"Border residents, many of whom are Hispanic, are very concerned about border security, even if they’re not fans of Trump’s disruptive wall."
You could not be further off the mark. Guy from Brownsville here, living 1.5 miles from the river as the crow flies, and I feel very safe, and I haven't heard a soul say border security was a concern. No one. People have been living next to the river forever, and only within the last 15 years has there been a patchwork quilt of fence. Hell, there's even a golf community full of white retirees right on the river, "unprotected" by the fence.. And within the border cities themselves, violent crime is below the national average. "Border security" is not in the average person's vocabulary over here.
About the rest of your analysis of South Texas, you point out some correct attributes, but I think your analysis along with many other commentators' analyses is really just foisting pre-conceived notions onto this region and Latinos in general. People look at Starr and Zapata, and they say, OMG, Latinos are abandoning Democrats. Zapata had 4k voters and Starr had 17k. Nearby Hidalgo and Cameron counties are where most people live (330k voters). Let's just look at my county, Cameron. Biden got 56% and Hillary got 64%. An 8% gap doesn't look as bad, does it? Now consider mail-in ballots. We have no idea yet how many ballots didn't make it to the elections offices. Those that were accepted went for Biden by 70%. Then, you have to consider that Biden, compared to Hillary and Obama, has no star power with Tejanos. Trump also had a really good social media campaign targeting conservative non-voters. This is really a story of dampened Democratic turnout and increased Republican turnout. But commentators make it seem like Tejano Democrats flipped. Certainly, some did, but there were also Republicans who flipped for the presidential race, so it's a wash. Just took a really quick look at the precinct reports from 2016 and 2020, and Republican precincts were less Republican and Democratic precincts were less Democratic. Still need to look into that further, but I'm just saying the real story is a lot more complex then what most commentators are thinking. But one thing's for sure, the idea that Tejanos are abandoning the Democratic party is way off.
Why continue to trot out the fiction that Trump did not condemn neo nazis and white supremacy in his post Charleston good on both sides speech? Two sentences before the offhand good on both sides remark he clearly denounced white supremacy.
" The only English-language equivalent to the Spanish ‘mestizaje’ (a word of neutral or even positive connotation) is the word ‘miscegenation’,"
Well, besides "mixed race"... what we lack in English is an exact equivalent in the academic register for 'mestizaje' ... so when we use the simple Anglo-Saxon words we feel we are not really being analytical...
This article is so boomer. "You wanna know why Biden lost the election for Cubans living in Miami! It's because your fancy socialist words hurt my feelings."
1) When really all Cubans living in Miami slobber all over capitalism the same way farmers slobbered over capitalism at the beginning of the industrial revolution in England. All of a sudden those former farmers they had more money than they ever think they would.
2) When really all Cubans living in Miami slobber all over capitalism the same way baby boomers slobbered over capitalism at the end of world war II in the USA when the USA held the rest of world in debt and made all the cheap junk (like china makes now). All of a sudden baby boomers had more money than they ever think they would.
Antonio Garcia-Martinez has to claim it is hard work and show people who are working hard to fake his way to looking like he deserves the luck he had living in an area where the rich go for vacations and retire. (Enjoy watching your family be moved out north or moved closer to the ocean as water levels rise.)
Yeah of course immigrants into the united states don't care. They are making more money then they ever dreamed. Then when Immigrants join union jobs in the united states and when their employers say "hey you can make an extra dollar just by giving up your dental plan" They jump at the chance against the wishes of their union.
Miami Cubans are toilet paper to republican. Many immigrants are toilet paper to republicans. Take the Death Penalty: Most immigrants support the death penalty because they come from a mono culture where the death penalty is acceptable because they think that all cultures use the death penalty responsibly. Republican can speak to that mono culture because their British / German / Scot-Irish heritage allow them to create a fake "whiteness-mono culture" And then another black man is put to death because Miami Cubans help to keep republicans in power.
Nice article. It's ironic, and maybe fitting, that the survival of our countries' foundational values rest with immigrants and not the native born population that take them for granted.
From an older English newspaper headline: "Storms ravage English Channel, Europe isolated!" well describes the self-centered view of the woke, mostly white and monolingual, elite in the United States.
We need nuanced, context/country/culture specific analysis. That's what you've provided here, and it is fantastic. I'v been sharing it with everone as a template for how real thinking about political issues and groups should be framed.
Texan Mexicans are different from the Cuban Floridians. The fact that Martinez is putting them together is Martinez trying to make a fake story that everybody is the same. Martinez is trying to whiten himself up into one of ruling cultures of British/German/Scot-Irish.
