Identity Politics and the Latino vs. Hispanic Debate

Printer Friendly version
Collapse open tabs

Goal

The goal of this exercise is to examine the relationship between cultural identities and partisanship, vote choice, and liberal social policies. Crosstabulation, frequencies, and charts will be used.

Concept

Though often used interchangeably in American English, Hispanic and Latino are not identical terms, and in certain contexts the choice between them can be significant. In recent years the distinction has created a sociopolitical rift because for a certain segment of the Spanish-speaking population, Latino is a term of ethnic pride and Hispanic a label that borders on the offensive. According to this view, Hispanic lacks the authenticity and cultural resonance of Latino, with its Spanish sound and its ability to show the feminine form Latina when used of women. Furthermore, Hispanic, the term used by the U.S. Census Bureau and other government agencies, is said to bear the stamp of an Anglo establishment far removed from the concerns of the Spanish-speaking community. While these views are strongly held by some, they are by no means universal, and with Latino widely preferred in some regions while Hispanic is the usual term in other regions, the division in usage seems as related to geography as it is to politics.

Examples of possible research questions on identity politics and the Latino vs. Hispanic debate:

  • Is there a difference in the approval of the president from those of Spanish or Latin heritage by their cultural identity?
  • Does the cultural identity of those of Spanish/Latin heritage relate to partisanship?
  • Does vote choice by those of Spanish/Latin heritage differ by cultural identity?
  • Does cultural identity relate to support for liberal social policies?

This exercise will use the The Latino National Survey, 2006 which contains 8,634 completed computer-assisted telephone interviews of self-identified Latino/Hispanic residents of the United States. Interviewing began on November 17, 2005, and continued through August 4, 2006. The survey contained approximately 165 distinct items ranging from demographic descriptions to political attitudes and policy preferences, as well as a variety of social indicators and experiences. All interviewers were bilingual, speaking English and Spanish. Demographic variables include age, ancestry, birthplace, education level, ethnicity, marital status, military service, number of people in the household, number of children under the age of 18 living in the household, political party affiliation, political ideology, religiosity, religious preference, race, and sex.

This exercise will use the following variables:

  • Political party identification (PARTYID)
  • Hispanic or Latino identity (IDPREF)
  • Vote choice for Presidential election 2004 (VOTEPRES)
  • Support for legal recognition of same sex marriage (SAMESEX)

This exercise explores the relationship between cultural identity and partisanship, vote choice, and opinions on same sex marriage.

Identity and Party Identification

For this exercise, we have recoded the variables IDPREF and PARTYID to exclude "don't care" and "don't know" responses. The new variables are called "IDENTITY" and PARTY_ID.

In this survey, respondents were asked to choose between being described as "Hispanic" or "Latino" or whether they care about the use of these names at all. Begin by examining the frequency distribution of IDENTITY. What percentage of respondents prefers to be referred to as "Latino?" What percentage identifies as Hispanic?

Now look at the distribution of PARTY_ID. What percentage of the sample is Republican? Which party had the largest number of respondents?

To see whether cultural identity relates to partisanship, look at the crosstab of IDENTITY and PARTY_ID. What percentage of Latino respondents identifies as Democrat? How does this compare to the percentage of Hispanics considering themselves to be Democrats?

Identity and Vote Choice

We recoded VOTEPRES, retaining responses reflecting only the three top vote-getting candidates. The new variable is called VOTE_PRES.

Look at the frequency distribution of VOTE_PRES. Which candidate received the highest number of votes among survey respondents?

To see whether cultural identity is related to vote choice, look at the crosstab of IDENTITY and VOTE_PRES. What percentage of respondents voted for Kerry? How many Latino respondents voted for Bush? Were Hispanics or Latinos more likely to vote for Kerry?

Identity and Support for Same Sex Marriage

Survey respondents were asked if same sex couples should be allowed to: "legally marry;" "enter into civil unions;" or "receive no legal recognition." Respondents who did not express an opinion were put into a fourth category called "No Opinion/NA." We recoded this variable into two categories: "no legal standing" and "legal standing." The new variable is called SEXSAME. A little more than two-fifths (42.6%) of the sample did not express an opinion and have been excluded from the following analyses.

