Covid-19 Hits Latinos Hardest in Charlotte and NC

Every day, I check the Covid-19 data for North Carolina, and every few days Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte is) releases its own data. Last month local news pointed out that the Latino population was being hit disproportionately hard, and that trend has accelerated.

At the state level, as of June 9, 42% of all cases were Latinos (which currently translates into 10,634 cases) but only 7% of deaths. They are 9.6% of the total state population.

In Mecklenburg County as of June 7, Latinos accounted for 37% of all cases and 6.2% of deaths. They are 13.6% of the population. In short, they are less affluent so more likely to get it, but younger so less likely to die from it. For a while, the county has included this observation in their data summary:

More than a third of reported cases are Hispanic – most of whom are younger adults. The high number of reported cases among young Hispanics over the last several weeks remains a significant concern. As previously noted, some factors influencing this trend include: Targeted testing occurring in neighborhoods with lower access to care, some of which have larger Hispanic populations; 

Higher proportions of Hispanics working in essential jobs that make social distancing difficult; 

Significant household spread among large families; and 

Pre-existing disparities in other social and economic determinants of health, like poverty.

MCPH continues to expand outreach to Hispanic members of our community, including increased dissemination of the outreach toolkit in Spanish for community partners, setting up targeted outreach to Hispanic owned- and serving-businesses, and partnering with local organizations and media outlets to spread key prevention messages.

There is a real class divide here that I haven't seen play out with the flu or any other past contagious outbreak. I think there is a push from middle-class whites to reopen in no small because they don't know anyone who has contracted the virus. They only detect it indirectly when, for example, there is an outbreak at a meatpacking plant and then there is a brief shortage of meat at the store.

There are no easy answers here. Outreach is certainly critical, but to really address the issue we would need state recognition of undocumented immigrants as deserving of unemployment insurance and other kinds of benefits. We would also need generous sick leave for everyone. People who live payheck-to-paycheck will inevitably work even with symptoms because they have no alternative. 

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Latino Voters in Mecklenburg County

There is a local news story about how 76% of Latinos in Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte is) are not registered to vote. That's not high.

We have to remember that many are not eligible in the first place. This is consistent with other relatively new destination states in the south (the percentage of eligible voters in places like Maine is high, but I think the absolute number is low). The low percentage reflects three main issues: newer destinations have more non-citizens, lower incomes, and more young people, who are either too young to register or who--like all young people--are less likely to register than older people.

The Mecklenburg County trend has been slow and steady increase. Nothing dramatic, but clear movement. Right now, according to the Board of Elections about 4.7% of all county voters are Latino. I've blogged about this a number of times in the past, and this number just keeps going up:

June 2018: 4.2%
November 2016: 3.8%
November 2011: 2.2%

In 2004, the percentage was 0.2%. Two years ago there was a jump in participation, which is still low but growing.

So what do we make of this? It took many years for Latinos to become politically powerful in western states, and we should not expect anything different here. There was so much hoopla about the "sleeping giant" that in my opinion too many people had unrealistic expectations about Latino voters swinging presidential elections in North Carolina. It takes consistent and painstaking on-the-ground work by activists to get people aware and registered.

But each election, the influence grows, and when the margin of victory is slim, that growth matters all the more. Incidentally, currently 27% of our local (and very large) public school system is Latino. Charlotte is changing.

Update (2/7/20)

My dad read this and went into the American Community Survey to dig a little more and the results tell a rather different story.

Hispanics are 12.9% of the total county population
Hispanics are 10.8% of the 18+ population
Hispanics are 5.2% of the 18+ citizen population—those who could be voters

What this means is that Latinos constitute 5.2% of the total voting-eligible population, and 4.7% of all registered voters. In short, they are close to being proportional, not to the total population but to those can vote.

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Democrats on Immigration

The Democratic Party establishment is wary of immigration.

A strategy memo co-authored by the Center for American Progress and Third Way -- two Washington-based think tanks -- recommended that certain Democrats speak about the topic as little as possible and instead focus on topics that will better resonate with their voters.

Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action, said that even though the memo was sent to a broad set of districts, it excluded ones with large Latino populations or particularly diverse districts because it’s not intended to provide blanket advice.