Those Mexicans live on the left boarder of the Texas that people derogatorily call "West Texan." They are culturally closer to Los Angeles (Government and Capitalism, doesn't matter what ever gets the job done) than: 1) the Libertarian/Scot-Irish Appalachian /Central Texas; 2) The East Coast Wannabe Be Southern Rich Texas; or 3) the forgettable tip of the panhandle Ohio influenced northern Texas.
They were heavily for both Bernie Sanders, and Trump but hated Biden/Romney/ any career politican. One of the things both Trump and Bernie share is that both were Politically-Untainted. Trump was socially Tainted, but never held office. In a political way Trump was pure. Bernie by being an Independent and against the war was able to shake off a lot of the political taint.
Those west Texans are okay enough with government to vote but have altered by their neighbors: the Libertarian/Scot-Irish Appalachian /Central Texas to want these "pure" politicians.
This is an opposition to as opposed to the apolitical Evangelicals who used trump to get into heaven, the "Genius" Brain atheistic protestant capitalists, or the generic white supremacists that came from mixing the German Spirit, with British Slave ownership and Athenian/Spartan/ Roman fantasies.
In your description of Miami, I could not help but think of Tom Wolfe's last novel, Back to Blood. Hilarious book, congruent with you description of Miami.
This ignores why Hispanics (which are indeed broadly similar aside from Cuban and Venezuelan exilees) were and still are a mostly reliable D vote. It certainly cant be social issues because of how Catholic they (we, as a Mexican living in México) all are, but it doesnt follow that they couldnt be pulled leftwards to the party thats not tough on immigrants. Maybe theres an intergenerational shift that makes them less supportive of the D stance on migration.
I'm also happy to see that pretty must everything I have come to learn about Miami is congruent to what a thoughtful Miami native knows. I have lived in Miami for four years, having moved here after living and working in NYC for a long time.
I have spent a significant part of my career traveling for work and have been to lot of major US cities and the majority of states. And there is, of course, variation of culture and custom across the US, region to region and rural to urban. But, man, Miami is *weird*.
I was confident that I could get Miami figured out as my experience built up, but for a long time it didn't feel like I was making any progress. But one day I had an epiphany. After living here for ten months or so I was driving through Little Havana one day, stuck in some traffic, looked over and noticed a sign by the parking lot of a pharmacy. "Salida." And suddenly it struck me: Miami is not an American city; it is a Latin-American city! In the weeks and months following that revelation most of the things that never made sense increasingly started to make sense.
Gracias por enfatizar el conflicto como un "problema civilizatorio" entre una identidad hispana y otra anglo. Nuestra mestizofilia nace precisamente de ese componente barroco-católico que nos legó la Monarquía Hispánica, cosa que no sucedió en ninguna parte de la anglosfera.
Dicho esto, me parece pertinente que tomes en cuenta el discurso anti-mestizo con tendencias indigenizantes que se dan en las Universidades gringas ¿Notaste como se rechaza el uso de "latino" (ni que decir hispano) por qué -supuestamente- "invisibiliza" a los negros e indígenas?
Claro que este discursillo no sale de la universidades, pero hay que tomarlo en cuenta. Fueron los mismos hispanos del Movimiento Mexica los que promovieron la destrucción de las estatuas de Junípero Serra, un símbolo de la catolicidad hispana en Estados Unidos. En Nuevo México pasó más de lo mismo con Juan de Oñate, un conquistador MEXICANO. Todo eso implica una negación frontal de la identidad hispana por los propios hispanos. El movimiento chicano en los 60s por lo menos todavía mantenía ese aspecto mestizofilico aunque con una tendencia marcadamente indigenista y negrolegendaria. Empero, el chicano afirmaba su descendencia dual nombrando a Cortés y a Cuauhtémoc, y legitimando así su existencia en el Southwest.
¿Y qué me dices de la protestantización de los hispanos, tanto en Estados Unidos como en Hispanoamérica? Claro, que todavía queda un cierto catolicismo nominal, pero que quizás esté entrando en un proceso de des-hispanización precisamente por el protestantismo. Quién sabe.
As a white person with Hispanic and European ancestry who grew up on the boarder but never learned Spanish, I'm one of those people the Democrat's might assume should be on their side. But I'm not. The Democrats have used division and promises of money, essentially, to maintain power: and, now they are leaning ever more into socialism to push the promise of allowing the little guy to get more money from someone else.
One can only hope Americans will wake up and see the promise for what it is.... empty.
I've thought that if militant white radicals did irreparable electoral and repetitional damage to the just cause of Black Lives Matter, it would be the ultimate ironic triumph of white supremacy.
LatinX-plaining the election
So...everyone agrees? :)
"Border residents, many of whom are Hispanic, are very concerned about border security, even if they’re not fans of Trump’s disruptive wall."
