Transcripts For CSPAN3 Latino Americans U.S. Politics 20240713

U. S. Political history. From purdue university, this is about an hour and a half. Hi, ill be guiding our conversation this afternoon. Our panel today is entitled making the case for latino political history. A theme that is arguably central to the idea of remaking american political history. This is not to say that no one has ever thought of or written about latinos in politics and history. In fact, the conversation to come follows in the footsteps of many major works and scholars. But instead, this is about rethinking about what political historians Pay Attention to. In an earlier panel this morning, an essential question was asked about the segregation of american political history in which there is a real barrier to what organizations and individuals are labeled as political or diplomatic actors. In a similar vein, this panel seeks to shift the conversation toward a discourse that cease latinos as central rather than peripheral to the development of modern american democracy. Forged in the fire of 19th century warfare, boosted by constant mass migration throughout the 20th, latinos have been part and parcel of modern americas social fabric with well over 150 years of history in the United States. Latinos have made an intdelible mark on u. S. Politics. Be it in the early legislative histories in the southwest territories, as founders of longstanding civic and political organizations, in the protest movements in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, or as voters, latinos have made u. S. Politics their own. Yet in reading the major synthetic works of american political history or examining a syllabus for a course on the subject, we are hardpressed to find much representation of latino experiences and politics at all in mainstream political history. It seems as though this conference is as auspicious an occasion as any to make the case for latino political history. Traditional political history narratives based on the earlier generation of historians have largely emphasized elite white men as the movers and shakers of american politics. Newer works have complicated the predecessors and we have seen a more critical approach to race and formal politics. However race and politics in our field is often shorthand for black politics. Although much has been done to illustrate the essential importance of africanamericans in political history, little has been done to incorporate latinos into the mainstream narrative of u. S. History including urban history, labor history, immigration, and studies of the welfare state. In the context of city politics, for example, urban histories on cities such as chicago, new york, and los angeles are some of the best examples we have for any analysis of latino politics. What about the national . And more importantly, where is political history in this intellectual conversation . Todays panel is a rallying call for political historians to rethink our intellectual engagement or lack thereof with what is now the Largest Community of color in the United States. In calling for a new Research Agenda of nuanced, capatious and comprehensive latino political history, we must ask what research has been done, is currently on the table or is yet to be pursued. Is there such a thing as latino political history . If so, what does it look like . What does mainstream political history stand to lose by not including Latino Actors and institutions . How would incorporating latinos into the discourse of american political history change the field and the larger narrative . Today we will discuss some of the most pressing issues concerning the role of latinos in the american political past. Joining us today and making the case for latino political history are some of the leading voices in this nascent field. On my far right, an historian with a teaching focus on the american west, migration and immigration and comparative studies in race and ethnicity. Shes the author of the history of spanish in the United States, a political history of the Spanish Language in the United States from 1948 through world war ii, with some discussion of the following decades and present day concerns. An american language was published in 2018 by the university of california press. She is an associate professor in the department of history at princeton. Next, an historian of latinas and latinos in the United States, and comparative ethnic and racial politics. His first book, standing on common ground, was published in 2013 by Harvard University press and focused on the arizona sonora border land since world war ii. He is now completing a book about hispanic conservativism to be published in 2020 by echo press, an imprint of harper collins. He is the director of northwestern universitys latina and latino studies program. To my right, an historian and teacher whose interests center on the politics of ethnicity in the United States of america. In his forget coming book, the rise of the latino vote a history, examines how elected officials and Party Insiders attempted to forge mexicanamericans, Puerto Ricans, and cubans into a nationwide political constituency, a process that proved pivotal to defining and institutionalizing latina and latino identity in the United States, due out this year by Harvard University press. Very exciting. Next, the assistant professor of history and coordinator of social Sciences Education at western carolina university. Finally, im a ph. D. Candidate in the department of history at princeton where i focus on 20th century u. S. Politics. My current projects explore the history of the Democratic National committee as well as latino political organization. Im also a new host for the new books and latino studies podcast. Im both the organizer and moderator of todays roundtable discussion. Well try to cover as much ground as possible during our short time here and well save time at the end for questions from the audience. And with that said, we should get started in making the case for latino political history. And so i think the first question i would like to open up to the panel is, what is latino political history in your view . And what is the most interesting issue in this field for you . And we can start is professor losano. Thank you for organizing this and bringing us together on this important topic. I really see latino political history as a broad category that includes many different fields and ties together issues that have been and remain important to the National Politics of the United States. So while Many Political histories stay more recent and focused on immigration, in my view latino political history begins in the 19th century and includes Larger National debates over Land Ownership and land use in what is currently the u. S. Southwest but other regions in florida or places along what became the midwest, even, southern midwest. I think it is crucial to tie what have largely been considered as regional or local stories into the larger formation of the nation. As ive shown in my book, which thank you for plugging, an american language, the political history of mexicanamericans includes how those who became u. S. Citizens following the u. S. Mexican war through the treaty of g ee y of participated in the political system and how they supported the implementation of the political system in california, colorado report and especially new mexico. By participating in politics in spanish, many also became devoted and patriotic u. S. Citizens. That includes being recognized by and participating in both Major Political parties. Theres a lot more work to be done about their political involvement and the ways that those Political Parties kind of recognized that they were there, right . They were the ones that were supporting their newspapers in spanish, they were the ones giving the money and funding to make sure they were involved in the political process. In the 20th century, latino politics has revolved largely around increasing latino participation, immigration, civil rights. Its really only in the 20th century, i would argue, that latino political history is an appropriate name, right . Earlier