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The Latino National Political Survey
Pundits and politicians have in recent decades become increasingly concerned about the nations Spanish-origin populations. Among the questions they ask are How much do Latinos support fundamental American values? How willing are they to learn English? Are Hispanics liberal or conservative, Republicans or Democrats? Is it better or more accurate to refer to them as Hispanics or as Latinos?
The need to answer questions such as these gave rise to the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS). Future volumes will thoroughly analyze its results. In this volume, our objective is much more modest: to provide basic information about the political values, attitudes and behaviors of the Mexican-, Puerto Rican-, and Cuban-origin populations in the United States.
There are several reasons why politicians, the press, and the American public are now interested in Hispanic populations. One is demographic. From 1970 to 1980, Hispanics went from 9.1 to 14.6 million, an increase of 60 percent. By 1990, they increased by another 47 percent, to 21.4 million. A second is that this growth has been accompanied by geographic dispersion and changes in the national origins of the group. Historically, the great majority of this population was of Mexican origin and concentrated in the Southwest, including California. Today, this population is visible in virtually every major city in the country and includes large concentrations of Cubans and Puerto Ricans as well as identifiable clusters of groups from the Caribbean (Haitians and Dominicans), from Central America (Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans), and growing concentrations of Latin American nationalities.
A third factor is increased political clout. For several reasons, including mushrooming activism and the expanded protections of the Voting Rights Act, the number of Spanish-origin representatives has increased rapidly. In Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, New York, and Texas, this expansion outpaced population growth between 1973 and 1990 (Pachon and DeSipio 1992). This growth rate reflects both recent dramatic gains and the historical exclusion of this population from elective office.
The nations knowledge about this group has lagged behind its interest in it, and this knowledge gap has become fertile ground for claims and counterclaims about Hispanicswho they are and what their presence portends for the nation. Non-Latinos rooted in or nurtured by historically grounded anti-Hispanic biases expressed alarm. Their fears, fueled by unsubstantiated claims, contributed to creating the climate that produced the Official English movement and the anti-Hispanic dimensions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (de la Garza and Trujillo 1991; de la Garza 1992). Although neither of these focuses exclusively on Latinos, there is no question that both target Hispanics.
Indicative of that national mood is a 1990 national poll that found that, compared to Jews, blacks, Asians, and southern whites, Americans perceive Latinos as second only to blacks in terms of being lazy rather than hard-working and as living off welfare rather than being selfsupporting (Smith 1990). The survey also reports that Hispanics are seen as the nations least-patriotic group. Nationally influential individuals such as Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), former governor Richard Lamm (D-CO), and Michael Teitelbaum of the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation share this latter concern and have gone so far as to suggest that Latinos threaten the physical and political integrity of the nation (Fuchs 1990: 255256).
Unlike Anglos, Latinos reacted positively to demographic increases, and many made equally unsubstantiated claims about how this growth would affect the nation. Perhaps the most vivid illustration of hopeful and exaggerated projections was that the 1980s would be the Decade of the Hispanic. The assertion was that with increased numbers, Latino political clout would influence the outcome of the presidential election of 1980; when that did not materialize, they made a stronger claim for the 1984 election, and then the 1988 election (de la Garza and DeSipio 1992). Similarly, they predicted that their new political clout would make itself felt in legislation emanating from Congress and statehouses across the nation. Without doubt, Latino influence did increase in these legislatures; equally true is that this influence did not approximate what had been predicted.
Similar unsubstantiated claims were made regarding other aspects of Hispanic life. Market analysts proclaimed the existence of a distinct Hispanic market unified by language and other cultural styles (Caplan 1987). More significantly, leaders in the commercial world and in politics spoke and acted as if the Spanish-origin populations constituted a community, that is, a relatively homogeneous population with a common culture and shared political and economic interests. Whether this group was identified as Hispanics or Latinos was less significant than the assertion that a coherent group existed and must be recognized.
Politically, the group came to be recognized. By 1984, the potential of the Latino vote was such that both parties claimed to have won the support of the Latino community. Democrats pointed to the historical support they had received from Mexican Americans and to the continued support they received in the barrios of the Southwest to document that they continued to win the great majority of Latino votes. Republicans emphasized that they had made major inroads into the Hispanic community because Republicans appealed to traditional Hispanic values such as religion, the family, and the work ethic. Scholars and columnists who analyzed the results of the 1984 campaign concluded, however, that neither assertion could be believed because neither was supported by reliable data (de la Garza 1987).
The principal reason for questioning these and other claims regarding Latinos is that neither in 1984 nor since have independent national surveys and public opinion polls systematically included Latinos as a separate population whose social and political attitudes and behaviors could be analyzed. Moreover, when Latinos are included, the several subgroups are not identified separately so as to know whether the views presented are those of Mexican-, Puerto Rican-, or Cuban-origin respondents. As is shown throughout this volume, on many important issues there are key differences among these groups, and therefore it is necessary to identify whose views are being cited.
Thus, until now, there have been no reliable national data indicating whether Latinos support traditional values, as Republicans claim. Moreover, Republicans claim generalized Hispanic support when what they have received is overwhelming support from Cubans in Florida. At the state and local levels within Florida, ftirthermore, Cuban Republicanism is somewhat tenuous (Grenier 1991). Also, there are reasons to suspect that Republican polls describing Latino support oversample the small number of affluent Latinos who live in mixed or majority Anglo neighborhoods, that is, those who are most likely to vote Republican. In short, Republican claims about Latino support are not believable.