You could not be further off the mark. Guy from Brownsville here, living 1.5 miles from the river as the crow flies, and I feel very safe, and I haven't heard a soul say border security was a concern. No one. People have been living next to the river forever, and only within the last 15 years has there been a patchwork quilt of fence. Hell, there's even a golf community full of white retirees right on the river, "unprotected" by the fence.. And within the border cities themselves, violent crime is below the national average. "Border security" is not in the average person's vocabulary over here.
About the rest of your analysis of South Texas, you point out some correct attributes, but I think your analysis along with many other commentators' analyses is really just foisting pre-conceived notions onto this region and Latinos in general. People look at Starr and Zapata, and they say, OMG, Latinos are abandoning Democrats. Zapata had 4k voters and Starr had 17k. Nearby Hidalgo and Cameron counties are where most people live (330k voters). Let's just look at my county, Cameron. Biden got 56% and Hillary got 64%. An 8% gap doesn't look as bad, does it? Now consider mail-in ballots. We have no idea yet how many ballots didn't make it to the elections offices. Those that were accepted went for Biden by 70%. Then, you have to consider that Biden, compared to Hillary and Obama, has no star power with Tejanos. Trump also had a really good social media campaign targeting conservative non-voters. This is really a story of dampened Democratic turnout and increased Republican turnout. But commentators make it seem like Tejano Democrats flipped. Certainly, some did, but there were also Republicans who flipped for the presidential race, so it's a wash. Just took a really quick look at the precinct reports from 2016 and 2020, and Republican precincts were less Republican and Democratic precincts were less Democratic. Still need to look into that further, but I'm just saying the real story is a lot more complex then what most commentators are thinking. But one thing's for sure, the idea that Tejanos are abandoning the Democratic party is way off.
Why continue to trot out the fiction that Trump did not condemn neo nazis and white supremacy in his post Charleston good on both sides speech? Two sentences before the offhand good on both sides remark he clearly denounced white supremacy.
" The only English-language equivalent to the Spanish ‘mestizaje’ (a word of neutral or even positive connotation) is the word ‘miscegenation’,"
Well, besides "mixed race"... what we lack in English is an exact equivalent in the academic register for 'mestizaje' ... so when we use the simple Anglo-Saxon words we feel we are not really being analytical...
This article is so boomer. "You wanna know why Biden lost the election for Cubans living in Miami! It's because your fancy socialist words hurt my feelings."
1) When really all Cubans living in Miami slobber all over capitalism the same way farmers slobbered over capitalism at the beginning of the industrial revolution in England. All of a sudden those former farmers they had more money than they ever think they would.
2) When really all Cubans living in Miami slobber all over capitalism the same way baby boomers slobbered over capitalism at the end of world war II in the USA when the USA held the rest of world in debt and made all the cheap junk (like china makes now). All of a sudden baby boomers had more money than they ever think they would.
Antonio Garcia-Martinez has to claim it is hard work and show people who are working hard to fake his way to looking like he deserves the luck he had living in an area where the rich go for vacations and retire. (Enjoy watching your family be moved out north or moved closer to the ocean as water levels rise.)
Yeah of course immigrants into the united states don't care. They are making more money then they ever dreamed. Then when Immigrants join union jobs in the united states and when their employers say "hey you can make an extra dollar just by giving up your dental plan" They jump at the chance against the wishes of their union.
Miami Cubans are toilet paper to republican. Many immigrants are toilet paper to republicans. Take the Death Penalty: Most immigrants support the death penalty because they come from a mono culture where the death penalty is acceptable because they think that all cultures use the death penalty responsibly. Republican can speak to that mono culture because their British / German / Scot-Irish heritage allow them to create a fake "whiteness-mono culture" And then another black man is put to death because Miami Cubans help to keep republicans in power.
Split the Hispanic vote! Marco Rubio 2024!
Nice article. It's ironic, and maybe fitting, that the survival of our countries' foundational values rest with immigrants and not the native born population that take them for granted.
From an older English newspaper headline: "Storms ravage English Channel, Europe isolated!" well describes the self-centered view of the woke, mostly white and monolingual, elite in the United States.
I just responded to Timothy Garton Ash's new Liberalism piece (https://t.co/qWAxf5ibdC?amp=1) with a 5-tweet thread: https://twitter.com/JoeRini6/status/1343644028915609600?s=19. Garton-Ash's analysis is broad, non-specific and tries to encapsulate the entire Western world into one model. It's exactly the wrong way to think about things.
We need nuanced, context/country/culture specific analysis. That's what you've provided here, and it is fantastic. I'v been sharing it with everone as a template for how real thinking about political issues and groups should be framed.
Texan Mexicans are different from the Cuban Floridians. The fact that Martinez is putting them together is Martinez trying to make a fake story that everybody is the same. Martinez is trying to whiten himself up into one of ruling cultures of British/German/Scot-Irish.
