CONTENTS
- Is Hispanic Allegiance to Democrats Justified?
- Heritage
- Immigration
- Education
- Poverty
- Crime
- The Assault on Hispanic Culture
Hispanic allegiance to Democrats is more puzzling to me than Black allegiance to Democrats. As a person who lived in New Mexico twice in my life totaling 30 years, my insight regarding Hispanics comes from personal experience and relationships. Hispanics are predominately Catholic and support traditional Christian values, including the traditional Christian family composed of a father, mother, and their children, the sanctity of life including the unborn, a quality education, hard work, and the value of the individual in the sight of God. Many own small businesses. Since the Democrat Party no longer supports traditional values, small and medium size businesses, and individualism, Hispanic allegiance to Democrats is puzzling to me.
Two recent South Texas Republican primaries and a special election demonstrate, Hispanics may be turning to the Republican Party. Mayra Flores flipped a 100-year Democrat House seat when she won a special election in June 2022. She will have to run again in November 2022. In two other Rio Grande Valley Republican primaries, Monica De La Cruz won outright, and Cassy Garcia was the highest vote getter and leads in polls for the May runoff. The winner will run against incumbent Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. In a Virginia Republican House primary, Yesli Vega, won the party nomination. Vega said of Hispanics, “They are hard workers, and many have fled their native countries to come here to America to seek better opportunities not just for themselves, but for their children, for their families. Some folks have escaped socialism. These four Hispanic women clearly show a potentially seismic Hispanic shift from Democrat to Republican, especially if they all were to win seats in the US. House in November. Hispanics may be realizing that today’s Democrat Party with its near total rejection of traditional values and conservativism, no longer represents the values traditionally held by many Hispanics. Many are questioning Hispanic allegiance to Democrats and taking a closer look at the Republican Party.
Democrats Should be concerned about the Hispanic vote in 2022 and beyond.
Is Hispanic Allegiance to Democrats Justified?
Heritage
Hispanic allegiance to Democrats is complicated by heritage. Many Hispanics in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California trace their heritage to Spanish settlers who lived in these areas before British settlers came to the thirteen colonies. New Mexico serves as a good example of this complexity. My Albuquerque New Mexico boyhood next door neighbor and friend’s mother came from the poor side of the Baca Spanish Land Grant family of central New Mexico. She, like many New Mexico Hispanics, call themselves Spanish not Mexican because of their lineage. Spanish explorers led by General Francisco de Coronado searched for the Seven Golden Cities from 1540 to 1542.They looked for these cities in what are now Arizona, discovering the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, the Colorado plateau, wintered along the Rio Grande River between today’s Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, moved their base camp to Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, and sent an expedition north to Kansas. The expedition was considered a failure because there were no Seven Golden Cities or riches. Spanish explorers were in today’s Southwestern United States 67 years before James Town was founded. Over the next 165 years Spanish settlers moved into the Rio Grande River valley and other river valleys of New Mexico.
Santa Fe, New Mexico was founded in 1606 by Spanish settlers one year before James Town was founded. Santa Fe became the Spanish territorial Capital of Nuevo Mexico in1610, 10 years before the Pilgrims landed on American soil. Santa Fe is the oldest capital in the United States. Albuquerque, currently New Mexico’s largest city, was founded along the Rio Grande River in 1706. In addition to Spanish Land Grants, Spain granted water rights to Land Grant owners and communities that are legal today. Consequently, many New Mexicans trace their lineage to sixteenth century Spanish families who lived in their state before the Pilgrims landed.
Another example of the complicated history of New Mexico Hispanics is the fact that many have Jewish heritage. The people of the Spanish Empire were threatened by the Spanish inquisition from 1478-1834. For centuries before 1400, the Jewish community in Spain flourished and grew despite periods of severe anti-Semitism. During the fifteenth century, Spanish Jews fell into three categories, converts to Christianity and those who refused to convert, and professed converts who practiced Judaism in secret perceived by the monarchy and inquisition as their greatest Jewish threat. All were persecuted. During the peak of the inquisition,160,000 Jews accepted exile from Spain rather than convert to Christianity in 1492. The inquisition also spread to the larger Spanish American colonies of Mexico and Peru. As New Mexico was colonized by Spain many of the most remote, isolated, and secluded Hispanic enclaves and small communities were founded by Spanish Jews fleeing the inquisition. These communities tried to hide from colonial leaders; and when they were discovered, many Jews feigned Catholicism and continued their secret practice of Judaism like many of their ancestors had done in Spain. These Jews tried to hide due to the brutality of the inquisitors fearing torture and death. The brutality of the Spanish inquisition finally ended in1834 in the empire.
