No Such Thing as The Latino Vote? Hispanic American Swing Voters (Finale)

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Oct 12, 2022 | Part 3 of our series on understanding Hispanic voters

TPP wraps up its series on Hispanic American Swing Voters with three very different yet highly insightful guests:

Kicking things off, Northwestern University historian and frequent columnist Geraldo Cadava tells us that both parties have spun overly simplistic narratives of the Hispanic voter – which is a mythical concept, in his view.  Instead, according to Cadava, it’s time to dispense with the myth of the Hispanic vote nationwide, and to look beyond the various Hispanic communities toward individual beliefs and motivations. 

We move on to speak with two individuals with particularly resonant beliefs, motivations, and observations. The veteran comedian Carlos Mencia has always been an iconoclast who aims satire in all directions, political and social. Mencia reflects on his immigrant childhood, as one of 18 children, and living with relatives in a rough East L.A. neighborhood. He explains his indie-minded philosophy, noting that to be completely conservative or liberal is to ignore the critical importance of both change and tradition in American society and culture. 

And writer, producer, and comedian Cristela Alonzo knows a thing or two about that awkward tension between tradition and change. She grew up in an immigrant Tejano Catholic family just over the U.S. border in an abandoned diner and became the first Latina to create and star in a network television comedy, Cristela. Pointing out the large number of Mexicans who shop regularly in U.S. border malls but then return home, she reminds us that immigration for so many recent American arrivals is an imperative, not an option. 

We’ve learned so much from all our Hispanic Series guests.
In our first episode: 

  • Former Miami area moderate GOP Congressman Carlos Curbelo on major party approaches to Hispanic voters

  • Former centrist Democratic Mayor of San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, on the economic sway of the Republican Party in Texas, where the GOP has controlled state offices for 20 years

  • UT San Antonio Political Scientist Sharon Navarro on the “persuadability” of many Hispanic voters, particularly immigrants whose political opinions are still taking shape

In Episode Two we were fortunate to sit down with Chuck Rocha (Democratic strategist) and Mike Madrid (moderate GOP strategist). They’ve joined forces to push back on the anti-democracy elements of today's GOP and to co-host the timely and topical podcast, The Latino Vote. 

We hope you’ll sample all three episodes and contemplate the Latinization of U.S. politics and society, and whether some much-needed moderation may result. As always, please reach out with comments, suggestions, feedback or reviews.

The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.
Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney. 

SHOW NOTES

Our Guests:

  • Cristela Alonzo is a comedian, writer, and actress. She was the first Latina to create and star in a network TV comedy, Cristela, and her latest comedy special, Middle Classy, is now streaming on Netflix. You can find her on Twitter @cristela9.

  • Carlos Mencia is a comedian, writer, and actor. He hosted The Journey podcast, and his cable show Mind of Mencia ran four seasons on Comedy Central. You can find him on Twitter @carlosmencia.

Latino Leaders Mentioned this Episode:

  • Carlos Curbelo – Former Congressman representing  Florida’s 26th U.S. House District

  • Carlos Odio – Co-founder and Senior Vice President, Equis Research

  • Geraldo Cadava:

    I mean, I think anytime that there are statements about “Latinos are,” I would want to complicate that narrative a little bit by talking about what individuals beliefs and motivations are.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    That’s Geraldo Cadava, Professor of History at Northwestern University. You might have seen him in the PBS documentary, Latino Vote: Dispatches from the Battleground. Or you might have read his articles in The Atlantic or New York Times, including one entitled “There’s No Such Thing as the ‘Latino Vote’: Why Can’t America See That?”

    Geraldo Cadava:

    Latinos are staunch anticommunists because they fled from left-leaning governments in Latin America. They all have an immigrant or immigration narrative that has led them to believe in this pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality. Representatives of both parties have made assumptions about who Latinos are.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    I’m Robert Pease and this is the Purple Principle. We’re going to hear about some of those individual beliefs and motivations from two well known Latino voices whose personal stories have resonated with millions of Americans. First, the comedian Carlos Mencia, one of 18 children in a Honduran family that immigrated to one of the tougher sections of East LA.