Lots to unpack here.

First, the party establishment has feared immigration for a long time, before Donald Trump. President Obama did not expend much political capital on it. Before him, Bill Clinton passed sometimes harsh anti-immigrant bills, more so than George W. Bush, in the hope of grabbing the median voter.

Second, you can claim to be aiming your message only at certain districts, but this gets heard nationally. The accompanying message is that if a Democrat is elected in 2020, the establishment will not be pushing for immigration reform. The tiptoeing will continue. The only way out is the candidate her/himself wanted it, just as Trump is forcing establishment Republicans in certain directions they wouldn't otherwise go.

Third, I just wrote about how the Latino population is lukewarm on the Democratic Party, and this message reinforces the notion that Democrats want to assume their support will continue with a lukewarm message on the suffering of immigrants.

Fourth, racism is right under the surface here. The signal is that you don't use this message in "particularly diverse districts." If the districts are white, however, you downplay the fact that your party wants to help non-whites.

Fifth, this means Republicans own immigration. Democrats are largely ceding it to them, playing a reactive and defensive role that does not seek to frame their own values. You will also hear a lot of Republicans with the classic reverse psychology "oh I hope they bring up immigration" meme even though it is not at clear that undecided voters will automatically have any problem with talking rationally about the topic. But a lot of Democrats will fear it.

This will become a major issue in the Democratic presidential primaries, where you have stronger pro-immigration reform voters. The risk is that Obama sought in vain to appease the mythical middle, where he deported people like crazy while claiming to be empathetic. The result was that everyone was unhappy, which is the worst of all outcomes.

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How Much Will the Latino Vote Matter for the 2018 Midterms?

Looking ahead to the 2018 midterm elections, it is worth asking the eternal question. Will Latino voters bother turning out? I want to focus on North Carolina since that is where I live. At the time of the 2016 presidential election, I wrote that the sleeping giant would likely keep snoozing. I said further that we would have to wait until the 2020 election for that vote to be decisive in any way. That still makes sense to me.

In North Carolina, the percentage of registered Latino voters has grown only slowly. Here are some numbers from the NC Board of Elections:

Today: 2.75%
Start of 2018: 2.58%
At time of 2016 election: 2.39%

We have similar slow growth in Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is.

Today: 4.27%
Start of 2018: 4.06%
Time of 2016 election: 3.8%

Now, in Mecklenburg County there was a spike in Latino primary turnout because of a sheriff primary that hinged on the 287(g) program, which directly hits home for people locally. But that does not automatically mean they will vote again in the midterms. By the time we get to the 2020 presidential election, we might be at 5% of the electorate, which starts to become a more decisive amount. But people have to come out.

But there's more. If they turn out, might it be for Donald Trump? From León Krauze:

While Trump was enacting his anti-immigrant agenda, Latino voters seemed to have slowly warmed up to the president. In last week’s NPR/PBS/Marist poll, 41 percent of Hispanics approved of Trump’s performance (black Americans? 12 percent). This is no outlier. Another recent poll put Trump’s approval among Latinos at 35 percent. An average of both would put Trump—again, an overtly nativist president—within about 10 points of Barack Obama’s 49 percent approval among Hispanic at roughly the same time in his presidency. 

This does not mean Donald Trump is a popular president among Hispanics. He is not. But he is not repudiated, either, not by a mile. In a recent interview with Vox, University of Southern California professor Roberto Suro explained that while Latino voters “hold negative views toward Trump,” they do so “by a much smaller margin than Democrats overall.” Suro suggests that Latinos more closely resemble independent voters rather than “a steadfast Democratic constituency.” The polls, says Suro, also dispute “the presumption that Trump’s immigration policies have alienated large numbers of Latinos.”

The most important point to take from those observations is that it is a mistake to assume Latino voters make their decision primarily on immigration. In conversations or at talks I get push back on that but the data and outcomes support it. Donald Trump is unrelentingly attacking immigrants from Latin America, but voters are deeply concerned about jobs, wages, and health care.

