2024年，拉美裔选民向共和党倾斜的幅度超过任何其他群体，而他们今年可能会向相反方向大幅回摆。如果民主党收复过去十年里在这一群体中失去的阵地，那并不意味着拉美裔回归了他们的“天然政治归宿”——我们根本不存在这样一个归宿。
Latinos swung further toward Republicans than any other group in 2024, and they could swing further in the opposite direction this year. If Democrats recover the ground they have lost with this bloc over the past decade, it won’t mean that Latinos have come back to their natural political home. We don’t have one.
和许多拉美裔一样，我已厌倦了每个选举周期都要讨论我们究竟倾向民主党还是共和党。我们是民主党人，因为我们支持移民和工人权利？还是共和党人，因为我们的信仰让我们拥护传统家庭价值观？我原本指望唐纳德·特朗普在2024年在拉美裔中取得历史性成功，能引发人们对拉美裔群体身份的全新思考——促进对何为拉美裔、包含其中一切矛盾在内的更深层理解。
Like many Latinos, I’ve grown tired of having to talk every cycle about whether we lean Democrat or Republican. Are Latinos Democrats, because we support immigrants and workers’ rights? Are we Republicans, because our faith leads us to embrace traditional family values? I expected Donald Trump’s historic success among Latinos in 2024 to prompt fresh thinking about who Latinos are as a community—to foster a deeper understanding of what it means to be Latino, contradictions and all.
2024年，拉美裔人口几乎每个细分群体都向右转移——女性和男性、天主教徒和福音派新教徒、富人和穷人、白人和非白人、城市和农村居民、新入籍公民和老公民。特朗普激活了此前未参与政治的新拉美裔选民；尽管他可能是主要吸引力，但其他共和党候选人在拉美裔中的表现也优于以往选举。
In 2024, virtually every segment of the Latino population moved to the right—women and men, Catholics and evangelical Protestants, rich and poor, white and nonwhite, in cities and rural areas, the recently naturalized and longtime citizens. Trump energized new Latino voters who hadn’t participated in politics before, and although he may have been the main attraction, other Republicans also did better with Latinos than they had in previous elections.
2022年和2024年的选举让许多新的拉美裔面孔进入国会，他们来自全美各地。除了亚利桑那州、加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、佛罗里达州、新墨西哥州和得克萨斯州的拉美裔议员外，还有来自新泽西州、俄亥俄州、俄勒冈州和华盛顿州的议员。他们有男有女，有民主党人也有共和党人。他们是机修工、组织者、企业主、退伍军人。他们利益诉求各异，并非一条声音。他们展示了拉美裔像其他任何群体一样，已深度融入美国政治。
The elections of 2022 and 2024 brought many new Latino faces to Congress, and they came from all over the map. In addition to Latino representatives from Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas, we had others from New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington. They were men and women, Democrats and Republicans. They were mechanics, organizers, business owners, veterans. They had varied interests and didn’t speak with one voice. They were a demonstration of how Latinos were as integrated into American politics as any other group.
但两年后的今天，许多政治观察家仍将拉美裔视为单一维度的行动者：要么是他们自己就是移民，要么是本能地倾向于同情移民，要么是背叛了移民的叛徒。聚焦移民问题在一定程度上讲得通。如今边境比乔·拜登执政时期更安全，但美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）逮捕的对象绝大多数是守法的无证移民，而非危险罪犯。
But two years later, many political observers still see Latinos as one-dimensional actors: as immigrants themselves, or as people instinctively inclined to sympathize with immigrants, or as traitors who are turning our backs to them. The focus on immigration makes sense, up to a point. The border is more secure today than it was under Joe Biden, but instead of dangerous criminals, the targets of ICE arrests have overwhelmingly been law-abiding, if undocumented, immigrants.
然而，尽管拉美裔群体似乎很可能会因反对特朗普的移民和经济政策而投票反对共和党，民主党至今仍未就我们将支持何种具体的移民和经济政策达成共识。在移民问题上，是推动合法化？废除私营拘留设施？还是延续贝拉克·奥巴马的做法——只驱逐危险罪犯而不驱逐守法移民，尽管左派曾痛骂他是“驱逐首领”？在经济问题上，是全民医保？提高最低工资？帮助拉美裔创业的计划？还是向亿万富翁征税？
Yet even though Latinos as a group seem likely to vote against Republicans as a reaction against Trump’s immigration and economic policies, Democrats haven’t yet come to a consensus on exactly what immigration and economic policies we will be voting for. In terms of immigration, is it legalization? The end of private detention facilities? The continued deportation of dangerous criminals, but not law-abiding immigrants—à la Barack Obama, whom the left maligned as the deporter in chief? In terms of the economy, is it universal health care? A raised minimum wage? Programs to help Latinos start businesses? Taxing billionaires?
