Aja: Do Latinos owe African Americans a political debt?

Next Tuesday and primaries to come, all signs point to the crucial role Latinos will playing in determining not only the democratic presidential nominee, but also the overall election. According to already-held primaries, polls and growing anecdotal evidence, African Americans are overwhelmingly displaying their affinity toward Barack Obama, and they aren’t likely to change their minds should he win the nomination. However, the question for Latinos remains in doubt, shedding little evidence of a black-Latino coalition. Save for Obama’s juridical state of Illinois, in other states with sizable Latino populations like California, Nevada, and New York, Senator Clinton received more Latino votes. In the upcoming primaries in Ohio and Pennsylvania, especially Texas, the group has been deemed as “make or break” voters for the Obama movement.

From past elections to today’s primaries, many have offered theories as to what explains this inter-group paradox. Why is it that two minority groups, they have asked, with sometimes shared histories of marginality and political disenfranchisement, linked together by the indelible mark of color, often refuse to join forces to elect a candidate that may best represent their needs and concerns? The answer, some have said, is that U.S. minority groups are not all-together monolithic communities, making political “turf” choices based on issues that may not be as important to the other. Even within groups, internal divisions by region, class, skin shade or country of origin have profound political impacts. Take the case of the predominantly white Cuban-American community in South Florida, which although ideologically changing, continues to lean Republican amidst a nation of primarily democratic Latinos. On the contrary, there are over 1 million black Latinos (or more!) in the U.S., with most on the east coast pledging allegiances to the Democratic Party.”*

*From: http://www.statesman.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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