The role that ethnicity plays in American residents’ voting activities continues to defy political scientists’ expectations. Dahl theorized that as immigrants were becoming more integrated into society, they would shy away from ethnically motivated political choices. However, real-life evidence countered that point: for instance, once the New Haven Italian community improved its social-economic status, it started to put even more importance on ethical voting. Wolfinger criticized the “melting pot” concept and opined that ethnic identification does not disappear all that easily: it might as well accompany a person with an immigrant background throughout their life.
Florida’s 18th Congressional District elections demonstrated that ethnic consciousness was very much alive among immigrant communities. Firstly, it is worth mentioning that the district spanning Miami and Miami Beach is multinational. Moreno and Rae report that in the 1980s, more than half of its residents were Hispanic, 13% Black, and 1% Asian. The second factor that explains ethical voting is the high concentration of people of the same background in specific settlements. For instance, Little Havana and Hileah were dominated by Latinos while Overtown and Liberty City were mostly inhabited by Black communities. Living in ethnic clusters might have driven those communities to conserve and sustain the sense of ethnic identity that was translated into their political activities.
Probably, the most interesting manifestation of ethnic voting in the 1980s was the Cuban community’s overwhelming support for the Republican party. Originally, Cubans were satisfied with the democrat Congressman Pepper representing the district. Pepper was cautious in his politics and sought to meet the diverse needs of the many ethnic communities residing in the area. However, by the time of the next elections, Democrats had made a few grave mistakes that cost them Cubans’ positive attitude.
Firstly, the overarching sentiment among democrats was in favor of maintaining good relations with Fidel Castro whom many Cuban-Americans despised. The Republican party, on the other hand, was strongly anti-communist and castigated Castro. Secondly, the Democratic party’s Richman countered the Republican Atwater’s statement that the seat of the 18th district belonged to a Cuban. Richman said that it was an American seat: a remark that could have otherwise been pretty innocuous but not in that political climate.
Overall, Florida’s 18th Congressional District elections proved to be extremely ethnically driven. The first factor is candidates’ attempts to appeal to certain ethnic groups instead of proposing policies that would apply to all residents. For instance, the Cuban-American Republican candidate Ros-Lehtinen learned that trying to attract voters from various backgrounds would be a waste of energy. She was strongly promoted as the first Cuban-American to be elected to Congress, which was something that the Cuban community could get behind.
Drawing on this point, the very accentuation of candidates’ ethnicity showed that ethnic voting was a lived reality for Florida. Cubans were not the only community that supported politicians with similar backgrounds. According to Moreno and Rae, the Jewish Democratic vote was largely motivated by the fact that the candidate was a Jew himself. Thirdly, at some point, contenders abandoned any endeavors to discuss actual social and economic issues and made it a point to criticize and attack each other. Ros-Lehtinen galvanized the situation by calling Richman a bigot and using his “bigotry” as an excuse to avoid debates with him. In summation, the aforementioned factors fit Wolfinger’s model of ethnic voting and prove that the phenomenon was still persistent in the 1980s.
Bibliography
Moreno, Dario, and Nicol Rae.”Ethnicity and Partnership: The Eighteenth Congressional District of Miami.” In Miami Now: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Social Change, edited by Guillermo Grenier and Alex Stepick, 187-204. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992.