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Latino Voters in Charlotte

I was interviewed for Spectrum, a local TV news station, about Latino turnout in last month's primary election. The upshot is that registration and turnout jumped in Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte is). It's still small, but moving upward.

Some quick numbers:

May 8, 2018 midterm election: 1.5% of voters in Mecklenburg County were Latino versus 0.64% in the 2014 midterm election

As of today, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections 4.2% of all voters in Mecklenburg County are Latino versus 3.8% for the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, as of today 2.7% of NC voters are Latino.

Mecklenburg County is more urban and votes more Democratic, which makes it more likely to have a greater share of Latino voters. Both the party itself and independent activists have made strides to register voters and get them to the polls. In NC as a whole, 29% of the Latino population is registered, whereas it is 32% in Mecklenburg County.

So this cohort is still a "sleeping giant" but some important advances have been made.

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Podcast Episode 48: What DACA Recipients Deal With

In Episode 48 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk with Ana Valdez Curiel, who is an undergraduate here at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is an activist and involved in a lot of different things but for the purposes of this conversation I have to note that she was brought to the United States as a young child and is currently a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

This is a personal look at DACA and we talk about the stress involved, the uncertainty about life, the misperceptions people have, and the debate over the “good” vs. “bad” immigrant. Congress is dealing with the issueright now and the stakes are high.

Thanks to Alex Frizzell for doing the recording, which for the first time we did at a studio here on the UNC Charlotte campus.

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Spanish Response to State of the Union

One less remarked upon aspect of the State of the Union is the Spanish-language response. While Joe Kennedy gave the regular one, Elizabeth Guzmán, a Peruvian-American Representative from Virginia, gave one in Spanish. Importantly, it is her own, not a translation of his. This is important both from gender and ethnic perspectives. And she is more blunt:

"Él ha remplazado la igualdad por la intolerancia, el respeto mutuo por el racismo", dijo la legisladora estatal, quien acusó al presidente de insultar "a las personas que tengan una ascendencia diferente a la de él".

That's quite different from Kennedy, who didn't even refer to Trump specifically, much less openly call him racist.

At this point, we're asking the same question that's been sitting there for years. At what point will the "sleeping giant" of Latino voters become decisive? The stakes are high in the 2018 midterm elections, though of course they were even higher for the 2016 presidential election, and it didn't happen. Let's see how many leaders like Guzmán get a national stage.

Update: one problem with Kennedy's response: he says he wants to talk directly to DREAMers and then starts speaking a bit in Spanish, giving everyone the impression that they can't speak English.

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Podcast Episode 40: DACA

This morning I went on WFAE's Charlotte Talks to discuss Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). If you're interested, here is the link, where they've already posted the show. Since there were threads I didn't get to follow on the show, I decided to do a podcast as a follow up, so just click here. The key question is whether Congress will actually act or not.

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Venezuelan-Americans as Voters

The Miami Herald has a piece that is part of a trend toward portraying Venezuelans in Florida as a voting bloc that politicians need to pay attention to.

And as Republicans look to defeat Nelson and maintain majorities throughout Florida in 2018, attacking Democrats on Venezuela could pay off politically, even if Florida Democrats are now talking tough on Venezuela.

Unfortunately, the article only provides quotes from Republicans and has no data. A recent article in Americas Quarterly suggests that in already heavily Cuban-American Florida districts like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's, Venezuelan-American voters are about 10% of the total. Elsewhere that's much lower. It also notes that Venezuelans do not appear to vote as predictably as Cuban Americans once did. In practice, this could mean agreeing with today's version of the Republican Party on Venezuela but not much else.

I've heard plenty about Venezuelans in the United States voting in Venezuelan elections (where the government has made it as inconvenient as possible, such as forcing people in Florida to vote in new Orleans, knowing how they lean) but not so much in U.S. elections. Plus, of course, when they arrive from Venezuela they are not eligible to vote so this takes a lot of time. However, they have the money and the successful lobbying model of the Cuban American community to emulate.

It does mean that candidates will find themselves needing to address the crisis in Venezuela more than they did in the past. The 5-10% in a district may or may not sway an election, but if they jam the polls during primaries then you need to pay attention to them even to get to the general election.

