Michael Gonzalez writes about Hispanic diversity in America and some of the demographic factors that led to nearly half of voting Hispanics deciding to support George Bush.
This was the election when Hispanics came of age. Two were famously elected into the Senate, providing a powerful symbol of their political advent. To Ken Salazar in Colorado, and to my fellow Cuban-American Mel Martinez in Florida, I send congratulations. But to my mind, much more important are the following numbers from pollsters: 72, 62 and 54. These are, respectively, the percentage of Hispanics that voted for Clinton in 1996, Gore in 2000 and Kerry last week. Two more figures, 50% and 40 million, are, respectively, the increase in Hispanic voters in 2004 over 2000, and the number of Hispanics now in the U.S., a country of 280 million.To Democrats, the most perlexing part of Mr. Gonzalez' article may be the bio line at the very end:Two more stats are really important (and then I'll stop). The first is that 22% of Hispanics told pollsters they were voting for the first time. Of these, the party split was even. This might be the most ominous number for Democrats, since party loyalties are cemented early.
Mr. González is editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal's editorial page.A guy named Gonzalez is editing an Asian paper?
I just have to roll my eyes at anyone who thinks ethnic groups, especially in America, never change culturally and always stick to their own. I've done enough genealogy to know that's not the case. People who think that a group of citizens should all think the same way because their last names end in "z" are sorely in need of some education.