Look at the frequency of the new variable SEXSAME. Do the majority of respondents support legal standing for same sex marriage? What percentage of respondents support legal standing for same sex marriage?

Now look at the relationship between cultural identity and the legal recognition of same sex marriage. Look at the crosstab of SEXSAME and IDENTITY. Are Latinos or Hispanics more likely to support the legal standing of same sex marriage?

Think about your answers to the application questions before you click through the interpretation guide for help in answering them.

  • What percentage of respondents prefers to be referred to as "Latino?" What percentage identifies as Hispanic?
  • What percentage of the sample is Republican? Which party had the largest number of respondents?
  • What percentage of Latino respondents identifies as Democrat? How does this compare to the percentage of Hispanics considering themselves to be Democrats?
  • Which candidate received the highest number of votes among survey respondents?
  • What percentage of respondents voted for Kerry? How many Latino respondents voted for Bush? Were Hispanics or Latinos more likely to vote for Kerry?
  • Does the majority of respondents support legal standing for same sex marriage? What percentage of respondents support legal standing for same sex marriage?
  • Are Latinos or Hispanics more likely to support the legal standing of same sex marriage?

Interpretation

Things to think about in interpreting the results:

  • It is important to look at the amount of missing data in each relationship and think about the ways in which that might affect the generalizability of the results.
  • The numbers in each cell of the crosstabulation tables show the percentage of people who fall into the overlapping categories, followed by the actual number of people that represents this sample. The coloring in the tables demonstrates how the observed number in a cell compares to the expected number if there were no association between the two variables. The accompanying bar charts display the patterns visually as well.
  • The use of column percentages, as shown in these tables, allows for the comparison of answers to the "outcome" of interest across values of the grouping variable. For example, 20% of Hispanics identify as Republicans, compared to 14% of Latinos.

The analyses show the following:

  • 43.5% of respondents prefer to be identified as Hispanic. 16% prefer to be identified as Latino and 40.5% feel that either identity label is fine.
  • 970 respondents (17.7%) said that they are Republican. There are more than three times as many Democrats (3,085 or 56.2% of respondents) in the sample than Republicans.
  • In this sample, Latinos (60.8%) are slightly more likely than Hispanics (56.6%) to consider themselves to be a Democrat. The dark red shading in three of the cells in the table shows that: 1) significantly more Latinos consider themselves to be Democrats than expected; 2) significantly more Hispanics consider themselves to be Republicans than expected; and 3) those who feel that either cultural identity is fine are significantly more likely to be Independents than expected.
  • John Kerry received the most votes from the sample respondents (1,459 or 55.2%).
  • When we look at the crosstab, we see that Kerry received 1,131 or 56.3% of the votes among the respondents. Note that this does not match the result in the previous analysis. The discrepancy is due to the fact that many respondents who offered a response regarding their vote choice did not choose one of the three response categories in our recoded IDENTITY variable, thus they have been excluded from the analysis and can be considered as missing data. Still, we are able to carry on with our analyses. Only 118 of the 335 Latino respondents voted for Bush. Latinos (64.2%) voted for Kerry at higher rates than Hispanics (53.4%) or those who feel that either ethnicity label is fine (56.5%).
  • The majority of sample respondents (57.4%) do not support the legal recognition of same sex marriage. However, when we consider differences in ethnic identity we see that a very slight majority of Latinos (50.9%) do support a legal standing for same-sex relationships while only 40.4% of Hispanics and 40.2% of the "either is fine" group are supportive.

Summary

The purpose of this exercise was to examine the relationship that cultural identities have on partisanship, vote choice, and liberal social policies. The analyses suggest that people of Spanish-speaking descent are not homogenous. Although as a group they lean toward the Democratic party, voted for John Kerry in 2004, and oppose same sex marriage, there are distinct differences between those who identify as Hispanic and those who identify as Latino.

According to our analyses and this sample of respondents, we find that those identifying as Latino supported Kerry to a greater extent than those who identify as Hispanic (64.9% to 54%, respectively). Further, those identifying as Latino are more likely to support the legal recognition of same sex marriage than those identifying as Hispanic.

CITATION: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Identity Politics and the Latino vs. Hispanic Debate: A Data-Driven Learning Guide. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-04-16. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3886/identitypol

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.