More than 53 million Latinos now constitute the largest, fastest-growing, and most diverse minority group in the United States, and the nation’s political future may well be shaped by Latinos’ continuing political incorporation. In the 2012 election, Latinos proved to be a critical voting bloc in both Presidential and Congressional races; this demographic will only become more important in future American elections. Using new evidence from the largest-ever scientific survey addressed exclusively to Latino/Hispanic respondents, Latino Politics en Ciencia Política explores political diversity within the Latino community, considering how intra-community differences influence political behavior and policy preferences.
The editors and contributors, all noted scholars of race and politics, examine key issues of Latino politics in the contemporary United States: Latino/a identities (latinidad), transnationalism, acculturation, political community, and racial consciousness. The book contextualizes today’s research within the history of Latino political studies, from the field’s beginnings to the present, explaining how systematic analysis of Latino political behavior has over time become integral to the study of political science. Latino Politics en Ciencia Política is thus an ideal text for learning both the state of the field today, and key dimensions of Latino political attitudes.
Tony Affigne is Professor of Political Science at Providence College and Visiting Professor of American Studies at Brown University. He is founder and past president of the Sector Latino de Ciencia Política (Latino Caucus in Political Science), and co-founded the American Political Science Association’s research section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. In 1982 he was Rhode Island’s first-ever Latino candidate for elected office.
At Brown University and previously at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Evelyn Hu-DeHart has been most prominently associated with the development of the academic field of Ethnic Studies, of which Latino Studies is an important component. Trained as a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean, her own research focuses on Asians in the Americans, including the construction of Asian-Latinos.
Marion Orr is the Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy, Political Science and Urban Studies and Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University. He is the author and editor of five books, including Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore, which won the Policy Studies Organization's Aaron Wildavsky Award for the best book published in 1999, and The Color of School Reform: Race, Politics and the Challenge of Urban Education, which was named the best book in 1999 by the American Political Science Association's (APSA) Urban Politics Section.