NEW YORK – The most interesting development out of this
weekend's Nevada caucus votes had little to do with Hillary Clinton
winning a large percentage of the Latino vote – that was
predictable. More fascinating was the sudden and exponential
surge in the number of experts in Latino politics.
It was tragicomic to watch non-Spanish speaking pundits explain
the ‘reality’ of
the Nevada vote while standing in the artificial light of the casinos during
one of the first caucus meetings held entirely in Spanish. Reporters had to
wait for translators to tell them what campaign workers were saying before
they could report it to us. Understanding the electoral needs of casino, hotel,
restaurant and other workers who labor in a new economy – and require
new hours for voting – proved very difficult for many in the media to
understand.
It was no less difficult having to watch the white, and some African American,
political commentators on MSNBC, CNN and other networks tell us that the Latino
vote for Clinton reflected “Black-Latino tensions.” The New York
Times newspaper had earlier echoed these observations in a story that
caused frustration in the Latino blogosphere. In a recent issue of The New
Yorker, a publication that has no Latino editorial staff and publishes
very few stories a year about the country's 46 million Latinos, the magazine
showed off its newfound expertise in a story which
detailed how Latinos are Clinton's electoral "firewall," thanks to the "lingering
tensions between the Hispanic and black communities." It’s hard to know
how they know this when only one serious polling organization in the country
conducts polls in a language other than English.
Yet everybody, it seems, has something to say about Latino politics. Everybody
that is, except Latinos.
The awkwardness and simplicity seen and heard in the coverage of the Latino
electorate illustrates how ill-equipped the news organizations, the political
parties and the society as a whole are to understand and deal with the historic
political shift previewed in Nevada: the death of the black-white electorate.
Simplistic talk about the Latino vote provides another example of how we live
when the ‘experts’ and their organizations are increasingly out
of touch with the dynamism and complexity of the electorate and the general
populace.
As a result, the growth of the very diverse Latino electorate
will likely force the revelation of more inconvenient truths.
Principle among them is
the media’s
conclusion that anti-black racism among Latinos explains why they voted Clinton
and not Obama in Nevada. Story after story tries to fit the Latino vote into
the procrustean bed of old-school, black v. white politics.
Typical of these conclusions are statements by the liberal New Republic's John
Judis. He explained Latino support for Clinton this way: "Latino immigrants
hold negative stereotypical views of blacks and feel that they have more in
common with whites than with blacks." Judis backed his claims with a modicum
of academic seriousness as he quoted "experts" like Duke University political
scientist Paula D. McClain. McClain told me in an interview that she neither
speaks Spanish nor watches the primary source of Latino news and political
information, saying: "I don't watch Univision." Quoting her makes little
practical sense.
It only makes sense when we consider how ever-expanding Latino power in
Nevada and across the country is pushing up against people's fraying sense
of nationhood
and citizenship. Latino citizens and voters, not undocumented immigrants,
are the targets of many liberals. These liberals long for the simpler days
of a
black-white electorate, a less-globalized country. Like Clinton, Obama and
all Republican candidates, they support the political and racial equivalents
of the anti-immigrant, anti-Latino border wall.
So instead of considering that Latinos reflect the new complexities
of our political age, we should, experts tell us, simply swallow
the black-white
political
logic of the previous era, like the half-moon cookies our grandmothers
made. Ignore whatever you think of the Clintons - they have
more than 15 years
of relationships, name-recognition and history in the Latino electorate.
Outside
of Chicago, Obama has less than two years. Never mind that Latinos may
still be wondering about why Obama did not, until recently,
secure the support
of most black voters. Never mind about the political amnesia about how
the country's
last black candidate of national stature – Jesse Jackson- defied
the prevailing racial logic during the Presidential primaries of 1988,
when his
Rainbow Coalition secured almost 50 percent of the Latino vote in Latino-heavy
New Mexico counties like Santa Fe and San Miguel and 36 percent of the
Latino vote in the largest Latino state in the country: California.
The Latino experience of the right-of-center Clintons and the
left-of-center Jackson, who the Illinois senator did not ask
to campaign for him, raises
questions about Mr. Obama's political operation and his political agenda.
Time will tell
us what was behind the Latino support for Clinton in Nevada. And who
knows, maybe the experts telling us about Obama, Clinton and
other candidates'
fortunes in upcoming primaries will do so without the black and white
lens that has
proven obsolete in the face of a new country.
This commentary appeared originally in New America Media.
Roberto Lovato is a contributing Associate
Editor with New America Media. He is also a frequent contributor
to The Nation and his work
has appeared in the Los Angeles
Times, Salon, Der Spiegel, Utne Magazine, La Opinion,
and other national and international media outlets. Prior
to becoming a writer, Roberto was the Executive Director
of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), then the country’s
largest immigrant rights organization. Click
here to contact him or via his Of
América blog.