The Promise of The Hispanic Moment or The Real Hispanic Challenge?
By Jacob S. Rugh, Brigham Young University (April 1, 2020)
Will the United States realize the promise of “The Hispanic Moment” in the words of Marta Tienda of Princeton University, or remain stuck, as her colleague, Dr. Doug Massey, argues in “The Real Hispanic Challenge?” This is the vexing question I posed to my students this week and made them wait for my long promised informed assessment below. It has no easy answer.
Preview: I believe we will remain stuck for at least 10–20 years but could finally start to follow in the path of California in perhaps 10–20 years or more. Much of my analysis below hinges on patterns of white flight, how Latinos vote, and the structural impediments inherent in the U.S. Senate. However, we should never let the discouragement of the present or the uncertainty of the future stop us from doing what is right.
1. First, below is a map of states by the percentage of the population that is non-Hispanic White. It is immediately apparent that the least White states are in the Southwest, where Latinos are the largest minority group — and, in California and New Mexico, the plurality or largest group (Latinos will soon be an outright majority in New Mexico). Nevada is not far behind and Arizona is sitting right in between all of these states. Beyond being “next in line,” in Arizona, Latinos are also heavily of Mexican origin (90%) and, in fact, many of them are native Californians who moved to Arizona in search of cheaper housing and greater job opportunities (more on that later…). Important side note here: Utah ranks about #13 in terms of Latino population percentage even though it’s the 35th most populous state; you can see that Utah is 77% non-Hispanic White, far less White than all the Great Plains, Lower Rust Belt, Appalachian, and upper New England States. (Also, I’ll come back to Texas in the next point, #2.)
Indeed, if Arizona had its CA Prop 187 moment with the vicious anti-Latino racism in the 2000s that banned ethnic studies, bilingual education, and culminated with S.B. 1070 in 2010, then that means in 2020 that Arizona is roughly where California was in 2004. In summary, it seems like a Southwest crescent, including Colorado, is following the demographic trajectory of California; crucially, most Latinos are Mexican American or Central American and continued to be tied to the tragedy of immigration and advocates of change in immigration policy. Thus, point #1 supports the spread of the California experience, at least in the Southwest (AZ, NV, NM, CO).
2. So, it’s just a matter of changing racial demographics? That demography (population characteristics) are destiny? Not so fast.
Take a look at the state pairs below in the green boxes. TX (red)-NV(blue); MD(blue)-GA(red); FL(red)-AZ(blue). I won’t say just yet why I think these otherwise similarly demographic states diverge, but it has to do with both differences among the White populations of these states as well as the Hispanic populations.
In other words, we can’t treat White people or Latino people as a monolith. In some places, Whites are more educated (MD); in others, less educated (FL). And, in others, increasingly more educated (GA, TX). Also, as discussed in lectures in Unit 2 of my class based on research by Julie Dowling, more Hispanics in Texas are more likely to adopt a colorblind racial ideology then, say, in California, even if they are both of Mexican descent.
I will say more about how people are not state residents for life (they move!) below… But, for now, the table above shows that below a certain, pretty high, threshold of perhaps 40% or so Latino, it is not a straightforward path from population racial demographics to political destiny. Moreover, as a few students pointed out, the U.S. is projected to become nearly 1/3 or 32% Latino by 2060, so even just “waiting around” for change to happen won’t be enough — even after 40 years. So, to summarize point #2., no, there is no guarantee that we will realize the promise of the Hispanic moment, not any time in the next 40 years. In other words, polarization, regional differences, and different state histories mean we will remain stuck in the Hispanic Challenge.
3. Okay, we kind of skipped over California to talk about other states, but let’s go back to California to gather two important clues that will inform our assessment or help us “break the tie” that we have so far.
a. California clue #1: While there are millions of Black Californians, they were historically concentrated in the Oakland region of the East San Francisco Bay Area and also South Los Angeles. Because of ongoing income and wealth inequality, but also greater freedom to move to the suburbs and places with lower crime, Black Californians have left historical ghettoes created by redlining and white flight.
California today is only about 6–7% Black. So, what happened to all those houses in Oakland, South L.A. and elsewhere that were previously heavily African American neighborhoods? As most of you know or can guess — they are all now heavily Latino, mainly Mexican and Central American. Take a look here at just on example, Compton, California, the storied city made famous by West Coast hip-hop music.