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Racism and Latinos in Baseball

More than ever, there is talk of Latino players "playing with emotion." More specifically, we hear how this has discomfited white players, especially older ones.

Some of it is just youth. Hall of Famer John Smoltz, for example, said, "I lean towards being professional." That itself was in response to Goose Gossage, who whined about Bryce Harper not having respect for baseball.

But most of it is focused on Latino players. José Bautista's bat flip in the 2015 playoffs is now iconic, and ignited a debate that continues.


via GIPHY


For U.S.-born white players, this was disrespectful. Exactly why a brief moment of exhilaration was disrespectful is never explained. It goes under the two categories of "unwritten rules" and "this is the way we've always done it." Under these rules, you show no emotion and then fight if someone slips up and lets a little emotion out. Now these immigrants are bringing their foreign ways.

The World Baseball Classic this year may have started a shift, because there was a lot of attention paid to the Latin American teams. But Smoltz again had to put his foot in his mouth:

But Smoltz's comment there, that "a lot of these guys are enjoying themselves, maybe they'll get it out of their system in about two weeks" -- that's pretty much the whole baseball thing right now, isn't it? The whole culture war in baseball, the "keep millennials engaged" business, the how-do-we-keep-the-game-relevant discussion … you can see the whole damned fight in that comment.

And so did Ian Kinsler:

“I hope kids watching the W.B.C. can watch the way we play the game and appreciate the way we play the game as opposed to the way Puerto Rico plays or the Dominican plays,” Kinsler said. “That’s not taking anything away from them. That just wasn’t the way we were raised. They were raised differently and to show emotion and passion when you play. We do show emotion; we do show passion. But we just do it in a different way.”

Somehow having fun is a problem. But the word "appreciate" is code for "professional." Showing emotion is unprofessional. White players do it right. Latino players do it wrong. But there are good signs. From former player Eric Karros:

“When I played (I was) very old school as far as you don’t show anybody up,” Karros said. “I was a non-emotional guy, very stoic. The irony now as a fan and as a player I like that bat flip. Now, if I were playing it wouldn’t be happening. But I think I’ve come to a point where I kinda like that sort of stuff and it adds some energy.

We can only hope this is spreading. I feel like it will, for demographic reasons if no other. The number of Latino players is increasing, as is the size of the overall Latino population. This could well the last gasp of uptight whiteness.

Let's stop worrying about bat flips and excitement. Anyhow, we all know the best way to put an end to it is to stop giving homers.

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Podcast Episode 25: Trump and Latinx Political Engagement

In Episode 25 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast*, I switch disciplinary gears a bit and talk with Stephany Slaughter, who is Associate Professor of Spanish at Alma College. She just published an article in The Latin Americanist on the topic: “#TrumpEffects: Creating Rhetorical Spaces for Latinx Political Engagement.” We discuss rhetorical narratives, hashtags, and uses of social media.

*I am experiencing RSS problems so am just linking straight to the file at archive.org. My production team is working on it.**

**that team consists of me and other people I beg for help.

Update: RSS feed now fixed.

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Obama's Problematic Immigration Record

This post seems appropriate for Thanksgiving, a day characterized by an idealized view of immigration.

Franco Ordoñez has a good story about how President Obama failed a lot on immigration, to the point that Donald Trump inherits a deportation machine. Obama is the "deporter-in-chief," to a degree never seen in U.S. history (Snopes even felt obligated to confirm this!). Earlier this year I wrote about this in frustration and have blogged about it quite a bit. Over 400,000 people a year, including targeting kids (including here in Charlotte).

What makes me even more frustrated is Obama's failure to admit it. Trump hammered on him for months and months, and at any time Obama could've fessed up. "We're deporting record numbers of people" or "We've already put it 700 miles of fence."* But he didn't want to admit to it, and never has.

This makes no sense to me. He has three options:

1. Admit that he is aggressively pursuing undocumented immigrants and saying this is just following the law. This appeals to conservatives (or at least takes the wind out of the sails of criticism).
2. Reduce the number of deportations and say so, thus appealing to progressives and potentially energizing at least part of the Latino/a population.
3. Deport aggressively while pretending he's not, which makes everyone mad.

