Study shows Latino voting bloc has diverse backgrounds and interests

There are currently 50.5 million Latinos in the United States, and in recent elections, these individuals have formed a crucial voting bloc — one that some believe is treated as overly homogeneous.

In a recent study, Penn political science doctoral student Mara-Cecilia Ostfeld studied political identity among Latino voters and found that grouping all Latino-American voters under one bloc is ridden with flaws.

To analyze Latino voting identity, Ostfeld showed Latinos an Obama campaign ad, randomly assigning half of her participants a Spanish version and half an English version.

“The results seem to suggest that Spanish-dominant Latinos actually perceive themselves to be more apart from the U.S. when they saw Spanish ads, while English-dominant Latinos felt more included,” Ostfeld said.

According to Ostfeld, English-dominant Latinos tend to be more assimilated into American culture, and when they saw a Spanish ad, they felt like their Latino culture was being incorporated into American culture. Spanish-dominant Latinos, on the other hand, tended to feel isolated by the Spanish ad — they felt excluded from American culture.

Having worked at NBC’s Spanish channel Telemundo, Ostfeld was interested in exploring why Latinos are frequently merged into a homogeneous voting bloc, when in fact the group is incredibly diverse.

Political science professor Rogers Smith explained in an email that “Americans of Latino descent come from many different countries, have a wide range of economic statuses and occupations, a variety of religious affiliations and many other differences — so that even in this election, just under a third did not vote Democratic.”

According to Smith, it is very difficult to group such a diverse population under one voting bloc.

Political science professor Anne Norton noted particular generational differences as well.

“There are Latino populations that are far older than any other form of European settlement,” Norton said. Those Latino populations are so rooted in their American homes that “issues like immigration are not really their issues,” whereas Latino Americans that have recently arrived in the United States might be more concerned with immigration laws, she added.

Newly-elected Latino Coalition Chair and College junior Carelle Hernandez Ruiz has noticed a similar trend at Penn.

“There’s always been a divide between students that grew up in the United States versus students who come directly from their home countries to study at Penn,” she said.

These divides are especially common among Cuban-Americans. While their parents may feel differently, “younger Cubanos are just not as invested in anti-Castro policy,” Norton explained.

Ruiz has observed such a split among her friends.

“I have friends whose families came here from Cuba, and because of their political background in their home countries, they tend to steer away from political factions that are pro-big government,” Ruiz said.

Overlooking such differences creates a pan-Latino label that causes large issues of misrepresentation, Ostfeld explained.

“We get attached to these stereotypes that are associated with the pan-ethnic label,” Ostfeld said. “It’s a simplification. The different needs are going to get washed over. The people that are marginalized are going to be further marginalized.”

Ostfeld plans on continuing her research by expanding it into related topics like how Spanish advertising and media affects non-Latinos’ views of Latinos.

“I think it’s interesting how these vehicles of information can have such powerful influences on how we perceive ourselves,” Ostfeld said. “My research demonstrated that the language alone, with no differences in content, altered how Latinos perceived themselves, their perception of their own political power and how they perceived themselves to fit in within the American political context.”

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