From Deferred Action to Zapotec: Recognizing the Reality of “Latino” Politics
2024-11-12
My voter ID card and ink-stained thumb after voting here in San Francisco. This June, I was one of only 184,326 people in the U.S. who participated in Mexico’s election—out of tens of millions eligible.
The results of this past U.S. presidential election have led to many “hot takes” from so-called political experts attempting to explain Latino support for Trump, leading to a resurgence of stereotypes about Latino voters. The common thread in these narratives is that they all ignore the manufactured nature of the “Latino” label. They all ignore the hard reality that “Latinos”1 are, in fact, a collection of distinct communities with different histories, cultures, and political views that were lumped together for historical purposes.
