Why Immigration Matters to Hispanic Voters
By Rosa Martha Villarreal

In the 2008 presidential election, Hispanics represent the key swing demographic in states such as Florida, New Mexico, and perhaps even California. Though early polls show Barack Obama with a substantial lead among Hispanic voters, this demographic is not reliably in the Democrats’ column. Given an attractive Republican candidate such as Ronald Reagan in 1980 or George W. Bush in 2000, a significant number of Hispanic voters---especially Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans---will switch sides. With this in mind, both John McCain and Barack Obama have made pitched appeals to Hispanic voters based on the bitter immigration issue. Polls consistently show that education, the economy, and the Iraq war are the issues that most concern Hispanic Americans, so is immigration truly relevant?

Unlike what the strident anti-immigration foes suggest, the reason why immigration matters to Hispanics is not that we want to take over the country in a reconquista or impose the Spanish language as co-equal with English. Quite the contrary. For those of us who are native born Americans, English is our primary if not our only language; we are as thoroughly modernistic as our fellow Americans, and we serve in the military in disproportionate numbers.

The issue is relevant because the anti-immigration rhetoric has taken the tenor of the ethnic baiting of 19th century when the United States “acquiredâ€