unaffected by the aftermath of the elections. We have to be knowledgeable and make knowledgeable decisions, not just for our personal pursuits however for these of our group.
We’re not victims, we’re a deciding pressure that can not be ignored. We now have but to appreciate the complete potential of Latinos on this nation, realizing our desires, embracing our concepts and appreciating the great thing about all we now have to supply.
My name to motion is for Latinos to critically think about our position in shaping democracy.
In 2024, roughly 36.2 million Latinos were eligible to vote, accounting for 50% of recent eligible voters since 2020. The Latino vote is especially impactful in swing states like Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, the place Latino votes have been decisive in latest elections.
Past elections, we have to converse up, be heard, and arrange on each degree, from college boards to nonprofit organizations and unions. I hope that as we construct the long run for Latinos within the U.S., we achieve this with compassion, empathy and love, staying true to who we’re and our roots.