    Carlos Mencia:

    Number one, I grew up in the projects. I was never in a gang, but I lived around that culture. And when we went to the movies, which was quote unquote no man's land, and somebody asked me, “Where are you from?” That answer could get me stabbed, shot, beat, ignored, or hugged.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    And the Mexican-American writer, actress, and comedienne, Cristela Alonzo.

    Cristela Alonzo:

    But, uh, we had no electricity. We had to share. Um, you know, we had some neighbors that were near us that allowed us to have an extension cord to their house that we could actually use for an, you know, for electricity. My mom would pay them a flat rate every month.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    But first, let’s hear from Geraldo Cadava on that myth of a Latino consensus on any issue, let alone for any one party or platform. His recent book, The Hispanic Republican, chronicles the shift of traditional Democratic Hispanic voters toward the GOP in some areas of the country, certainly not all. Democrats do still hold the advantage. But swing voters can often decide elections. Let’s start off here with a little bit of discussion we don’t normally include in the podcast. It’s where we kick off interviews with a favorite quote or two from a previous guest.

    [Enter Geraldo Cadava Interview]

    Robert Pease (Host):

    We do have a couple of quotes we just like to say, because it kind of sets the tone for our podcast, you know, which is kind of geared towards more centrist independents. That does a few things. It's gotten us some good press and it's alienated all our friends on the right and the left.

    Geraldo Cadava:

    Mm-hmm [affirmative].

    Robert Pease (Host):

    So…

    Geraldo Cadava:

    Yeah, I find myself in that position often.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Yeah. So, you may know, Dr. Geoffrey Kabaservice wrote a great book about the modern Republican Party, Rule and Ruin. We had him on in season one…

    [TPP Archival, Geoffrey Kabservice S1E17]

    Geoffrey Kabaservice:

    You know, in a rational system, or at least the system that's more along the lines of the multi-polar multi-party systems of other countries, we would have at least four different parties, probably more like six. But that's not the system that we have.

    Geraldo Cadava:

    Yeah, it reminds me of, uh, fall 2020. I was teaching a, a course at Northwestern, a large lecture course on what I was calling the history of the 2020 election, which is of course a preposterous concept since it was happening in real time. I remember students right after the election, when we were talking about what was the most likely future of American politics and the party system. And they really thought that it was possible that in the future, we could actually see at least four political parties where we would have a far-left, center-left, far-right, center-right. And that there would really be four political parties. So it just strikes me that this is a moment, and maybe these moments come and go, when we are really questioning the current political system we have and what other ones might come in the future.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    That’s interesting. A lot folks thinking that way. But we did wanna get your thoughts on a comment from Dr. Gabriel Salguero, Pastor at The Gathering Place in Orlando, Florida. This is from the same PBS documentary where you were interviewed, Dispatches from the Battleground.

    [Archival, Dr. Gabriel Salguero in Dispatches from the Battleground]

    Gabriel Salguero:

    And I'm saying, “Hey, what are you gonna say about immigration? What are you gonna do about healthcare? What are you gonna do about criminal justice reform? What are you gonna do about religious liberty and what, and what are you gonna do about life?” And when you speak to those whole host of issues, no party has a monopoly. If I'm gonna be honest, we're politically homeless. We are politically homeless. And that's why so many of us, like me, are registered independent looking for a platform that speaks to the priorities that are so close to home, and that matter to our kids and our children and our grandchildren and our abuelitos and our abuelitas.

    Geraldo Cadava:

    I think he is a great example of what we're talking about here. I mean, he's an evangelical pastor. And I think, you know, when we talk about Latino liberals or Latino conservatives, when we hear the word evangelical pastor, we're inclined to kind of put them in a particular partisan camp, they're Republicans. Not for bad reasons. I mean, it is true that the Trump administration from the first day they set foot in office did make a concerted effort to reach out to Latino evangelicals. But here's why. It’s not because Latino evangelicals are inherently conservative. You can follow some of these Claremont McKenna polls. There's a professor named, Gastón Espinosa who wrote a book about Latino evangelicals, a long history of Latino evangelicals. He does polling of how Latino religion intersects with political identities and so it's a pretty even split, actually. And I think that's what he means when he says that Latino evangelicals are swing voters, or they don't have a natural home. But, I do think that it always reminds me of Barry Goldwater's line of how you go hunting where the ducks are.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Yeah, well, I know it was maybe largely accidental, but there's large Latino communities in all the pivotal swing states, the Sunbelt and, Florida, Arizona, Texas. So that creates some leverage.

