If this election has taught us anything it’s that most Latinos do not vote the same, even though the country likes to think we do.
Every four years when the presidential election rolls around, we start hearing about the “Latino vote.” Who is going to get the “Latino vote?” Will the “Latino vote” be swayed left or right? And the truth is, there is not one, singular “Latino vote.” We are a very large group of people who, much to everyone’s surprise, do not agree on every issue.
As I watched the election coverage and scrolled through my Twitter feed over the last couple of days, and specifically when the results began to come in for Florida and Arizona, I heard the following phrases being thrown around a lot: “Trump seems to have won the Latino vote in Florida,” and “Biden has won the Latino vote in Arizona.”
There is a reason why Latinos in Florida voted differently than Latinos in Arizona: different groups of Latinos live in different parts of the United States and they have very different sets of views. The majority of Latinos in Florida are Cuban, Colombian, and Venezuelan, whereas the majority of Latinos in Arizona are Mexican. If we look at a world map, this would not surprise us. Arizona is closer to the Mexico-United States border, and Florida is much closer to Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela, so of course the Latino population is going to vary between these states, and there is a reason why different Latinos support different candidates.
Within Arizona, the “show me your papers” bill, or Arizona SB 1070, which requires immigrants over the age of 18 to carry physical documentation showing their immigration status, has a direct impact on the large Mexican population by the increase of racial profiling and overall sense of fear, and Trump has worked to perpetuate this anti-immigrant narrative, so it is no surprise that Trump was not the favorite in Arizona. In Florida, where Cuban, Venezuelan, and Colombian residents make up the majority of the Latino population, the fear of a socialist government is very widespread due to the political history of these countries, and a common narrative within the Republican party, and specifically from Trump, is the idea that Democrats are trying to push a socialist agenda, so, once again, it is no surprise that Biden did not perform as well as Trump did.
In addition to seeing the overgeneralization and the overuse of the term “Latino vote,” I saw a lot of disappointment from non-Latinx people. Many people questioned how a Latino could vote for Trump after he called immigrants from Mexico rapists and criminals. A possible reason some Latinos voted for Trump was because they were not targeted by this statement. Trump targeted Mexican immigrants in this speech, not Colombian immigrants, not Cuban immigrants, not Venezuelan immigrants. And, once again, not all Latinos in the United States are Mexican, and just like the majority of the United States, people pay attention to policies and statements that directly affect them, and vote accordingly.
Even within the Latino community, people choose to leave their home countries for many reasons. In some Latin American countries, coming to the United States meant leaving an authoritarian regime, and for others, it simply means a chance for a better life, whatever that may mean to them.
Even though personally as a Latina, and specifically as a Mexican-American woman, I do not think it is in our best interest to support Trump, and I have expressed this before, whether or not a Latino voted for Trump or Biden is not the issue at hand. What matters is that overgeneralizations of our group can be a dangerous thing for candidates. It is very frustrating to see this constant overgeneralization because we are so often overlooked even though our voices really do matter and have a larger magnitude than we think.
There are 33 Latin American countries. How can we possibly minimize our voices to one single “Latino vote?” This “Latino vote” does not exist, and I hope that in the years to come, we learn from this election and begin to pay attention to the diverse groups of people that make up the Latino population, because it can make all the difference in the next election.