histories of political participation and activism by individuals who may now call themselves latino were conducted almost entirely in isolation. So while ethnic mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and cubans may have been cognizant of one another, theres little evidence to suggest they saw their struggles as one and the same. For me its the potential misnomer of latino political history that yields one of the interesting historical questions or issues at this time. How does a latino political entity come to be . Weve had a good start with books like making hispanics, but theres much more to uncover about this process and about where we are today in the ways that we look at the latino population. So your work, ill plug your future dissertation, hopefully you will answer some of those questions. Hello, everyone. I would largely echo a lot of what rosina said, a couple of things in particular, a story of latino politics and political history would stretch back to the 19th century and include a whole range of issues like Land Ownership. So that to me suggests the necessity to have a kind of broad vision of what it means. And also the need to integrate latino and american political history. I think kind of including in a much larger story of american politics. I did think the title of the panel, making a case for latino political history, is a little curious, just because my First Response was like, why not, why wouldnt you have latino politics in american political history . And it was curious to me that, you know, there is a need to make a case for it or something. And it made me wonder about the longer history of american political history, that has maybe excluded it, that would necessitate its inclusion or necessitate our panelists making a case for it. I do think there must have been some chasm in the beginning of political history and latino his that necessitates us bringing those things together now. So they did evolve as two separate things, and now maybe there have been recent evolutions in american political history writ large that make the field more hospitable to thinking about including things like Latino History. The main two things i wanted to highlight is just the dinners between latino political history and a history of latino politics. And i think, you know, latino political history, as i understand it, is in a large degree concerned with partisan Political Behavior and the involvement of latinos in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or a third party for latinos in texas in the 1970s, and then the history of latino politics would be a much longer struggle for inclusion in american political li life. Political life, i dont just mean in terms of the parties but recognition, civil rights, access to property and jobs and educati education. I would think of all of those things as part of the history of latino politics, a part of Latino History and American History for an a long time. I do think within american political history and the history of latinos in the United States, histories of the involvement of latinos in partisan politics over a long period of time is largely lacking. I think that there are individual books, i think the bread and butter of the field of Latino History as a field for a long time has been community studies. And im thinking of well, well talk about books in a minute but studies of texas and california. I think in those places, historians have looked at someone like edward roybal, who for whom it was important to register latino voters in los angeles in the mid20th century. Thats a story that gets told, but its not part of a much longer history of the involvement of latinos in partisan politics. I think that that is one major direction that the field of Latino History will move in soon, i hope. And as it does so, i think the story of latino political history and its involvement in american political history more broadly will come together more. And i think a lot of what ill say reinforces some of that too. So when think about about what most interests me in latino political history, im reminded of two things that the san antonio attorney and activist albert pena junir. Said in 1963. First, while insisting on his peoples americanism, pena demanded that mexicanamericans would tlaat last proudly organi themselves as a distinct bloc. He said if the negros could do it, so could the mexicanamerican people of the United States. Second, pena said the price of their vote would be two things. Recognition and representation. So for me, penas remarks reveal that latino political history and latino politics developed simultaneously as a vast project of ethnic soul searching and communal identification, processes that were for specific reasons unique to latinos as they unfolded, but also as a search for political inclusion that raised questions about patronage, jobs, access, status, that were timeless and broadly applicable. In the first matter, to penas call to an unabashedly ethnic call, how have latinos sought to harmonize their diverse local and state histories, National Origins, and other selfunderstandings to create durable forms of ethnic and pan ethnic solidarity, and organizations capable of whee d wielding power across the vast spans of the nations latino communities. Or to put it another way, how have people attempted to mobilize individuals who claimed descent from 16th century spanish explorers to new mexico, puerto rican migrants to the south bronx in the 1950s, salvadorian refugees to washington, d. C. In the 1990s . And these questions are i think linked to the second half of penas remarks, that quest for recognition and representation, because latino politics emerged in an unequal dialogue with elites who most often thought of it as a need to fulfill a destiny of a group nationwide in spoke. But a question has to be requested about how these party elites, including u. S. President s, used their ability to reward or withhold to influence the larger construction of the latino political community. And as that dance of validation between latinos seek to go reimagine their community to cope with economic, social, and political challenges and pressures and the necessity of aligning that with an everchanging set of candidates, ideologies, and programs that i find so important in latino political history. And so i think there are a lot of interesting themes that weve all heard from you three regarding pan ethnicity and the complications that brings, the earlier, 19th century origins of latinos in the United States and their Political Engagement from the getgo. I think all of us would like to hear about your specific interventions in this historical endeavor. Could you tell us about your most recent work in the field of latino political history or the history of latino politics and how its going . Well start with you. And as jaime mentioned, my first book is called the rise of the latino vote a history, due to be published in september. In it i examine how mexicanamericans, Puerto Ricans and cubans came to be seen and to some degree see themselves as a single political constituency and in some cases, a people. And i explain that the latino vote was not simply the inevitable consequence of immigration, field, demographic growth, and nor was the emergence of an accepted pan ethnicity of american life, the product of a topdown imposition from washington bureaucrats who created an hispanic category. Rather, the book shows that how over a couple of decades beginning in 1960, a network of political activists from grassroots activists up to u. S. President s, really, spanishspeaking americans, as they first called them, to a single constituency. The book shows how the architects of latino politics devised new programs and platforms, built relationships with each other, and elaborated again, elaborated ideas about what their peoples common needs were that were at once kind of reflective of conditions on the ground but also that constituted new senses of group identity. I chose how they formed new organizations and devised new ways of distributing power among their populations that were really quite unequal as to size. And it shows how