Although most New Mexico, Spanish Jews converted to Catholicism over the centuries. Many families maintained some Jewish traditions. For example, several years ago, an Albuquerque, television news program aired an Easter Passover segment with a Catholic Priest of Jewish decent. He recounted his annual pilgrimage to a well-hidden grotto in the state. He said that the Ten Commandments were carved in Hebrew in the rock at the back of the grotto. He said that he was a faithful Priest, but made the annual plumage to honor the Jewish part of his heritage. Obviously, Hispanic allegiance to Democrats is influenced by heritage.
Immigration
There are now two significant groups of Hispanic immigrants in Florida. The large Cuban population of south Florida. Cuban Americans, or their parents, fled Castro’s communist dictatorship in Cuba for freedom and opportunity in the United States. Another group of Hispanic immigrants to Florida are the Venezuelans who fled that county’s socialist dictatorship. Both groups have little patience for the socialist tendencies and progressive social values of Democrats. As a solid Republican voting bloc, these Hispanics are an exception to Hispanic allegiance to Democrats.
Despite supporter denials, the 1965 Immigration Act transformed the ethnic and racial demographics of the United States since the act was passed. The chart below demonstrates how the immigration act changed the racial and ethnic make-up of the U.S. population. The Black proportion has remained stable at around 12%. The Hispanic population has almost tripled from 6.4% to 18.7%. In 1980, the Hispanic population was about
half the size of the Black population. The Hispanic population is now 55% greater than the Black population. The Asian population has also increased from 0.2% to5.9%, a 30-fold increase. The only group that has declined during this period is the White population which has decreased from79.4% to 57.8%, a 37% decrease. The effect of illegal immigration on this population and demographic data could not be determined.
The attitudes of many Hispanics about the United States, America, and immigration may surprise many. For example, during a late twentieth century discussion with a Hispanic rancher and landowner in Northeast New Mexico about the business of ranching, illegal immigration came up. The Hispanic rancher disdainfully called illegals, wetbacks referring to illegals wherever they crossed our border regardless of their race or ethnicity. Hispanics whose families have lived in what is now the United States for centuries and those who immigrated legally probably have a different attitude toward illegal immigration than many non-Hispanics. Probably, the 2020 census vastly under counted the number of Hispanics because illegals feared participation in the census. Democrats seek a path to citizenship for illegal Hispanics because this group is seen as potential Democratic voters. Hispanics citizens living in Southern border states adversely impacted by illegal immigration are questioning their Hispanic allegiance to Democrats.
Education
Hispanics, like most Americans, are dissatisfied with public education in their communities. Covid19 school lockouts and remote learning affected Hispanic students, like most minorities, more dramatically than White students. Many Hispanics object to their children being subjected to Critical Race Theory, CRT, Critical Gender Theory, CGT, and Queer Theory, QT, in the public schools their student attend. The time spent on these topics robs them of the time that should be spent on core curricula. This issue is confirmed by a 2017, Pew Research Center article by Drew Desilver, U.S. academic achievement lags that of many other countries which is discouraging. Fifteen-year-old U.S. students rank 24th in science and reading, and 38th in mathematics, compared to students in other countries of the world. The 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores, sometimes called the national report card, for reading and math. The chart below shows the education gap between Hispanic (Green), Black (Orange) , and White (Blue) students. The scores are on a 500-point scale.