    Geraldo Cadava:

    That's a kind of longstanding phenomenon in ways that I would actually to see shift because I think the problem, one problem that the electoral college creates for Latinos is that, you know, it places an extreme importance on states like Texas and Arizona and Florida, you know, the handful of states that really shape elections, with two negative results. One is that it incentivizes parties to kind of fix in their minds who the Latinos in those particular areas are and how to reach out to them. So Florida becomes the state of Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Texas becomes the state of state of Mexican Americans, same with California. And it's much more complicated than that. But it also leads us to ignore all of the other states where there are large enough Latino populations to tilt both state and federal elections like Wisconsin, like Michigan, like Pennsylvania.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Yeah. We heard a little bit about that from Carlos Curbelo about his district in Southwest Miami and historically very Cuban, but it's been diversifying more, more Mexicans, more people from Central America. So let's play the first clip of Carlos on Latinos as natural independents.

    [TPP Archival, Carlos Curbelo S2E26]

    Carlos Curbelo:

    I think that's right. Obviously there are exceptions, but more recent immigrants don't have those generational commitments to, to political parties. So, they're kind of up for grabs. Obviously, if, if you've come to this country recently in the last 10, 20, 30 years, you probably came here because you wanted to work. You wanted to get a good job, so you could make money for your family and then get your kids a good education. So, jobs, the economy and education, you know, if you're not talking about that with Latino voters, you're, you’re losing. And I think Republicans have been smart at trying to meet Hispanics where they're at. Democrats in more recent years have tried to meet Hispanics where they would like them to be.

    Geraldo Cadava:

    It certainly strikes me as a representative sentiment of what I heard from many Hispanic Republicans I interviewed, and I, I remember for example, one conversation with the head of the Republican party in El Paso, who told me that until the pandemic hit, he personally would go to all of the naturalization ceremonies held in El Paso and pass out literature about what the Republican party stood for. And also, another one of these moments came when I interviewed a, a man named Alfonso Aguilar, who I think was the head of the Catholics for Trump organization. He told me that the Democratic party and Democrats writ large, kind of fundamentally misunderstand the ambition of Latin American immigrants. Latin American immigrants don't move to the United States, wanting to become Latinos, wanting to become identified as a minority group in the United States with other Latinos. They want to come to the United States to get ahead, to provide for their families, to seek better opportunities for their children.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    We also wanted to look at the end of the book, you said this book could become a requiem for the moment of inclusion that seemed possible from the sixties through the eighties but then ended, or it could be a story about how Republicans maintain power despite changing demographics or in part thanks to support from Hispanics. So, two years later, may be too soon to tell, but which way do you think it's trending?

    Geraldo Cadava:

    That is a great question. Robert, I still think I would end on the note that these are the possibilities. But I remember talking to Carlos Odio from Equis Research who told me about how campaigns and their representatives are always kind of fighting the last war. And by that he meant that, you know, we're trying to make sense of 2020, and parties and campaigns are trying to figure out how to approach 2022 and 2024 with what happened in 2020 in mind. And I think that there's a way in which 2020, as a marker of meaning, can be overdetermined. I really don't think we know what 2020 was representative of, if it was representative of anything. I mean, on the one hand you had a global pandemic that scrambled politics in certain ways, you also had perhaps a uniquely charismatic and demagogic politician.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Final question, we ask all of our guests to show a bit of purple and name someone from each party, either currently in office, recently in office, you know, fairly prominent that our listeners would recognize, who in your opinion was a little more of a transcendent figure.

