Latino voters turned out in record numbers, but they can't shake the "sleeping giant" commentary.- Political experts say greater outreach and investment in Latino voters is necessary.
Every four years, Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz mentally prepares himself for shallow punditry about Latino voters.
From referring to them as "sleeping giants" - implying they could have political power if only they showed up to the polls at greater rates - to erasing all their the nuances and complexities in favor of analyzing "the Latino vote," the assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University has observed the continuous flattening of the many communities that compose the Latino voting block.
"There's this entrenched and dated way of discussing Latino voters, referring to them with phrases that advocacy leaders rarely use to describe Latino communities," Rodríguez-Muñiz, who authored Figures of the Future: Latino Civil Rights and the
Yet when Latinos are not being misrepresented by the media, they are more often than not erased, said Rep. Joaquin Castro.
"There's a systemic exclusion of Latinos from employment within Latino media," Castro told Insider. "The Latino narrative has been left out of the American story."
Political analysts say things are changing. Rodríguez-Muñiz isn't confident "sleeping giant" is going away anytime soon, but says there's at least acknowledgment that Latino voters are neither idle nor apathetic.
Latino voters are historymakers, rather.
More than half of eligible Latino voters cast their ballots in the 2020
Looked at another way: 1 in 10 voters were Latino, a statistic that shows this block was instrumental in cinching the presidential election.
Despite the recognition that Latinos are becoming an increasingly important fixture in national politics, there's little to no consensus about who exactly composes the Latino electorate.
As the 2020 presidential election underscored, Latino voters are not an easily defined group as their voting patterns vary across ethnicities and cultures, as well as regions, gender, and generations.
As they claim a greater stake in US politics, however, Latino political experts and advocacy groups say it's worth probing how the American public, politicians, and political organizers alike can come closer to understanding who the Latino electorate is this
Latinos are both overlooked and subjected to an influx of conflicting narratives
Most of the mainstream narratives of Latino voters are simultaneously one-dimensional and conflicting, according to Geraldo Cadava, a history professor at Northwestern University.
One enduring narrative is that Latinos are suddenly evolving into Republicans, even though voting data dictates that Republicans have traditionally won 30-40% of Latino votes - a statistic that is in keeping with the 38% of votes Donald Trump won in 2020, per exit polls.
"I think Democrats should be very curious about and shouldn't be dismissive of the Latinos who voted for Trump," Cadava, who authored the book The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump, told Insider.
While some were perplexed as to how Donald Trump could garner support among Latinos given his rhetoric and policies that were antagonistic towards them, Cadava told Insider that Trump appealed to some Latinos' motivations, including economic individualism and law and order.
Still, he cautioned against making sweeping generalizations about the share of Latino Republican voters exponentially growing.
In his view, although 2020 exit polls show more Latino counties voting Republican, it's "too early" to determine what the long term voting patterns of Latinos will be.
"It's too early now to tell and 2022 and 2024 will likely also be too early to tell the direction Latino voters are moving in," Cadava said. "One thing history teaches us is that just because things have been a certain way for 50 years doesn't mean it's destined. Things change over time."
It's not just national elections that inspire narrow narratives and broad generalizations about Latino communities, however.
Cadava points to the recent California governor recall election as one that shows us that pundits and other political operatives have been quick to interpret exit polls with inconsistent significance.
He cited various contrasting articles - all published within days of one another last month- that analyzed the recall election as both indicative of Democrats' success and failure with Latinos.
Latinos can no longer be sidelined by the parties relying on their votes, experts say
According to Maria Teresa Kumar, CEO of the grassroots political organization Voto Latino, one under-discussed aspect of Latino voters is their youth relative to other racial and ethnic groups.
Per the Pew Research Center, Hispanics are among the younger racial or ethnic group with a median age of 30, compared to white who have a median age of 44, Asian Americans who have a median age of 38, and Black Americans who have a median age of 35.
"In 2010, Latinos surpassed African Americans as the second largest demographic group, but most of the growth was among younger Latinos who couldn't yet vote because they were under 18," Kumar told Insider. "Those Latinos became a voting population in 2018 and they made their voices heard both that year and in 2020."
One million Latinos are expected to turn 18 every year for the next two decades, according to Pew.
As a result, Latino voters are young voters who not only lean progressive, but who are leading the charge against voter suppression and mobilizing their peers and communities to vote.
Progressive Latinos will not automatically vote for Democrats, experts say
While young Latino voters may lean more progressive, Democrats cannot assume that this block will vote them into office, Rodríguez-Muñiz said.
"The vast majority of Latinos are never spoken to by community groups, in part because there's this assumption that they're immigrants who can't vote or because their vote is already guaranteed," Rodríguez-Muñiz told Insider. "Racism also leads to a lack of actual investments in Latinx communities."
When Democrats show up for Latinos, Latinos show up for democracy.Jean Guerrero
While there is no comprehensive data set chronicling how many progressive Latinos vote for a third party or forgo voting altogether rather than voting for a Democratic candidate, at least some self-described Democratic Socialists voted for the Green Party in 2020.
Experts say Democrats' investment in Latinos communities can swing an election, pointing to the success of Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada during his 2020 presidential campaign, and to the recent California recall election.
"The recall election's Latino-mobilizing efforts provide a roadmap for organizers nationwide come the 2022 midterms," Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero wrote. "The results were clear: When Democrats show up for Latinos, Latinos show up for democracy."
Voter Suppression is an imminent issue for Latino communities
Investment from both major parties is not the only issue afflicting the Latino electorate, however.
Voter suppression is becoming an imminent and more urgent issue preventing Latinos from electing the officials they believe can best serve their communities.
"There's less historical memory of voter suppression in relation to Latinos," Rodríguez-Muñiz said. "There's a routine conversation where the blame is placed on Latinos for not showing up, instead of the political, structural factors that prevent them from doing so."
Among the various voter suppression tactics that disproportionately affects Latinos are active voter suppression laws and voter intimidation tactics.
"The Republican myth of rampant voter fraud by undocumented immigrants by implication stigmatizes the Latino community," wrote political science experts Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Stephen Nuño-Perez.
While the votes of the Latino electorate remain up for grabs in future elections, organizers and scholars alike are adamant that voter suppression is the fight of today.
According to them, the crusade for voting rights cannot only be undertaken during Midterm or presidential election seasons.
"Why are they trying to move the goalpost?" Voto Latino's Maria Teresa Kumar said. "It's to restrict voter access and prevent Latinos from casting ballots."
She added that despite the various challenges young Latinos face to voting, they played such a significant hand in flipping Arizona and Georgia blue in the election that Voto Latino is now trying to rally the youth vote in Florida.
But Democratic, Republican, and other organizers cannot simply focus on battleground states or big cities in their outreach, Cadava said.
"We're not just in places like New York, Florida, Texas, and California," Cadava said. "We're truly a national population."
"We're in Wisconsin; we're in North Dakota," he added. "We're all over the country."