The Educational Opportunity Monitoring Project: Racial and Ethnic Achievement Gaps
All U.S. students are below 300, Moderately Complex Procedures and Reasoning. The White students are at the Numerical Operations and Beginning Problem Solving level, 50% of the top score and well below the rest of the World. No parent, including Hispanics, should be satisfied with public education in the United States today. New Mexico is a majority Hispanic state which has been controlled by Democrats since 1932, 90 years, ranks 50th in quality of Education, with a high school graduation rate of only 74%.
Marxist progressives, who control our public schools have controlled curriculum designed to fundamentally change our nation. The Miseducation of America by David Goodwin, President of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, is a review of the Fox Nation series, The Miseducation of America. Goodwin observes that progressives started their transformation of American education in 1907 with the Gary Plan. The progressive goal was complete removal Christianity and traditional values from Americ’s schools and elimination of Americ’s Christian identity. This identify perpetuated the Western Christian, Judeo-Christian values, the idea that men, all people, should be educated to be well-rounded, refined in intellect, morals, and physicality, so training of both the body and mind is important. Goodwin describes the conflict between the progressive vision and the Christian vision for America as follows:
The progressive narrative tells us that our civilization today is the result of human progress over time, and now that science rules the day, they can improve civilization even further if given enough power and control¦. [The] Christian narrative teaches something else. Our present culture and civilization will remain great only insofar as it aligns with Truth. Because Truth is fixed and unchanging, we should guard our society from influences that conflict with it, and we should strive to pursue Truth¦. The Progressives at the turn of the 20th century knew what they were up against. As long as the Western Christian philosophy defined our culture and civilization, the progressive agenda would be limited¦. Progressive philosophies, such as Critical Theory, Marxism, and the influence of the Frankfurt School, dominate education. Today, our schools are far from the engine of freedom that classical Christian education once was.
The progressive thinkers behind this plan were, and still are, primarily atheistic Marxists who used Frankfurt School concepts of critical theory to challenge all aspects of Western civilization, Biblical Christianity, and capitalism. In the late 1960’s, Herbert Marcuse, a Frankfurt School critical theorist and Father of the new left, observed that a propaganda based educational dictatorship would be required before radical Marxist change could occur in Western Europe and the United States. Marcuse determined that working class labors were no longer a subversive force capable of bringing about revolutionary change in western society and culture. Consequently, he identified anti-capitalists, radical intellectuals, the socially marginalized, exploited, persecuted outcasts and outsiders of ethnic minorities, people of color, the unemployed, and the unemployable as trainable revolutionaries. Ethnic and gender study programs were established in most universities to train the envisioned revolutionaries. CRT, CGT, and QT, were, and still are, useful tools for these revolutionaries. The educators trained for this transformation of our nation now teach our children, including Hispanics, from Preschool to Ph.D., Marxism PP. The Democrat Party supports state departments of education, school boards, and teachers’ unions promoting social indoctrination curricula that take time from teaching reading, science, and math. Consequently, Democrats are failing to properly educate our children, including Hispanic students. The question is, Is Hispanic allegiance to Democrats still Justified.
Poverty
In his 2020 United States Census Bureau article, Poverty Rates for Blacks and Hispanics Reached Historic Lows in 2019, John Creamer observed that the poverty rate for the United States was 10.5%, the lowest since 1959. Poverty declined rapidly between 2017 and 2019 for all race and ethnic groups, especially Hispanics and Blacks. In 2019, the poverty rate for Blacks was 18.8%; and for Hispanics, it was 15.7%, both historic lows, but double the rate for Whites.
Household income for these two groups also increased more rapidly between 2018 and 2019 but remained $20,000 below White household income. Poverty in the general Hispanic community has been a problem for 70 years primarily in large metropolitan areas controlled by Democrats who have failed to solve this problem. In New Mexico, controlled by Democrats almost entirely since 1932, economic growth and poverty are major issues. The state ranks 40th in per capita consumption, 48th in per carta disposable income, and 43rd in teen pregnancy rate which usually corresponds with single female parent families. Fatherless families are a major contributor to poverty. Since Democrats have been unable to relieve Hispanic poverty, is Hispanic allegiance to Democrats still Justified?