    Geraldo Cadava:

    Oh my goodness. This is a tricky question. I personally, I still think of Barack Obama as that kind of transcendent political figure who was really about trying to bring the country together. I remember all of his state of the union speeches where he kind of went to great pains to say that he would work with anyone to get something done. If there are Republican ideas that when it came to, for example, like re-engineering the rust belt economies to be more green or, um, high tech, you know, if there were Republican ideas that would advance that project, he was willing to go for that. But, you know, I think over the past eight years, his legacy has come in for a bit of a beating from all sides, really. I mean, Donald Trump spent a lot of time talking about the only reason he was president is that Barack Obama was president and that Barack Obama was, in fact, some kind of radical progressive. And then you have people like Ta-Nehisi Coates after the 2016 election writing an article called, you know, “My President Was Black,” which talked a lot about, you know, the fundamental argument of that piece was that Obama's optimism about the possibility of bipartisanship was naïve and misplaced.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Anyone on the Republican side?

    Geraldo Cadava:

    You know, that's an interesting question. I don't think that I, I don't know that I could point to a particular politician, but here's what I will say. I have to say that a lot of the people I interviewed to write my book, I left those conversations thinking, “that was a reasonable.” And the people I'm thinking about in particular are people like Daniel Garza, who I've had several conversations with. He's the executive director of the Libre Initiative, which is a kind of Koch funded, or Americans for Prosperity funded initiative that is all about promoting the virtues of free enterprise within Latino communities. So there's that kind of public posturing in his partisanship when it comes to what he says on Twitter or whatever. But whenever I speak with him I feel like I'm talking to someone who's very thoughtful and considerate and wants to find common ground, and frankly wants to do what he thinks is best for America. But I think there were a lot of Latino conservatives that I talked to that I left those conversations thinking like, hmm, the thought that came to my mind is like, “how could we reproduce on a bigger scale, the conversation I just had with this individual,” because he was someone I didn't necessarily agree with, I didn't see eye to eye with, but I could have a conversation with him. And so I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can kind of scale up these, uh, face to face individual conversations to a national level. I'm not sure that it's possible. I think a lot of things interfere with it along the way, including Twitter and social media, but it's what I hold out hope for.

    [Exit Geraldo Cadava Interview]

    Robert Pease (Host):

    We’ve been speaking with Dr. Geraldo Cadava, expressing there his hope for real dialogue across the partisan divide. He also stressed the importance of looking past simplistic narratives both parties have spread about Latino American voters and looking toward personal beliefs and motivations. We’ve been fortunate to interview two Hispanic Americans whose very different personal stories, styles and insights have resonated with huge audiences in the U.S. Carlos Mencia has been a popular stand-up comedian for decades with inexhaustible stage energy and a remarkable talent for accents of all kinds. His cable show, Mind of Mencia, ran four seasons on Comedy Central. And after a lengthy battle with accusations of joke theft, a trial by Twitter and the behavioral aftermath of all that, Carlos is now back on the comedy circuit. We asked him about the political independence he’s shown throughout that very public career and an invitation some years ago to discuss politics on a major network that just kept asking him, Carlos, what side are you on?

    [Enter Carlos Mencia Interview]

    Carlos Mencia:

    Well, you know, it's funny because I remember being very annoyed when I was young, watching, I think it was, way back in the day when they used to have a TV show Crossfire. And, uh, I remember being annoyed that Jon Stewart went on and basically wasn't funny, and was basically telling them that they are like the devil and, you know, I'm watching this show and I'm young and I didn't really understand where he is coming from. And then with time I saw what he saw way early on in this, that pitting people against each other when you have a real take is okay. But when they literally now have like, you're just slotted. There's the guys that are gonna say “yes, this is an amazing idea,” and the guys that are gonna say, “no.” You don't even know what you're gonna talk about until a few, sometimes hours, maybe minutes before the show. And then they literally just want you to oppose each other, no matter what it is that you believe or feel, they just need that combative nature. And when I was asked to be on this and they kept asking me, “where are you coming from?” I kept saying, “well, what is it? What's the subject matter?” And I remember thinking, and I don't remember if I said this to them, or if I just saved it for a joke. But I remember saying, “look, I'm intelligent enough to realize that to be a complete conservative and never change anything in a world that is ever evolving is asinine. On the other hand, to be a complete liberal and to be completely on the other side and want to change everything and not learn from any of your mistakes and not do anything that your ancestors have done is just, is fucking stupid.”

