The Latino Century Quotes

“White college-educated people are pulling the Democratic Party to the left and white non-college-educated people are pulling the Republican Party to the right, and Latinos are coming up in the middle saying, ‘I’m not really comfortable with either of you guys.’ Latinos are to the right of most Democrats, and they’re to the left of most Republicans. And they’re the fastest-growing segment of the electorate, so the potential for Latinos to moderate both parties is very high.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“As I have said and will say until Democrats start listening, low turnout is a problem for them, a sign that you lack connection to the fastest-growing part of the electorate.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“pandemic began in February 2020. About half of Hispanics (54 percent) who have worked outside their home during the pandemic in a job that involves frequent contact with others say they have experienced a job or wage loss since the start of the pandemic. So, if you’re forced to work in dangerous conditions, often at reduced hours or under conditions that limit your ability to earn more, why are we surprised that Latinos voted in greater numbers than ever for a party looking to open up the economy?”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“According to Pew Research and Edison exit polling data in Florida, Cubans were about twice as likely as non-Cuban Latinos to vote for Donald Trump in 2016.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Many on the Biden Latino team were the same people who had missed a million red flags on the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Generational differences and geographic variations were becoming easily evident among Latino voters and the response was to just double down on more of the same stereotypical campaign activities, if they even acknowledged them at all.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Never send a Democrat to do a Republican’s job!”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“You attack the media. You attack academia. You attack science. You attack the government. You attack all these as enemies of the people. And when you execute that strategy to the point that you have eroded public confidence to a certain threshold, like after an earthquake, you march into the rubble and boldly declare, “Only I can fix this!”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“in the Central Valley, our communities often don’t get a lot of focus and attention. A lot of the statewide candidates are focusing on large urban areas,” said Luis Alejo, a former state legislator and one of Villaraigosa’s earliest supporters, who is now the chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors. “Among all the top candidates, I have yet to see any of them have a direct message for Latino voters…. Unlike some of the past elections, I think they need to come out with a really working-class economic plan.” A plan that includes addressing California’s affordable housing crisis, which seeps far beyond the state’s big cities.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Housing affordability was affecting us more than any other group in the state. Poverty was disproportionately Latino,”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“The San Francisco Examiner published an article in May 1998 I was happy to see, reporting, “The Latino population is generally younger than the rest of California, but it is getting older, starting families and settling down…. The GOP believes at least some part of this population can shift back to the Republican Party.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Trumpism emerged with the collapse of Reaganism. It provided fear where Reagan found strength. It provided anger where Reagan showed confidence. It was scarcity where abundance once overflowed.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“the Latinization of America will also lead to truly a feminization of America.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Bicultural messaging requires extreme nuance, and when this is lacking it can easily cross over into what I refer to as “sombrero politics,” which incorporates crass stereotypes like the ubiquitous use of mariachi bands, folklórico dancing, and eating tamales in everyday settings.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“The power of the changing Latino electorate is most pronounced in one data point: 22 percent of Latinos will be voting in their first presidential election in 2024, with a surprising 38 percent of the entire Latino electorate—nearly four in ten voters—being new since 2016.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Latinos aren’t understood by either party, but the one that is able to define itself as the party of an aspirational multiethnic working-class party will dominate American politics for a generation.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy

“Because brown is made with so many other different colors it becomes the glue that holds a painting together. It flows seamlessly throughout every other color without the eye even noticing it. That is how I think of my fellow Mexican Americans, and of Latinos in general, dozens of shades of brown, dozens of different groupings and subgroupings.”
― Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy