The always-exciting Latino conversation
censuses, mayoral elections, podcasts, and a really cool symposium
Hello friends! I hope spring is springing wherever you are. It had been springing here in Chicago and points further east, where it was unseasonably warm for about a week. SNL’s cold open poked fun at the strange cast of characters who frequent Central Park when winter goes away. Hilarious. Less funny is how, today, it is back in the thirties and snowing, right when our kids were supposed to have their first little league team practice.
I last wrote from Louisiana, where, as the Director of Northwestern’s American Studies Program, I’d taken a group of undergraduates for spring break—wholly educational, though, not your typical spring break itinerary. : )
Things haven’t really slowed down since in the wide world of conversations about latinidad. I wrote a short piece about the proposed changes to how the U.S. government would count Hispanics and Latinos, which would affect the census and other government forms. Chicago elected a new Mayor. There are two new episodes of the Public Books podcast, Writing Latinos. And Northwestern is about to host a fantastic symposium called “Reporting on Latinos.” Here’s a little more on each of these things.
The essay I wrote about the census was published on The New Yorker’s website, on March 25th. It was called “Should Latinos Be Considered a Race?” As the title implies, the answer is complicated! Check it out!
On April 4th, Chicago elected Brandon Johnson as the city’s new Mayor. He narrowly defeated Paul Vallas, who many thought would win. Johnson’s victory has been attributed largely to Black voters and the Chicago Teachers Union. I have no argument with that assessment, but I was also tuned in to how Latinos in the city voted.
A few days before the election, a Northwestern University poll—conducted in partnership with “a coalition of Black and Latino nonprofits”—reported that Latinos favored Vallas by a margin of 46 to 35 percent.
On the day of the election, I went to Toman Library in Ward 22, which is 87 percent Latino, to check out the scene and talk with people. There were paid campaigners standing on either side of the library—all Spanish speakers, handing out pamphlets for their candidates—but all of the people I talked with had voted for Johnson.
Johnson did win Ward 22, 57 to 43 percent. Johnson also won in Ward 25 (56 percent Latino), 62 to 38 percent, and in Ward 26 (66 percent Latino), 65 to 35 percent. But Vallas won handly in other majority-Latino Wards: Ward 10 (63 percent Latino), 69 to 31 percent; Ward 13 (66 percent Latino), 82 to 18 percent (ouch!!); Ward 14 (80 percent Latino), 59 percent to 41 percent; and Ward 15 (71 percent Latino), 52 to 48 percent.
Very basically, these results—as we’ve maybe come to expect by now—reveal a divided Latino electorate. The question is why? These wards are broadly reflective of the diversity of Latino Chicago, in terms of national group representation, and in terms of socioeconomic diversity. But did issues such as education and policing play differently in these areas, and did the candidates spend more or less time campaigning in these different wards? Inquiring minds want to know, and I intend to find out!
There are two new episodes of Writing Latinos, the new podcast from Public Books! On March 29th, we published our interview with Graciela Mochkofsky, author of The Prophet of the Andes. On April 12th, we published our interview with Lorgia García-Peña, author of Translating Blackness. You can listen to both interviews on the Public Books website, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Finally, on May 5 and May 6, Northwestern is hosting a fantabulous, scrumtrillescent, super exciting symposium called “Reporting on Latinos: A two-day symposium on the stories we need, and how to tell them.” I’ve co-organized it with Isvett Verde, an Editor at The New York Times. It’s like a dream come true, to finally be able to meet the reporters, editors, political consultants, and data researchers with whom I’ve developed relationships remotely over the past couple of years. Check out the lineup:
And if you happen to be in Chicago, or are interested in traveling to Chicago to check it out, you can register here: https://forms.gle/fnSBpxHpfhPNk7iZ9
Thanks for reading, and see you again here very soon!