I just want to point out two things about Compton: First, the white flight is unmistakable and absolute — as the white population collapses from an all-white suburb after WWII to less than 3% white by 1980. Black residents took their place first, but also Mexican Americans in the 1950s-1970s, albeit at a slow pace and were invisible to outsiders who only think of race as the black/white binary.
Since 1980, something interesting has happened amidst mass immigration from Mexico and countries like El Salvador: the share of residents that are Latino more than tripled (!) in the space of less than 30 years, from 1980 to 2010, from 20% Latino to 65% Latino. By today, it has leveled off to be about 2/3 or 67% Latino and the share of residents that are Black is about 30%, also leveling off.
Did you notice that? When Black people were allowed to live in Compton, all the White people fled, and I mean basically all of them, like 95%-99% rate of white flight. However, when Latinos, mainly immigrants, began moving into Compton, to fill the houses left by Black people who left for greater opportunity, not all Black people left.
Black people are still 3 in 10 residents in Compton, or 30% or so, versus 5% of California, 10% of Nevada (where many moved to), or 13% of the US population. In other words, Latinos grew up here in the 1990s in a city that was about 50–50 or evenly split between Black and Latino residents and today about 2/3 Latino with an amazing millennial African American mayor, Aja Brown, who has a tribute to both Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King at City Hall.
So, what is the meaning of this first California clue? Well, if Latinos replaced Black residents, but that was a gradual process, and Black people are still present in the millions in California (Black and Latino suburbanites are also neighbors in Riverside, Palmdale, Lancaster, etc.), then it makes sense that the political leanings of Latinos would be more like those of African Americans: More Democratic, in favor of immigration reform and against things like over-policing of Black and Brown spaces and detention, deportation, and mass incarceration. A similar process has occurred in Las Vegas, where all the “Black areas” of town are actually all “gone from the map” now, and are all majority-Latino. Again, sharing residential space makes it more likely that Latino voters would be more like Black voters in many parts of California (like New York, by the way). Yet, this may not be as true in other states like Florida…
b. Ok, now for an even more important second clue from California, now the hinge on which the rest of my analysis will turn: White flight!
Historically, in California, Orange County or the O.C. was the premiere white flight destination and the birthplace of the entire modern conservative movement and backlash to immigration. A strategist from the O.C. came up with the pitch and strategy for Prop 187 and the O.C. also had the most subprime lending companies of any county — by far — that preyed on Black and Latino homeowners. Also, the O.C. historically had the highest rate of financial fraud and white collar (read: white perpetrator) crime of any county in the U.S.
White people central, that is what the O.C. used to be. Today, it has the largest concentration of people of Vietnamese descent outside Vietnam, a major Latino population that was always there, disadvantaged just blocks from Disneyland in Anaheim, and in Santa Ana. What finally changed the O.C., was the more recent wave of highly educated, hyper-selected (you know what that means now!), East Asian and South Asian immigrants who predominate in so many cities now and tilt heavily progressive and Democratic politically. In the 2012 and 2016 elections, the O.C. became a blue county in like the first time in forever and, in 2018, Asian American voters who had come of age, along with an increasingly educated White and Latino population, voted out all SIX (!) Republican members of Congress in 2018. Here is how the Los Angeles Times summarized this change: “Democrats will constitute the entirety of Orange County’s seven-member congressional delegation, the first time since the 1930s that the birthplace of Richard Nixon, cradle of the Reagan [Reagan was governor of California in the 1970s] tax revolt, home of John Wayne and spiritual center of the Republican Party will have no GOP representative in the House.”
Wow, that is historic for sure. But, why this big aside about the O.C.? Well, think about it, where did all the white people go? All the older white people who have less education than today’s wealthier residents that can afford to live there? Where did they go? Well, the answer to that finishes off our second big California clue and leads to the last two remaining points!
To wrap up our California clue #2, take a look at this map here below. Some of you are from the Sacramento area and know what that highlighted county is there on the map, the one in orange. That county is Placer County, California. Why is it special. Well, by the first decade of the 2000s, from 2000 to 2010, this was the last white flight destination county left in California — that’s right, the very last place whites fled for both racialized (“California is becoming a third world country!” Code for: there are too many brown people!) reasons as well as non-racialized ones: cheaper housing and jobs in state government in nearby Sacramento, etc.
