Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: Did you see the Spanish language presidential debate?

The Democrats are very smart to court the Hispanic vote
z — (archived)

Although it's very true that Hispanics are a very diverse bunch, in politics and even in culture (like those Dominicans, Cubans, and some Mexicans who won't ever shut up about baseball yet most other Latinos find the game incredibly boring and greatly prefer futbol, or soccer) with the notable exception of the Cuban-Americans the vast majority of all other Hispanic immigrants to the USA prefer the Democratic Party, its positions and its candidates. It's an obvious political fact that increased numbers of newly naturalized US citizens from Hispanic countries translates into more votes and more victories for Democrats. And frankly in my mind it's a very welcome fact.

I speak English and Spanish (my fiancee is Salvadoran) and my personal experience has been that one crucial cultural difference between Anglos and Hispanics in the US is that Hispanics, while indeed viewing themselves as "estadounidenses", also hold as a strong identity their membership in the pan-American, multi-national community, across all the Americas, a region in which perhaps 80% of the nations are Spanish-speaking. This is one reason why Hispanics in the US find it perfectly natural to speak Spanish instead of English in many situations. Everybody from Chile to Argentina to Peru to Colombia to Cuba to Mexico and nearly everywhere else speaks Spanish so it seems pretty normal to do so.

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