Latino Politics

The discussion on race and politics has been predominately about Caucasians and African Americans, however the increasing number of the Latino population in the United States leads political scientists to question how Latinos behave politically. Latinos do not behave in a political block. The assumption that Latinos behave this way is based on the studies of black politics. Studies show that African Americans tend to vote in a cohort leaning mostly democratic; based on these findings some political scientists believe “race (has) predictive powers”. Compared to the term African Americans, the term Latinos encompasses a wide range of origins accounting for different political interests and concerns.

There is not a Latino Identity -to –Politics

The biggest example would be the United State government’s history of implementing laws to exclude as well as hinder minorities’ participation in politics. For instance, the United States used the constitution against those who were suppose to be considered “citizens” under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Treaty obligated the United States to allow Mexicans living in the sequestered land to be American citizens. However, under the constitution to be considered a citizen you had to be “white” because of this Mexicans were to be classified as white. Although Mexicans were classified as white, therefore citizens, they were not given full citizen rights because “Congress gave states the right to determine the Mexicans’ citizenship status” (Bedolla,2014,p.50) A recent issue that has been in the news is the state of Texas denying children born to unauthorized immigrants birth certificates. Texas actions are a direct violation of the 14th amendment to the U.S constitution but there is stipulation on whether Texas is allowed to do this because Texas is denying birth certificates on the grounds of only accepting certain forms of identification. Most of the forms of identification accepted are not obtainable by unauthorized

As a result, of a large portion of Latinos being “non-citizens population, large under-18 population, and low registration and voting rates”; Latinos are unable to express their interests through voting. (Bedolla,2014,p.26) This also hinders Latinos ability to elect someone into office without building a coalition with another minority group. Latinos have a better chance of electing someone to office at the local level in areas where they make a majority of population and/ or are a majority of the