Huh? Franks is Hispanic?

In his pic he looks white.  His bio also says he is Baptist which would be unusual for a Hispanic.

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by: ChadInFL @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 01:39:49 AM UTC

The reason many heavily Hispanic districts have non-Hispanic reps

I'd imagine there are a couple of reasons for this.

1. An unusually large of Hispanics do not yet have full legal status to vote.
2. The average age of Hispanics is lower than other demographics due to more children and higher birthrates.

I have to believe that as this large number of Hispanic children become old enough to vote the number of Hispanic representatives in congress will increase.

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by: ChadInFL @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 01:43:48 AM UTC

Age is only part

Nationally, the Census Bureau estimates that there are pver 45 million Hispanics as of July 2007 in a population of 301,621,000 compared to 40.2 million blacks and 14.7 million Asians.  The numbers include some overlap: people who are black and Hispanic or Asian and Hispanic (filipino mostly, I would guess).

Adult Hispanics (18+) outnumber black asults by about 2 million;  Hispanic children outnumber black children by 3 million (15.4 million to 12.5 million).

The median age for blacks is 30; it's 27 for Hispamics.

More than age, the relative lack of political influence would seem to be aligned with:  a much larger group of Hispanic Republicans.  Estimates are that George W. Bush got as much as 40% of the Hispanic vote yet Republicans provided IIRC from the chart above only 6 Hispanics.  Because the Hispanic vote is split, Republicans have felt less need to have majority minoirity districts carved out to pack Democratic voters and create safe Republican districts.

Secondly, national voting blocks among Hispanics have some times diluted the impact of Hispanic voting,  In Florida, Cuban Americans have historically voted Republican while other Hispanics have tended to vote Democratic.

Citizenship. Language.  Intimidation.  All factors and often linked together.

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by: David Kowalski @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 02:51:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hispanic Registration is very low in NC

The Census Bureau estimated the Hispanic population in NC at 4.7% (408,000) in 2005.  Hispanics make up only 1% of registered voters in NC (50,474) today.

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by: bear83 @ Wed May 21, 2008 at 15:35:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

another reason for Anglo Reps in Latino districts

   is incumbency. The San Fernando Valley districts of Howard Berman and Brad Sherman were less Latino when they were first elected. It is hard to defeat incumbents once they are entrenched. Berman has been in Congress since 1982 and was in the CA Assembly for a decade before that. I know that he was primaried once by the Latino mayor of San Fernando (a small city; most of the SFV is in the city of L.A.) but Godinez lost in a landslide. Figure that when Berman retires his successor will more likely be Mexican-American rather than Jewish.
  The part that I found amusing is that Berman's district (where I live) is now more Latino than Sherman's. In the last redistricting Berman (whose brother was helping draw the lines) was trying to get a less Latino and more Jewish district. He got most of Sherman Oaks (which should be in Brad's district, at least by the name) and Brad got more of the north Valley. Both are safe for the near future, as far as I can see.  Now when people ask what CD I live in I say I live in Berman Oaks, not Sherman Oaks...

52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

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by: Zack from the SFV @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 05:22:23 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

lol!

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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:57:38 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I didn't know that Charlie Rangel's district

was plurality hispanic.

Learn something new every day!  

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by: andgarden @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 04:09:18 AM UTC

Interestingly

this is one of only a few urban districts where the white percentage is growing noticeably and the black and Hispanic percentages are falling. I'd guess it's regentrification at work (also seen in NY-11 and NY-12 in Brooklyn, IL-07 in downtown Chicago, and oddly, CA-29, which is Pasadena and Glendale).

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by: Crisitunity @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 23:44:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

CA-29: growing Armenian community

   Most of the Glendale Armenians are immigrants (or children of immigrants). They are white folks but not necessarily gentrifying white folks. Also there is a large group of people from the entertainment industry (Burbank is also mostly in this district). Both groups tend to vote Democratic and so the   districts have gone from GOP to Dem since the mid-90s.  

52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

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by: Zack from the SFV @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 05:31:19 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Don't forget everyone's favorite electoral strategist ...

Tom Cole, who is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, and the only Native American currently in Congress.  We have to be fair here and include the Republicans -- it's not like they have very many non-white members :)

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by: IndianaProgressive @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 14:56:52 PM UTC

Thanks

I made the change to the first table. I forgot to think about Native American representatives, since there aren't any districts with a Native American plurality. The highest percentage is AZ-01, at 22.1%; Cole's district has only the 10th highest percentage of Native Americans.

