TDLR; I think we should talk more about identity politics because identity in America is interesting and relevant.
Hello everyone!
I studied Race and Ethnic politics (specifically as it relates to Latino/Hispanic politics) at my university and it's a subject I am really interested in.
So today, while I was watching the Hutch and Destiny "Debate" about the current state of politics in the US they started to talk about Race and Ethnic politics (which was very exciting).
I wanted to see the appetite of the community to start to discuss and look into this field of political science as I feel that it will be relevant to discussions of the far-left soon, if not already (see previous reddit examples with Black commentators around white leftists).
When people think about identity politics they may start to think of the cringe white people from 2014-2016 that -- like newly converted Christians -- went a bit too hard in the paint about racial identity and intersectionality without really understanding what they were talking about. Which came to a head with the BLM protests, which made a lot of these people either disappear in the aether or code switch to M/L talking points (haslob).
However, the field of Race and ethnic politics (REP) is much more interesting and nuanced than activists and laymen allow for. Especially since A LOT of the literature is literally paywalled.
I also think that REP politics can be confusing for even Americans to understand because of the different levels of segregation we still have all throughout the US (cite) -- let alone anyone else in the world.
Something that Destiny keeps bringing up that I think is super important for us to understand about American Politics. For the last couple of streams, I have noticed that he talks a lot about what it means to be an “American”, which lit up my identity politics brain.
To start, a recent study by Ocampo-Roland (2025) shows how Black and White Americans perceive US born Latinos as less “American” depending on whether your parents are born in the US or not. (Cite).
The author describes the reasons why White and black voters are different from "Black Americans…driven by economic and political concerns and perceive greater commonality with more marginalized Latinos. Whites are driven by cultural concerns and prefer those who will not challenge their prototypicality.”
And today he talks about what it means to be Hispanic. Which I am!
In another research study by Ostfeld and Yadon ¿Mejorando La Raza?: The Political Undertones of Latinos’ Skin Color in the United States (2021) they argue that the way that Hispanic/Latino perceive their own skin color can predict their political identity.
For example, if a white hispanic were to overestimate how brown they are, they are more likely to be liberal / left or if a dark-brown hispanic were to underestimate how brown they are they would be more likely to be conservative / right. (Cite) Which somewhat supports Destiny assumption.
Another interesting thing is that politics can actually shift one identity, (e.g., the more liberal/conservative you become the more likely you might align your identify to match accordingly). (cite) [this is not the research paper where I think has the strong evidence, but it was the one I could find]
Which I think talks directly to his “white-hispanic” perspective, while also describing why other latinos who ID more as “white” may not understand why other “white” hispanics may ID the way they do.
For example (from my own life), I live in a majority-minoirty state (New Mexico), Per capita, we have the highest percentage of hispanics that live in the US. However, we have dark Hispanic republicans who ID as white and ¾ white people who Identify as Latino / Chicano Democrats. Here is an article that also talks about it (cite) as well as the intersection of Native american (which I will can discuss another time)
He then talks about Hispanic political polling which I think is a difficult thing to do as Hispanic is a Pan-ethnic term so when we use the broad label of “Hispanic” we are putting groups of people together that have vastly different political views.
For example, Cuban Americans are much more likely to be conservative and white identifying than Mexican Americans. Which is one of the reasons why many hispanics in Florida go Red with a sizable Hispanic population, but California does not (cite) (cite2).
Finally, Destiny asks about why so many young Latinos are polling favorably towards Bernie and whether it's a bunch of White 1% latinos who are doing so. And I would say no, they aren’t “leftist” this I would assume makes up a small percentage of the Latino Population. I think that Latinos are much more Populist hence why they supported Trump and Bernie. (Cite) (Cite2)
Anyway this is already too long, didn't read so, want to hear your thoughts on any of this. There is way more books and studies that I believe are relevant to this discussion that I can link if asked.
