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| Hispanic Actress Raquel Welch |
I'll cut to the chase and answer the question up front: No. Hispanics are not natural conservatives.
Latinos aren’t married more than everyone else
Latinos aren’t more religious than everyone else
Latinos aren’t more opposed to gay marriage than everyone else
Latinos are a little more opposed to abortion than everyone else, but not by a landslide
Latinos aren’t more conservative than everyone else
Latino men are only fractionally more likely to be in the labor force than everyone else, and those with jobs work slightly fewer hours
Latino women are substantially less likely to be in the labor force than everyone else
Source: AEI - Charles Murray
This doesn’t make them bad people. It makes them mainstream Americans, and the GOP needs to adopt a coherent philosophy that appeals to all Americans, including Latinos.
Hispanics come from places where there are no safety nets, but perversely, those same governments can have a profound effect on people’s lives, often in a negative way. Latin American politicians are solicitous of retail constituent needs. I personally know a legislator from a Central American country whose first act upon getting elected was paving the dirt road in front of his mother’s house. It didn’t anger people; it gained him more votes in his next election because he was seen as a good and loving son.
So Hispanics can be very family oriented, banding together to protect and help one another, and they can be very entrepreneurial, owning their own businesses at a higher rate than Anglos, but they can also see a place for a benevolent government to help people get ahead and to keep people from falling through society’s cracks. And while they may be personally conservative in many ways, they believe in keeping personal business personal.
This is too subtle for politicians to grasp, so brace yourself for four more years of pandering and demonization in which millions will be handed a no-questions-asked citizenship.when all they really wanted was a multiple entry-exit visa that allows them to work here.
the GOP needs to adopt a coherent philosophy that appeals to all Americans, including Latinos
ReplyDeleteIs that even possible without abandoning conservative principles? Particularly this:
they can also see a place for a benevolent government to help people get ahead and to keep people from falling through society’s cracks
Isn't that how we got to the present welfare state in the first place?
Take Medicaid for example. Now, some 80% of those in nursing homes are Medicaid recipients. Medicaid was originally intended just to assist disadvantaged children.
And another important point, Latinos encompass many different cultures.
ReplyDeleteThe Left in America if the "daily bread guarantee" party. The Right is the liberty party. Poor people will do a lot to keep their bread guarantees. And free people can't function w/o bread, especially when its forced out of their hands and fed to the birds.
ReplyDeleteRaquel Welch is hispanic?
ReplyDeleteLike Elizabeth Warren is Native American? Her father may have been Bolivian, but many Bolivians came from Spain, making her European with no Native South American in the mix.
Possibly of interest and related -- never mind the blog post's title.
ReplyDeleteThersites,
ReplyDeletePoor people will do a lot to keep their bread guarantees.
True -- and a factor as well.
Those who believe that a particular political party will guarantee them access to food will cast a ballot for that political party.
Well, if not this voting block, then we best change our immigration laws post haste. Our birth rate is zip in keeping up with the status quo. Lots of luck.
ReplyDelete@CoF: "And another important point, Latinos encompass many different cultures."
ReplyDeleteIndeed! This is the first in a series of posts on the subject.
Thersites: I her father is from Bolivia and of Spanish descent, then she is Hispanic, as are Spaniards, and also Argentinians who forbears came from Italy!
AOW: Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteHere is the money quote:
"The moral of the story is this: immigrants arrive to major population centers where they are absorbed into the liberal culture."
I resent the fairly recent custom of calling these people "Latinos" -- especially when the term is pronounced with a thick foreign accent by those who are otherwise speaking in English.
ReplyDeleteI resent it, because it emphasizes and increases the perception that these people represent a distinctly FOREIGN and therefore DIVISIVE element. It does them a disservice.
All it does is raise hackles and aggravate tensions unnecessarily == especially among those already inclined to be xenophobic and insular.
Besides, it's every bit as silly and pretentious as an insistence we call Paris "PAREE" with a guttural "r," or refer to Italy as "ITALIA" -- pronounced EE-TAHL-YA.
~ FreeThinke
And when in Deutrschland please don't forget to visit Koeln and Muenchen either before or after you enjoy a Rheinfahrt.
ReplyDelete~ FT
We're never going to win this fight by framing it as "Our social safety net" vs. "immigrant invaders."
ReplyDeleteIt's bad enough the allegedly "Republican" candidate for President took time away from worshipping Obama's foreign policy to criticize him for cutting $700+ Billion out of Medicare in a budget that never actually passed.