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by: Crisitunity @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 20:07:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Portugese

I don't know anything about Devin Nunes, although I'll assume his background is Portugese proper rather than from Brazil or one of the former colonies. In that case he wouldn't speak Spanish, but might easily identify as Hispanic (and indeed Latino).

Portugese isn't that closely related to Spanish, nor is it mutually intelligible, but the relationship is closer than that between, say, French and Spanish. There are also Iberian languages that are much closer to Portugese than to Spanish. And Spanish isn't monolithic - Hispanics come from many countries and their dialects will differ.

On a more basic level, Portugal is part of the Iberian peninsula, which the Romans called Hispania, from which the word Hispanic comes.

My broader point is this: Hispanic isn't an end point in establishing somebody's ethnicity. Much like white, it's only the first step.

Also, I seriously doubt somebody of Assyrian origin would self-designate as Asian, since in America that tends to mean East Asian. I'd say Arab, except that such a classification would piss off pretty much any Assyrian nationalist. Eshoo should probably be marked down as either white or as 'other'.

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by: Englishlefty @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 15:35:56 PM UTC

Agreed

I was just trying to stick with the census bureau approaches to race and ethnicity, but Portuguese and Assyrian are two ethnicities where the traditional census bureau categories break down and become insufficiently descriptive. Short of getting Reps. Eshoo and Nunes to come here and tell us how they filled out their census forms, this is the best I can do. (And if I were doing the Senate, I guess I'd have to put the same asterisk next to Barack Obama, unsure whether he filled in the "African-American" or "Two or more races" bubble.)

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by: Crisitunity @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 20:18:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thoughts

One drop thoughts are too deeply rooted into American political culture. Obama is African-American, although any Briton would say mixed race. That said, most Britons would probably say Harold Ford was white.

Portugese is Hispanic enough, I maintain, even though it's not traditional Hispanic. Eshoo remains difficult to classify.

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by: Englishlefty @ Wed May 21, 2008 at 22:28:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Also worth noting

Nunes hails from California's Central Valley, where there are large concentrations of Portuguese Americans.  I believe that many (if not most) identify as Hispanic on the census - hence the large number of Hispanics in CA-21.

Male, 23, DC-At Large

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by: JFM110 @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 20:41:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interesting

I didn't know there was a large Portuguese community in the Central Valley, although clearly that would give Nunes a big political base to build off of.

Anyway, that sent me back to the Census Bureau's website to see how large that community is, and I found what I'd been trying to find before: the Census Bureau has an exhaustive list of Hispanic sub-categories and sub-sub-categories, and "Portuguese" isn't one of them. (They are: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican Republic, Central American (Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, Salvadoran, or Other Central American), South American (Argentinean, Bolivian, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Uruguayan, Venezuelan, or Other South American), or Other Hispanic or Latino (Spaniard, Spanish, Spanish American, or All Other Hispanic and Latino). Whew!)

At any rate, in Tulare County, California, there are 19,558 "All other Hispanic or Latino" people (more than 5% of the total population)... I'm wondering if that's the Portuguese population, and they're counting themselves as Hispanic even though the Census Bureau doesn't give them a box to do so. (Although for comparison purposes I looked at the same table for Los Angeles County, which is also about half Hispanic and not known for having a large Portuguese community, and "All other Hispanic or Latino" is 6% of the total population there, so now I'm stumped again.)

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by: Crisitunity @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 22:02:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interesting.

I didn't know Portuguese people here could be considered Hispanic. I never called my boyfriend who's from Brazil Hispanic, and he doesn't either. He considers himself Latino (since Portuguese is a Latin-based language) but not Hispanic. And even I thought Hispanics only came from Spanish-speaking countries including Spain.

And now I see how CA-21 can have a lot of Hispanics yet have terrific turnout, much higher than districts with Hispanics from Mexico and Central America.

My blog
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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Fri May 23, 2008 at 19:45:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Re: Interesting

Nunes is a member of the GOP-led Congressional Hispanic Conference, and Portuguese-American Democratic Reps. Dennis Cardoza (CA-18) and Jim Costa (CA-20) - both of whom are also from the Central Valley - are members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Sorry this is so late, but this germane fact just dawned on me.

Male, 23, DC-At Large

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by: JFM110 @ Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 03:34:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Rangel is an AA?

I'd always thought Hispanic.

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by: ChadInFL @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 18:34:47 PM UTC

He was a

founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus back in 1971.