    Robert Pease (Host):

    We do want to go back into your childhood or perhaps adolescence and ask, when did you first realize that you were more of an independent thinker than perhaps your friends or your siblings?

    Carlos Mencia:

    Yeah. But it’s, ah… so I had a teacher named Benson, two things that he did. One of 'em, he used, uh, humor to open the dialogue and he taught government and anthropology. And his two classes had the highest GPA of any of the classes, because he was really fun to be around.

    So he divided the room into two countries, and he said “write up between yourselves a Constitution and then, you know, for a week or so, we are gonna actually pretend that these are two different countries.” Immediately, the seven really smart people went to one corner and said, “we don't care about the idiots. You guys do your own.” So I went with the other side and told all those kids, “hey guys, let's meet.” Never met. “Let's hang out.” Never hang out. “I need your input.” Never gave it to me. So at the end of it, I had to write a Constitution myself, to represent all of those other kids. And then they were pissed at me when they read it. And what it taught me was that as much as you want to help people, you cannot help those that do not wish to help themselves. Just look at how many people vote in this country, the percentage-wise, and you'll see. And all those people that don't vote, they still complain.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Yeah. Well, could we talk a little bit about immigration, which is such a touchy issue, and it's so often reduced to, you know, one party's talking point or another, and it's so much more complicated than that.

    Carlos Mencia:

    Listen, I understand all sides of this. So one of them is, I cannot, cannot, cannot get upset with illegal immigrants or undocumented people, whatever you want to call 'em, whatever you wanna say, coming into America, trying to invent a different life. You know, our country was founded on that.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Well, that's a great point. We also wanted to talk about this interesting mix of patriotism sometimes in your humor but also your criticism of the excesses of U.S. society.

    Carlos Mencia:

    I think that America's, you know, the most upwardly mobile country in the world. More people go from poverty to, you know, having whatever kind of money you have. More immigrants in this country are fortune–immigrants or children of immigrants pretty much rule the Fortune 500. I love that. But I also hate that we're living in a country where you don't have to have, you know, in order to get in a car, you literally have to take a test to know that you know what the signs mean, what everything means. And then you literally have to get in a car and show that you can do this. In order to have a kid and affect a child, you can be the dumbest fucking person. And I think that our inability to see the chinks in the armor, so to speak or, or to exacerbate them is the problem. You know, I do a joke right now where I met this lady at a McDonald's who couldn't pronounce “crispy chicken.” And the whole joke is basically she pronounced “crispy” like “creepy.” But the essence of the joke is, my friends tried to get mad at this woman who couldn't pronounce “crispy chicken.” And I remember at the time thinking guys, you guys are missing the forest for the trees here. She's not the one we should be mad at. And everybody said, the three people in my car other than myself said, “well, who are you mad at?” And I said, “I am mad at every American that applied for that exact position and was bested by this woman that can't pronounce ‘crispy chicken.’ That's who I'm mad at.” How can I get mad at the best applicant? I want to see the interviews of the people that were so bad that the McDonald's Corporation literally said, “we're gonna hire the lady that said ‘creepy chicken’ because the rest were worse.”

    [Exit Carlos Mencia Interview]

    Robert Pease (Host):

    That was Carlos Mencia, a hugely successful stand up comedian and Comedy Central star in the early 2000s, now on the comeback trail with his indie-minded take on U.S. politics, society, and fast food offerings. We wish Carlos every success on his return to the comedy stage, and turn now to another Hispanic American who’s had great success as a stand-up comedian showcased in two Netflix specials, Lower Classy from 2017:

    [Archival, Cristela Alonzo in Lower Classy]

    Cristela Alonzo:

    You know what pissed me off, when I started hearing people saying “we need to go back to the good old days.” You ever notice it’s only white people saying that shit?

    Robert Pease (Host):

    And just out in 2022, Middle Classy.

    [Archival, Cristela Alonzo in Middle Classy]

    Cristela Alonzo:

    I grew up in the hood. Sometimes, we’ll name our kids things we want out of life, you know? Like “yo, that’s my daughter Mercedes, what’s up?”