they productiveproduct ively mined the ambiguity in whether they were a Coalition Building effort or whether they were seeking to transcend their National Origins and seeking to create a new community. It was this relentless and Creative Action and thorough repudiation of colorblindness on the part of self described latino democrats and hispanic republicans alike that drew both their parties, lib retaliateral conservatives, into this consensus that spanishspeaking americans, later hispanics, later latinos, constituted a statistical population and electoral bloc. In so doing, these activists and their elite patrons transcended the nations black and white binary and pushed the United States firmly into the age of multicultural politics. In the show i show even as they constructed the latino vote, summoning it into existence, a National Political community and identity, the process also worked to undermine the coherence and stability of that latino political identity. As i indicated earlier, the makers of the latino vote were dependent on National Party elites to support this project but powerful interests often sought more to control rather than to empower the constituency, no surprise there, right . Party leaders dutifully spoke of a hispanic political unification but when it came down to it, they were far more willing to divide or rank or exclude latino constituencies from one another as they were to promote their solidarity. And the shifting of ideological orientations and electoral strategies of party elites often exposed or exacerbated hierarchies latent in the embryonic latino community. While there was a burgeoning latino vote accepted as fact, independent latino power was a much more elusive thing. We went this way with the first question, so we can go this way now. So im fishinishing a book righ now about the history of hispanics in the Republican Party and republican hispanics. And since about the 1960s, i guess its first important to say that, as ben and i are both calling these voters hispanics because at least in my case for sure, this is what republicans call themselves for all kinds of reasons that we can get into, but i know that thats not exactly the you know, the current fashion within academia, to call them hispanics. I wanted to say at least why im doing that. So for me, the main questions were, you know, why, why do hispanics vote for republicans. As ive explained my project, this is the first question im always asked, why, because it is a bit of a curiosity to many people. And so ive wanted to explain why, and whenever that question is asked of me, its always with a very surprised tone that donald trump could have won as much as 30 of hispanic votes, or in the 2018 midterms, ted cruz or rick scott or even ron desantis in florida could have won 40 or upwards of the hispanic vote. Its always expressed as a surprise followed by some attempt to maybe undercut those numbers by calling into question the differences between the exit polling versus what might be a more accurate polling of latino communities. So its always expressed as a surprise. And i think part of my answer is that it shouldnt be a surprise, because if you look at the Republican Party and hispanic voters over the past 50 or 60 years, especially since the real action of Richard Nixon in 1972, the percentage of hispanics that have voted for the Republican Party has been around a third, consistently. So over a 50year period, the Republican Party has built an hispanic voting base of about a third of hispanic voters. That fluctuates a little bit, but not a lot. And if you compare that with africanamerican voters at the same time period, the if you, you know, graph these things, theyre going in exact opposite directions. At the same time that the africanamerican support for the Republican Party plummets and has consistently remained Single Digits or low double digits for the past 50 years, hispanics have shot upward. And theres a relationship between those two facts, i think. So ive wanted to explain the Long Development of the hispanic base, republican base. I also wanted to kind of correct what i have come to see as two misunderstandings about republican hispanics. The first is that their conservativism must be motivated by their catholicism and traditional family values, their views of abortion and marriage, for example. Im not denying that thats part of it. But i think if we kind of hang all of hispanic conservativism on that, were missing a whole bunch. And catholicism is more complicated than just conservativism. Theres kind of social justice motivated branch of catholicism, thinking just of the liberation theologists, for example. Catholicism is trickier than just conservativism. The other thing is, well, they must be cubans, they must be cuban exiles. That also lets us off the hook a lot, it really just allows us to dismiss well, we cant dismiss florida because its always a critical swing state, and we cant dismiss it. But itta allows us to ignore lo of other strains of hispanic conservativism that are just as important. And i think i knew this story from the fact that it was more complicated than just catholicism among cubans from my grandpa, who is a mix of panamanian, colombian, and filipino. And, you know, lives in tucson, arizona, which is a predominantly mexicanamerican place. And he served in the military and became a citizen. Because of his service in the military. And voted for reagan for the first time because he was a miner, silver miner in tucson, arizona, or outside of tucson, arizona when reagan was running in 1980 and was promising to put more money back in his paycheck, so my grandfather voted for a republican for the first time in 1980. And he kind of defied at least those two ideas. Hes not cuban, hes catholic but never observes his faith, you know, i dont know when the last time he went to church was. So i knew from my grandpa at least that there were other kinds of hispanic conservatives beyond cubans or catholics. When writing my first book, i wrote about a Department Store owner, a mexicanamerican Department Store owner in tucson, arizona, and wrote a chapter about him. He too was, you know, kind of he was staunchly catholic for sure, so he checked that box, but he wasnt at all cuban, and his kind of political upbringing was more about arizonas territorial politics, early statehood politics, he was friends with Barry Goldwater, he was a businessman. He didnt have a union in his store because he thought all his employees were so happy that they didnt need a union. He hated cesar chavez because he thought he was a communist and a rabble rouser. These two individuals led me down the path of wondering what the wider world of hispanic republican partisan identity is like. Those two things, wanting to answer the question of why and, you know, i think historicizing that question and looking at how political identity has developed over a long period of time is important because it will help us stop scratching our heads and grasping in the dark for all of these reasons that hispanics would vote for a republican. And then i think wanting to complicate these two main ideas about cuban nationality and catholicism as being the two things that republican identity among hispanics is all about. Those were the things that kind of led me down this path. Well, im at the beginning of my second book project, and it comes partly out of my first book project but also out of a larger sense, when i teach comparative race and ethnicity to graduate students, theres a lot of discussion about native americans in the 19th century border lands and what its like for them. And then they kind of disappear in a lot of the 20th century literature, especially in comparative sense. And so part of my desire with this book is to trace that longer history, but to do it also by looking at it in terms of the ways that the federal government and state governments had jurisdiction over those individuals who were either native american or who were mexicanamerican, because they have very different timetables in terms of citizenship, they have different relationships to both the federal government and the state government. Thats in a nutshell where im going with my second project. If people have more questions, i can answer it. Im currently finishing an article i can talk a little bit more about, that examines the language minority extensions to the Voting Rights act in 1975. And it uses a broad range of documents that include congressional records, the papers of mexicanamerican Legal Defense and Education Fund as well as the puerto rican prldf and commission on civil rights. Aside from offering a comparative political history of mexicanamerican and puerto rican lobbying strategies in front of congress, this Research Uncovers the ways that congress was working through the categories of latinos into the political life of the u. S. I think ben and i will have some things to talk about, especially because im more of a 19th century historian, but my language interest in my first book led me here and then i kind of got hooked. 