Are Latinos on track of assimilating into white just like Irish, Italian, Polish before?

[David Hume]

If yes, when do you think they will be fully assimilated in terms of voting pattern? For example, Italian votes are much closer to general white than other minorities.

If not, why?

[kwabbit]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

[Skill and Chance]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

People considered Hispanic by the census have ancestry in many different countries.  It's not reasonable to compare them to people who immigrated from a single European country.  A more reasonable comparison would be to the cumulative % of the US population that had primarily Mediterranean European ancestry in the early 1920's when the immigration restrictions went into effect.  Or to compare the % of the US population that currently speaks Spanish at home to the % that spoke German at home (including many Austrians, etc.) at their late 19th century/pre-WWI peak.

[Kamala's side hoe]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

I don’t think the in-practice street consensus has ever been anything other than Latinos being considered a distinct ancestry group.

Friendly reminders that:

A: Hispanic is not a race
B: Many (most?) hispanics are white

Why wouldn't Hispanics be able to assimilate?

We know Hispanics are not a race but lose term for the ethnicity of those who identify and appear as mixed-race between Indigenous Americans and Europeans. Now if you are asking if Hispanics will be able to assimilate into the definition of "White" in America as Italians and Poles did then it will be very hard for that happens.

Even in Latin American countries where the overwhelming majority of the population are of Spanish descent still see social and economic divide among those considered "White" and the more mixed-race population. All signs point to that dynamic continuing in America especially since the definition of Whiteness in America and White Americans ancestry more often than not being associated with Northern Europe. (ie: British, French, Nordic, and the greater German area)

Nobody is saying that Hispanics can't be assimilated into American society and there is a strong case to be made that they already have. I'm just pointing out that all signs show the ethnicity known as Hispanics will establish themselves as an influential and independent minority in America in a similar fashion to that of Black Americans and not as an extension of the White Majority that many see Italians and Poles are today.   

[kwabbit]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

People considered Hispanic by the census have ancestry in many different countries.  It's not reasonable to compare them to people who immigrated from a single European country.  A more reasonable comparison would be to the cumulative % of the US population that had primarily Mediterranean European ancestry in the early 1920's when the immigration restrictions went into effect.  Or to compare the % of the US population that currently speaks Spanish at home to the % that spoke German at home (including many Austrians, etc.) at their late 19th century/pre-WWI peak.

Italians and Greeks and Portuguese were all much farther apart than Hispanic groups. Many Italians spoke mutually unintelligible regional languages. All Hispanic groups speak Spanish and in this day and age they can basically all understand each other. From what I can find the German speaking % of the population was never more than about 3-5%. German immigration happened over a very long period of time where even though the US has a lot of Germans the first waves were already assimilated. Spanish is 13-15% in the US today. It's a big difference.

[Samof94]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

I don’t think the in-practice street consensus has ever been anything other than Latinos being considered a distinct ancestry group.

Friendly reminders that:

A: Hispanic is not a race
B: Many (most?) hispanics are white

Why wouldn't Hispanics be able to assimilate?

We know Hispanics are not a race but lose term for the ethnicity of those who identify and appear as mixed-race between Indigenous Americans and Europeans. Now if you are asking if Hispanics will be able to assimilate into the definition of "White" in America as Italians and Poles did then it will be very hard for that happens.

Even in Latin American countries where the overwhelming majority of the population are of Spanish descent still see social and economic divide among those considered "White" and the more mixed-race population. All signs point to that dynamic continuing in America especially since the definition of Whiteness in America and White Americans ancestry more often than not being associated with Northern Europe. (ie: British, French, Nordic, and the greater German area)

Nobody is saying that Hispanics can't be assimilated into American society and there is a strong case to be made that they already have. I'm just pointing out that all signs show the ethnicity known as Hispanics will establish themselves as an influential and independent minority in America in a similar fashion to that of Black Americans and not as an extension of the White Majority that many see Italians and Poles are today.   

What about someone like Selena Gomez, who is an American and spoke English as a first language? How does the label apply to someone in her situation ethnically?

[Roronoa D. Law]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

I don’t think the in-practice street consensus has ever been anything other than Latinos being considered a distinct ancestry group.

Friendly reminders that:

A: Hispanic is not a race
B: Many (most?) hispanics are white

Why wouldn't Hispanics be able to assimilate?

We know Hispanics are not a race but lose term for the ethnicity of those who identify and appear as mixed-race between Indigenous Americans and Europeans. Now if you are asking if Hispanics will be able to assimilate into the definition of "White" in America as Italians and Poles did then it will be very hard for that happens.

Even in Latin American countries where the overwhelming majority of the population are of Spanish descent still see social and economic divide among those considered "White" and the more mixed-race population. All signs point to that dynamic continuing in America especially since the definition of Whiteness in America and White Americans ancestry more often than not being associated with Northern Europe. (ie: British, French, Nordic, and the greater German area)

Nobody is saying that Hispanics can't be assimilated into American society and there is a strong case to be made that they already have. I'm just pointing out that all signs show the ethnicity known as Hispanics will establish themselves as an influential and independent minority in America in a similar fashion to that of Black Americans and not as an extension of the White Majority that many see Italians and Poles are today.   