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Cristela Alonzo grew up in an abandoned diner for many years, cooking on a space heater, bathing in a large pickle tub. She credits her hard working Mexican mother for the drive needed to ascend from those humble beginnings to become the first Latino woman to create and star in her own network TV show, Cristela. She’s also the author of a best selling memoir, Music to My Years. And she is today a huge advocate for voting rights and participation. But we begin the conversation back in her Texas childhood. And not so surprisingly, neither the Mexican cultural traditions, nor the Catholicism of that community neatly align with either U.S. political party.

    [Enter Cristela Alonzo Interview]

    Cristela Alonzo:

    Look, I grew up in a border town where Republicans and Democrats, neither of them ever really did outreach in our community. So that's one of the reasons that I actually am so active in that, you know, in that world now, because growing up, we were never sought after. I think that Latinos do find themselves kind of torn apart. I think that religion does make you more conservative in my neighborhood. But I can tell you that I grew up in a devoutly Catholic household, and because of my upbringing, I actually lean towards more liberal ideals because I actually practice what I was taught. And that's what I think is so interesting. You know, I read the Bible, I went to church, I used to watch Catholic cartoons when I was a kid, religious cartoons, you know, I used to watch the Trinity Broadcast Network, you know what I mean? Like, I used to watch all of this. And when you're a kid, those cartoons would teach you to be a good person and help others in need.

    Robert Pease (Host):

    Yeah. Well, we don't have very many political choices in this country. There's a famous quote that the worst number of political parties is one and a close second is just two political parties. And that's pretty much where we're at. So, we wanted to give you a chance to describe in your own words, you know, avoiding all the simplistic labels and colors and things, you know, your own political position and how that has evolved over time.

    Cristela Alonzo:

    I think that when I started out, when I was growing up, I was conservative in that I was conservative when it came to certain, like, uh, social issues. And look, let me tell you, growing up Catholic, I wasn't familiar with other religions. It was all Catholic. It was all Catholicism. But you know, what I learned when I left Texas, when I left my hometown area, was that it didn't matter what religion people were because it really was about who they were themselves. I can tell you that I grew up next to a neighbor of mine who is a gay lesbian. And you know, typically that would go against the Catholicism, I guess you could say, like the beliefs. But we loved her because she was a good person. And that's when you realize that what you're taught sometimes, you have to apply it to the bigger picture. You know, you were talking about having two political parties. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm no party. And I do that because I refuse to pledge allegiance to a party because I feel like there's just, it just, to me, I allow myself to have opinions. Now, I will say that I lean Democratic, but I'm also very critical of them. Politically, I will say that one thing I strive for is to break the stereotype of what we think the Latino community thinks about or supports. Immigration has always been important to me, but that's not everything that Latinos talk about. But to me, growing up in a border town where I grew up in, we have a mall there that is one of the biggest, like biggest money making malls in the country. And why is it? It's because of Mexicans. Mexicans come here and buy the products and then go back to Mexico. They want to buy it here because the quality was better. So they come here, they shop, and then they go back home because the reality is nobody wants to come or leave their home if they don't have to. Nobody wants to come here unless they have to.

    [Exit Cristela Alonzo Interview]

    Robert Pease (Host):

    An important bit of insight there from Cristela Alonzo on immigration and border economies. She’s also experienced the political fault lines in those immigrant communities, pulled one way by religious and cultural traditions, pulled another way on issues like immigration, healthcare and economic security. As are many Hispanic swing voters nationwide. Meanwhile both parties have escalated their battle for these voters, who may well decide the 2022 and future US elections not as a bloc, but as individuals and families wrestling with our very limited and polarized political choices. Many thanks to all our guests on this series for making us more informed on the importance and the diversity of the nation’s large and rapidly growing Hispanic American demographic now increasingly spread throughout the country in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. A complete list of series guests is available in our show notes. Coming up on The Purple Principle, another look at Alaska as it holds the nation's first ever state wide ranked choice voting election for federal and state elections, including the senate seat currently held by moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski. Thanks to all our listeners from the Purple Principle team. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.

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