(And to answer your earlier question, yeah, Trent Franks is in the Congressional Hispanic Conference.)

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by: Crisitunity @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 20:26:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

How about Arab-Americans?

I'm not sure how far you're taking your list. There are a half dozen or so Arab American politicians serving in Congress.

Here in W.Va. Nick Rahall (WV-03) is of Lebanese descent. He's the chairman of the Arab American Congressional Caucus.

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by: WVaBlue @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 22:44:40 PM UTC

Thanks

for pointing out his background; I wasn't aware of that, or even of the existence of the Arab-American Caucus. Like I said in a comment above, though, I was trying to stick to the basic Census Bureau categorizations, and I don't presume to know whether people of Middle Eastern descent tend to think of themselves as white, Asian, or "Some other race." Although if you look at the profile of Dearborn, Michigan (which I understand to be the heaviest concentration in the U.S. of people of Middle Eastern descent), it suggests most of them consider themselves white, at least for the narrow purposes of fitting into the census bureau's boxes.

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by: Crisitunity @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 23:03:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Middle Easterners

  I would guess that most Americans of Middle Eastern ancestry would consider ourselves to be white, more or less, although much of the Middle East is in western Asia (but also North Africa and the Caucasus). Besides the various Arab Americans (mostly Lebanese ancestry), there is the previously mentioned Anna Eshoo, the Israeli-born (IIRC) Rahm Emanuel, and the newest member of the CA delegation, Jackie Speier, who is half-Armenian (another Middle Eastern Christian nation). The next time that CA-29 opens up (Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena) we will likely get another Armenian in Congress, possibly current CA Assemblymember Paul Krekorian. Bunch of white folks...

52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

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by: Zack from the SFV @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 05:04:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I consider myself white

and I'm 1/4 Armenian.

My blog
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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:06:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm twice as Armenian as you

  The good news being that since my mother is Armenian, I grew up with the great food!  The wacky part is that my "odar" (Armenian word for non-Armenian) father is from Glendale, which is now like New Yerevan. My mom is old time Armenian American from Boston.

52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

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by: Zack from the SFV @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:14:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm twice as Armenian as you

  The good news being that since my mother is Armenian, I grew up with the great food!  The wacky part is that my "odar" (Armenian word for non-Armenian) father is from Glendale, which is now like New Yerevan. My mom is old time Armenian American from Boston.

52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

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by: Zack from the SFV @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:15:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

oops-double post...sorry

52, male, disgruntled Democrat, CA-28

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by: Zack from the SFV @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:16:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

My maternal grandfather

who I got the Armenian ancestry from was born near Boston to Armenian immigrants who moved there around the turn of the 20th century. When I lived in California I learned a little Armenian from my mom. We lived in Rancho Cucamonga, which is about 40 miles from Glendale. My dad also told me that my maternal grandfather made great baklava.

The rest of me is 1/4 Russian, from my maternal grandmother, roughly half Scot-Irish and a little bit of Cherokee, from my dad's side.

My blog
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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:39:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

How many are Democrats?

Of the 35 representatives in this diary (by my count), how many are Democrats?  I'll bet it's a vast majority, and I think that says something.

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by: david78209 @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 23:16:02 PM UTC

32 Dems/3 Republicans

The only Republicans on the list are Cole, Pearce and Franks.

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by: ChadInFL @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 23:27:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

31 of 35

The Republicans are Cole, Franks, Pearce, and Nunes. (There are also three Cuban-American Republicans who represent Hispanic-majority districts in the Miami area.)

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by: Crisitunity @ Tue May 20, 2008 at 23:28:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The three Cuban-Americans...

hopefully not for long. :)

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by: Rtael @ Wed May 21, 2008 at 16:06:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Your numbers for HA-01

only add up to be 68% of the total population. I'm assuming that your not including Pacific Islander which is a demographic which is not neccessarily Asian, in fact many would be offended to lumped into one big group. I know that district can't be plurality white, Hawaii is 70% minority, the Pacific Islanders probably outnumber. The other district, Abercrombies, also only presents about 78% of the population.  

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

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by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 03:08:26 AM UTC

Right

HI-01 is also 0.2% Native American, 5.9% Pacific Islander, and 12.7% Two or more races.

HI-02 is also 0.2% Native American, 10.0% Pacific Islander, and 22.2% Two or more races, which is by far the largest percentage of any district for those last two groups.

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by: Crisitunity @ Thu May 22, 2008 at 17:09:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]