In a time where we should be eliminating social programs that spend more than zero dollars and zero cents redistributing wealth from the working class to the elderly it hardly makes sense to call for that Ponzi scheme club to have an exclusive membership.
They are "Hispanic"?
ReplyDeleteWho knew that they all interbred with those natives on the Island of Hispanola?
Aren't most of those who did, black?
Hell, I always thought that Spain and Portugal were European countries. My bad.
Hispanic has nothing to do with Hispaniola, you've got it ass-backwards. Christopher Columbus named it La Isla Espanola, or The Spanish Island.
ReplyDeleteHispania was the Roman name for the Iberian peninsula. The word derives from the Latin Hispanicus, first known use 1584. It denotes a relationship to the Spanish language and Spanish culture.
Latino/Latina is derived from and is a shortened form of Latinoamericano, denoting a cultural relationship to Latin America.
So, Jo Raquel Tejada is indeed Hispanic, as is her father, who may or may not be Latino. A person from Spain may be correctly referred to as Hispanic (although it may get you a punch in the nose) but not as Latino (in the modern sense).
There was an attempt by the French in the 1830's to frame Latino as the region of all the Romantic languages (Spain, Italy, France, as well as those colonized areas in the Americas) in opposition to the Teutonic races, but it never really caught on.
But if you ask me, the entire argument is silly.
Cheers!
I agree. She's a European.
ReplyDeleteAs are all "hispanics".
ReplyDeleteHow long do you think it will be before the Gaylicks starting crying for "special" minority status?
ReplyDeleteSouthies like ducky NEED to know when they can start cashing their new checks.
Okay, I lied. I meant to say, getting loans on their future checks at the check cashing-loan store.
ReplyDelete@I resent the fairly recent custom of calling these people "Latinos"
ReplyDeleteI see your point FT, we don't refer to Irish, Scottish, and Welsh Americans as Celts. We also don't refer to German, Dutch, and English Americans as Teutons.
But here is fun thought... at the collapse of the Roman Empire, we were the barbarians at the gates.
Cheers!
Well look at it this way, unless you're Hispanic, Nordic, or Slavic, you can probably cash a check too. As in the 3rd Century BC those 'Gaylicks' covered almost all of Western Europe from ole Eire Land to the Black Sea.
ReplyDeleteCheers!
euro-peons ALL.
ReplyDeleteeuro-pee-ons?
ReplyDelete.
How about we dispense with the divisive bullshit and start calling them Americans?
ReplyDeleteMy general rule of thumb is to simply call people what they call themselves and how they want others to refer to them.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who identifies as part of a collective can be counted on to be a disppointing American.
ReplyDeleteYou're right as usual, Andie.
ReplyDeleteI might be correct in calling myself an Anglo-Celtic-Teutonic-Latinate-Native-American-American, but I'd feel asinine doing it.
Teddy Roosevelt may have circumvented and thwarted the Constitution as our first "Progressive" president, albeit for 'benign" purposes, but he was right when he said this:
"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. . . . the one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be nation at all, would permit it to be a tangle of squabbling nationalities."
"We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house."
~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Freethinke,
ReplyDeleteInsofar as language is concerned, I never understood the resistance to making English the official language. Communication is key. If you cannot read our language how can you drive safely on our streets?
Man, Hispanic women SURE are in the work force in Los Angeles....every bus is loaded with immigrants who are nannies or house cleaners...they're not in the work force as far as tax information, etc, but they are a HUGE part of this work force.
ReplyDeleteI know many who are not married to their childrens' fathers and they don't want to be; they tell me they like their independence, etc.
I also know that most who I know are not at all religious. Some are, of course.
I live in Brentwood, which is considered quite upper middle class...but there are pockets nearby of illegals who live many to an apartment; they walk their children to school and home, the children are spanking clean and the little families walking along seem very happy, and while I hear their parents speak Spanish to them, they respond in excellent, unaccented English and the school yard nearby's hispanic children all speak, English.
It's a sweet population here, I have to admit; many work in the large grocery store nearby and most couldn't be nicer.
Your last paragraph puzzles me; are you suggesting most don't want to be citizens at all? Did I miss a statistic above, or do you surmise this, SF??
"My general rule of thumb is to simply call people what they call themselves and how they want others to refer to them."
ReplyDeleteHang on SF, this might look like simple courtesy, but in fact you're guilty of PC. you're part of the problem, you're in on the conspiracy! Burn him!