Obama chose #3. This means he contributed to Latino/a cynicism about the Democratic Party, doing terrible damage to many people's lives and hurting Hillary Clinton's campaign, while conservatives remained convinced he was soft and so felt more attracted to Trump.

DACA is an excellent policy based on common sense, and I give Obama credit for it. But we should not praise him for things he does not deserve.

*Though I am also aware that Trump said fences were useless during the campaign and now says they're part of his plan.

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Latino Vote in North Carolina

I just published a piece in Latin America Goes Global about the Latino vote in North Carolina. The upshot is that at this point I do not see it being a major factor in the presidential race. Someday it will be, but not right now.

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Latino Aging in the South

Back in late 2013 I attended a conference and presented a paper (co-authored with my dad) at UT Austin on Latinos in the United States, which has now yielded a book chapter. "The Train Has Left the Station: Latino Aging in the New South".

Here is the abstract:

In the South, as in much of the United States, the demographic train has left the station. For over a decade the region has been attractive to migrants leaving either a Latin American country or areas of the United States with weaker economies and/or higher costs of living. Our projections going out to 2040 show continued growth under virtually all assumptions, signaling a permanent shift in what had traditionally not been a destination for Hispanics. Using U.S. Census data and other sources to develop projections, the core of our argument is that as the cohort of older (65 years and over) Latinos grows in North Carolina, there will be concomitant political shifts. Children who are citizens will eventually become eligible to vote, legislative districts will be transformed, and Hispanic adults will be taking care of a growing elderly population.

The train imagery is intended to emphasize the point that this is a done deal. In this case, policy cannot overcome demographic realities.

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French View of U.S. Election

Last week I spoke to a French reporter, who then quoted me in two articles. I can read French only to the extent that it resembles Spanish, so I'll trust he got my quotes right! I emphasized the challenge of getting anything done if Republicans took control of the Senate, and more locally the ways in which the Latino vote might or might not matter for the election given how President Obama has talked so much and done so little on immigration.

We're a funny people. We claim to hate gridlock so much but consistently vote to create it. Collectively we'll complain constantly for the next two years, blaming politicians for the mess we're largely responsible for.

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The Future of Voters in North Carolina

Here is the political future of North Carolina in one visual:

This is a slow motion disaster for Republicans in North Carolina, who rely largely on the white, and especially older white, population for support. The number of Latino voters will definitely continue increasing, but it's hard to see the trend of white voters doing the same. The number of African American voters increasing is also interesting, and the gradual increase predates Barack Obama's election so may well continue beyond his administration.

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Latinos and the NC Senate Race

Reporters from News Channel 14 just came to my office to ask some questions about the Latino vote. Of course, that prompted me to try and get my facts straight.

Kay Hagan has been polling well recently (up 3-6% or so) against Thom Tillis, with the added factor that Libertarian Sean Haugh is likely drawing more Tillis-leaning voters than Hagan-leaning (in May 2014 he polled at 5%).

As of today, Latinos constitute 1.9% of registered voters in North Carolina (and currently only about a quarter of Latinos in NC are eligible to vote at all). Latinos vote in lower numbers than other racial/ethnic groups, and this is a midterm election to boot. Further, 37% of Latino registered voters are 18-29 years of age, so less likely to vote in the first place.

However, in a close race--as this one is--any push is important. The Latin American Coalition is hoping to register 7,500 new voters for this election. That's no easy task (for context, 123,763 Latinos are registered to vote right now) but if they can do it they may well make a difference.

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House Republicans on Immigration

House Republicans released a one-page statement on immigration reform, which outlines what their version would look like. As you would expect, its importance is more symbolic than substantive. Most prominently, its existence serves as open acknowledgment that it is quite impossible to deport or detain the millions of people living in the country illegally, and therefore a humane solution is required. It is akin to admitting the sky is blue after insisting for years that it was green. It is also equivalent to holding up a sign that says, "Dear Latinos, we don't hate you as much as it seems."