Crime
Poverty is also corelated with crime. According to the 2015 article, Latino Populations and Crime in America by Idelisse Malave and Esti Giordani, 22% of inmates in federal, state, and local prisons/jails are Hispanic. Information on Hispanic crime is hard to find because the FBI has not collected data over the years by ethnicity. This is unfortunate since Hispanics make up about 19% of the U.S. population with a large share of children under eighteen. In California and Texas, two states with large Hispanic populations that do track ethnicity, Hispanic felony and misdemeanor arrests were 40% and 36%, respectively. Nine out of ten Hispanic federal offenders were convicted of one of two offenses: immigration and/or drug trafficking related crimes. Hispanics account for almost half (46%) of all documented gang members in the United States. Around 16% of Hispanic prisoners under state jurisdiction were convicted of drug related crimes. Hispanics accounted for over 45% of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) federal arrests and convictions in federal court. Surprisingly, the authors reported that despite the high numbers of documented Hispanic gang members, only 3% of young Hispanics aged sixteen to twenty-five said that they are now or have ever been in a gang. In contrast, the authors also reported that about 25% of second-generation youth have been convicted of committing a crime, compared to 17% of immigrant Hispanic youth. The charts below provide an interesting story about crime victims. 44% of Hispanic victims are Hispanic; 48% are White. Similarly, 35% of Black victims are Black; 50% are White. In contrast, 88% of White victims are White; only 2.4% of White victims are black, and 8.2% are Hispanic. Sadly, Hispanic on Hispanic crime is worse than Black on Black crime.
Race and Crime: Who Attacks Whom?
Hispanics have a different view of Law enforcement than African Americans according to the authors of this article, when they wrote:
Surprisingly, Hispanic communities, living within walking distance of crime and drugs, and with residents frequently stopped and questioned by local and federal law enforcement, still have confidence in this justice system. Many Hispanics believe that law enforcement officers actually do a good job of protecting them and that the courts treat them fairly. As more and more data surfaces, will their confidence erode?
Education, poverty, and crime all have an interrelated impact on the quality of life and opportunities afforded residents of every community including the greater Hispanic community. In states with large metropolitan areas controlled by Democrats, Democrats often control state governments as well. In some instances, Democrats have been in control for 70 to 100 years or more. Has education, poverty levels, or crime rates improved under the thumb of Democrats? If the answer is no, then it is reasonable to ask this question, Is Hispanic allegiance to Democrats still justified?
The Assault on Hispanic Culture
As an outsider, the assault on Hispanic culture and society seems to contribute to many of the issues adversely affecting Hispanics. From my perspective, asking pointed questions designed to promote critical thinking and dialog, is the least provocative way to approach the issues. First, Does the progressive assault, on traditional values, morality, and ethics in the overall American culture and society, contribute to Hispanic issues related to education and the noted racial and ethnic disparities in education, poverty and fatherlessness, healthcare, and crime? The answer to problems related to these issues is a resounding yes for both Whites and Hispanics; but Why?
The answer lies in the Frankfurt School’s application of critical theory to move people and cultures to accept atheistic Marxist progressive ideology as the bases of governance and society. Critical theory uses every academic discipline and most aspects of our culture to promote the revolutionary, transformational change they envision for the United States. Three of the most important disciplines used by critical theorists to accomplish their goals are psychiatry, psychology, and sociology. Research projects are developed and statistically designed by researchers in these disciplines to support the tenants of critical race theory, critical gender theory, Queer Theory, and attack Christianity, traditional values, and our system of governance.
Elimination of Christianity and our traditional Judeo-Christian values as major influences on American culture and society, is the primary goal of Marxist progressives. In my opinion, progressives oppose Christianity for several reasons. First, both Judaism and Christianity teach that each individual is important to God; and individualism is an anathema to Marxists since their success depends of the individual’s subjugation to the collective. Consequently, the individual is worthless compared to the value of the collective. In contrast, Biblical Christianity teaches that the individual has infinite value because God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still Sinners, Christ (God’s only Son) died for us (each individual) (Romans 5:8 NIV). The value of the individual is magnified by the fact that
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs “ heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:16-17 NIV).
