2025/05/29 by Roger Sargent Cadena · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Racial and Ethnic Identity Research #Race, History, and American Society #Migration, Refugees, and Integration
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/01419870.2025.2504613
openalex publication_date 2025/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/19
Although former Republican President Donald Trump has been criticized for being xenophobic and racist, surveys and election results show that Latinos are increasingly shifting politically rightward. Such shifts contradict assumptions about race, ethnicity, and immigration politics, puzzling analysts and laypeople alike as to why non-White immigrant voters would support Trump. In this article, I draw upon 66 original interviews with US Latinos to break through scholarly and popular “puzzlement” about US Latino politics. To learn how Latinos navigate the cultural dynamics of political projects, we must talk to Latino voters and reconsider deep-seated, common, and flawed assumptions about this ethnoracial group. I find the following: (1) Latinos have come to directly and negatively associate Latino conservatism with Trumpism, (2) Latino Republican voters actively work to reconcile the perceived contradiction between being Latino and voting Republican, and (3) ethnoracial and political identities are contested within Latino families.