20th century historians, in the late 20th century, its just a deluge of documents. So im enjoying it but its very different for me. Congress is really looking to extend language rights in the 1970s, mid1970s, to increase voting participation of latino citizens, at the same time that more restrictive immigration legislation against mexicanamericans were being pushed through congress and being encouraged. While immigration was often dominating the media and that kind of continues today, the Voting Rights act extension offers evidence that the federal government also saw latinos as citizens too and were supportive of extending their Voting Rights and over civil rights as well. By looking into that and also theres a separate case thats kind of happening at the same time, it doesnt come into play completely until 1978 but its starting to be discussed in 1975, which is to allow interpreters into bilingual courtrooms, to allow courtrooms to become bilingual in having interprets in there as well, to figure out what would allow minorities participation which includes american indians. They separate alaska natives so those two are separate, and asianamerican, a broad category for language, right, as well as initially latinos, specifically meaning mexicanamerican and puerto rican. Ill plug my work since rosina mentioned it earlier. Do it. My current dissertation is about the institutional history of the dnc. And unlike the representation of africanamericans in the national Democratic Party, its not until the 1970s where you even have conversations within the organization to think about hiring some sort of latino outreach representative. So its shocking to think it wasnt until the late 1970s where you have conversations about National Democratic outreach to latinos. If we look at these kind of National Institutions or party organizations, its like jerry said earlier, there is serious lack in the scholarship, even the basic facts of president ial elections and latinos. And before then, of course, and this will be my segue into the next question, before the 1970s, of course, the engagement between the dnc or president ial elections was very touch and go, and interpersonal politics, and you see that in garcias viva kennedy, his history of the viva kennedy clubs that sprouted up mostly in texas but in other places like chicago and california, where you have independentled and quasi formal relationships with the National Party, fundraising for jfk. So there is some work. And i think that influences my perspective on things in seeing an evolution of latinos and the national Democratic Party. And so that leads me to my next question. What are some of the key texts that have informed your approach to the history of latinos in u. S. Politics . And thinking about that, maybe gerry can start, this is a way we can discuss how we as professional historians can diversify our syllabi. I have lots of different answers to this. I mean, in one way, every book written in the field is an important touchstone for me, because i think all of them in one way or another pick up on parts of this story. But at the same time, nothing picks up on i wouldnt point to any single thing as a political history of latinos writ large. But, you know, i think of the 1987 book, anglos, mexicans. Theres politics beyond that, from the Texas Revolution to early efforts by the Democratic Party or Democratic Party machine bosses in texas trying to recruit or buy in many cases the votes of mexican workers. So there are moments of politics. I think also of for me, i think conservativism or although its not expressed in this way, gutierrezs book walls and mirrors, the kind of political divides between mexican immigrants well, basically its about mexicanamericans views of mexican immigration. Thats politics but he doesnt kind of frame it as political history. The groups thats mostly writing about are groups like lulac, the league of united latin american citizens, that kind of mutual aid society, early Civil Rights Organization founded in Corpus Christi in 1929. So thats politics. But none of these books talk about their actors in political terms as members of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Theyre engaged in politics, but theyre you know, lulac as a good example. I dont know that there has been an historian that has written about the political history of lulac. Lulac has been engaged in all kind of things, but among lulacs leadership, some are republicans, some are democrats. Theyre often taken by historians to be a kind of conservative Democratic Organization where, you know, they at least it was an early requirement that all of their, you know, members speak english, that they be american citizens, that they pledge allegiance to the flag. So lulac is a good example of a group whose identity in political terms has been debated as, well, their politics are conservative or theyre moderate democrats. But we dont know about their you know the political leanings of their individual members. So i look at, you know, all of the books out there about lulac as examples of how lots of histories of latino politics have been written but not of latino political history. For me specifically, when it comes to republican hispanics, there are some i dont know that i could point really to a scholarly text until the one thats coming out in september written by ben that deals with republican hispanics a lot. But there are a lot of republican hispanics who have written memoirs that are really interesting, like linda chavez, who was in the reagan administration, she was nominated to be george w. Bushs i think labor secretary, but had to withdraw her nomination when it was discovered that she had employed an undocumented immigrant. So she wrote really two kind of memoirs, one is called out of the barrio in 1991, thats a really good place to look for, you know, conservative latino positions on language issues, on affirmative action, primarily thats kind of her hobby horse, i would say. And then she wrote a second mom war after she had to withdraw her nomination called an unlikely conservative or how i became the most hated hispanic in america. Thats good. A guy, a kind of ad man named lionel sosa who kind of organized reagans Media Campaign for hispanics wrote a book called the americano dream. The chairman of the Cabinet Committee on opportunities for Spanish Speaking people in the nixon administration, Henry Ramirez, wrote a fascinating memoir of his time in the white house called a chicano in the white house. I spent some time in my first remarks talking about how im using the term hispanic and i find it fascinating that he chose to call his book a chicano in the white house, he had interesting ideas about identity politics. If you wanted to assign something about conservativism among hispanics, i would look at some of those memoirs rather than a scholarly text. So ive been influenced a lot about the coalition literature, so im thinking about blue texas, sonia lees work on Puerto Ricans and africanamericans in new york city. A handful of essays by george j. Sanchez about how politics worked in los angeles. And these works were influential to me for two reasons. They introduced us to a world of urban multiracial organizing in postwar america thats fascinating