What about someone like Selena Gomez, who is an American and spoke English as a first language? How does the label apply to someone in her situation ethnically?

Selena has always been viewed as Hispanic and hasn't really shy away from being called so.

[pikachu]

Feel like this is well-trod ground on this board and I go back and forth on my answer, but I lean no more than before. It’s hard to imagine without immigration being near net-zero levels, and we don’t seem close to that with Latinos.

Also feel like a lot of these discussions on parallels with the early 20th century don’t reckon with how race and national identity has changed since then – there’s less pressure/incentive to assimilate into whiteness, either for economic advantage or more relevantly for this discussion, to be considered a real American.

[TheReckoning]

Irish, Italians, and Poles never had to “assimilate” into whiteness because they were considered white from the moment they arrived on the shores of the United States.

That being said, the way “Latino” is counted in the United States is not really indicative of anything, because people like Ted Cruz and Brian Mast are counted as “Hispanic” even though they very easily are just considered any other White American in their respective constituencies.

[EastwoodS]

Irish, Italians, and Poles never had to “assimilate” into whiteness because they were considered white from the moment they arrived on the shores of the United States.

That being said, the way “Latino” is counted in the United States is not really indicative of anything, because people like Ted Cruz and Brian Mast are counted as “Hispanic” even though they very easily are just considered any other White American in their respective constituencies.

No they were not. Irish people literally had to change their names to sound more American White in the early 1900s.

[TheReckoning]

Irish, Italians, and Poles never had to “assimilate” into whiteness because they were considered white from the moment they arrived on the shores of the United States.

That being said, the way “Latino” is counted in the United States is not really indicative of anything, because people like Ted Cruz and Brian Mast are counted as “Hispanic” even though they very easily are just considered any other White American in their respective constituencies.

No they were not. Irish people literally had to change their names to sound more American White in the early 1900s.

The fact that Irish people were allowed to immigrate and naturalize at all is proof they were considered white, given how non-whites were not allowed to naturalize.

[wnwnwn]

That being said, the way “Latino” is counted in the United States is not really indicative of anything, because people like Ted Cruz and Brian Mast are counted as “Hispanic” even though they very easily are just considered any other White American in their respective constituencies.

I think Mast looks a bit mestizo.
Cruz seems white, but he do is hispanic (spanish origin)

[kwabbit]

That being said, the way “Latino” is counted in the United States is not really indicative of anything, because people like Ted Cruz and Brian Mast are counted as “Hispanic” even though they very easily are just considered any other White American in their respective constituencies.

I think Mast looks a bit mestizo.
Cruz seems white, but he do is hispanic (spanish origin)

Ted Cruz and Brian Mast are both only half Hispanic, which is a large part of why they are treated as White. Ted Cruz actually looks more distinctly Hispanic than his Cuban father.

[Bismarck]

Focusing on “white” is the wrong way to look at it. The question is do they follow a pattern more like Italians or more like Black folks. Clearly Hispanics are more like Italians than black folks in terms of their economic trajectories, rates of intermarriage,etc. They may never be “white” but if they are part of the mainstream and not a separate cultural entity the way the black community is what difference does it make?

[Samof94]

Becoming a distinct racial group is much more likely. They are already 20% of the population, far more than any White ethnic group was. I don't know what that means for voting patterns, but I doubt Latinos will ever be considered White in the same way Italians are nowadays. Many Latinos aren't even majority European in ancestry.

I don’t think the in-practice street consensus has ever been anything other than Latinos being considered a distinct ancestry group.

Friendly reminders that:

A: Hispanic is not a race
B: Many (most?) hispanics are white

Why wouldn't Hispanics be able to assimilate?

We know Hispanics are not a race but lose term for the ethnicity of those who identify and appear as mixed-race between Indigenous Americans and Europeans. Now if you are asking if Hispanics will be able to assimilate into the definition of "White" in America as Italians and Poles did then it will be very hard for that happens.

Even in Latin American countries where the overwhelming majority of the population are of Spanish descent still see social and economic divide among those considered "White" and the more mixed-race population. All signs point to that dynamic continuing in America especially since the definition of Whiteness in America and White Americans ancestry more often than not being associated with Northern Europe. (ie: British, French, Nordic, and the greater German area)

Nobody is saying that Hispanics can't be assimilated into American society and there is a strong case to be made that they already have. I'm just pointing out that all signs show the ethnicity known as Hispanics will establish themselves as an influential and independent minority in America in a similar fashion to that of Black Americans and not as an extension of the White Majority that many see Italians and Poles are today.   

What about someone like Selena Gomez, who is an American and spoke English as a first language? How does the label apply to someone in her situation ethnically?

Selena has always been viewed as Hispanic and hasn't really shy away from being called so.

Yeah, she's even recorded some music in Spanish iirc.