December 18, 2014

The latinoization of American politics



Sam Smith - The population chart above, from the University of Southern California, gives one reason why Barack Obama may have become so interested in latino issues. Latinos (dark gray, upper right) are on their way to becoming major players on the American political scene as the historic major minority - blacks - lag behind.

While the immigration issue is obvious, what may not be so clear is that Cubans make up only a small percent of American latinos and even within that group, things are changing.

As Daily Kos reported:
    The only people left supporting failure are the crusty old fucks who can't get past having lost the war half a century ago...

        A large majority favors diplomatic relations with Cuba (68%), with younger respondents strongly backing the policy shift (90%). Support for re-establishing diplomatic ties maintains a solid majority among all age groups up to age 70, after which it drops to a third of the population supporting the policy.

    A slight majority of the Cuban-American community in Miami-Dade County opposes continuing the U.S. embargo of Cuba. Countywide, 52% of the respondents oppose continuing the embargo. This percentage rises among Cuban Americans ages 18-29, 62% of whom oppose continuing the embargo. Similarly, 58% of those arriving since 1995 oppose continuing the embargo.
Which leaves Marco Rubio not only out of touch with his ethnicity and his Pope, but with his age cohort as well. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

there is still a seething anger and jealousy of the way the US treated Cubans immigrants and the rest of Latino immigrants. Such unfair treatment may be unforgivable. that's where the derogatory term "gusano" comes from.