in its own right. Its particularly so because these unique communities were the ones that brought forget th people who would become the leaders of latino politics in the United States, people like Henry Gonzalez in san antonio. These folks are respectively the first mexicanamerican elected to the congress from california in the 20th century, texas, the first puerto rican congressman ever. Whats really interesting about these folks is that theyre elevated to positions of prominence by multiracial coalitions operating locally. But when viewed from the national level, they become the basis of a latino bloc, first beginning to crystallize in viva kennedy. So appreciating the deeply embedded coalitional experiences of these latino political leaders does other work. It suggests to us the importance of coalition as a concept employed by latinos in their dealings with each other. And in the making of latino politics during the 70s and beyond. Its often assumed and latino leaders bore some responsibility here that the emergence of latinos as a National Constituency was a reflection of these groups, mexicoamericans, Puerto Ricans, and cubans, recognizing their natural and preexisting ties. But what was more natural, blacks and Puerto Ricans living in harlem organizing together, or Puerto Ricans in harlem finding allies in rural in new mexico. Moderates and liberals envision equal access to the war on poverty. Leftists had a different perspective, they often viewed it as the basis of achievement of separate objectives such as puerto rican independence. This is an approach that the great radical labor organizer valentin, called together but not scrambled. Latino coalitions varied as to structure. Sometimes they were sort of one to one, that is, mexicanamericans are a group and Puerto Ricans are a group and so each gets one vote. Sometimes coalitions distributed power more in reflection of their population numbers. And yet even as latinos are really pursuing i think what are coalitions among each other, theyre still working on alliances with africanamericans, indigenous and poor whites. This is an exciting proposition to interrogate in that literature that looks at the 40s, the 50s, and the 60s, looking at the foundations of what are the next steps. Great. You guys took a lot of mine, so thats good. I think that another place to look really is within labor histories themselves and to remember that immigrants are not coming without a political history of their own, right . So theyre active, theyre becoming activists in their home countries, theyre bringing that activism into the United States. So theres numerous books that show this. One, and im blanking on his name right now but its a biography, kind of all the people that surround someone who is not only talking about revolution in mexico but he and the others are writing a radical newspaper and making pointed critiques of whats happening in texas, whats happening to workers all throughout the United States as well. Deborah webber is another similar, that individuals are coming and you see them holding up signs during the great depressi depression, knowing the whole alphabet soup we try to get our students to learn, those spanishspeaking immigrants knew what they meant. They also were pushing for those rights and to be included in those federal resources. Labor rights or civil rights by vargas is another example of this sweeping 100year history that shows the political activism of both immigrants and mexicanamericans in the labor sector and the ways that unions organizing kind of fed their politicalcization as well. You guys mentioned blue texas. Another new book thats important is city of inmates, that kind of it doesnt kind of, it does look into the incarceration and the creation of an incarceral state. It has the origins of immigrant attention, wonderful for my students, they enjoyed reading that particular chapter and getting a sense what have it looked like and why individuals were being held near los angeles. Another book that is probably a little bit too long to assign to classes but a great place to kind of give a sense of just how long the history is in new mexico in particular in the Political Parties are politica that only covers the 19th century, the mid to late 19th century, but talks about how they created both the democratic and republican parties, the ways they operated in different elections. It has chapters, sometimes three chapters on the same election, you can see the ways in which theyre modeling that u. S. Government system, largely in spanish but also just that political theres a reason that new mexico is an outlier, right . Theres a reason they continue to have governors and senators who have spanish surnames and who are of mexicanamerican origin. Another one thats kind of more in the legal field is manifest destinies. My students have found it incredibly useful in terms of what it means to have double colonization, to have mexicanamericans be citizens. In my second group project, you can see the influence, over a group they had already colonized. The native americans are colonized by mexicanamericans who are then colonized by the u. S. I think the book you were mentioning about the return of comrade yes. Its claudio llames. Yes. I want to go back to something gerry brought up, which is the contentious nature of naming protocols and selfidentifi selfidentifisel selfidentifisel selfidentisel selfidentity. You mentioned a chicano in the white house. Do you have a sense of the evolution of selfidentification in politics . I think this brings up one of the biggest conflicts in writing latino political history which is, does that concept of latino politics even make sense. If its how benjamin was just talking about, you have this oftentimes balkanized set of communities were its Puerto Ricans and mexicans, its very separate groups that are, you know, united conveniently in coalitions, but maybe not as unified as we may assume as historians or in public memory. Do you mind if i start on this . Even though he asked you. Its open. Because i want to go back to the 19th century, and so i feel like being an historian, i would like to go first. So this is something thats not new. In the 19th century, you would see it within each of the communities that were in what became the u. S. Southwest. So in texas, they were tejanos, in california they were califonios. If they talking about themselves as a larger group, they were the whole Spanish Speaking americas. They werent part of the United States at that point. So thats one of the things that you see kind of again and again in the documents. So not only do you have to figure out like how mexican game you have to figure out how mexican became mexican, mexicanamerican, not just how mexicanamerican became latino. There was a larger process that happened in the 19th century where they had to begin to see themselves as united. And that was a process that continued into the 20th century as well. I mean, i personally have a very a very i dont even know what the right word is. Its not agnostic. Maybe ill just say openminded or something, view of names. Maybe im thinking about this a little bit now because right now northwesterns latino and Latina Program is thinking about changing its name to the latinx studies program, were thinking about what that name change means, whats gained, whats lost. Something that undergrads pushing for that name change, not that im opposed to it at all, its fine, and i think thats part my open mindedness, like, call it whatever you want, call it latinx, thats fine, they would be mad at me if i just dismissed it, cast it aside, the importance of that decision so easily right now. But, you know, as a historian, undergrads dont necessarily know this who havent been alive or who havent studied it as much as we have, these kinds of name changes happen all the time. And so i dont want to get hung up on any particular name. I mean, some groups choose mexicoamerican political association, part of that has to do with where theyre located, if theyre founded in california or the southwest, maybe theyll go with one name whereas the puerto rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, in