So that part is at least a small step forward, but you have wonder how this mouthful will be translated into concrete policy:

Our national and economic security depend on requiring people who are living and working here illegally to come forward and get right with the law. There will be no special path to citizenship for individuals who broke our nation's immigration laws – that would be unfair to those immigrants who have played by the rules and harmful to promoting the rule of law. Rather, these persons could live legally and without fear in the U.S., but only if they were willing to admit their culpability, pass rigorous background checks, pay significant fines and back taxes, develop proficiency in English and American civics, and be able to support themselves and their families (without access to public benefits). Criminal aliens, gang members, and sex offenders and those who do not meet the above requirements will not be eligible for this program. Finally, none of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented to fulfill our promise to the American people that from here on, our immigration laws will indeed be enforced.

What does it mean to prove the ability to support yourself? Sadly, these days a minimum wage does not allow a family to live without food stamps or other support. How will people come up with the cash for "significant" fines if they're also going to support themselves? Further, I've written before about enforcement triggers--Obama has cracked down harder on undocumented immigrants than any president in the history of the United States, so it's unclear how measurement will work.

The "no special path to citizenship" doesn't mean no citizenship, but rather just following the same cumbersome and inefficient system everyone else suffers through. My hunch is that this will not be a major stumbling block given other concessions, but I could be wrong. I'd need to see more about whether it's accurate to estimate that half of current undocumented immigrants wouldn't ever be eligible for citizenship.

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Richard Helms' Six Mile Creek

Richard Helms' Six Mile Creek is a murder mystery with a bit of social commentary attached to it. The setting is a small North Carolina town, not too far away from a larger city like Charlotte. A high school girl, who is Latina, is found murdered. Police Chief Judd Wheeler investigates.

It's not filled with Deep Thoughts, but the overall theme is about preconceptions and deep seated views. Everyone assumes there is a race war brewing, when there is not. Everyone assumes drugs have not reached the town, when they have. Everyone holds high school football players on a pedestal, when they don't deserve it. The stereotype that turns out to be justified (in the novel, anyway) is that rich white men who control small towns are largely jerks.

Chief Wheeler solves the crime, of course, as well as a few others that pop up along with the way. What he finds is high school replicating adulthood. The same obsession with money and status. Even ethnicity is subsumed under that, Anglo-Latino tensions are less about "difference" per se and more about encroachment on women or turf.

What is oddly missing is a single African American character. The town is Anglo or Latino.

As a solid mystery, I recommend it.

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JFK and Latinos

There have been some interesting stories about JFK and Latinos. Jacqueline Kennedy had famously spoken in Spanish, and he ultimately won 85% of the Mexican-American vote. There were "Viva Kennedy" clubs to get out the vote.  Mostly, it is a story of tremendous hope and little accomplishment:

For many Latinos President Kennedy’s first term was disappointing. A number of promises that Latinos felt Kennedy owed them had not materialized. The President had also fallen short on appointing Hispanics to high-level government positions.

And:

The night before his assassination, JFK addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens in Houston. 

But as many scholars have written since, Kennedy did not deliver on the hope he inspired among Latinos. African American civil rights heroes also had been frustrated with Kennedy, despite being enamored of him personally.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/20/5928161/marcos-breton-for-some-of-us-the.html#storylink=cpy

But his speech is now part of historical lore, taken as a sign that he was committed to helping the Latino population, even though there were no real accomplishments behind the words.

But during Kennedy's first months in office, Latino leaders expressed dismay that the president had failed to appoint Hispanics in his administration. Chavez even openly criticized Kennedy for his lack of appointments; other leaders embarked on a letter-writing campaign over the slow movement on civil rights.

The symbolic gesture, though, was enough to spark hope. Even the Cesar Chávez Foundation credits him:

Many credit the current growing influence of the Latino vote as the result of President Kennedy’s pioneering efforts. 

Others, though, see that influence stemming more from failure to get attention from the White House, both with Kennedy and afterward:

The failure of the American political system to adequately deliver on those concerns opened up the barrios to a larger civil rights effort in the 1960s. This new generation fought for many of the same rights. Their goal was not Camelot, but Aztlán, the legendary home of the Aztecs and Chicano activists' rallying cry - a place where "Viva Clubs" were not a prerequisite for change.

Mythology is an amazing thing.

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