Browsing by Subject "Latino politics"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Out of many, más : imagining a U.S. Latino political audience(2015-05) Soto, Arthur Daniel; Watkins, S. Craig (Samuel Craig); Jarvis, Sharon EU.S. Latino political integration is a theme that has entered the public agenda in recent years, advanced by both professionals and scholars. However, most political actors have ignored the tremendous racial and socio-economic differences in American Latino communities. Many political actors have made fundamental assumptions about what constitutes the American Latino experience, including overemphasizing the language and other cultural similarities of these populations while disregarding their different experiences of race and class. This thesis analyzes how political actors, including American Presidents, Latino civic organizations, Spanish media and Latino youth, have constructed Latino pan-ethnicism through their rhetoric. To investigate this question, a multi-method analysis of rhetoric and political communication directed towards or about U.S. Latinos was conducted. Data indicates that official participants in U.S. Latino racial formation, Presidents and Civic Organizations, are rapidly constructing pan-ethnic rhetoric while other non-official participants challenge and deconstruct pan-ethnic rhetoric. The normative value of this thesis represents a contribution to the question of Latino inclusion in the United States, as well as complicating traditional notions of assimilation and political acculturation. Finally, this work challenges American Latinos to critically reflect on their own identity formation, and how they may begin to reclaim it.Item ?Vecinos o Enemigos?: Latino National Identity and the Debate over English as the National Language(2012-07-16) Brown, Donathan LawrenceThe intersection of race, rhetoric and public policy, particularly pertaining to Latino politics, is a growing area of development. Albeit historically, most immigrants to America faced similar questions of cultural and linguistic allegiance, the case regarding Latinos is unique. Given their continual demographic growth, now occupying the nation?s largest ?minority? group, much political debate and commentary has arisen regarding the nations state of national unity and identity. For instance, is there a negative correlation between increasing levels of Latino immigration and the stability of the English language as lingua franca? Alternatively, does increasing levels of Latino immigration threaten the sustainability of ?American? values and beliefs? Named and defined as a policy ?problem,? Latinos, Latino immigration and the Spanish language have become framed as policy ?problems? needing solutions. In efforts to unpack this rhetorically rich debate over national identity, race, culture and language, the canon of invention is analyzed insofar as the creation of Latinos as policy ?problems,? with close attention drawn also toward policy makers supposed ?solutions.? Engaged in both past and present attempts toward declaring English the national language on both the state and federal level, this project largely concerns itself within the 2006 Senate English as the national language debate, along with the growth of one of the nation?s most out-spoken limited-immigration, English-only proponents, Tom Tancredo.Item Watching and learning from the shadows : political knowledge among DREAMEer Latinos(2014-05) Tafoya, Joe Robert; Leal, David L.The fate of undocumented youth recently overwhelmed political dialogue on immigration and its effect on those individuals remains largely unstudied. This paper extends the scope of political information analyses from potential voters to undocumented childhood arrivals. Quantitative observations come from in-depth qualitative interviews in Los Angeles County, California and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. It finds important regional differences in the ability of immigration status to motivate cognitive engagement of politics. It questions the threat hypothesis, as highly politically knowledgeable DREAMers appear to reside in supportive environments. Such places help equip them with the ability to attribute blame and channel anger or enthusiasm. Findings suggest profound dissimilarities in the potential for political participation if and when DREAMer Latinos gain access to citizenship.