Historian Geraldo Cadava recently published an op-ed about the different political leanings of Latino voters and their effects on the current landscape.
In the article, Cadava discusses the power of narratives about Latino citizens — chief among them being that they primarily vote for Democrats. The professor details historical discrepancies for the ongoing narrative and ultimately argues that Latino voters are not a monolith. According to Cadava, states like Wisconsin and Arizona “seem to have done just a little bit better among Latinos than they did in 2020” in terms of the Republican vote.
Cadava writes, “if the current partisan narratives hold—that Latinos are moving back toward the Democratic Party (not universally true), or that Latinos are becoming Republicans (also not universally true)—the conversation two years from now will be the same as it has been for the past two years. Instead, we should aim for new narratives about Latinos that are as complicated and divided as America itself.”
Geraldo Cadava is a historian of the United States and Latin America. He focuses on Latinos in the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Latino History, the American West, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, migration to and from Latin America, and other topics in U.S. History, including Watergate, the musical Hamilton, and the 2016 and 2020 elections. He is also the Director of the Latina and Latino Studies Program.
Learn more in The New Yorker’s article, “There Is No One Story About Latino Voters.”