Those Mexicans live on the left boarder of the Texas that people derogatorily call "West Texan." They are culturally closer to Los Angeles (Government and Capitalism, doesn't matter what ever gets the job done) than: 1) the Libertarian/Scot-Irish Appalachian /Central Texas; 2) The East Coast Wannabe Be Southern Rich Texas; or 3) the forgettable tip of the panhandle Ohio influenced northern Texas.
They were heavily for both Bernie Sanders, and Trump but hated Biden/Romney/ any career politican. One of the things both Trump and Bernie share is that both were Politically-Untainted. Trump was socially Tainted, but never held office. In a political way Trump was pure. Bernie by being an Independent and against the war was able to shake off a lot of the political taint.
Those west Texans are okay enough with government to vote but have altered by their neighbors: the Libertarian/Scot-Irish Appalachian /Central Texas to want these "pure" politicians.
This is an opposition to as opposed to the apolitical Evangelicals who used trump to get into heaven, the "Genius" Brain atheistic protestant capitalists, or the generic white supremacists that came from mixing the German Spirit, with British Slave ownership and Athenian/Spartan/ Roman fantasies.
It's Colombia - not Columbia.
In your description of Miami, I could not help but think of Tom Wolfe's last novel, Back to Blood. Hilarious book, congruent with you description of Miami.
This ignores why Hispanics (which are indeed broadly similar aside from Cuban and Venezuelan exilees) were and still are a mostly reliable D vote. It certainly cant be social issues because of how Catholic they (we, as a Mexican living in México) all are, but it doesnt follow that they couldnt be pulled leftwards to the party thats not tough on immigrants. Maybe theres an intergenerational shift that makes them less supportive of the D stance on migration.
Thanks for a really good read.
I'm also happy to see that pretty must everything I have come to learn about Miami is congruent to what a thoughtful Miami native knows. I have lived in Miami for four years, having moved here after living and working in NYC for a long time.
I have spent a significant part of my career traveling for work and have been to lot of major US cities and the majority of states. And there is, of course, variation of culture and custom across the US, region to region and rural to urban. But, man, Miami is *weird*.
I was confident that I could get Miami figured out as my experience built up, but for a long time it didn't feel like I was making any progress. But one day I had an epiphany. After living here for ten months or so I was driving through Little Havana one day, stuck in some traffic, looked over and noticed a sign by the parking lot of a pharmacy. "Salida." And suddenly it struck me: Miami is not an American city; it is a Latin-American city! In the weeks and months following that revelation most of the things that never made sense increasingly started to make sense.
Una chulada de artículo.
Gracias por enfatizar el conflicto como un "problema civilizatorio" entre una identidad hispana y otra anglo. Nuestra mestizofilia nace precisamente de ese componente barroco-católico que nos legó la Monarquía Hispánica, cosa que no sucedió en ninguna parte de la anglosfera.
Dicho esto, me parece pertinente que tomes en cuenta el discurso anti-mestizo con tendencias indigenizantes que se dan en las Universidades gringas ¿Notaste como se rechaza el uso de "latino" (ni que decir hispano) por qué -supuestamente- "invisibiliza" a los negros e indígenas?
Claro que este discursillo no sale de la universidades, pero hay que tomarlo en cuenta. Fueron los mismos hispanos del Movimiento Mexica los que promovieron la destrucción de las estatuas de Junípero Serra, un símbolo de la catolicidad hispana en Estados Unidos. En Nuevo México pasó más de lo mismo con Juan de Oñate, un conquistador MEXICANO. Todo eso implica una negación frontal de la identidad hispana por los propios hispanos. El movimiento chicano en los 60s por lo menos todavía mantenía ese aspecto mestizofilico aunque con una tendencia marcadamente indigenista y negrolegendaria. Empero, el chicano afirmaba su descendencia dual nombrando a Cortés y a Cuauhtémoc, y legitimando así su existencia en el Southwest.
¿Y qué me dices de la protestantización de los hispanos, tanto en Estados Unidos como en Hispanoamérica? Claro, que todavía queda un cierto catolicismo nominal, pero que quizás esté entrando en un proceso de des-hispanización precisamente por el protestantismo. Quién sabe.
As a white person with Hispanic and European ancestry who grew up on the boarder but never learned Spanish, I'm one of those people the Democrat's might assume should be on their side. But I'm not. The Democrats have used division and promises of money, essentially, to maintain power: and, now they are leaning ever more into socialism to push the promise of allowing the little guy to get more money from someone else.
One can only hope Americans will wake up and see the promise for what it is.... empty.
I've thought that if militant white radicals did irreparable electoral and repetitional damage to the just cause of Black Lives Matter, it would be the ultimate ironic triumph of white supremacy.