Geraldo Cadava, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here, Trevor.
Um, you are... I'm gonna read this to get it right.
You're an associate professor of history and Latinx studies
at Northwestern University.
You-you most recently wrote a book entitled,
The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping
of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump.
It seems like a paradox on the surface.
What do you think it is
about the Hispanic vote, or the Latino vote
that a lot of people don't seem to understand?
Where to begin. I mean, it seems like
Americans rediscover Latinos
every four years at election time.
And I think this year, it's especially pronounced
because Latinos seem to have moved towards this president
that has, at least on the face of things,
spent four years abusing us.
You know, the truth is, Latinos have voted
for the Republican candidate in every election since 1972,
when Richard Nixon won reelection,
at a rate of about 25% to 33%,
sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more so.
You could see that there's a half-century tradition
by this point of a significant minority
of Latinos voting for Republicans.
One conversation that has always stuck with me was, um,
when I was at the Republican National Convention
in Cleveland right-right before the 2016 election,
and there was a Mexican woman in the street,
and she was waving a Trump flag.
And I was genuinely, genuinely curious.
And I walked up to her, and I said, "Hey,
how can you support Trump?"
And she said, "Because he is working for me."
And she said, "He's building a wall
to stop illegal Mexicans from coming over."
And she said, "My family's waiting in line.
"My people are trying to do things the right way,
and he's trying to make us the winners and instead of them."
And I... That-that shook my perspective,
because up until that point,
American media had always told me the story
of Latinos as a monolith.
This was the first time when I came to realize
that maybe, just maybe, these are all human beings
who have different political perspectives.
What a shocking realization. I mean, it's amazing.
And so, you know, there is no such thing as "The Latino vote."
But there are truly millions of Latinos who do vote,
and it's, therefore, important
to understand their political behavior.
I don't think the Republican party has given up
on recruiting Latino immigrants, as well.
I talked to the chairman of the Republican Party in El Paso
who told me that he personally shows up
-at every naturalization ceremony in El Paso... -Wow.
...to try to hand out, like, literature
describing what the Republican Party stands for
in the United States.
You can also look at the Latino evangelical church.
That is, in many ways, an immigrant religion.
Latin-American immigrants are evangelical
in their home countries,
come, start churches here and belong to churches here.
So, it's, you know, truly a much more diverse lot
than you would think.
Yeah, it feels like, in many ways,
the Republican approach has really been focused, though.
Because on-on the Democrats' side, I find
that there-there's a lot of infighting
about how to handle the message.
An interesting thing that I heard was
from the, um, Democratic winner in Arizona, right?
The Congressional winner in Arizona,
who was asked, just asked,
"Hey, what do you think Democrats could do
to do better with the, um... with the Latino vote?"
And he said, "Well, first of all,
stop calling them 'Latinx.'"
And that was an interesting... interesting one for me,
'cause I know that that's been a fight is,
people saying like, "I'm not Latinx.
"I-I-I'm Puerto Rican.
"I'm-I'm, you know, I'm Dominican,
"I'm Cuban, I'm Mexican, I am...
Don't call me this thing."
Do you think that there's a disconnect sometimes
between, like, the academic approach
that Democrats take to-to... in referring to a group,
versus how the groups just refer to themselves in the streets?
That's really interesting.
I mean, I hadn't thought about it in exactly those terms.
But I do think that,
you know, Democrats often fight over identity politics,
in some ways more than Republicans do.
So, you know, remarkably, I think the Republican strategy
for recruiting Latinos has been remarkably consistent
since the Reagan years in 1980.
And it's kind of really relied on,
you know, identifying what...
And these might be misunderstandings,
but they've nevertheless stuck
with this kind of core set of issues,
like family values, work ethic, patriotism.
And Reagan defined those things.
And in many ways, Trump is just running the same playbook
that Republicans have run for the past four years.
I think you're right. It's a kind of rejection
of identity politics in saying
that you're Mexican-Americans
-or Cuban-Americans or Puerto Ricans. -Right.
You're Americans.
Instead, you're Americans of Mexican descent.
You know, interestingly,
when I was interviewing a Latino Republican leader,
he rejected the whole idea of "Hispanic Republican."
He wanted me to call him
a "Republican of Hispanic descent" instead.
-Interesting. -Yeah, super interesting.
It's funny that you say that because I find
that Republicans do a much better job
of coding their identity politics.
I-I don't agree with the notion that Republicans don't engage
in as much identity politics as-as Democrats.
I think Democrats are too blatant about it.
So Democrats will say, "We've got to get Black voters,
"and the Black vote and the Hispanic vote,
"and we've got to get these gay people
-to come and help us, and..." Do you know what I mean? -Yeah.
Where Republicans go, "We've got to protect our farmers."
-Oh. -"We've got to do a better job
"of protecting that factory worker in Ohio.
"We've got to protect him.
You know who he is."
And it's a very interesting technique
that they use that implies a certain connotation of a person,
but it doesn't make that person feel
like they're reduced to only the color of their skin.
Do you think that could be part of the reason
that Republicans do so well?
Oh, man, I wish I got to talk to you every day about this stuff.
I mean, that's absolutely right, man.
If I hear one more time about, like,
the dairy farmer of Wisconsin, or the autoworker in Detroit.
Never mind the fact that there are many, many Latinos
who work as dairy farmers or work in auto plants.
I mean, but I do think, yes,
these are all kind of coded appeals.
And they do very much suggest a Republican version
of identity politics, even if we don't recognize it as such.
I've been coming to the United States-- I don't know--
on and off for, let's say, a decade, right?
I've lived here for five years now.
One thing that's always surprised me is, people say,
"Man, as the Hispanic vote grows,
the Republican Party's gonna be under water."
But the one thing I've always asked people--
and maybe you're the perfect person to ask-- is this.
Is there not an assumption that may be incorrect
that Hispanic or Latino voters will naturally progress
towards the Democratic party
because they identify in that way,
as opposed to understanding that some people can sort of migrate
to the space of being white, if that makes sense?
And-and I say this because I come from a country
where we had many classes of people where they said,
"Hey, if you work the right way, and if you act the right way,
"we'll give you white classifications
and some of the privileges that white people get."
Do you think that that's a possibility going forward?
Uh, for sure, that kind of... You know, we also know
that one of the many ways that Latinos are diverse
is their skin color, even, or racially diverse,
and their class background and their-- all kinds of things.
So yeah, that's certainly part of it.
You know, I think there's so many problems with the idea
that demography is destiny and demographic change
is gonna naturally lead to more Democratic victories.
I mean, the first, obviously,
is that Latinos are politically diverse
and-and feel different ways about a lot of different things,
but the second thing is that it kind of takes for granted
that the Republican Party is just gonna be static
and roll over and play dead as this sea of demographic change
washes over them.
And I think one of the particularly surprising things
about the results from last night is that Donald Trump
truly made inroads among Latino voters,
and that's shocking.
The idea that Donald Trump would be the second coming
of someone like George W. Bush, actually expand the Latino vote,
it just kind of blows the mind, right?
But, you know, the fact is, he did,
and he expanded Latino support.
And if I were a Democrat today,
I wouldn't kind of rest comfortably on this idea
that Latinos maybe helped Biden win in Arizona or Nevada.
I would be really worried that Trump...
Trump's Latino support seems to have expanded
-by several percentage points, -Right.
and that's something we need to spend a lot of time
thinking about and questioning a lot of our assumptions.
Well, I will say, talking to you
is one of the most fascinating conversations I've had.
I hope to have you on the show again,
and I genuinely recommend that everyone read your book.
Thank you so much for taking the time.
Take care, Trevor. Bye-bye.