Latino Decisions Blog
How perceptions of an anti-immigrant environment negatively impacts Latino health outcomes
The first 50 days of President Trump’s administration has seen an increase in immigration raids and the rise of hate crimes towards immigrants. This anti-immigrant sentiment is creating fear and…
Mobilizing Latinos with Identity Appeals: Evidence from Two Voter Turnout Experiments
Past research shows Latinos are more likely to vote and participate in politics when there is a Latino candidate on the ballot and when issues directly affecting the Latino community…
How campaigns can mobilize Latino voters: What worked best in 2012
Shortly after the 2014 midterm election, where Latinos comprised just eight percent of the national electorate according to exit polls, President Obama announced executive action that would defer deportations and…
Mass deportations are alienating young Latino voters from the Democratic Party
The United States government has been deporting large numbers of undocumented migrants as of late (see Figure 1 below), and the majority of them are Latino. In addition to negatively…
Ideological and Electoral Determinants of State Laws Targeting Undocumented Migrants
Background With efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform stalled on the federal level, the states have been playing an increasingly active role in shaping U.S. immigration policy. As a recent…
Minority Political Candidates Just Need a Chance
The following interview was originally published by Michigan State University Today. It’s not necessarily voters who should be blamed for the lack of minorities in state legislatures, but instead the…
The Latino Gender Gap in U.S. Politics
Women and Latinos in the U.S. are both attracting a lot of political attention, especially after their impressive electoral impact in the last few elections. We hear about the potential…
Punitive Immigration Policy in the American States
In recent years Latino Decisions has analyzed many nuances to federal immigration policy, primarily focused on the Latino electorate’s views on policy options and the electoral impact of various Congressional…
The Effect of Protests on Latino Political Attitudes Towards Government
Academics, media pundits, and activists alike have often pointed to the policy and institutional changes that large-scale collective actions can produce. And collective action seems increasingly prevalent, as evidenced by…
How Latino Voters May Decide Control of the U.S. House of Representatives
Despite growing popular support among non-Latinos both nationally and in key swing states in favor of immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship, the conventional wisdom suggests that the…
Supreme Court ignores extensive social science evidence of voting discrimination against Blacks and Latinos in Section 5 jurisdictions
Research from 2013 documents higher rates of prejudice, voting discrimination and inequality faced by African Americans and Latinos in jurisdictions fully covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act….
We still need the Voting Rights Act to give equal access
This article was originally published at NBC LATINO These days, voting is largely uneventful. You show up at the polls, check in, vote, and get your sticker. Long gone are…
Blacks and Latinos face more discrimination in states fully covered by Voting Rights Act
New brief filed with Supreme Court documents higher rates of prejudice, voting discrimination and inequality faced by African Americans and Latinos in jurisdictions fully covered by Section 5 of the…
Puerto Rico, A Latino 51’st State of the Union?
As plebiscitary debates in Scotland and Cataluña continue to grow, the debates over the outcome of the 2012 Puerto Rican plebiscite appear to be waning with the change of government…
How the Exit Polls Misrepresent Latino Voters, and Badly
Did you know that, despite running exceedingly racialized anti-Latino advertisements in Nevada’s Senate race, Sharon Angle got 30% of the Latino vote? Jan Brewer also did well, attracting an above-average…
Panethnic Identity: Building Understanding By Taking on Complexities
Findings in The Pew Hispanic Center’s recent study, “When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity” generated buzz among those interested in the dynamics of ethnic identity and…
Identifying a Relationship Between Latino Representation in Congress and Trust in Government
By Ricardo Ramirez, Gabriel R. Sanchez, and Shannon Sanchez-Youngmann Although all eyes will be focused squarely on the race for the white house this year, there are several important races…
Taking a Closer Look at Latino Pan-ethnic Identity
A recent report released by the Pew Hispanic Center indicated that the pan-ethnic terms of Latino and Hispanic do not resonate well with the population that they are intended to…
Latino Issue Priorities Linked to Presidential, Congressional Approval and Certainty of Voting
By Ali A. Valenzuela, Assistant Professor of Politics, Princeton University Will President Obama lose Latino voters in the 2012 election because of his administration’s immigration enforcement regime and lack of…
Projecting Latino Electoral Influence in 2012: What Percent of the Latino Vote Candidates Need to Win Each State
Matt A. Barreto, Ph.D. and Gary M. Segura, Ph.D., Latino Decisions We get asked the question about “Latino influence” from the press weekly—some weeks, daily. Answering the question is easy…