California conclusion: Yes, white people in California have changed and become more progressive and Democratic, supporting their Latino neighbors in the process. However, part of the reason why white Californians as a whole have changed is because so many millions of them left! They are no longer Californians! And, no surprise, they were not a random sample of the White population — they were more conservative, against immigration, and older (again, for both racial and non-racial reasons — it makes sense to sell your home and retire to a cheaper destination in AZ, NV, and, yes, many in UT — I’ve heard some talk about why they left CA, and it’s racially troubling to say the least…)
4. Now we’re getting close to finalizing: What about white flight when it comes to the entire United States? The big question is: Are white people so prejudiced that they will flee the U.S. entirely as the Latino population (and other people of color) continues to rise? Are people so racist they would abandon their country altogether? Well, of course not. I don’t accept that premise. Just look again at white flight from California and you can see that, partly because California is so big, that white flight went across state lines, not just to Placer County, but to places like Henderson, NV; Phoenix, AZ; and even St. George, UT, and to a lesser extent, other parts of AZ, NV, and UT.
There is a great TED talk on this topic of white flight by Rich Benjamin, a brilliant writer who spent time in three white flight destination communities in Idaho, Georgia, and, you guessed it, Utah (St. George). He discusses findings from his book, Searching for Whitopia, about how some (many?) white people seek out destinations precisely because they are overwhelmingly white, like 95% or even 99% white when you consider their neighborhood. It is fascinating, amusing, and disturbing all at the same time.
Next, see this map of net white migration for the entire U.S., and look at two other big Sunbelt states: Texas and Florida. Let’s focus on Florida. You can see that there has been and continues to be white in-migration into Florida, millions of white people each decade, the exact opposite of California. Who are these white people in central Florida (the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, in The Villages, one of the largest retirement communities in the world) and the Florida Panhandle? Well, most all of them are older and are leaving colder states with fewer jobs like Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. These are white voters with less education, who are older, and, you guessed it, white voters who are less sympathetic to immigrants according to public opinion data. As long as Florida is constantly being replenished by these older white retirees, it is hard to see Florida really following California and the Southwest crescent.
So, to sum up, the white in-migration into Florida means we will likely remain stuck in the Real Hispanic Challenge if recent Florida history since 2000, and the many conservative backlashes that have taken place (like against the will of the people to restore voting rights to those who completed their sentence and paid their fines) continues.
5. Well, it’s called the promise of “The Hispanic Moment,” so how about Hispanic or Latino Americans? Who are the leading figures in the highest echelons of politics? The answer will either surprise you or make you a bit more cynical if you saw it coming. Below is a list of Supreme Court justices, US Senators, and the most senior (longest serving) members of the US House of Representatives.
Notice anything? Cubans! Cuban Americans are over-represented as are Cuban Americans from Florida specifically, and they are all Republicans except for Bob Menendez and Albio Sires of New Jersey (and they are not exactly household names like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio). There are some notable exceptions like Puerto Rican Justice Sonia Sotomayor and US Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, who was governor of Nevada and represents a vanguard of Latina women who are more progressive than the Latino men who preceded them.While in the past, Senator Rubio (FL) was amenable to immigration reform, he has receded in the current age of President 45 and showed zero leadership on this issue. Senator Cruz (TX) is well-known for his virulent opposition to immigration, despite his Canadian and Cuban roots.
Overall, this incredibly unrepresentative list of Latino leaders reminds us that demographics are not destiny and that you have to seriously consider the politics of immigration within the own Latino community before you can conclude that more Latinos will translate to equality. The equation sometimes works, like in California and Nevada, and sometimes it doesn’t, like in Florida and Texas (though Texas is changing because the white population is increasingly well-educated, working in information technology and biotech., and Asian American and Black American voters are participating at higher rates… so the dynamic there is a bit different than Florida).
6. Last, but certainly not least, you know a good sociological analysis would not finish without considering a huge structural impediment to immigration reform: the structure of the U.S. Senate, in which each state, no matter how tiny or how large, elects two Senators per state. So deep red and rural Wyoming, with fewer than a million residents, gets the same representation as deep blue and urban California, with nearly 40 million residents. It is one of many artifacts of compromise that was arguably affected by the legacy of slavery, like the electoral college, that is over-representing white people. Here is a graph from David Leonhardt I showed on the second day of class to illustrate the hard-wired advantage that whites enjoy. It likely makes more sense to my students now:
To make a long story short: the US Senate over-represents white people. Sometimes, it’s blue states like in New England, but, more often, it is red states in the Great Plains, the South, the Mountain West, and, increasingly, the Midwest, that enjoy this built-in advantage. Check out the map of current Senate representation (53 R — 47 D) advantage. And, remember, it’s tough to pass anything in the Senate without 60 votes or 60% majority due to the filibuster rule that applies to most all legislation.