many ways a spinoff for a group that modelled itself on maldef which in turn modelled itself on the naacp, chose the puerto rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund because thats where theyre located. Nixon, we know, introduced the term hispanic on the 1970 census. The term on the census in 1930 was mexican. That was the first time mexican was designated as a separate category of kind of american, i guess. Spanishspeaking was an important term in the 60s. Latin. So, you know, there are just so many names. Yes, they have some kind of meaning, and the meaning can have, you know, political val valences. But i also dont know that any one of these names is tied closely or exclusively with a particular partisan identity. I dont know. I mean, chicano, yeah, its thought of as being a more kind of activist identity from the 60s and 70s. But then you have Henry Ramirez calling himself a chicano. So im not sure that its tied to that any of these names are tied closely to partisan identity. I just gave you a whole bunch of nonsense. I dont place a whole bunch of emphasis on the different names. Its just always shifting. Its just always shifting. I think in the early part of the 60s, naming is one of the stumbling blocks for organizations from different parts of even the southwest that are composed primarily of ethnic mexicans getting together. Theres a reason why they called viva kennedy viva kennedy, because it had john kennedy in it and once viva kennedy ended and it had to be, well, who are we, mexicanamerican activists really foundered because a lot of the regional names did at least for some correspond to kind of political orientations or socialization. So mexicanamericans proudly adopted that name in california but this was too much for a lot of texan activists. So in some sense, at certain times names were a way of not really talking about actual real political differences and tactical differences and sort of ideas about aggressiveness and how ethnic to be. I think that the names also speak to who is really trying to be the leader of this vast population. So i think in the case of the mexicanamerican political association, the people who established it in california had at the founding convention, had to explain to the many Puerto Ricans who exist in california who were politically active why it was their name was not going to be reflected in this organization. And that it was so vital for them to overcome the stigmatization attached to the idea of mexican. So the names are at different times may be over time it becomes a convergence and bureaucratic names and political names start to kind of align. Jerry mentioned Spanish Speaking. That w that was thought to be inclusive and avoided a lot of the pitfalls and nationality. It raised questions about if you dont speak spanish and your mexicanamerican are you still Spanish Speaking. They could look at a list of names and say you belong to this group. That was a proxy for latino ethnicity. Theres a set of competing terms, operating throughout until the middle 70s and moves to be a standardization around hispanic latino. Your people, the ones you are studying in your current book. Im not going to own them. Your people. They tended to reject latino generally which is interesting because in 1964, Barry Goldwater had a latino goldwater supportive campaign. Latino was a conservative moniker. Became the left liberal moniker by the 70s. A part of why i want to add this is because he asked a question about the challenge that this naming issue poses perhaps to writing latino political history. Made me think of two other things. The first is that i think theres a difference between explaining these name changes as a historian and inhabiting them as an identity. I have friends who say im a chicano with an x. They means they spell it with an x at the beginning which is a ch. A clear statement of their political leaning. Thats the position they inhabit or students today who call themselves latin x. Try to explain it as a historian, theres complications to it. Thats maybe why i dont hang too much meaning on any one of the terms but try to see them holistically. Maybe im confused about my own ethnic or political identity. Im half white, half mexican. My uncle called me green bean growing up. Maybe im wrestling with these things on my own. The other thing i wanted to say is i dont think in any way these name considerations are unique to latinos are hispanic. Theres africanamerican. Theres black, theres negro. Theres selfidentification that black people have used. Theres anglo and white and caucasian. Those terms present their own challenges when writing about them. I do think this question of naming an identity is often posed as one of the challenges to writing latino political history or one of the questions i get asked is there such a thing as the latino vote, the hispanic vote. I dont know there is a thing called the latino vote or the hispanic vote. There are millions of voters who whatever you want to call th them there are millions of them who do vote. To the extent they do, their Political Behavior is worth explaining regardless of what you call them. Its often posed as a challenge to your project. Theres no such thing as a hispanic vote. Part of me wants to answer, where does that get us . If thats where you want to begin and end the conversation, that doesnt help us understand really. Im looking at the clock. We have so much to talk about. I want to keep open the question about what challenges face the writing of political history. I also want to expand and ask a different question which is what do we stand to lose in mainstream political history by ignoring or not paying attention to Latino Actors and institutions . Whats at stake here . Can i go with that one first . I feel like ive been talking a lot but ill try to be quick. You run the risk of misunderstanding electoral outcomes. The 1976 president ial election, the 1996 president ial election. The 2000 president ial election. The 2012 president ial election. The 1976 president ial election many kind of political analysts after the fact placed a lot of weight on texas which carter won by not many votes. I think it was 10,000. It was in the 10,000s. I cant remember how much. If ford won one if one out of ten Mexican Americans had shifted from carter to ford, ford would have won. Why did ford lose texas, maybe because he bit a tamala that had the shuck on it in 1976 and Mexican Americans didnt like him much of that. Maybe it was because reagan was more popular. The Mexican American vote in texas is part of the story of the texas how texas voted in 1976. In 1996, this was a couple years after proposition 187, in the same clear as clintons yes, clinton signed the Immigration Reform but the bill was largely seen as the product of Republican House and latinos, robert doyle won only 19 of the hispanic vote which is the lowest of any republican candidate since. Ford had other things going on with watergate, the aftermath of that. 2000, you could look at the Elion Gonzalez case in florida. It was part of what was going on in florida. There was an airport case. I cant remember the name but well still with Elion Gonzalez. Thats not the whole story but its a part of the story. 