民主党似乎从2024年大选中得出的教训是，移民议题对他们不利，因此最好将重点放在通胀和生活成本上。共和党则希望相信拉美裔最关心经济，因为这会给他们在移民问题上为所欲为提供掩护。2020年和2024年大选似乎确实印证了这一点：尽管特朗普大力支持大规模驱逐，他在拉美裔中的支持率却越来越高。
The lesson that Democrats seem to have drawn from 2024 is that immigration isn’t a winning issue for them, so they’d better focus on inflation and the cost of living instead. Republicans, meanwhile, want to believe that Latinos care about the economy above all else, because that would give them cover to do whatever they want on immigration. That did seem to be the lesson of 2020 and 2024, when Trump did better and better among Latinos despite his draconian support for mass deportation.
大多数拉美裔支持全面移民改革，并认为驱逐没有犯罪记录、已购房、抚养家庭并以其他方式融入社区的移民是错误的。政治学家马特·巴雷托在2024年大选前曾告诉我，拉美裔希望边境安全，但也认为守法的长期居民移民应该能够合法化。
Most Latinos favor comprehensive immigration reform and think it’s wrong to deport immigrants who don’t have a criminal record and who have bought homes, raised families, and otherwise integrated into their communities. As the political scientist Matt Barreto told me before the 2024 election, Latinos want the border to be secure, but also think law-abiding immigrants who are longtime residents should be able to legalize.
不过，基于这种区分的全面政策很棘手，因为它留下了一个未解决的问题：如何处理那些既勤劳又守法的近期非法入境者——也就是说，他们中的大多数。自特朗普第二任政府的大规模驱逐行动开始以来，我们将退伍军人及其家属，或几十年前抵达并在此建立生活的移民，视为被特朗普的移民大搜捕不公正卷入其中的同情对象。但这是否意味着我们应该驱逐近期抵达的勤劳移民？几十年前抵达的移民曾经也是新来者，而今天的新来者终将成为在此居住已久的移民。
A comprehensive policy based on this distinction is tricky, though, because it leaves unresolved the question of what to do with recent unauthorized arrivals who are both hardworking and law-abiding, which is to say most of them. Since the mass deportations of Trump’s second administration began, we’ve upheld veterans and their families, or immigrants who arrived decades ago and have built a life here, as sympathetic characters unjustly caught up in Trump’s immigration dragnet. But does this mean we should be deporting hardworking immigrants who arrived more recently? Immigrants who came decades ago were new arrivals once, and new arrivals today will one day be immigrants who have been here for a long time.
美国全国广播公司（NBC）和西班牙语电视网Telemundo于9月进行的一项民调显示，拉美裔社区在这些及其他问题上存在显著分歧。令我惊讶的是，过去几年里拉美裔对移民的看法变化微乎其微——即使经历了逮捕、驱逐和杀戮。在“处理移民问题”方面，受访者以45%对31%的差距认为民主党会比共和党做得更好。2022年，这一差距为41%对30%，有利于民主党——也就是说，如今认为民主党能更好处理移民问题的西班牙裔比例仅略微上升。
A poll in September, from NBC and Telemundo, showed significant divides within the Latino community on these and other questions. I was surprised to learn how minimally Latinos’ views of immigration have changed over the past few years—even after the arrests, deportations, and killings. When it came to “dealing with immigration,” respondents, by a margin of 45 to 31 percent, said Democrats would do a better job than Republicans. In 2022, that margin was 41 percent to 30 percent in favor of Democrats—that is, only a slightly higher percentage of Hispanics today think Democrats would handle immigration better.