So, to finally round out our analysis before I conclude, let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, a sort of best-case scenario if you will, that more progressive, usually but not always Democratic elected officials make up the majority of the US House of Representatives (a pretty safe bet) and that Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidential election and White House in 2020 (a much more uncertain outcome, but the Arizona trend supports it). Where does that leave you with the Senate and bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform like the DREAM Act, co-sponsored by Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Richard Durbin (D-IL)? In my view, Democrats would have to control the Senate and have a Senate majority leader like Elizabeth Warren or someone similar to get a coalition and include some of the very few remaining Republican senators who may agree to a compromise on immigration reform. Check out this last map below.
The bottom line: Alabama is projected to switch from a Democratic senator to a Republican one, which I agree is most likely. So that puts the Senate breakdown at 54 R — 46 D. So, you need to flip at least four seats to get to a tie (which is only assured if you have the Vice-President, who breaks ties) but really need to flip 5 seats to get to 49 R — 51 D and have an outright new Senate Majority Leader who is a Democrat who can work with a Democratic President and Democratic Speaker of the House to get immigration reform across the finish line. Well, that means Democrats would have to win all the toss-up Senate races in AZ, CO, ME, NC and one more without losing any besides AL. That is a tall order.
Flipping five seats is more likely than it was a year ago, and my own informed, yet subjective, opinion is that AZ and CO will flip for sure. If you want the Senate to become majority-Democratic then the bad news is that 2020 is their best shot for at least 6–12 years or more, as this is the rare year where Republicans are defending seats under a very unpopular president. All of that could change, and immigration reform and getting out of the Real Hispanic Challenge could elude us again, just like it did in 2001, 2006, 2010, and 2013, just to mention only the other near misses in recent history.
Only time will tell, but for now, I predict the U.S. Southwest, perhaps including Utah and its surprising progressive pro-immigrant and pro-refugee policies, will follow California and seize the Hispanic Moment of rising Latino college graduates, voters, homeowners, and full-fledged equal citizens. Note how Utah joins mostly blue states below in advancing immigrant rights, including the very recent 2020 Utah Supreme Court rule announced that DACA recipients in Utah may practice law in Utah, joining a small handful of mainly blue states in this legal precedent.
I could envision Texas going this direction in the next 10 years, again, primarily because highly educated newcomers of all races moving to Texas (some from California) are increasingly turning away from nativist leaders like Senator Cruz and the current president. The same dynamic holds for Georgia over the next decade.
In conclusion, however, for as far as I can foretell, perhaps another 20 years, the legacy of the black-white divide continues to structure racial backlash to Latinos in regions like the U.S. South, including a diverse but a racially and ethnically fractured Florida (including intra-Latino divides along racialized partisan lines), and, as in 2016, the Midwest. As long as states in the South combine with the less populous, rural states in the Great Plains and Midwest to over-represent white people in the Senate — rural, less educated, and conservative white people in particular — we will remain stuck in the Real Hispanic Challenge.
Manuel Pastor, author of State of Resistance, has advised this question: Why go through the same mistakes as California did in the past? Why not learn from the backlash and choose a better future today? Given the utter lack of leadership in our nation’s capital, it is up to states like California, but also Utah, cities in Maryland, but also in Texas, and it is especially up to us as individuals to rise above “The Real Hispanic Challenge” of policies and practices that criminalize Latino immigrants and thereby racialize and limit the potential of the Latino population. Instead, we can choose to invest in “The Hispanic Moment” by providing educational opportunities, eradicating discrimination in jobs and housing, and full citizenship to all Latinos in the U.S. — now! After all, if we didn’t work in the face of great odds in our nation, from abolition to the Dreamer movement, and from Civil Rights in the South to Chicano Rights in the Southwest, nothing would ever change.
As several students in our class have declared with legitimate confidence and moral authority, even if we think it’s less likely, we still have an ethical, moral, and civic duty, no matter our party affiliation, to work for immigration reform and equal opportunity in education and other spheres for Latino Americans as a matter of liberty and justice for all.
In other words, let’s defy the odds, shatter stereotypes, and flip the script to make history!
