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Defectors

The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America

ebook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 6 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 6 weeks
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2024 • An award-winning journalist's exploration of how race, identity and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics
“A deeply reported, surprisingly personal exploration of a phenomenon that is little understood in our politics: the affiliation of Latino voters with causes and candidates that would seem, at first glance, unwelcoming to them."—Rachel Maddow

Democrats have historically assumed they can rely on the Latino vote, but recent elections have called that loyalty into question. In fact, despite his vociferous anti-immigrant rhetoric and disastrous border policies, Trump won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than he did in 2016. Now, journalist Paola Ramos pulls back the curtain on these voters, traveling around the country to uncover what motivates them to vote for and support issues that seem so at odds with their self-interest.
From coast to coast, cities to rural towns, Defectors introduces readers to underdog GOP candidates, January 6th insurrectionists, Evangelical pastors and culture war crusaders, aiming to identify the influences at the heart of this rightward shift. Through their stories, Ramos shows how tribalism, traditionalism, and political trauma within the Latino community has been weaponized to radicalize and convert voters who, like many of their white counterparts, are fearful of losing their place in American society.
We meet Monica de la Cruz, a Republican congresswoman from the Rio Grande Valley who won on a platform centered on finishing “what Donald Trump started” and pushing the Great Replacement Theory; David Ortiz, a Mexican man who refers to himself as a Spaniard and opposed the removal of a statue of a Spanish conquistador in New Mexico; Luis Cabrera, an evangelical pastor pushing to “Make America Godly Again;” Anthony Aguero, an independent journalist turned border vigilante; and countless other individuals and communities that make up the rising conservative Latino population. Cross-cultural and assiduously reported, Defectors highlights how one of America's most powerful and misunderstood electorates may come to define the future of American politics.
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    • Kirkus

      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.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      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.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

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