FT,
ReplyDeleteI resent the fairly recent custom of calling these people "Latinos" ...
I can't recall when "Latinos" became the preferred term among those of Hispanic origin. But I do recall that Hispanics themselves -- or their activist groups -- asked for the change in terminology.
Z: I'll be posting more on this subject in the future, surveys show, as well as my own anecdotal experience, that many (most?) just want to be able to travel back and forth the freely. The wants of those here illegally and the agenda of the activists are two different things. *Surprise*
ReplyDeleteAOW: I don't know when it changed here, but in Latin America, depending on where you are, they will use one term or the other when talking about the collective group, but nobody gets too wound up about it.
Jez: Good one! ;)
Where I come from natives of Spain are never referred to as "Hispanics." They have always been called SPANIARDS, unless we know them well enough to call them Esteban, or Maria, or Federico or Concepcion, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt might be a nice change if we called them IBERIANS, because they do live on the Iberian Peninsula, but so do the Portuguese. However could we handle the inordinate degree of confusion that might bring to the realm of daily discourse at the internet cafes?
Anyway, it will never happen, because our language usage is dictated by the ubiquitous-but-ever-more-regrettable influence of the enemedia, and they have made a tacit pledge to do everything possible to "IGNORANTICIZE" us to the greatest degree possible.
If that does not seem obvious to you, you are a good example of the high degree of success they have achieved.
Hispanics are not a mono-culture as the American media and political parties imply. Each Hispanic nation has a separate culture and even within the country, different ethnicities and tribal groups. I've found that Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans all shun each other. Mexicans of more Spanish extractions don't interact as much with the mestizos and certainly neither of them like the Indios. What I hear from friends and colleagues who spend a great deal of time in Latin countries, you find the good, the bad, the ugly there just like you do in the USA or anywhere else for that matter. Geez, do you suppose people are just people around the world?
ReplyDelete"at the collapse of the Roman Empire, we were the barbarians at the gates."
ReplyDeleteNot I -- at least not fully HALF of me. I happen to be a direct descendant of ancient Romans on my mother's side.
HOWEVER, your point is well taken. There is not a soul alive who is not the descendant of barbarians.
The most pressing problem we face today appears to be our determination to rush headlong into a rapid descent back into the barbarism from which we arose -- ever-so-slowly-and painstakingly over countless millennia.
Neo-barbarism will be ever-so-much worse than the old-fashioned kind, however, because it is already aided and abetted by TECHNOLOGY.
YIKES!
Why do we not refer to the ethnicity for what it is. A Mexican born in Mexico is ...... a Mexican. Their children born in the US are Americans.
ReplyDeleteA person born in Africa is ..... African. Their children born in the US are Americans. People use to be proud of the heritage now it is just a asset class.
@Where I come from natives of Spain are never referred to as "Hispanics." They have always been called SPANIARDS.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and those from Dominican Republic are more accurately referred to as Dominicans.
Curiously those from Quebec are referred to as French Canadians, yet those large populations in Maine and Louisiana are generally not referred to as "French Americans"... what gives?
@Hispanics are not a mono-culture as the American media and political parties imply.
An important point. There are towns in northern New Mexico where referring to the inhabitants as Mexican, Hispanic, or Latino is as likely to get you a punch in the nose, if not worse. They are "Spanish", and quite proud of it.
Cheers!
@A person born in Africa is ..... African.
ReplyDeleteThen why would a person born in Mexico be a Mexican, not a Central American?
By your reasoning shouldn't a person born in Africa be Comoran, Chadian, Ethiopian, or Namibian?
But as you can see, it is easy to apply rules inconsistently, which is what leads to the blurring of meanings in the first place.
A person from Mexico is indeed a Mexican, a Latino, and a Hispanic...as are many of us Americans, North Americans, and Anglo.
The problem isn't the labels but or preoccupation with them, or perhaps more importantly, why we are applying them in the first place.
SF: I'll be eager to read that because I personally don't want my country used as a candy store. Most don't pay taxes when they travel freely. And I think people who don't take 'ownership' of where they live much of the time don't take care of that place.
ReplyDeleteWhat a mess we've created.
thanks.
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ReplyDeleteFrom now on, I'm a Nortino.
ReplyDeleteRaquel Welch, who is now in her SEVENTIES -- and still a hot babe --, should never be called anything but what she is -- GORGEOUS!
ReplyDeleteI don't care if she turned out to be the spawn of creatures from the planet Neptune. All she is is GORGEOUS.