2012, obama was reelected largely because of hispanic support in swing states. The point for me is i wouldnt say that like latinos are everything and in order to understand american politics over the past 50 years you have to look centrally at latinos but its an important part of the story. I dont know why you wouldnt want to include that part of the story that helps explain even electoral politics. Including latinos helps us think about political time. To a degree it supports the traditional practice of paying attention to president ial elections. Theres a massive effort of party sponsors, latinos, advertisers and campaigns to summon a latino vote to integrate and nationalize and point in some direction the countrys latino communities. To integrate and nationalize and point in some intersection the latinos communities is time to convince them to develop a common language of aspiration and set of policies thats germane to the community. In the wake is the reckoning. Its whether or not the administration that is elected with recognize latinos importance with cabinet post, Supreme Court appointment and a commitment to resolving urgent latino issues. At the same time latino political history is driven a lot by congressional activity. By bringing congress in, it helps us to referreperiodize. The liberal architects came in the shadow of the new deal. By the 1970s they were practicing an identity politics. Founding a congressional hispanic caucus,ed arow indicating for bilingual education. Practicing an identity politics. They did that just as much to preserve and update the new deals clash base politics and policy universalism. A closer look reveals that political leaders talked about language and culture and the uniqueness of the latino family life as a means of to an end. That end was pursuing an expanded welfare state marked by things Like National Health Insurance and full employment policies. Rather than suggesting a break with the new deal order, latino political history points to the persistence of liberal making in more ethnic forms. I agree. We had a great conversation about reaching the public and what does that mean reach to public or your students in a different way. They are in many ways are the public. What i have noticed is somebody will come up at the end and say i didnt realize that there were people that were speaking spanish that were involved in politics in the 1840s. I didnt realize i had this longer history in this country that i can be a part of because the rhetoric around the undocumented, around the boarder, around the immigration is all i hear is that we are new here. Its one way to combat the view, the perpetual foreignness of mexicanamericans. I would argue the same for asianamericans and american indians. The fact they will still here. Latin america has been a central key point for over a century with funding going there, with kind of influencing the politics and that can help to understand those individuals that are here now and the sorts of politics they bring and the way they view the United States itself. I think i would add we make a lot of assumptions about large political blocks. The asummit assumption is theres one that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres one that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres one that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres one that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres one that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres oe that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres o that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Assumption is theres o that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Ssumption is theres on that natural. Talk about your article. Sure. Im working on a piece about the 1983 election in chicago. Theres this wonderful narrative that dominates which is that black people registered in record numbers and voted more than ever before and it was this Rainbow Coalition where mexicans joined. Deeper dive shows that more often than not, division and intentions dominate the political conversation in a lot of ways. I think thats my personal take and cynical view about the politics. When we dont do the deep dive we lose the way in which latinos are more complicated and divided than we assume. Thats what im working on is showing how it wasnt as beautiful a coalition as thought and in general i think we look at president ial elections today, 30 is a lot. Over 90 of africanamericans vote together. Theres a lot more there to unpack. Its not a new development but something rooted in history of fraught coalitions that are not just interethnic but intraethnic. With that i think we can keep talking and also open it up to questions from the audience. I have a question about latino politics and president ial politics and how people think about what is typically american. Thinking about your own students who come to midwestern history conferences saying people dont think that i do Latino History because i studied latinos in the midwest. Im wondering if you can talk about regionalism in this discussion. I think its an interesting component of it that i want to learn more about. Its a long history in the midwest. The first book i can think of is the first book on michigan. Any time i see i think theres a recent book on wisconsin. Theres been lots of activism in the farm. One of the chapters looks into that history. Theres a lot of parallels going on with the southwest. I think its such an important place for the studies to be and also so the student who is do come. I had a student from oklahoma and she was like people dont think that were in oklahoma too. The hard part for the politics is theres usually a smaller population. Having that political weight to have that sort of political discussion usually will probably come around coalitions rather than the latino block, whether or not or not that exists as we talked about before. Im trying to think of what i would add to that. Definitely want to add something. I think your last observation about numbers and stuff, i think it really does depend on where you look. In chicago where theres a longer tradition, theres more than 1. 2, 1. 3 million americans in little villages and its a densely populated puerto rican area. Its incredibly diverse. The diversity means Different Things for the Coalition Politics were talking about. It is there. Influencing labor politics both in wisconsin and texas. There are examples. If there were a midwestern history conference, maybe in some ways it is. They have been arguing for the inclusion of midwestern latino communities in the field of Latino History which has historically been dominated by california or new york or florida. I dont know how new that argument is in the sense that by this point, historians have been doing that for maybe 20 years. I dont know. If you wanted a bibliography, im sure we could give you a list. They have the new latino midwest reader. For someone who writes about political history, what groups are appropriate to compare latinos with if youre writing about politics . Its a tendency to think of people of color. I was talking to a scientist at stanford. I asked are they the new italian americans . This was a very distinguished political professor said they absolutely are. That struck me. Those are very different comparisons. They are like africanamericans. They are like italianamericans. They are a group that was once thought of not quite white that is now thought of as very much white which would lead in a different direction that would help explain the folks that jerry studies. Is that a fruitful comparison . I missed one word you said. He said absolutely they absolutely are the new italianamericans. Is that a fruful way of thinking about latinos politically . Ill try to answer that. Im genuinely interested in where you would come out on this. One of the great things about latino studies and Latino History in defining the constituency we can drop from a will the of other disciplines. I think he should have given you a source for that statement. I would make comparison with africanamericans because that follows the trend of actual Political Science that focuses on latinos. In africanamerican politics its linked fate that says africanamericans see their life chances as deeply integral and connected to other people in their race. Theres political unity because what happens to my neighbor can happen to me. More recent work at ucla, they argue that linked fate can apply to latino politics. Krecreasin increasingly, people come to see an attack on one community as an attack on us. Its not as strong, but he makes the argument that latinos as a collective, diverse, multiracial and pan ethnic group see themselves more connected with each other. That would be the Political Science answer. Im not sure i agree with that. I havent read that, but i should. I will. My quick answer would be, i think you could compare latinos to any group you want to compare them to. You would get the basis for comparing them would differ on what group youre