As joint heirs with God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, each Christian individual has infinite value in the sight of the God. Marxist philosophers have expressed their disdain for the role of Christianity in promoting the individual. Ludwig Feuerbach wrote,
Christianity alienated man’s communal character as a species into individual relationships with an external being resulting in the rise of individualism¦. The essence of Man is contained only in community, in the unity of Man with Man¦. [In the relationship between] ‘I and Thou,’ [Christ had become] ‘Thou.’ [Religion was misdirected].
Engels observed that the abstract subjectivity of individualism to be a problem of the Christian-Germanic view of the world and the Christian state. Accordingly, the free and spontaneous association of men would lead to an ever certain victory over the unreason of the individual.
The second reason progressives oppose Christianity is the relationship between the Christian Church and traditional Christian family to the nurture and training of each generation of Christian individuals. Evangelism, conversion of non-Christians, is a primary task of Christian churches and individuals. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Each person on earth is individually valued and loved by God. While discussing the church and religion in The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote, Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience. In A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, Nikolai Bukharin wrote, religion [especially Christianity] must be opposed actively [since it would take too long for it to] die out of its own accord.
The traditional Christian family with a father, mother, and their children is another reason progressives oppose Christianity. The Christian family serves the same basic function as the Christian church with the primary emphasis on their children. This family model does not fit the preferred progressive family model. It is both hierarchical and patriarchal, an anathema to LGBTQ+ activists and social Marxists. Marxist, progressive opposition to the traditional family is clear. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote:
Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of communists.
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois (ruling class, landowners, and capitalists) family based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.
In The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions, Robert Briffault observed that paternal families were a product of economic systems where property inheritance by individuals was important to society. Briffault’s vision for the future family is not traditional. He concluded:
¦The expectation that the decay of the patriarchal family as a result of the serious crisis of the individualistic, competitive economy would increase, and that a society no longer characterized by competitiveness would be able finally to release social emotions which went beyond the narrow and distorting circle of family.
Friedrich Engels viewed the Bourgeois, traditional Biblical family, as an institution of male dominance in which the wife simply provided heirs for legal transmission of property to succeeding generations in exchange for sustenance. Engels considered the relationship a form of prostitution. Michele Barrett defined family as simply kinship arrangements or the organization of a household. This view is consistent with the current demands of the LGBTQ+ agenda. The role of the Christian family in relation to raising strong Christian individuals is a significant reason that progressives oppose Christianity.
Thirdly, progressives oppose Christianity because of the relationship between individualism and capitalism. They understand that Christianity produces individuals who are confident, self-reliant, well-rounded, refined in intellect, morals, and physicality, potential capitalists and entrepreneurs. Progressives know that virtually every major corporation was founded by one or a few individuals who had confidence in our Constitutional, capitalistic, economic system to risk starting their business. Since Marxist progressives oppose capitalism, Christianity must be opposed and every level. A fact that most progressives refuse to admit.
The cultural weapons used by progressive Critical Theorists to deliver their ideas to the people of the United States for this assault traditional values include the news media, movie industry, music, television, advertising, fashion, and literature. Movies, television, music, and literature routinely portray extra-marital sex, including bi-sexual and homosexual characters, and unmarried co-habitation as acceptable. The behavior occurs in most prime-time television programming and advertisements viewed by our children. On these venues, children are exposed to hundreds of violent acts each year. Although criminals usually suffer consequences for crime in hourly dramas, seasons long series like the Sopranos and Empire depict the lavish wealth potentially generated by crime and drug empires. The events portrayed tell children that non-traditional sex and families are acceptable, and carefully done, crime pays.
Democrats have moved to the far progressive left. Democrats support open borders and illegal immigration, education that is failing Hispanic and other minority students who suffer the most, programs that fail to improve the economic wellbeing or reduce poverty of Hispanics and most minorities, defunding police leaving Hispanic neighborhoods less protected, criminal justice reform that returns criminals to the streets almost immediately without real punishment, and an assault on traditional values important to Hispanics. With all that Democrats do for Hispanics. Is Hispanic allegiance to Democrats still Justified?
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