38%的拉美裔认为民主党能更有效地保卫边境，而同样比例的人认为情况相反。四年前，民主党在这一问题上拥有11个百分点的优势。此外，如今认为移民“利大于弊”的拉美裔比例降低了，而认为移民“弊大于利”的比例则上升了。最后，与四年前相比，认为童年被带入美国的移民应获得合法身份的拉美裔比例下降了，而认为所有无证移民都应被驱逐的比例大致持平——2024年为39%，如今为37%。
Thirty-eight percent of Latinos believe that Democrats would more effectively secure the border, while an equal percentage believe the reverse. Four years ago, Democrats had an 11-point advantage on that question. Moreover, a lower percentage of Latinos today think immigration “helps more than hurts,” and a higher percentage thinks immigration “hurts more than helps.”Finally, compared with four years ago, a lower percentage of Latinos think that immigrants brought to the United States when they were kids should be legalized, and about the same percentage—39 percent in 2024, 37 percent today—think that all undocumented immigrants should be deported.
民主党要想重获拉美裔在移民和边境问题上的信任，仍有大量工作要做；考虑到特朗普政府的无情与残酷，共和党受到的冲击远没有人们预期的那么大。
Democrats still have a lot of work to do to regain Latinos’ trust on immigration and the border, and Republicans haven’t suffered nearly as much as one might have expected given the Trump administration’s ruthlessness and cruelty.
拉美裔显然对特朗普不满。经济曾是他的最大优势之一，如今却成为显著弱势。和所有美国人一样，拉美裔表示希望食品、汽油、房租、医疗及其他基本需求的价格更低。他们还希望有更多更好的工作、更高的工资，以及更低的房贷利率，以便买得起自己的房子。但他们也喜欢特朗普的小费免税、加班费和社会保障政策，且总体上仍视共和党为亲商党。
Latinos are clearly dissatisfied with Trump. The economy was one of his greatest strengths but is now a significant weakness for him. Like all Americans, Latinos say they want the price of food, gas, rent, health care, and other basic needs to be lower. They also want more and better jobs, and higher wages, and for mortgage interest rates to be lower, so they can afford to buy their own home. But they also like Trump’s no-tax-on-tips, overtime-pay, and Social Security policies, and they still generally see Republicans as the pro-business party.
一个重要的例外是，在几乎完全聚焦于移民和经济的背景下，拉美裔研究和民调机构Equis的Carlos Odio和Rachel Stein在其通讯《The New Dynamic》中所做的工作。除了这些议题，他们还关注伊朗战争，以及拉美裔普遍倾向于不卷入外国冲突、反对以减少国内投资为代价的对外援助，还有拉美裔——尤其是较新近的移民——坚定地认为美国是世界上最伟大的国家。
An important exception to the almost-exclusive focus on immigration and the economy is the work that Carlos Odio and Rachel Stein, of the Latino research and polling firm Equis, are doing in their newsletter, The New Dynamic. In addition to these issues, they have focused on the Iran war and the strong preference Latinos have for not getting entangled in foreign conflicts more generally, their objection to foreign aid if the trade-off is less investment at home, and the steadfast belief among Latinos, especially more recent arrivals, that the United States is the greatest country in the world.
目标不仅应该是像他们所写的那样，“在特朗普时代清醒地看清已被揭示的一切”，还应探索在特朗普登场之前，早已塑造拉美裔生活和政治的广泛议题。长期以来，这种更宽广的视角一直被移民和经济议题所遮蔽或掩盖，而这些议题既能反映当下的党派诉求，也能反映拉美裔的情况。
The goal should be not only to “see with clear eyes what has been revealed in the age of Trump,” as they have written, but also to explore the broad array of issues that shaped Latino life and politics even before Trump entered the arena. For too long, this more expansive approach has been obscured or overshadowed by the issues of immigration and the economy, which can reveal as much about the partisan imperatives of the moment as about Latinos.
去年春天得克萨斯州初选后，拉美裔选民动员组织Voto Latino宣称，拉美裔“正在回归民主党——毫无疑问”。当我向长期共和党人、保守派LIBRE Initiative负责人Daniel Garza提及此事时，他说：“拉美裔没有归宿。”我的希望是，拉美裔将拥有多个政治归宿，而非仅有一个，并且各党候选人继续争取我们的选票——只有当他们代表我们所属的众多社区的利益，并兑现承诺时，我们才会把票投给他们。
After last spring’s primaries in Texas, Voto Latino, a Latino voter-mobilization group, asserted that Latinos are “coming home to Democrats—there is no question about it.”When I mentioned this to Daniel Garza, a longtime Republican and head of the conservative LIBRE Initiative, he said, “There is no home for Latinos.”My hope is that Latinos will claim many political homes instead of just one, and that candidates in all parties continue to fight for votes that we will give them only if they represent the interests of the many communities we are a part of, then follow through on their promises.