comparing them to and the time period. It is a conversation about assimilation and the upward mobility of second generation. Its brought up as an argument against political scientists who say we segregate and we never fully integrate. We stay among our own. I think thats the italianamerican comparison. If you want to compare with africanamericans, maybe look at someone like arturo shamberg who was an afro descended puerto rican. Once he moved to new york, started to identify as an africanamerican. Started the graeatest collectio of africanAmerican History of culture. You would look there at latino selfidentification around issues of whiteness and cubans in florida in the late 19th century who distanced themselves from africanamericans because florida is a jim crow state. I think you can compare them to anyone. Compare them to anyone, compare them to everyone. Its important to be attentive to National Origin and region. In the thinking of the political position of latinos, in the late 60s and the 70s, it really mattered where we were talking about. If you were talking about Mexican Americans in the southwest, a sought after constituency, latinos, Mexican Americans look and are appealed to and republicans want to convince themselves are like them. Against welfare dependency. Patriotic members of the silent majority. The very same republicans view Puerto Ricans as a racially ambiguous disenchanted, prowelfare dependent constituency. One at odds with the white ethnics of new york city who they wish to court. Place matters. So with cubans. How are people understood in relation to each other in the political system at particular times. You havent said a lot about gender and one of the reasons this political scientists answered as he did is because he thinks of latino voters as patriarchal. The issue of males versus female roles. Is that an accurate perception . I was going to say i heard the opposite. Latino males vote how their wives vote. I was asked to speak to the latino state troopers. These are highway patrolmen, almost all men, very few women, all latino. I think 70 voted for donald trump. They are only one segment. I wonder if place also matters. The midwest is more patriarchal than california or new york. I dont want to complicate the story too much. Theres a panel on gender at this moment. I wanted to go to both. I couldnt. I wish the two of you were talking about this. Thank you for doing this. Dont be discouraged there arent more people. There are too many panels. Not to give you buyers remorse but this will be on cspan. You could have watched this one later. Better to be in the room. Its not the same immersive experience. Yeah, you get the real live experience. Ive heard the opposite. The one of my character Ben Fernandez was the first to run for president as a republican. He learned fiscal conservatism at the knees of his mother. A mothers influence in the family is just as important. I have stories where the men who were marrying were english and were marrying Mexican American women and their children did not know english. They were learning spanish. Thats why spanish remained in the system for so long. It depends on time and place. Thats the other thing is people who usually hear my story in terms of language are comparing with the german. It was so powerful politically. Your thing about the state troopers is interesting. Another challenge to the pan ethnicity and individual groups versus collectives, one of the things ive wondered and dont know the answer to is how much latino voters just resemble voters like other voters in a particular place or in a particular field. What did other state troopers who were not latinos vote like . Maybe 70 of them voted for donald trump or the county where they lived and went for trump 70 . This is an argument for what ben is saying about payin latinos i particular place. I want to thank you. Im working on asianamerican political history in the 1970s. What i thought i offered to comparison which is Asian Americans in historical time theres a lot of it either parallels or what ive learned from talking to some folk who work in the federal government, whatever the latino say we follow a step behind them. I thought that was interesting. Asian americans try to create a cabinet and it failed. The latino politics set up a model for them to follow. Im excited about this. I wanted to ask an offshoot question. In researching the history and looking at papers of members of congress who were asianamerican, what i found is im curious if youre finding some of the things is that Asian Americans, no matter where they live, they are writing these members of congress or people in sort of relatively in positions of power in the federal government asking for help as a fellow asianamerican or whatever. This is very curious thing to me. I was wonder if this is something you have seen in your research. All this expectation placed on certain people who look like them or from their community and what they might offer to you. Absolutely. The first thing that came to mind was vito mark antonio who left from spanish harlem. Basically the congressman from puerto rico. Everybody from the island write him asking for help in whatever the problems are. I think the parallels in the period are clear. Theres a clear effort to put people in positions politicians to put latinos and asianamericans to a lesser degree i think in positions within cabinet agencies within the war on poverty, within the expanded federal government. Those people are seen to be the representation of the larger group in American Society but also a conduit for assistance. I think its because there was still so much of of an expectation it was geared around africanamericans. That made it important for people to believe they had one of their own who could advocate for them in washington. Every u. S. President developed a latino point person. Will these programs effect you . That was their job. You also see where National Latino politicians travel the country to areas but no local congressmen or mayor or any latino figure of their base and so a good example is the governor of new mexico campaigned for harold washington. Why . Chicago had no latino elected officials in 1982. They do a lot of leg work. Im sure the cases could be similar for the first woman of color in congress. She becomes a national figurehead. A friend of mine is working on asianamerican panethnic politics. Latinos and africanamericans face a lot of the same challenges. So many Different Countries and different languages. Thats a different problem for panasian politics. The issue of panedthnicity and what holds us together is similar in both groups. Really quickly just theres some interesting connections between asianamericans and latinos in the 70s. Theres testimony about growing up in los angeles. Theres a graduate student at stanford working on asianamerican conservatism. Im sure she would love to know more about your work. Thats a great comparison. In the 19th century, i feel like its the opposite. Its the chinese that lead to the term. They were considered the first undocumented in many ways. Theres this flip. Thats an interesting point as well. The other person i would mention that hasnt been mentioned is in 1940s Dennis Chavez is traveling to los angeles and arizona and he is the only senator or representative for the group. Really interesting ways to make the regional story become the National Story and vice versa. Following the trail of new but important figures. Do you see them going internationally . Dennis chavez was sent to mexico for all these reasons. I think in the early period like 40s, 50s, and 60s. Im still working on the 70s, but im certain theres a lot there. I think with that we can close the panel. I would like to thank everyone who spoke. Thank you for your questions and thanks for coming. [ applause ] tonight on American History tv at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, more from remaking political history conference with a panel on the correlation between violence and u. S. Political change. From the time of the American Revolution to present day. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan3