The Latin wall | Internationale

At the end of 2018, a caravan of migrants crossed the long thread of territory that unites the two Americas. Many felt that what was waiting for them at the end of the road was the promise of rejection, personified by an unfulfilled promise: the wall Donald Trump wants to erect from San Diego County, California, to Cameron, Texas. To fulfill this promise, the president has just declared the national emergency throughout the United States.

This image is so strong, so high in the tone of the Republican proposals, that it is tempting to extrapolate them to the whole country. And yet, the truth is that the main impetus to restricting the migration of the South comes only from the inside (mainly non-Latino) United States, which arrives in Washington by the presidential transmission belt , and some. at the border area. But only this part of the country, this band of more than 2,000 kilometers, is characterized by something, must be Latino, vote Democrat and have clear preferences in favor of immigration. The new Congress, which took office on January 3, accurately reflects the contrast that, of course, stems from the characteristics and opinions of the voters themselves.

The Métis Legislature

The Democratic result at the border has been excellent: eight of the nine constituencies sending representatives to the House in Washington have been in their hands. The last was decided two weeks after the start of the counting, by a very narrow margin, against Gina Ortiz Jones, who defines herself as an American-Filipina and a veteran of the war in Iraq.

In addition, of the eight elected officials who arrived in Washington from the border, seven are of Latin American origin. They add to the growing number of members of Congress (in the House, like them, in the Senate) who have opened and taken this path before them.

Declaring the Latin origin itself does not necessarily fall into a clear and dichotomous categorization, but concerns biographical issues sometimes difficult to categorize even for oneself: Pew Institute data show how, as Latin or Hispanic reference away from the family tree, self-identification with the group becomes blurred. The idea of ​​Metis covers the whole concept of being Latino in the United States. However, it is useful to take some measure, even approximate, to find, for example, that the escalation has only recently been consolidated, although it can be said that the United States is being formed historically. Latinos as Anglo-Saxons. It also turns out that, despite the reduction in the gap, there is still no parity between the representation of Latin Americans in Congress and the presence of Latinos / Hispanics in the population. That is to say that this road still has some way to go.

Behind this slow but inexorable change, there is of course a demographic and opinion trend that begins at the border but affects the entire American nation. It is not for nothing that the percentage of the Hispanic population has doubled every 20 years in the last fifty years.

A border closer to the other side

Nobody will be surprised that the 21 counties that form the north side of this line have a notable presence of Hispanic or Latino population. What is really striking is its dominant dominance: the average is 70%, but in some places almost all the inhabitants have crossed the border, which, we must not forget, was much further north five or six generations.

Throughout this journey, Trump suffered many defeats the day he won the presidency. He suffered despite his arguments in favor of strengthening security. Or perhaps precisely because of this, he lost here, since the vast majority of his inhabitants have a clearly positive (including economic co-dependence) view of the people on the other side from the border. A perspective that eventually promotes a less rigid and porous design of separation than the construction of a physical wall. Typically, the Hispanic or Latin American-born population retains more favorable positions to immigrate than their non-Hispanic whites counterparts. And in no way is this void of opinion as clear as in the question of the boundary wall.

The presence of major transit ports to and from Mexico does not appear to have a particularly negative effect on those who propose a less restrictive approach to migration. It is important to note that the number of walking in 2018 does not match the migration data, but rather the use of the border, mostly for daily commutes. This is a measure of the relationship between the two sides. These data are in addition to those of 70% of cross-border commuters who see their link with the South as a neighborhood and a dependency.

It should be noted that the dimension of this phenomenon has not yet been taken into account in the elections. Whether due to laws relating to age, nationality or voter registration that harms more Latin Americans and African Americans, the gap between the number of people entitled to vote and those who benefit from it in the population is greater. Non-Hispanic White As this gap decreases, the power of Latin Americans will increase. Until maybe tip the scales.

The Latin routes to power

In 2012, following the defeat of Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, a group of Republican strategists drafted a report that marked the internal life of the training until a good part of 2015. They highlighted the problem that the trend towards demographic diversity could lead to a less diversified and excessively conservative party. And although in the elections of 2016, the Latinos have chosen the Democrats by a significant margin (66-28 according to polls at the end of the polls), the final victory of Trump seemed to erase the reason in their dark forecasts. Or at least that is what was reading the most nationalist wing of the training. But the truth is that the data is stubborn and it turns out that Clinton was lost by a handful of voices in three very specific states that ended up giving the final result: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. There are many dimensions, innumerable edges to tackle the problem. But one of the arguments, no less, is the argument obtained from these key victories through the white vote in places where the decline of the industry had left the old working clbad on the sidelines, waiting for the arrival of someone who promised them a return to good weather. .

But what about the new working clbad, disproportionately occupied by migrants or children of migrants of Latin origin? What about middle-clbad Latinos and wealthier people who are increasingly present in communities across the country? Also in these four key states.

It is the first road, from the heart of the country to the White House. It does not take much to redress the situation: just over a hundred thousand votes in total. In at least a few years, Latinos in Michigan and Wisconsin will be able to put them on the table by keeping their differentiated growth pattern.

Meanwhile, Florida, Texas or Arizona have seen their Hispanic population increase by more than 50% over the past two decades, to the point of being a decisive factor for any political career. The three form a boundary (of the sea first, of the earth the other two). All three are necessary or at least practical parts for the Republican majorities. Arizona became a Democrat in this year's Senate elections. Florida and Texas have been close to doing it. In a decade, all may be "blue," partly because of the inexorable demographic shift. This is the second route. Slow, maybe, but sure in the long run.

This Latin wall, which is one of the dams that contains the politics represented by Donald Trump, is being built little by little. It is more like a wave of change and diversity that goes from caravan to caravan border, from arrival to finish. In a measured way, uneven, but destined to join all the other tides that previously came from the south, from the north, from the east and from the west to constitute what is now the United States , a land, after all, of migrants.