Defectors

September 1, 2024
A piercing look at the phenomenon of Latino right-wing extremism--not new, but ever more pronounced. It defies logic, suggests Vice News/MSNBC correspondent Ramos, that Latinos should be found among the ranks of the Proud Boys and other far-right groups, but there they are. In the wake of the El Paso Walmart mass shooting of 2019, she writes, "it was so clear in my mind that Latinos' common enemywas the anti--immigrant, white nationalist voice." And yet, there was the likes of Enrique Tarrio, who, though of at least 40 percent African origin, "had turned into one of the far right's most ardent spokespersons." Ramos identifies three cultural strains that contribute to Latinos' prominence in the ranks of the white supremacist/right-wing/nationalist movement. The first strain is tribalism, the need to identify with a group and, in doing so, sometimes to stand in opposition to another group, presumably inferior to one's own; while not exactly a case of Stockholm syndrome, somehow the white nationalists' fear of non-whites "replacing" them has become part of the political baggage of a sizable number of Latinos, most but by far not all young men. The quest to become "real Americans," Ramos hazards, "could be increasingly driving some Latinos toward extreme nativism, for there is nothing more nationalistic than making immigrants, a sworn enemy of many white Americans, your enemy as well." Another aspect is traditionalism, which reinforces leanings toward stances such as Christian nationalism and anti-LGBTQ+ activism; still another is the trauma of racism and its poisonous, ego-destroying effects. While decrying the result, Ramos suggests that only when Latinos embrace "both the beauty and the darkness of our roots" will the population, by then the demographic majority--sometime around the year 2045, she adds hopefully--become self-confident, independent, and even "liberated." A smart and empathetic analysis that seeks to understand, but not to condone.

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Starred review from September 15, 2024
As the daughter of immigrants and a respected journalist with a deep knowledge of the Latinx community in the U.S., Ramos (Finding Latinx, 2020) presents a timely and comprehensive investigation of the phenomenon of extremist MAGA Latinos, including the infamous Enrique Tarrio, who helped instigate the January 6 insurrection. Her analysis, while profoundly serious and built on a firm foundation of rigorous analysis of historical and cultural context, is also constructed from real people's stories and deeply personal. The book is divided into four parts, ""Tribalism,"" ""Traditionalism,"" ""Trauma,"" and ""The Way Forward,"" with notes, an index, and updates on all the players. Ramos begins on the human level, getting to know people and taking care to understand their situations with empathy. She couches their experiences within the trajectory of Latin American history on the continent and inside the U.S. so that a Dominican salon-owner's dedication to Trump becomes comprehensible. Ramos effectively sounds the alarm for those who fear a slide into autocracy and offers strategies for combating this trend--stop taking the Latinx community for granted, and listen to the Latinx community as "people with ambitions, complicated racial baggage, colonized minds and traumatic memories.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 23, 2024
In this revealing account, Emmy-winning journalist Ramos (Finding Latinx) draws on more than a decade of reporting for Vice News and MSNBC to examine the growing presence of Latinos in America’s far-right movement. She identifies three major influences that push Latinos rightward—tribalism, traditionalism, and trauma. In the section on tribalism, she profiles Anthony, a onetime Beto O’Rourke volunteer who is now a vigilante border patrolman and member of the militia group United Constitutional Patriots, and who was among those who stormed the Capitol on January 6. A first-generation American, Anthony strives to be seen as a patriot, going to extremes, according to Ramos, to differentiate himself from other Latinos arriving in the country as migrants. Elsewhere, Ramos explores the rapidly growing number of Latino evangelicals, including church leaders, who invoke Christian nationalism, and argues that Latinos who arrive traumatized from places of civil distress are particularly susceptible to political strongmen and misinformation. Ramos’s probing interview style generates many eye-opening moments, as when she asks Anthony whether he gets lonely and he replies that “a lot of people tell me: ‘You’re weird.’ I travel with the music off a lot of the time.” It’s a nuanced view of what motivates far-right extremism in America.