Latino America
How America's Most Dynamic Population is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation
-
-
2.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Sometime in April 2014, somewhere in a hospital in California, a Latino child tipped the demographic scales as Latinos displaced non-Hispanic whites as the largest racial/ethnic group in the state. So, one-hundred-sixty-six years after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought the Mexican province of Alta California into the United States, Latinos once again became the largest population in the state. Surprised? Texas will make the same transition sometime before 2020.
When that happens, America's two most populous states, carrying the largest number of Electoral College votes, will be Latino. New Mexico is already there. New York, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada are shifting rapidly. Latino populations since 2000 have doubled in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and South Dakota. The US is undergoing a substantial and irreversible shift in its identity.
So, too, are the Latinos who make up these populations. Matt Barreto and Gary M. Segura are the country's preeminent experts in the shape, disposition, and mood of Latino America. They show the extent to which Latinos have already transformed the US politically and socially, and how Latino Americans are the most buoyant and dynamic ethnic and racial group, often in quite counterintuitive ways. Latinos' optimism, strength of family, belief in the constructive role of government, and resilience have the imminent potential to reshape the political and partisan landscape for a generation and drive the outcome of elections as soon as 2016.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Few demographic changes have exercised the American political mind as much as the inexorable rise of Latino America, and Barreto and Segura's masterful work of social science is a clear and sober-minded analyses of this complex subject. As cofounders of the nonpartisan research firm Latino Decisions, they use their expertise to corral mountains of data into a coherent narrative about the Latino influence on U.S. politics. Purely as a statistical resource, the book is invaluable, but it shines brightest when addressing and refuting received wisdom, such as that Latinos are "single issue voters" and a "naturally conservative" constituency ripe for Republican appeals. Bolstered with contributions from other Latino Decisions analysts, Barreto and Segura add nuance and context to an often one-sided discussion. Their topics include the effect of religiosity on voting patterns, and the history of how California became a reliably Democratic bastion. The book is particularly illuminating toward the complex role played by immigration politics. It does occasionally suffer from stale writing, but Barreto and Segura's lucid analysis is worth the price of admission.
