Understanding Latine Interests in the United States

• In Event: Ideological Diversity within Minoritized Communities

Abstract

Do Latines in the United States think of Latine interests in the same way? Recent elections in the United States have brought to attention the fact that not all Latines vote for Democrat candidates despite the assertion that voting for Democrats is beneficial to the group. Scholars of Latine politics have often described Latine interests in the context of a liberal immigration policy and democrat politics in general. This way of describing Latine interests have led scholars to argue that Latines who vote for Republicans are voting against the group’s interest. In this project, we use existing survey data of Latines in the United States and field an original survey to investigate how Latines think about Latine interests in the United States. In general, we aim to uncover how Latines think about group interests and whether there is a common understanding of Latine interests or if the understanding varies within the population. Specifically, we test whether Latine Republicans define their groups’ interests differently from Latine Democrats.

Authors

• Marques Zarate, Brown University

• Enrique Quezada, Agnes Scott College